[Spoon Poetic]

Clinton bombed people too, ya know.

[Snake Logan]

Clinton: Postmodern War Criminality

This brings us to Bill Clinton, who has gone beyond the Bush record of criminality, and has brought to the commission of war crimes a new eclectic reach and postmodern style. A skilled public relations person, he has refined the rhetoric of humanistic and ethical concern and can apologize with seeming great sincerity for our earlier regrettable sponsorship and support of mass murder in Guatemala while carrying out similar or even more vicious policies in Colombia and Iraq at the same moment.

Clinton's military and other aggressive forays abroad have been partly a result of his political weakness, the need to divert attention from his domestic policy failures, and the longstanding need of Democrats to prove their anti-Communist and militaristic credentials. It will be recalled that Truman could not end the Korean War; its termination had to await the arrival of the Republican Eisenhower. Kennedy and Johnson could not get us out of the Vietnam War; it took Nixon, although with a horrendous time lag.

Clinton's crimes range from ad hoc bombings to boycotts and sanctions designed to starve into submission, to support of ethnic cleansing in brutal counterinsurgency warfare, and to aggression and devastation by bombing designed to return rogues to the stone age and keep them there.
On June 26, 1993, Clinton bombed Baghdad in retaliation for an alleged but unproven Iraq plot to assassinate former President George Bush. Eight Iraqi civilians, including the distinguished Iraqi artist Layla al-Attar were killed in the raid, and 12 more were wounded. This kind of unilateral action in response to an unproven charge is a violation of international law. The legal excuse given by U.S. officials, which they relied on in justification of the bombing of Libya in 1986, is the right to self defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. But that Article requires that the response be to an immediate threat to the retaliating party, clearly not the case, and therefore a legal fraud. This was a crime-petty by the usual U.S. standard-but still a crime. And it had the further repellent feature that it was done almost surely for purely internal political reasons-to show Clinton's toughness, despite his Vietnam War record, and to countervail right-wing attacks on his lack of militancy.

The same point can be made as regards his 1998 bombing of Afghanistan and the Sudan. Unknown numbers were killed in Afghanistan (and by the missiles that accidentally landed in Pakistan), and the pharmaceutical factory destroyed in the Sudan was the major source of medical drugs in that poor country. All evidence points to the fact that the Sudan factory destroyed had no connection whatever to chemical weapons or Bin Laden, and was bombed on the basis of insufficient and poorly evaluated data. But following the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, Clinton felt compelled to act for internal political reasons once again, and there are no international constraints or costs to him or his country if he chooses to bomb small and weak countries to score political points at home. This was rogue and criminal behavior.

Clinton has given unstinting support to Turkey in its war against its indigenous Kurds. He has also escalated his aid to Colombia. In both of these countries the civilian casualties from counterinsurgency warfare and death squad operations during the Clinton years has exceeded the pre-NATO bombing deaths in Kosovo by a large factor.

In the Clinton years these recurrent U.S. policies have impacted heavily on Cuba and most dramatically on Iraq. The tightening of the embargo on Cuba under the Toricelli-Helms bill, signed into law and enforced by Clinton, which banned the sale of U.S. food and curtailed access to water treatment chemicals and medicines, took a heavy toll. According to a 1997 report of the American Association of World Health, the food sale ban "has contributed to serious nutritional deficits, particularly among pregnant women, leading to an increase in low birth-weight babies. In addition, food shortages were linked to a devastating outbreak of neuropathy numbering in the tens of thousands. By one estimate, daily caloric intake dropped 33 percent between 1989 and 1993." The decisive offsetting consideration, however, was that Clinton was able to preserve some of his political support from the powerful Cuban lobby in Florida.

The most monumental of Clinton's war crimes, however, has been his policy of sanctions on Iraq, supplemented by the maintenance of intense satellite surveillance and regular bombing attacks that have often resulted in civilian casualties. UNICEF reports that in 1999 more than 1 million Iraqi children under 5 were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and some 4,000-5,000 children are dying per month beyond normal death rates from the combination of malnutrition and disease. Death from disease was greatly increased by the shortage of potable water and medicines, that has led to a 20-fold increase in malaria (among other ailments). This vicious sanctions system, causing a creeping extermination of a people, has already caused more than a million excess deaths, and it is claimed by John and Karl Mueller that Clinton's "sanctions of mass destruction" have caused "the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction [nuclear and chemical] throughout all history" (Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999). U.S. mainstream reporters, who have so eagerly followed the distress of the Kosovo Albanians, somehow never get to Iraq for pictures of the thousands of malnourished children.

One of the notable features of the NATO-U. S. war against Yugoslavia was the gradual extension of targeting to civilian infrastructure and civilian facilities-therefore civilians who would be in houses, hospitals, schools, trains, factories, power stations, and broadcasting facilities. Two months after the war was over, the BBC "revealed" that the attack on Yugoslav television on April 23 was part of an escalation of NATO bombing whereby the target list was extended to non-military objectives; NATO was "taking off the gloves." According to Yugoslav authorities, 60 percent of NATO targets were civilian, including 33 hospitals and 344 schools, as well as 144 major industrial plants and a large petro-chemical plant whose bombing caused a pollution catastrophe. John Pilger noted that the list of civilian targets included "housing estates, hotels, libraries, youth centres, theatres, museums, churches and 14th century monasteries on the World Heritage list. Farms have been bombed and their crops set afire."

This NATO targeting was in open violation of the laws of war, although this was certainly neither publicized nor condemned in the mainstream media; U.S. pundits like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times frequently called for a more aggressive bombing of Serb civilian targets and the commission of more war crimes (Rachel Coen, "Lessons of War: Leading papers call for more attacks on civilian targets next time," EXTRA! Update, August 1999). There can be little doubt that Yugoslavia finally agreed to a military exit from Kosovo mainly because they recognized that, although their forces had not been defeated on the battlefield, the NATO strategy of attacking civilian targets in violation of international law, was subject to no limits.

On May 27, in the midst of this criminal operation by NATO, Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor of International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, issued an indictment of Milosevic for war crimes, thereby implicitly exonerating and facilitating the NATO commission of war crimes. By allowing her Tribunal to be so mobilized in NATO propaganda service, Arbour and her colleagues were arguably guilty of war crimes themselves.

The U.S. played an important role in the "international community's" failure in Rwanda, as it worked hard to prevent any international action to interfere with the gigantic 1994 massacres (Omaar and de Waal, "Genocide in Rwanda: U.S. Complicity By Silence," CovertAction, Spring 1995). Bill Clinton has apologized for this, suggesting that his recognition of the earlier failure spurred him on to his Kosovo policy, which involved his commission of further war crimes under the guise of a "humanitarian intervention" that was devoid of humanitarian intent or effect.

Furthermore, in 1998-1999 Clinton was once more put to the test in East Timor, where he and his Administration knew of the Indonesian plans to interfere with the referendum and eventually to take revenge for any ensuing defeat, but did nothing whatsoever to prevent this criminal performance. This was worse than Rwanda in that Clinton had long advance knowledge of Indonesian intentions and easy access and close links to Indonesian leaders that made prevention relatively easy. But prevention would have been at the cost of disturbing the long and warm relationship of Clinton and his associates with the killers. Clinton once again easily failed the moral test, and is guilty of criminal behavior by inaction.

By Herman the German.

[civilian_number_two]

OK, so lying about WMDs and ultimately killing tens of thousands of men (and uncounted women and children) is not as bad as lying about oral sex UNDER OATH!!! Point taken, and I hope that Hillary Clinton is never President because her husband's lie likely means she'll lie too.

Now can we get back to bashing CNN? Or is it time to change the topic heading to "Snake Logan is a pedant?"

How's that for some moderation, Spoon? !!!

[Spoon Poetic]

Well, garsh, I can't edit a head moderator... Even though that insult was so scathing and malicious...

Aaaanyway, so we've done some CNN bashing, but what does anyone have to say about FoxNews?

[Snake Logan]

OK, so lying about WMDs and ultimately killing tens of thousands of men (and uncounted women and children) is not as bad as lying about oral sex UNDER OATH!!! Point taken, and I hope that Hillary Clinton is never President because her husband's lie likely means she'll lie too.

Now can we get back to bashing CNN? Or is it time to change the topic heading to "Snake Logan is a pedant?"

How's that for some moderation, Spoon? !!!

Well actually Clinton killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis with sanctions and bombings for the very same reason Bush invaded Iraq. So Clinton lied and people died.

[TruJade]

You know perhaps you hadn't noticed

Snakey-kins

but the Clinton thing has been dropped

moving on...

Foxnews if possible is worse than CNN

[Snake Logan]

I understand. You cannot win the argument so you change the subject. I for one do not believe that Fox News is ‘worse’ then CNN. They are much more blunt, if not completely idiotic about projecting their propaganda then those at CNN. If you meant ‘worse’ as in quality then I totally agree.

[Despondent]

Ignoring Bill Clinton's foibles ought to be discussed somewhere else.

Fox News Sunday has invited all the candidates on. Edwards and Obama will appear on "easy-going" hosts' shows, but will not appear with Chris Wallace. With good reason, some of you may recall how Furious Bill Clinton got when he appeared (Fall, 2006).

[Slade]

I get furious whenever I hear those right-wing nutjobs spouting their fallacious bullshit rhetoric, too. Of course, I'm not a former political leader on national television.

[Despondent]

I get furious whenever I hear those right-wing nutjobs spouting their fallacious bullshit rhetoric, too. Of course, I'm not a former political leader on national television.

The Fox News Sunday Roundtable features Libs Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, OK? The nutty Left is well represented.
Try watching the Sunday Morning show sometime, and report back about how biased you thought they were and on what issue.

Nobody else is asking: Why are the Clinton white house records sealed until after the election?

[Spoon Poetic]

I, too, have noticed that most of the people that criticise Fox News for being so uber-biased and crazy and horrible and everything, tend to have never actually watched the show. Often times, they are going off of what other people have said, who are going off of what other people have said, and so on. I think that yes, there is a republican bias from the part of most of the regulars, but it's no where near as bad as so many would make it out to be; and for different shows and events, they do make an effort to present both sides with guests or I think even a couple regulars (even if it does turn into one big back-and-forth name-calling event sometimes).

I honestly don't understand this attitude towards Fox News I see a bunch of liberals have. I mean, I understand preferring one News channel/show over another, but you'd think they were talking about Satan himself, the way they bash Fox. It's just a tv show.

Sometimes I think it's just another one of those cool things to do.

[BigStupidDogFacedArse]

I'm not convinced with your argument, Snake. Infact I'm still baffled to the 'how, what, and why' of your Evil Clinton theory.

You're worried that a BJ maniac is closely related to a presidential front runner. I'd be more worried about the dirty handshakes these hopefulls have had with companies like Evil Oil R US and We Do Big Bombs INC.

I've said this 1 million times....the only people who loathed Bill, and still hate his guts to this day, are social conservatives. It's more of a republican vs democrat partisan issue than anything else. Economics plays second fiddle to social issues. Gays, fetus, drugs, and not letting people die even though they're mentally dead.

To reiterate whats been stated, Bill should've never taken the oath. It was a shit smear campaign with intentions to publicly shame and destroy him, plain and simple. I may not agree with all his policies in office, but nothing that man did was to the effect of the current president. As bill maher said it, George W. Bush fucked his wife. Bill Clinton lost the wife-fucking battle.

side note: You realize since Clinton's fall, it's been republican officials in sex scandals? Gay sex scandals, for shame!

And regarding the sanctions, I'm pretty sure those were imposed under Bush Sr. Clinton actually offered a better plan, I believe, and in an interview explained himself.

AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton, UN figures show that up to 5,000 children a month die in Iraq because of the sanctions against Iraq.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: (Overlap) That's not true. That's not true. And that's not what they show. Let me just tell you something. Before the sanctions, the year before the Gulf War, you said this ... how much money did Iraq earn from oil? Answer - $16 billion. How much money did Iraq earn last year from oil? How much money did they get, cash on the barrel head, to Saddam Hussein? Answer - $19 billion that he can use exclusively for food, for medicine, to develop his country. He's got more money now, $3 billion a year more than he had nine years ago.

If any child is without food or medicine or a roof over his or her head in Iraq, it's because he is claiming the sanctions are doing it and sticking it to his own children. We have worked like crazy to make sure that the embargo only applies to his ability to reconstitute his weapon system and his military statement. This is a guy who butchered the children of his own country, who were Kurds, who were Shi'ites.

He used chemical weapons on his own people, and he is now lying to the world and claiming the mean old United States is killing his children. He has more money today than he did before the embargo, and if they're hungry or they are not getting medicine, it is his own fault.

http://www.globalpol...000/clinton.htm

Bush started the war, started the sanctions. You can blame Bill for not lifting it.

But you've basically equated Bush Jr's 6 year war, riddled with profiteering, scadalous abuse of military policy, dispersal of millions of Iraqis, and feeble attempt to build a democratic community within a divided and relatively young country TO THAT OF Bill's sanction umm unlifting?

I'm guessing you'll tell me "yes a sin is a sin, a crime is a crime". If you preached this load before an audience, you'd be laughed out of the building.

--------

But to get back on my topic..sheesh. I never watch fox news. I've been told it's an extension of the republican pep squad, but I've can't say. CNN's pandering to one side or the other is just a notch in the post for them. They're biggest problem is fear mongering in the form of artificially injecting importance into trivial affairs.

Howard Dean's scream was a good indication that CNN, and their analysts, wield enough power to end a campaigners hopes for the white house. They have enough power to persuade with their invented concept of 24/7 news. This constant stream of journalism has the ability to dwell on issues, which are unimportant, until they are burned into your brain and become the central focus.

Old man or women, monotone, no graphics, deliver the evening news, 2hrs at most. End of broadcast.

This post has been edited by BigStupidDogFacedArse: 17 January 2008 - 07:25 PM

[Despondent]

Gay sex scandals, for shame!

Only Democrats are allowed to get away with the riches of Homosexuality, and all of its trappings.


Got me there.

[BigStupidDogFacedArse]

Only Democrats are allowed to get away with the riches of Homosexuality, and all of its trappings.


Got me there.

Ya, it's ironic, no? Democrats will at the very least recognize 'civil unions' if not marriage. Republicans want to nix both. So when a Republican has gay sex, I mean please.

[Snake Logan]

I'm not convinced with your argument, Snake. Infact I'm still baffled to the 'how, what, and why' of your Evil Clinton theory.

You're worried that a BJ maniac is closely related to a presidential front runner. I'd be more worried about the dirty handshakes these hopefulls have had with companies like Evil Oil R US and We Do Big Bombs INC.

I've said this 1 million times....the only people who loathed Bill, and still hate his guts to this day, are social conservatives. It's more of a republican vs democrat partisan issue than anything else. Economics plays second fiddle to social issues. Gays, fetus, drugs, and not letting people die even though they're mentally dead.

To reiterate whats been stated, Bill should've never taken the oath. It was a shit smear campaign with intentions to publicly shame and destroy him, plain and simple. I may not agree with all his policies in office, but nothing that man did was to the effect of the current president. As bill maher said it, George W. Bush fucked his wife. Bill Clinton lost the wife-fucking battle.

side note: You realize since Clinton's fall, it's been republican officials in sex scandals? Gay sex scandals, for shame!

And regarding the sanctions, I'm pretty sure those were imposed under Bush Sr. Clinton actually offered a better plan, I believe, and in an interview explained himself.



http://www.globalpol...000/clinton.htm

Bush started the war, started the sanctions. You can blame Bill for not lifting it.

But you've basically equated Bush Jr's 6 year war, riddled with profiteering, scadalous abuse of military policy, dispersal of millions of Iraqis, and feeble attempt to build a democratic community within a divided and relatively young country TO THAT OF Bill's sanction umm unlifting?

I'm guessing you'll tell me "yes a sin is a sin, a crime is a crime". If you preached this load before an audience, you'd be laughed out of the building.

There are many other places Clinton committed crimes like in the Former Yugoslavia and East Africa. As for Iraq, Clinton bombed Baghdad at least 6 times killing tens of thousands of people. Those bombings were said to be for making Iraq ‘abandon’ its nuclear program. After all is said and done, how can you trust the words of a man who lied under oath?