why I disliked clinton

[taxidriver]

do not flame this post, read it and think about what i'm writing before you swear at me. this is not a comment on his economic successes, nor is it a comparison between him and shrub. the reason I didn't like him is because during his entire two terms in office, he never acted like he gave a rat's ass about anything happening in Africa, or many other poor, minority nations. (don't cite statistics to me about any AIDS research initiatives he began. he also started was a blanket supporter of all those MNC's setting up camp in poor countries and exploiting the people).

but I distract myself. anyway, nothing was done about atrocities in rwanda. nothing was done about civil wars in the sudan, congo, etc. he never pressured Mugabe or other leaders to stop the corruption in their countries. he was just like everyone else before him and since, treating africa like a nation of dark, godless savages.

look at these pics/articles and see if you think something shoulda been done.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/

http://www.sudan.net/news/posted/8324.html

anyway, that was my rant for tonight. i could never get around his inaction towards that issue. don't ask me if i'd rather have shrub instead of him.

[alejandrofromcuba]

1. yes

I agree. I wonder if some of this was latent (hidden) racism to not care about the poor people in Africa. It would have been so simple to avert that tragedy of human suffering. Clinton was well aware of the problem, but he "didn't feel it was a good time" so nearly a million people died a horrible death. And more died due to disease (also casualties of war but the uncounted ones). Clinton had many great opportunities to do good and he blew many of them. I am not a fan. I did support him and do think things would have been worse under--for example Bush Sr. But I will never be a huge fan of the man. I understand the concept of triangulation all too well.

Clinton's phiosophy was to give the words to the left and the deeds to the right. Of course the right did not appreciate the fact that he governed from the right, but he knew he would not lose the left--after all where would they go? So the D party shows contempt for us on the left. We need to stand up to them and force the party to pursue an agenda of human rights for all. Abandon the racist death penalty. Free school for everyone. Health care for everyone. It is hardly worth being elected if our people will not fight for us when they are in power.

[taxidriver]

4. amen.

i was afraid i would be kicked off the message board for disparaging the man, but you have continued the chain of thought i've had about him for a while.

[Nick76]

7. I agree, too

I wish Clinton had been tougher on Foreign Policy matters. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean like Bush who invades any country for no good reason, but I do think the situations in Rwanda, etc. were handled poorly.

I think the whole reason that Democrats praise Clinton so much is because we are getting a first hand look at the evil that is now running this country, and Clinton seems like a breath of fresh air. I don't know. He was a little too moderate for me, but I'll take the days of Clinton over this mess anyday!

[thebigmansentme]

2. you forgot

to mention all the asian, latin american, and arab nations that are in pretty bad condition.

but i think that not getting tangled in these conflicts is the best thing to do. look we attacked and freed iraqi people from saddam. didn't work so well in the end, huh? now what happened if we went to rwanda also, and sudan, and other 20 countries... we would have now black and asian terrorist who are pissed off because we took somebodys side and invaded their countries blowing shit up.

[alejandrofromcuba]

5. No

I forget nothing--in Rwanda people were hacking each other to death with machettes. A few men with guns could have made a BIG difference in stopping the violence. It would not have been very risky for us to intervene. And such a horrible cost of human life.

[rumguy]

9. good to see you internalizing our memes

even if you are clumsy in their use....

[alittlelark]

21. no SH*T........boy the 3 or so of you planned this one

didn't ya'

By the way :hi:

Don't let the door hit ya'll

[Raster]

45. nothing like a little freep discussion group, eh?

[Darranar]

32. So you assume that destructive military intervention...

on the scale of Iraq or even Kosovo is necessary to stop such conflicts?

I'm not convinced of that.

[Sparkle]

37. Off topic-I have been looking for this specific photo of WJC for a while.

Thanks for finding it. Love those big hands.:-)

[Valerie5555]

3. whoda thunk the heroes of that whole Rwanda saga were people like Gen.

Dallaire who tried to warn of that darned genocide.

[TrustingDog]

6. never did like Clinton much...

but he looks like a regular hero to me nowadays compared to the retardation king.

[DieboldMustDie]

8. Clinton was great when compared to his 2 immediate predicessors...

and the insufferable sack of shit that succeeded him. Otherwise, he left a lot to be desired. :shrug:

[flewellyn]

10. Clinton did a lot of good things in terms of foreign policy...

But I certainly do not count his response toward Rwanda as one of them.

We in the West, particularly in America, have a responsibility to the rest of the world. We are the powerful, and the job of the powerful is to protect the weak. We must make it a priority to respond to, and prevent whenever possible, genocide of any sort.

I remember, at the time, pundits were arguing over whether the Rwanda conflict counted as genocide, splitting hairs and engaging in rhetorical sophistry. It's not a hard thing to identify, genocide: if large numbers of people in one group are being killed by another group, it's a genocide.

We could have done something, and we should have done something.

[noiretextatique]

13. the hair-splitting was ridiculous

to his credit, clinton came to see the error of his ways in not intervening in rwanda sooner. a part of the problem was that the opposition in rwanda didn't want intervention.

[thebigmansentme]

15. to that

sooo, how come liberating iraq was not a good thing, since saddam was responsible for genocide of kurds, but stopping genocide in rwanda would be a good thing?...

don't get me wrong, i am not trying to defend bush, i just don't think it's our job to play world's police, whether its iraq or rwanda.

[tishaLA]

20. Because Hussein was responsible for

something less than "genocide," first of all; he killed many Kurds, to be sure, but it was not a genocide. And because those mass murders happened in 1989, while G.H.W. Bush was president, not Clinton. Perhaps you should turn your eyes toward Bush, who could have stopped it, not toward Clinton, who oversaw the increased weakening of Hussein's government vis-a-vis no fly zones, increasingly tighter economic restrictions, etc.

[demigoddess]

11. you forget to mention that he did not arrange for

the second coming and world peace. Presidents can only do so much and their first priority is our country. We can't go around telling every other country what to do or that would be TYRANNY. get over it.

[jus_the_facts]

17. EXACTLY......

.....isn't it amazing....like he shoulda been PERFECTION PERSONIFIED?! :eyes:

[OneBlueSky]

12. the thing that almost got me to not vote for Clinton . . .

was when he went ahead with the execution of a mentally retarded man while still governor and running for president . . . that told me so much about the man's character, and I hated what I saw . . . someone who could do that in order not to be thought of as soft on crime is just disgusting, imo . . . I did vote for him, and he did do some good things, but I really question his character (and not for anything having to do with dresses and stains and such) . . .

[LandOLincoln]

35. I thought that was pretty heinous myself--

until I found out the guy was only "retarded" because he'd shot himself in the head in a suicide attempt and only succeeded in turning himself into a vegetable.

And this suicide attempt was after the murder or murders for which he was ultimately executed, not before.




edited for clarity

[LibertyorDeath]

14. Imagine Gore with Clinton's charisma

Gore I like Clinton is to far Right for me but he is one wicked politician smooth as silk IMO

[alejandrofromcuba]

16. Gore

Yes--I would have always been much happier if that ticket had of been reversed--Gore president and Clinton as VEEP. That would have been very nice.

For some reason, I really feel that Gore would have pursued a more liberal agenda. I don't know why I believe this, I just feel it.

[Cheswick2.0]

29. because he said he would

But in 2000 many on the left decided they had to judge Gore by Clinton's record, regardless of what Gore said.

[Andromeda]

18. You forgot about Somalia...

Bill Clinton inherited the situation in Somalia and that didn't work out so well. The intentions were good but warlords running around with weapons shooting people and stealing all the food while children starved kind of made the job of assisting the hungry masses near to impossible.

There weren't enough helicopters, bullets or soldiers to control the chaotic conditions in Somalia. The country was lawless and people were dying in the streets, killed by their own. Nine Special Forces marines died in the Black Hawk incident and when they dragged a Marine's naked body through the streets of Mogadishu (?)it was on the six o'clock news.

The original mission of our military was to feed the people of Somalia. We ended up fighting a futile mini-war in a country that didn't want our help.

For humanitarian reasons we should be able to go into countries like Somalia and Rwanda to help the victims of those murderous leaders who commit vile acts but where do we start --- and where does it end.

Bill Clinton is probably doing more now that he isn't president because his hands aren't tied by the restraints of Congress and the stinging rebuke of the Republicans.

[thebigmansentme]

19. right now

it's sudan

p.s. whatever happened to the whole continent anyway. after colonization period it looked like they were doing pretty well for a little while...

[Andromeda]

22. Recently, the United States

was talking about sanctions on the leaders of Sudan and in response to the threats the president of Sudan said they would take steps to disarm the militias. It remains to be seen whether they will actually take steps to stop the military participation in the genocide.

They've more-or-less acted with impunity because nobody seems to want to get involved.

On a humanitaria level, I think we should do something but I don't know whether it's feasible or practical at this time. We're bogged down in Iraq now when we really didn't have to be and our resources are stretched pretty thin.

Not sure what you mean when you ask what happened to the whole continent. Colonization created a lot of problems as it usually does when people feel something has been taken away from them.

[bleedingheart]

23. while I found him tolerable, he was too moderate for me

with regard to trade and labor. I also feel that he didn't do enough to expose the Republicans for what they were doing in Congress with regard to business and banking laws. A lot of the Enron debacle was due in part to the laws and amendments to existing laws that the republicans pushed through.

[wyldwolf]

24. funny - Clinton did intervene in Kosovo and the far left hates him for it

In Kosovo, Clinton (and General Clark) are considered heroes. Citizens of Kosovo in the US and in Kosovo know the score.

Yet there are many on the far left (inspired by the writings of people like Michael Parenti) who deny the atrocities in Kosovo ever happpenned.

So, damned if you do, damned it if you don't.

In fact - as far as the fringes of the political spectrum is concerned - that could be on Clinton's tombstone.

[Killarney]

25. Exactly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't

He catches hell for Kosovo and they saved 1.5 million Albanians from genocide. Some say he shouldn't have gone in at all, some say he should have gone in earlier, some say he should have used more ground troops instead of air but if he did that we would have had dead Americans and he would have been hated for that.

And people don't like him because he didn't start MORE wars? I know that Clinton himself regrets not doing anything with Rwanda (from his NYT editorial that he wrote) but I just think that even if he did, people still wouldn't like him for the WAY he did it or WHEN he did it. There is a type of person that is just never satisfied.

[Darranar]

30. He intervened in KOSOVO...

an area in Europe, not Africa.

The situation there was far less severe than it was in Rwanda, or it is now in Sudan, or it has been for a long time in regard to starvation and disease throughout the continent.

And the NATO bombings did not stop the ethnic cleansing; rather, they intensified it.

[wyldwolf]

38. Right, Kosovo

an area in Europe, not Africa.

The original poster stated "Africa or other poor minority countries."

If you only mean "black" countries, say so. Otherwise, the ethinic albanians were poor and a minority.

And the NATO bombings did not stop the ethnic cleansing; rather, they intensified it.

Covered over and over again.

Question: Has the ethnic cleansing stopped now? Yes? Then the bombings stopped it.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=586040

[Darranar]

43. Before I respond to your argument...

let me make a few things clear. Firstly, there is little doubt in my mind that Milosevic's campaign of murder in Kosovo was criminal and completely unjustified; something should have been done to at least attempt to stop it. Secondly, the Kosovars certainly constituted an oppressed minority, and efforts to improve their welfare, at the least possible expense to others, would probably have been welcomed by me.

The point I was making is that Clinton did not really have humanitarian concerns at the front of his mind. If he did, he would have intervened where it was far worse - Rwanda - rather than attack a European nation. Why did he intervene in one and not the other? Because Rwanda was viewed as unimportant, while intervention in Kosovo was more likely to advance US imperial interests.

Intervention in Kosovo was not motivated entirely or even mainly by imperial concerns, however. That was simply the deciding factor in regard to location. Though this claim is made occasionally by some who opposed intervention, it makes little sense; the region has few resources, and while once it may have been important in regard to containing the Middle East, Turkey is currently a US client state and serves well enough in that regard.

Rather, intervention there was a political act mostly, with the interest of portraying the US, its government, and its foreign policy as benevolent and altruistic, two qualities that are far from common in the policies of states (and not present to any real degree in US foreign policy, as Reagan's campaign of murder in Latin America, Clinton's enforcement of devestating and inhumane sanctions in Iraq, and the recent Bush slaughter in Iraq all illustrate.) The point of this was to increase the willingness of the US populace to back imperial policy, since they had seen the "greatness" and "benevolence" of US foreign policy in Kosovo.

There are several problems with the leap of logic at the end of your post. Firstly, the fact that the ethnic cleansing stopped does not mean that the bombing stopped it. Secondly, even if the bombing did stop the ethnic cleansing, it does not mean that it did not at least temporarily intensify it. In addition, even if the bombings stopped the ethnic cleansing, they were not necessarily the most effective way of doing so.

Assuming military intervention WAS necessary (something I am far from sure of) I think that a more intelligent way of carrying out the operation would have been to follow Gen. Clark's advice and send ground troops, rather than launching air strikes on population centers that resulted in many civilian casualties, intentional or not. The fact that this was not done further points to my assertation that the war was primarily a political one rather than a humanitarian one; Clinton did not want deaths of soldiers to stain his war.

Lastly, cluster bombs and DU were both used in Kosovo, with the result of much destruction and harm to civilians that could have been avoided.

I have read The Magistrate's excellent post and the entirety of the thread you linked to; it was rather interesting, but fails to prove that the Kosovo intervention was carried out the way it should have been.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

46. I think that's a rather unfair assessment given the manner in which people

were screaming black hawk down in Somalia....one poster above equates it to racism...I think nothing could be further from the truth...call it poor political posturing and I'll give it to you, but if racism played any part it was on the part of the American people and the complicit press whose advertisers sell things like computers and cell phones that USE the resources stolen from those nations during their civil wars.

[Darranar]

47. I don't think it was racism...

the Clinton Administration was rather competent and intelligent, not at all like the current pack of fools we have in charge, and rather than being racists they simply exploited racism originating from the sources you named.

"Black hawk down" seems to have been overplayed in my mind; it did not really affect the actual effectiveness of the mission, since the intervener possessed the most powerful military in the world. However, it does illustrate exactly what the Clinton Administration wanted to avoid in Kosovo, which was why the campaign was primarily airborne.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

49. Right but 2 months airborne...mostly installations

4 days on the ground and an actual plan for peace...along with cooperation from several nations...I don't recall..was the international will there for Africa? (and that is an honest question BTW)

[Darranar]

50. To be fair, probably not...

though other, non-military means could probably have been used with widespread international support, and perhaps with effectiveness beyond that of military intervention anyway. Being a pacifist, that would have been my preference.

My chief question about Kosovo is whether military intervention was truly necessary to stop what was occuring. Even ignoring the not-so-altruistic motives, the occasionally destructive tactics, and the lack of a ground force, I do not think that the Clinton Administration excersised all possible means to stop the ethnic cleansing without war. Milosevic was toppled a few years later through a largely US-funded opposition; couldn't this have been done beforehand, without the need for military intervention? Even if this was impossible, my principle problem is that it does not seem to have been tried. The war appears to have not been a necessity, but rather a luxury. This also points to the idea that the war was political; peaceful intervention rarely makes as much news as violent intervention does.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

51. All good points but on this thread we seem to be faulting him for not

rushing to war elsewhere..and I'm not entirely clear the war was totally unavoidable....

[sendero]

26. Clinton was not a perfect president..

.... ad he made a lot of mistakes, including the ones you mention.

But realistically, I think his failure to act in Rwanda had more to do with right-wing attacks and rank-and-file American apathy than anything else.

If Clinton had any flaws other than an inability to keep it in his pants, it was pragmatism. I'm all about pragmatism, but it can be taken too far.

[Stephanie]

27. "don't ask me if i'd rather have shrub instead of him."

Right, because I have a feeling DU wouldn't like your answer.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

28. LOL

No doubt true!

[taxidriver]

34. why is it that any time a person expresses a difference they had

with a democrat, they are assumed to be freepers? I saw this all the time during the nominee battles period. If you felt like a certain candidate couldn't win, even though you liked him (kucinich) and had the gall to say so, you got flamed.

I said not to ask me about shrub b/c it was 1 in the morning, and i didn't want the post to get distracted with petty drivel. but of course i would rather have 8 years of peace and prosperity then what we currently have.

[Cheswick2.0]

31. "don't ask me questions, don't quote me statistics, don't flame me".....

Okay, whatever.... I think they call what you are doing Posterbation.
Why not just say "don't answer this thread at all, I only like reading my own posts".

[linazelle]

33. Ohhh Gee...and in contrast BUSH DID something for Africa

What a nice backdrop for what is perhaps THE ONLY THING Bush has done worthwhile during his term. Clinton did so much more that this one item should not be held against him.

[MISSDem]

36. I LOVE BILL and don't

care what anyone says.

[Catherine Vincent]

39. Right on, Sister!

[SammyWinstonJack]

42. With ya there!

"I Love Bill and don't care what anyone says."

[RetroLounge]

40. This thread aint nothing but Poop

low-post count Poop to boot...

"do not flame this post"

...because it's a stupid post?

"don't ask me if i'd rather have shrub instead of him."

...because the answer will not help you stick around?

Posterbation at its finest.

RL

[TexasSissy]

41. Sumalia caused his lack of action in Rwanda. But it was the UN's

responsibility, and Annan readily admits they dropped the ball. Annan toured the country after the massacre; he is still haunted by it, he said in a documentary on Annan that I saw.

But because of the disaster in Sumalia, where our guys were dragged through the streets, Americans would have revolted if Clinton had tried to send troops to Rwanda.

Everyone let Rwanda down. No one saw the horror coming until it was too late.

I'm unfamiliar with the other situations in Africa. After all, we have problems here at home, and right now in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can only keep track of so many crises in the world.

[Auntie Bush]

44. I always loved Clinton...always did...always will!

Our Republican congress...including Democrat and the military never would have let him do that. It wasn't his fault. Stop and think about all the good things he accomplished and stop attacking our fellow Democrat who has done so much fr our party. :gr: :spank:

[Deja Q]

48. Both good and bad.

I just remember more bad than good.

Good:

* Balancing the budget
* Foreign policy
* generally pro gay rights, and even declared June to be "our" month.
* AIDS research (though any president worth a damn about the people under his rule would assist in investigating such a disease that could wipe us all out of left unchecked, like Reagan had left it for 6 years...)

Bad (what you said, plus):

* Firing Jocelyn Elders
* NAFTA
* Telecom act
* lifting 55MPH speed limit
* Monica
* DOMA (why he wasn't consistently for gay rights)
* DMCA
* Welfare 'reform' act.
* More, too tired to remember

All of his bad points were done at the "suggestion" of the repukes. Clinton caved in to all of them. (incidentally, which political party does Monica belong to?)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

52. Absolutely right. Clinton was a coward over Africa.

Particularly when he obstructed UN actions to halt the genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsis, and then sided with Kabila when the Tutsis carried out a counter genocide against the Hutus.

It wasn't a "mistake" it was a policy.

But, I don't just blame Clinton. All the presidents from Eisenhower to the Criminal from Crawford has treated Africa shamefully.