Funny, I Don't Recall Liberal Outrage When Bill Clinton Repeatedly Targeted (and missed) Bin Laden?

[Yavin4]

Back in 1998, President Clinton launched six missile attacks in Afghanistan and the Sudan. In the Sudan, the missiles hit a privately own pharmaceutical company.

http://articles.cnn.com/1998-08-20/us/9808_20_us.strikes.01_1_sudanese-television-bin-mullah-abdullah?_s=PM:US

I don't recall the civil libertarian outrage back then. I don't recall the repeated cries for OBL to be tried in a court of law.

Gee, what's different?

[grasswire]

1. Was bin Laden an American citizen?

That is the difference.

[Yavin4]

3. No, But David Koresh and His Followers Were

And again, I don't recall much Liberal outrage back then when the govt used paramilitary force against the compound.

Gee, what's different?

[pansypoo53219]

10. janet reno was mislead by an idiot psycho 'expert' park dietz.

he was also an 'expert' during the dahmer trial.

[Evergreen Emerald]

14. Didn't David Koresh shoot at the government ...

He shot at the government when they tried to arrest him, if I am not mistaken. Don't you see the difference?

[Mr Deltoid]

34. He also committed suicide

[Mr Deltoid]

33. David Koresh murdered cops

You are reaching for GOP talking points

[Ter]

43. The ATF (not "cops") broke down his door with machine guns in hand

You don't do that and expect no trouble. It also created Timothy McVeigh.

[Mr Deltoid]

45. It would have been a lot less trouble if...

...Koresh had just gone down to the station with them, like any other person would have done.

[Ter]

54. Or if they bothered to study Koresh's habits

He went jogging several days a week alone. Why not arrest him then?

[Cherchez la Femme]

41. So were the Weavers (Ruby Ridge)

However, along with being U.S. citizens, they never attacked or killed anyone;
although I still aver OBL should have been tried in a U.S. court of law.

And I, to this day, am outraged and despise what our government --led and approved by Clinton, Reno, and the F.B.I.-- did to them.

Your 'argument' is a non-starter.

[ZombieHorde]

28. An abstract, artificial construct with no inherent meaning or value is the difference?

Seems like a pointless difference.

[dsc]

2. actually there was outrage on both the left and the right

on the grounds that supposedly Clinton was distracting us from Monica. One left leaning Congressman who I vividly recall criticing him was Kucinich who still has the same problem with Obama.

[Kurovski]

5. Yep. You are correct. (nt)

[Dokkie]

32. very true

Kucinich is one guy whe rarely plays politics with issues. he is principled, consistent and unlikely to be bought by the big corps which is he can never win the election.

To the op, the popularity of the internet cannot be ommitted when comparing Obama to Clinton.

[treestar]

48. The outrage should have been on civil liberties grounds

You know, Osama's right to due process.

[xchrom]

4. There's probably a bunch of stuff you don't remember. Nt

[Kurovski]

6. +10

[elocs]

7. There is hardly anything more sanctimonious or self righteous than Liberal outrage.

I'm sure Republicans love it and laugh at the distraction.

[flamingdem]

9. Really. A MAJOR win for Obama and relentless attacks from the left

Someone needs a brain transplant. There's plenty to criticize about war but killing a known enemy is NOT ONE OF THEM! What kind of purity demand has taken hold on this issue?

Do people all of a sudden feel sorry for poor lil Al Queda?

[Kurovski]

11. Al Quedaians can go fuck themselves in their own arses

It'd be a nice break from the long strokes they usually give each other...just to be clear.

People can argue. For fuck's sake, it's just about all some of us have left.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Assassination is not a 'win' - it is an admission of failure. nt

[msanthrope]

36. Ratfucking. That's what it's called. Ratfucking. nt

[joshcryer]

47. The lying republicans are LOVING it, they're taking it and RUNNING with it like crazy.

Don't think for a minute that they're sincere or care about due process though.

[Kurmudgeon]

8. I do remember "Wag The Dog". but that was Neo-Cons and their supporters.

[provis99]

12. DU didn't exist during the Clinton administration, dude.

[CakeGrrl]

15. I wish DU was around back then to compare the posts.

I suspect it would be pretty interesting.

[Douglas Carpenter]

16. they're only criticizing Obama because he is black

[Kurovski]

29. Hehee

That made me laugh. Excellent placement

*DUzy*

[Enrique]

17. "when did you first become a progressive?"

one DUer's answer: when I heard about al Shifa.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8937935

When did you first become a progressive?

ghostsofgiants (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-19-09 06:14 PM
Response to Original message
16. When Clinton bombed the Al-Shifa plant in Sudan in 1998.

I was 13 at the time and thought it was appalling.
http://www.jonkennedy.net

[Enrique]

18. "on 9/11, how many wished Clinton was still president?"

Imagine if someone gave this answer with Obama instead of Clinton!!!! Talk about OUTRAGE. And yet with Clinton it's so acceptable to suggest, in 2005, that he's no better than Bush, that the comment isn't even noticed.

durutti (1000+ posts) Wed Mar-09-05 03:17 PM
Response to Original message
55. Sanctions on Iraq? Bombing al-Shifa in Sudan? Certainly not I.

[Enrique]

19. here's a lively debate about Clinton and al Shifa

here's the post that started it off... (OP was a picture if Bill with a black child, to refute charges he's racist)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4047906#4047932

IndianaGreen (1000+ posts) Sat Jan-12-08 09:58 PM
Response to Original message
3. He bombed Sudan in order to take our attention off his Monica problems

Obliterated an aspirin factory, as I recall.

[Enrique]

20. "I'm not so sure about al Shifa"

response to a Will Pitt OP which mentioned the al Shifa attack favorably.


Cocoa (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-12-03 09:42 PM
Response to Original message
30. I'm not so sure about al Shifa

as far as I know, the jury is still out on that, and anyway, most criticism of it came from the Left. I didn't even know there were criticisms by conservatives -- at that time, I was only exposed to leftists -- though I'm not surprised they would criticize Clinton for anything and everything.

Has it proven to be a chemical weapons plant, and not just a pharmaceutical factory? And did it prove to do anything to stop any terrorist attacks? They managed to pull off the Cole, and Sept. 11, despite the strike.

In short, are you sure you want to hold up that action as a model of the right way to have responded to the East Africa attacks?

"And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." - Richard Perle, 9/22/03

[Enrique]

21. here al Shifa tops off a whole thread of Clinton bashing

well-deserved bashing, imo, based on Clinton's quote. (notice no one's defending Clinton -- huge difference b/w him and Obama)


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3765351

Bill Clinton on Bush uranium line: 'Everybody makes mistakes' (July, 2003)

(...)

bunnies (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-28-07 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
19. Bill should know. *ahem* al-shifa *cough* nt

[RFKHumphreyObama]

22. I supported President Clinton then as I support President Obama now

[Enrique]

23. "bombing of al Shifa was a war crime"

no one responds to this charge.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3321118#3321930

bunnies (1000+ posts) Sun Jun-17-07 11:58 AM
Response to Reply #53
56. Bombing al-Shifa was a war crime.

'Nuff said.

[Enrique]

24. here's another lively debate about al Shifa

starting with a deleted message, lol. Among Clinton's sins is al Shifa.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x113157#113233

[Kurovski]

30. thank you for doing the research, Enrique.

I appreciate it.

[Gman]

25. In all fairness, there was no DU in 98, nor

Where there virtually ANY liberal boards on the Internet. So there was no liberal group think to act outraged.

[AtomicKitten]

26. That era preceded the internet boom of political websites inspired by his successor, Bush Jr.

[Enrique]

27. who could forget Chomsky comparing al Shifa to 9/11?

http://entertainment.salon.com/2002/01/16/chomsky_3/

The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it).

[frazzled]

31. Well, there was a lot of hard-left outrage about bombing the "aspirin" factory

in Khartoum, which they believed was a chemical weapons factory. Clinton's supposed "wag the dog" efforts to go after Al Qaeda remained fodder for criticism for a long time: "After 9/11, Noam Chomsky equated the Al-Shifa bombing with the toppling of the World Trade Center towers." http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2004/03/khartoum_revisited_part_2.single.html

There was also left-wing opposition to the Kosovo war (The Nation later had a cover on which Wes Clark's mouth was dripping blood.)

But I disagreed with all of that, too.

[HuckleB]

35. That was in the early days of the Internet.

Opposition to something didn't translate into impulsive, immediate condemnation. We've trained our brains to be outraged at the drop of a hat, without looking at the whole story. I'm not taking stand on this particular issue, but blind, vehement outrage is now looked as a normative reaction. Now, that's not to say that we shouldn't be outraged against the economic elite and other misbehaviors. It's just to say that rhetoric has lost all value.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tarheel_Dem]

38. "Gee, what's different?"

;)

[Major Hogwash]

39. To be fair, there are only 4 people that are upset about this drone attack at the DU.

I don't know why they are so upset except to say that they might want to see a Republican in the WH in 2013.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

40. "Close, But No Cigar" -- The Nation, 10/05/1998

http://www.thenation.com/article/close-no-cigar

Is is starting to come back to you? There are plenty more references available, but you can find them just as easily as the rest of us.

[AngkorWot]

42. Clinton was white.

There's that double standard again.

[Ter]

44. Please stop it

The race card sucks.

[yurbud]

46. they're making DU look bad and themselves look worse with that stuff. It's worse than the

''stop whining'' talking point.

[uberllama42]

49. You obviously don't read Chomsky, then

Unless Chomsky falls outside your definition of "liberal."

[MNBrewer]

50. Funny, I don't remember DU when Clinton was President.

[Phx_Dem]

51. And that was BEFORE 9/11.

[Marnie]

52. Possibly it's becasue he missed.

[Vanje]

53. I learned right here at DU

that we hold Obama to a greater standard than Clinton because we are racists.

[bigwillq]

55. Proud racist!

:rofl:

:P

;)


Good post, btw! :thumbsup:

[jzodda]

56. Differerent Era: Remember Monica and the blue dress?

Back then all the talk was about one thing: Did the President order the attack to distract from the scandal. If you recall this attack was right around the height of it.

People were already hugely distracted.

I'm saying this only to point out that events have to be taken into context of what else is going on when you want to gauge popular anger or disinterest. Of course another factor is that OBL was not an american citizen and so does not have the legal protections that citizens are supposed to have.

FYI: I supported the targeting of the terrorist in Yemen and have no issues with it.

[Cigar11]

57. If you don’t recall ...

maybe you should see a Doctor on your memory problems.