The opposition is calling in the Clinton defense.

[LiberalAndProud]

First they ignored the DSM
If they can't ignore it they minimize it.
And finally they point to Clinton who, we are beginning to hear, did not get UN approval or support for the Kosovo action ... It seems to be the newest spin from the right.

[BayouBengal07]

1. That's why

I've always had a tough time supporting Kosovo and opposing Iraq. I guess I could justify that the way we handled it (in hindsight, with the ideological extremism, the carelessness in post-war planning, and the DSM) makes it different enough.

[Spazito]

2. LOL, if bush had gotten NATO to sign on to Iraq then they might

have a point. Kosovo was to stop ethnic cleansing and had all the countries belonging to NATO approving the action. bush and blair illegally invaded Iraq for regime change, totally different and the spin from the right won't work.

[unhappycamper]

8. "bush and blair illegally invaded Iraq for regime change...."

IIRC, we invaded Iraq because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Dubya told us about yellowcake in a State of the Union address. Rice and Cheney were pimping the "smoking crater" argument. Colon(blow) Powell went before the UN Security Council detailing the evidence.

Regime change was the argument given when we found out the only WMD in Iraq is Western Made Democracy.

"The world is safer without Saddam" was the theme for a while.

"Freedom on the March" is the latest spin.

These stupid motherfuckers just don't get it. There is absolutely no way they can suppress every fucking copy of every fucking TV interview and every fucking sound bite they have spewed in drumming up the support for war.

[mzmolly]

3. Clinton didn't use a UN resolution as justification for the war in Kosovo.

:shrug:

[shadowknows69]

5. fine whatever

so Impeach Bill again. What does that have to do with right now

[mzmolly]

6. I'm defending him. Bush used a UN resolution to justify war with Iraq,

and he didn't have the blessing of the UN.

Clinton had the blessing of NATO, it's an entirely different situation.

Sorry about the confusion in my post.

I am not bashing Clinton, quite the contrary.

[shadowknows69]

7. i was being sarcastic

I was just commenting on the right using clinton in all things. sorry for the confusion mzmolly. Your name a "Mockingbird" reference I assume?

[LightningFlash]

4. Clinton bashing is all they've ever done.

I can't agree it was right for Clinton to do what he did at all, he was just as influenced by PNAC. But it was sanctions instead of a full fledged war, and alot of other things could have been avoided. Instead of a full fledged invasion, it was a skirmish.

We didn't see thousands and thousands die, and billions of dollars dissapear like we have seen in this holocaust. :mad: :mad: :mad: :banghead:

[radio4progressives]

9. It's a valid Critisism - and one that the DEMS need to acknowledge as

being just as WRONG as what the Bush administration did.

You see, the reason why we had Dems supporting Bush's actions in Iraq, is because they SUPPORTED CLINTON's HORRIFIC and ILLEGAL POLICIES in Iraq and in Kosovo.

The fact is we bombed Iraq into the stone age in the 90's during Clinton's administration - which is WHY there were NO WMD's - but the freaking stupid DP leadership - didn't want focus on THAT problem. to the cost of hundreds of thousands of military and civilian lives - not to mention the enourmous and egregious drain on our economic and other resources.

Clinton laid the table for Bush to set the stage with - and that's why Hillary and Bill and Biden and all these other quislings in both parties say "stay the course".

Kerry didn't need to because he rightfully opposed the first Gulf War, and could have stayed with those principled convictions in Bush's term, and during the campaign could really laid waste to the corruption and the waste and the overall wrongheadedness of an invasion and occupation.

It's insane that people are afraid to critisize our own party when they do something egregious - they need their clocks cleaned just as much as the repugs do.

NO WAR for OIL -- NOT IN OUR NAME!!!!

[mrdmk]

10. Yes, war is messy business and the politics are even worst

1) Iraq was bombed into the stone age, but not by Mr. Clinton. This deed was done by Mr. Bush Sr. It was call Desert Storm. The facts are coming out slowly so pay attention.

Kuwait was invaded by Mr. Saddam Hussein Iraq because Kuwait was using sideways drilling of oil in Iraq territory. Mr. Saddam Hussein went to Ms. April Gillespie who reported to her boss Mr. Howard Baker about this incursion under the recognized boarder. Ms. Gillespie reported back to Mr. Saddam Hussein and told him, "...we do not care how you solve Arab to Arab problems..." Kuwait and Iraq could not fix the problem of the boarder dispute and that part is history.

Here is the part you do not know. A massive PR campaign started by the exiled Kuwait Monarchy after the fall of their country within a week. I am not going into specifics, but a lot of claims by American PR firms in care of Kuwait that were proved to be lies. Even Dick Cheney got into the act by claiming that he had satellite photos of Mr. Saddam Hussein massing an army against Saudi Arabia and Mr. Bush Sr. took these photos to Saudi Arabia Monarchy and got approval to have U.S. bases on their soil (which we have to this day). I bring this up because there are other satellite photos from other countries which show an empty desert Saudi Arabia/Iraq border, all from the same time period. The PR campaign worked and the world went war with Iraq with USA leading the way under direction of Mr. Bush Sr.

The war was ended within the year and Iraq got their collective ass whipped. Then there were some problems with uprisings within Iraq by the civil population (namely the Kurds) in the overthrow of Mr. Saddam Hussein. Mr. Bush Sr. cheer-leaded these uprisings but did nothing to support them (see Afghanistan from an earlier time period, this seems to be Mr. Bush Sr.'s MO) and there was a public outcry why we are not doing anything about this brutal dictator. So came the, "No Fly Zones", in the north then the south of Iraq, not to mention the sanctions. All of these tactics were in place to make a country impossible to run. All of this within an year.

Mr. Bill Clinton inherited this mess plus Somalia which we are not going to go into.

My opinion at this time before this war was, "If Mr. Bush Sr. is such a good president, he can fix this problem his administration created without going to war". I hold this opinion to this day.

2) At the time of demise of the USSR there were many changes in the world that many people, especially in the USA were not ready for. This falls onto the Regan Administration and then the Bush Sr. Administration. One thing that needs to be pointed out here is that having a heavy handed dictatorship holds a lot of people who do not like each other together (see Iraq, Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south). The major changes was not just to Russia, but also to the satellite countries that Russia surrounded itself with after WWII. These problems came to light many of the Soviet Satellite countries.

One of the countries was Yugoslavia held together by a dictator named Mr. Marshal Tito. This is a very complicated subject so I will used the following from the CIA website:

<snip>
In the early 1990s, post-TITO Yugoslavia began to unravel along ethnic lines: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were recognized as independent states in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (FRY) in April 1992 and, under President Slobodan MILOSEVIC, Serbia led various military intervention efforts to unite ethnic Serbs in neighboring republics into a "Greater Serbia." All of these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful and led to Yugoslavia being ousted from the UN in 1992.
<end of snip>

link
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/yi.htm

Slobodan Milosevic creating a lot of problems in the Balkans with "Ethnic Cleansing" and takeovers in that area. One problem was that within NATO there were two countries that had treaties with opposing forces Balkans conflict and they were Greece and Turkey. This trigger would have occurred if the country of Macedonia was brought into the conflict. Slobodan Milosevic was just on planning to do just that.

Europe and more-so the NATO countries could not sit around let this happen. With the United Nations out of the picture and NATO not wanting to be at war with itself they worked very hard with-in their respected countries and with each other to bring peace to the area. This meant Mr. Clinton and the US Senate worked very deliberately with NATO to resolve problem having NATO forces bomb Serbia and also supporting forces within Serbia and outlining areas to bring about elections which did lead to peace, thus lifting of the sanctions in the area.

Now I do not disagree with you that Mr. Clinton could have done more or that "staying the course in Iraq" is just one notch short of moronic, but knowing the history and the results are helpful. I just wanted to point out that Kosovo was a very complicated and was more or less a success and Iraq was a problem of our own making from mostly a failure at the hand of the Bush Sr. and Jr. and Crowd.

Please study your history.

[Pepperbelly]

11. actually the whole thing can be turned on it's head for the good guys

by simply noting that Clinton's policies clearly DID keep Iraq from acquiring WMDs since they had none when we got there.

on edit, note that Clinton did authorize air strikes against Iraq but nothing at all what Bush did.