More skewering of Chris Wallace, courtesy of Glenn Greenwald

[NewJeffCT]

Imagine Greenwald actually remembering all the way back to 1993 and that it was Republicans who wanted to cut and run from Somalia, while Bill Clinton and John Kerry thought an immediate withdrawal would be bad. Greenwald must hate America for questioning how Republicans have re-written history on this incident.

>>>>
President Clinton's response was refreshingly aggressive because the premise of the question is so patently and outrageously false. Clinton responded: "They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in 'Black Hawk down,' and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations."

As I document in the Salon post, that defense, if anything, is a profound understatement, because it was Clinton (along with Senate Democrats like John Kerry) who wanted to stay in Somalia because a precipitous withdrawal would be panicky and weak, but it was primarily conservatives in Congress -- mostly Republican Senators and some conservative Southern Democrats -- who were demanding that American troops be withdrawn immediately, and were even threatening to cut off all funds for our troop deployment.

"Mr. President, the mission is accomplished in Somalia. The humanitarian aid has been delivered to those who were starving. The mission is not nation building, which is what now is being foisted upon the American people. The United States has no interest in the civil war in Somalia and as this young soldier told me, if the Somalis are now healthy enough to be fighting us, then it is absolutely time that we go home. . . It is time for the Senate of the United States to get on with the debate, to get on with the vote, and to get the American troops home."

GOP Minority Leader Sen. Robert Dole, Senate speech, October 5, 1993

<<<<

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/who-wanted-to-cut-and-run-from-somalia.html

[originalpckelly]

1. GO GLENN!

I bet Dole is pissed at himself now.

[Tellurian]

2. Instant replay..Thanks, Glenn..

Oh, and thanks Al for inventing the Internet!
makes shagging pesky paperwork needed for proof,
a snap!

[MADem]

3. And you know who cut and run from Somalia? Colin Powell, GOP stooge

Oh, yeah, our Gulf War hero. Clinton ASKED him to stay on and help to manage Somalia, and he declined.

What a fuck. You don't turn down your Commander in Chief when a request of that nature is made. But Powell did.

And notice how Clinton takes the heat for Somalia, and doesn't push it off where it could be said to rightfully belong:

But Powell's discomfort comes because he can no longer play by his own rules. The Powell Doctrine - first and foremost, restraint - emerged from his time as America's highest military official under Presidents Bush Senior and Clinton. Roughly put, it is: do not get involved in military intervention unless it is in the nation's vital interests; only intervene militarily if the political goals are clear and achievable; only use overwhelming force, properly built up.

This was what made Powell invade Kuwait but urge a withholding of US military power in Bosnia. Powell insisted on a disastrous military intervention in Somalia: the humiliating retreat underpinned his mistrust of armchair generals clamouring for action. 'As soon as they tell me military intervention is limited, it means they do not care whether you achieve a result or not,' he said. 'As soon as they tell me it's surgical, I head for the bunker.' He added: 'We do deserts, we don't do mountains.' ...
Washington's cognoscenti saw in Powell the ideal candidate for senior office, if not the White House. But Powell stayed on at the Pentagon, insisting upon disastrous military intervention in Somalia and an even more disastrous refusal to intervene in Bosnia. It was the latter which provoked Madeleine Albright's stinging rebuke.

When Powell left the Pentagon in 1993, the pressure to stand for office became acute, but his best friend, Richard Armitage, now his deputy, advised: 'It's not worth it. Don't do it. The process is every bad thing you can imagine.' ...
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,,560542,00.html

This article is rather devastating:
....Barely a year after the Iraqi uprisings collapsed, famine in Somalia once more forced Powell to exercise strategic judgement. Once more, he flubbed. As in the Gulf, Powell opposed the part of the Somali mission which worked, while bearing considerable responsibility for the part which failed-namely, the events that resulted in the pointless loss of 18 American GIs. For months, Powell stayed true to his doctrine and resisted arguments for a large-scale humanitarian operation. But public pressure, fuelled by televised images of starving Somalis, finally changed his mind in late November 1992. The initial relief operation was a success-so much so that the marines had hardly finished storming the beach before Powell began pulling them out, and the US transferred formal control of the operation to the UN. In fact, the mission was far from over, and catastrophe, rather than success, loomed.

"We sent Task Force Ranger with great reluctance," Powell told a Senate panel, referring to the ill-fated attempt to capture Somali General Mohamed Farah Aideed. He claims that he sent the rangers merely out of a belief "in supporting the commander in the field." But that's not quite right. The then defence secretary, Les Aspin, recalled receiving a phone call from Powell during which the general urged the defence secretary to dispatch commandos to catch Aideed. President Clinton, too, in a recent interview with the New Yorker's Joe Klein, quotes Powell as saying, "Somebody needs to try to arrest Aideed, and we're the only people with the capacity to do it." Powell, however, let Aspin take the blame for the ensuing disaster. ..
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=3392

[The Deacon]

4. Hmmm

Neocons think we have no business "nation-building."
Neocons think we have no business being in the middle of someone else's civil war.
Neocons like to talk about "exit strategies" and avoiding "mission creep."

Somebody remind me again, WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING IN IRAQ? (Rhetorical question - we're nation-building in the middle of someone else's civil war because we had no exit strategy & a HUGE case of mission creep. All for Bush, Jr's "Wag The Dog" war.)

[Raksha]

9. That stuff only applies when the Democrats are in power,

only they keep forgetting to tell us that.

Re >>Neocons think we have no business "nation-building."
Neocons think we have no business being in the middle of someone else's civil war.
Neocons like to talk about "exit strategies" and avoiding "mission creep."<<

[raysr]

5. Powell is POS.

Tried to cover up my lai.

[kdpeters]

6. NYT, 9/12/03:"furious lobbying by the Administration to stave off [cutoff]

Alarmed, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the Administration to submit a report formally defining its goals. More important, it set the stage for Congressional votes by Nov. 15 to sanction the operation or discontinue it.
'we went to Somalia to keep people from starving to death,' said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, during a debate that conjured up the ghosts of Vietnam. 'Now we are killing women and children because they are combatants.'
It took furious lobbying by the administration to stave off a tougher resolution that could have cut off the operation within two months. The House will take up the issue this week.

Sept. 5-11; Somalia bloodshed stirs opposition in Congress. CLIFFORD KRAUSS. New York Times (1857. Sep 12, 1993. p. 165 (1 page)

The contemporary record is a treasure trove of Republican quotes demanding speedy withdrawal. If you have a library card, you have access to historical databases. If you're a California resident, you can access the myriad online full-text periodical databases at the SF Public Library where the above came from. Fight them with their own words. Just search "somalia AND republican" in 93-94. It's quite an eye opener to recall just who was saying what.

[NewJeffCT]

8. great finds

Thanks for posting. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

[The Deacon]

11. Ummm...

Why would hypocrisy from neocons be 'mind-boggling'? Next I suppose we'll all be shocked to discover that the HUD Secretary told his staff to look into loyalty to the pResident when awarding contracts.

[kdpeters]

7. Some more headline to tell the contemporary tale

House Vote Urges Clinton to Limit American Role in Somali Conflict
By CLIFFORD KRAUSSSpecial to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Sep 29, 1993. p. A1 (2 pages)

Clinton Sending Reinforcements After Heavy Losses in Somalia
By R.W. APPLE Jr.Special to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 5, 1993. p. A1 (2 pages)

Senators Seek Early Pullout Of U.S. Troops From Somalia
By CLIFFORD KRAUSSSpecial to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 12, 1993. p. A1 (2 pages)

Clinton Resists Earlier Somalia Pullout
By CLIFFORD KRAUSSSpecial to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 14, 1993. p. A12 (1 page)

Of course the above are but a limited snapshot of a complicated episode, not meant to vindicate or villify anyone at the time, but to rebut the lies that Clinton cut and ran from Somalia or that anyone had any idea who bin Laden was or the burgeoning terrorist threat he posed.

[maddezmom]

10. well done

and welcome to DU :hi: