Reply #29: Too easy on Clinton

[paulthompson]

Will,

I think you're being far too easy on Clinton. True, he was much better than Bush on terrorism, but only in a relative sense. Greg Palast expressed it well when he likened counterterrorism under Clinton as one eye closed, whereas under Bush it was (and still is?) both eyes closed.

You fail to mention a whole range of failures that happened under Clinton's watch, and give his administration credit for things they don't deserve. As just one example, where's the mention of Clinton letting bin Laden go to Afghanistan in 1996? They even turned down a chance to catch his plane with all his top leadership on board in international airspace, and instead even gave permission for that plane to refuel in Qatar. The attempted bombing of the USS Sullivans only failed because the terrorist's boat filled with explosives was too heavy and literally sank within sight of its target. US intelligence didn't even know there was a failed attack on that ship until after the nearly identical USS Cole attack. The Ahmed Ressam bombing of the LA airport was only stopped because of the alertness of one border guard. Presumably that guard would have stopped the sweaty and nervous terrorist regardless of who was president at the time.

Furthermore, Clinton's retaliatory bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan was a complete fiasco, and I don't see how you can defend it. It's widely agreed now that the Sudan factory WAS producing medicine. The Afghanistan bombing was similarly a joke, killing more Pakistani gvmt advisors than actual terrorists, and is widely credited with inflating the bin Laden's status in the Muslim world.

Let's not give Clinton credit for things he doesn't deserve, and let's criticize him for what he did wrong. At best I'd say at least he was trying, though he only really woke up to the problem around 1998. I think a better tack to take is not that Clinton was exemplary in counterterrorism, but look at how much worse Bush was. Literally within days of coming into office, he undid many of the good things Clinton had done. Put a stop to FBI investigations touching on the bin Laden family and rich Saudis. Cancelled the subs near Afghanistan that gave the US a chance to kill bin Laden if it had the intelligence. Cancelled plans for a retaliatory strike in response to the USS Cole bombing. Failed to restart Predator drone surveillance of bin Laden. Lauched a new wave of secret negotiations with the Taliban, meanwhile turning a blind eye to their support of terrorism. There's much more. Those are the kinds of things that need to be hammered into the public mind to defeat the "Bush better against terrorism than Clinton" meme.