quote: But then something remarkable happened to Bill Clinton. Suddenly one day he wakes up and decides that intervening in foreign countries is a good idea. The embassy bombings in East Africa had made the U.S. look impotent and showed just how useless our intelligence agencies can be against a determined enemy that can strike anywhere. It was suddenly in our vital interests to retaliate. You know, the way Reagan bombed Libya to retaliate for terrorist acts that Khaddafi had sponsored. FOOTNOTE
And there's suddenly a deadline for taking action. Clinton can't wait around for our intelligence services to determine who the bombers actually were. Because there's a matter of vital national interest that requires immediate action:
Monica's dress.
Got to have something on the front pages when the lab reports on the presidential sperm count. And those embassy bombings in East Africa are the perfect excuse. We've got to have the name of the perpetrators and we've got to take a big, splashy action against them.
So the missiles fly, the bombs drop, things blow up, and there's Bill Clinton, oiling his way through the explanation: It was this Osama bin Laden guy, and they were planning yet another imminent action and our bombs have definitely thwarted him.
Only there's one tiny problem. We didn't know where Bin Laden was, nor did we know anything about his plans.
Furthermore, our missiles and bombs were utterly useless and we knew it when they were fired. He's a guerrilla fighter, like Castro in the mountains of Cuba. We can't touch him with missiles.
So we bombed a medicine factory in Khartoum, with only the most ludicrous "evidence" that it was involved in chemical weapons production.
And we bombed "terrorist camps" in Afghanistan. Our intelligence was so bad that two of them turned out to be Pakistani-operated bases -- our allies -- and as for the ones that might have been associated with our enemies ... well, Mr. Bill tipped our hand by withdrawing nonessential U.S. personal from the area before sending the missiles. They had plenty of time to get out of the way.
So we achieved no surprise. If our missiles killed any terrorists or damaged any of their equipment, it was a lucky accident.
Of course, Mr. Bill and his apologists could claim complete success because, after all, there was an "imminent terrorist attack" and, after we fired all those missiles, the attack didn't happen!
That's like the old joke about the guy who walks along banging two pans together. "Why are you doing that?" "To scare the elephants away." "There aren't any elephants around here." "See? It's working."
There was no imminent terrorist attack. We did not know who set off those bombs in East Africa, and even if we had known, hitting those targets did not punish them in any way, did not prevent anything.
And here's what really sticks in my craw. People died from those bombs. Bill Clinton killed people in the name of the United States of America, for his own political gain.
Moreover, he grossly violated international law. He bombed the territory of two nations with which we are not at war. One is ruled by a hostile regime, and Afghanistan is barely governed at all. They may have provided shelter for those who attack us, but that doesn't change the fact that we have declined to declare war on them and do not have the right to simply bomb them whenever our president feels like it.
But for Bill Clinton, all that matters is that Sudan and Afghanistan are poor countries without the power to retaliate in kind. He could bomb them and kill people within their borders and blow up a plant that made medicine for half a continent, and nobody could do anything about it.
quote: Let's retroactively give meaning to the deaths of those good sons and daughters of America, by becoming a people who value honor above money, freedom above security, law above private advantage, and virtue above charm.
posted
I believe the terms of service forbid personal attacks on members, Orincoro. OSC is a member here, too, not to mention our host. Perhaps you could express your feelings without calling him names?
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posted
Is it possible for someone to have a serious shift in ideology following a critically important event such as 9-11-01 without being ridiculous? Personally, I don't think so.
I make no claims whether OSC has or hasn't had such a shift, but clearly some people think he has and that it is ridiculous.
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My reaction to that article is the hysterical irony, consider what Bush has done in the last six years. It doesn't mean I think he's wrong to change what he supports, if that is in fact what he did, but either way it's amusing that so many of his criticisms are things Bush has done, only to the Nth degree. If I didn't know any better I'd say that Card was trying to go after Democratic opponents of Bush by comparing him to Clinton, but the timing makes that impossible. Either way it is what it is, and what it is, is ironically comical.
And my reaction is to the almost comical ignorance of Clinton's response to terrorism. He either doesn't have a good grasp of the 90's terror and anti-terror efforts, or he's being intentionally dishonest. I like to think he has far too much character for the latter, so I'm inclined to believe the former. But I think that's excused by the fact that the article in question was written six years ago, long before we know all that we know now, which is why I find it more amusing that outright stupid.
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posted
OSC shouldn't try to base arguments on the assumption the he knows the true, secret motivations behind Clinton's actions when (1) OSC doesn't know Clinton or have any expertise on Clinton, (2) OSC's claims conflict with why Clinton himself said he did what he did, (3) Clinton's explanations of his own decisions fit the evidence at least as well as OSC's alternate explanation. It'd be kinda like some random person writing that OSC secretly wrote Ender's Game in order to promote genocide, when OSC himself has said otherwise.
Just because you can create a story for why someone did what they did does not mean that story is true - and it is not going to be convincing if you base political arguments on the assumption that your story is true, except to those who are simply looking for any reason to accept your conclusion.
So, I'm not convinced that Bill Clinton lacks character just because OSC can come up with a story in which Clinton went to war over Monica.
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posted
While I will never hold OSC's views when he wrote this essay against him in a post 9-11 world, it does mirror all the unsupported bull that Clinton had to fight his way through when dealing with Al Queda before 9-11.
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posted
What's funny -- at least in light of another current thread -- is that I remember discussing this very issue with OSC and others on the BML site. One of the observations made was that people would feel differently if Bush -- meaning the previous Bush -- had done the same thing.
We as a country were all so freakin' naive.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I wrote two editorials in the spring of 1999. One was how the internet bubble was built on nothing and was going to burst any second. The other was how Osami bin Laden was not nearly as much of a threat as he was being made out to be and declaring him this terrifying threat just created a martyr and galvanized the cause unnecessarily.
posted
I dunno, Katie. I think you were right in both cases.
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Scott R, I presume it was to point out a perceived inconsistency in a pundit's observations of two somewhat similar events.
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quote:I presume it was to point out a perceived inconsistency in a pundit's observations of two somewhat similar events.
I'm glad I asked. I just don't see the similarities-- or rather, I see how other people might see the similarities. I think a more thorough examination of the situation dispels any hypocrisy, though.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Is it possible for someone to have a serious shift in ideology following a critically important event such as 9-11-01 without being ridiculous? Personally, I don't think so.
I make no claims whether OSC has or hasn't had such a shift, but clearly some people think he has and that it is ridiculous.
Sure, it's possible, but it's wrong.
9/11 was a tragedy, an evil act. It was horrifying. But that it should make us to frightened that we forget our ideals, forget liberty, forget who we are is ridiculous.
And that is what we have done. 3000 people died, tragically, horribly, sadly. But that should not have been enough to cripple us. Our own fear, exploited by our leaders, is what is doing that.
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posted
I'm not aware that 'serious shift in ideology' necessarily means 'forget our ideals, forget liberty, forget who we are...'.
Actually, although I don't pay as much attention as I used to to Card's columns-well, the Internet in general really-I can't be sure when I say this, but Card hasn't much commented on the entire civil rights aspect of Bush's presidency, has he? He has been almost exclusively focused, from what I remember, on Bush's foreign policy agenda and actions.
Unless I'm wrong about that, I think it's pretty hysterical to start imprinting all of these hated (yes, hated) beliefs onto Card, if he hasn't remarked on them yet.
Once again, given that I do not believe that 'serious shift in ideology' equates to 'abandoning a bunch of civil rights', I do not believe it's very ridiculous.
----------------
On an unrelated note, I also have issues with your statements along the lines of 'who we are'. Historically, we've been willing-just like any other society on Earth, really-to abandon one or two or even many civil rights in the face of danger, whether in a legal sense or a political sense or a moral sense, or all three.
The Civil War, and President Lincoln's suspension of certain rights. Alien and Sedition Acts. Our good buddy Joe McCarthy. WWII and Japanese Americans. The violence during the Civil Rights movement. Hell, the United States's treatment of African-Americans (at the very least) prior to the Civil Rights movement.
If we are crippled now, kmbboots, we have been crippled before as well. While I resonate in part with your arguments and passion on this subject, I believe you do yourself and your beliefs a disservice by making such statements that are obviously untrue. It gives people something to latch on to, and ignore the rest of what you're saying.
I think that the direction the Bush Administration and a whole lot of Congress is heading with respect to how we treat prisoners suspected of terrorism is a very, very important thing-too important to risk by making statements that are easily discounted.
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quote:I think that the direction the Bush Administration and a whole lot of Congress is heading with respect to how we treat prisoners suspected of terrorism is a very, very important thing-too important to risk by making statements that are easily discounted.
posted
Accurate ones, without hyperbole and cute little pieces of fiction that mangle the actual issues.
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So because we have gotten it wrong in the past (and I like to think I would have been upset about it then, had I been around) we should be okay with getting it wrong now? "Well we never really were a great country anyway..."
My comment was not directed at Mr, Card's specific shift in ideology; it was directed at your premise that 9/11 should cause such a shift in ideology.
I don't know whether Mr. Card's ideology has shifted. Perhaps it has and maybe after 9/11 he wrote a retraction article apologizing for underestimating the threat and misinterprating President Clinton's motives? Did he?
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Like, "the current bill is very complex, and until I've fully analyzed it, I won't be making generalizations about it."
Or, "I think that the bill should appoint counsel to assist all defendants who desire to represent themselves."
Or, "I think habeas corpus should be available to those making the claim that they are not an enemy combatant."
Or, even, "The bill prevents detainees from raising a habeas claim that they are not an enemy combatant."
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quote:it was directed at your premise that 9/11 should cause such a shift in ideology.
And Rakeesh's comment was directed at the assumption implicit in your post that a shift of ideology after 9/11 must amount to "forget[ing] our ideals, forget[ing] liberty."
There are many shifts in ideology that would be justified by 9/11 that do not amount to either of those things.
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You are suggesting something other than what I actually said.
quote:...it was directed at your premise that 9/11 should cause such a shift in ideology.
I merely said a person could have a serious shift in ideology without necessarily being ridiculous in the face of 9-11. I've been careful not to say that I think 'serious shift in ideology' means 'become pro-torture' for just that reason, as a matter of fact.
This isn't the first time that criticizing hyperbolic and untrue statements gets me tarred with that particular brush, although it hasn't happened nearly as often to me as it has to Dagonee. I suppose that's why I get where he's coming from.
Still annoying as hell, though.
quote:So because we have gotten it wrong in the past (and I like to think I would have been upset about it then, had I been around) we should be okay with getting it wrong now?
Like that, for instance. Please, as a favor to me, point to where I said or implied that. In fact I went out of my way to say that I considered this issue so very important that we shouldn't make statements that make it easier to dismiss!
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posted
Honestly, Dagonee, have you really not heard the phrase, "it's a different world since 9/11" coming from politicians? How about, "it's a post 9/11 world"? Maybe heard politicians criticized for their "pre-9/11 thinking"?
How many things have been justified by that rhetoric?
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quote:Accurate ones, without hyperbole and cute little pieces of fiction that mangle the actual issues.
quote:And there's suddenly a deadline for taking action. Clinton can't wait around for our intelligence services to determine who the bombers actually were. Because there's a matter of vital national interest that requires immediate action:
Monica's dress.
Got to have something on the front pages when the lab reports on the presidential sperm count. And those embassy bombings in East Africa are the perfect excuse. We've got to have the name of the perpetrators and we've got to take a big, splashy action against them.
So the missiles fly, the bombs drop, things blow up, and there's Bill Clinton, oiling his way through the explanation: It was this Osama bin Laden guy, and they were planning yet another imminent action and our bombs have definitely thwarted him. . . . There was no imminent terrorist attack. We did not know who set off those bombs in East Africa, and even if we had known, hitting those targets did not punish them in any way, did not prevent anything.
And here's what really sticks in my craw. People died from those bombs. Bill Clinton killed people in the name of the United States of America, for his own political gain. . . .
But for Bill Clinton, all that matters is that Sudan and Afghanistan are poor countries without the power to retaliate in kind. He could bomb them and kill people within their borders and blow up a plant that made medicine for half a continent, and nobody could do anything about it.
posted
I guess this is the part where the vague political rhetoric of others is reasonable to apply criticism to the specific statements of people here.
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Edit to note: I suppose that's not really sidestepping, Mr. Squicky. It is, although only to the issue I'm talking about with kmbboots. However, that's certainly not the only conversation happening here, so it didn't really apply. My bad.
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quote:So because we have gotten it wrong in the past (and I like to think I would have been upset about it then, had I been around) we should be okay with getting it wrong now?
Like that, for instance. Please, as a favor to me, point to where I said or implied that. In fact I went out of my way to say that I considered this issue so very important that we shouldn't make statements that make it easier to dismiss!
Then what, exactly, is your purpose when I get upset about what we are doing now, in pointing out that we have done it before? It certainly sounds to me like you are saying that those really aren't our ideals anyway. I feel that, they are, even when we fail to live up to them. Perhaps you and I just have very different ideas about what we think this country is about.
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quote:How about "the fact that we are talking about limiting habeus corpus at all terrifies me."
It was wrong when we have done it before. It is wrong now.
The framers placed a mechanism for limiting habeas right in the Constitution. I'm not sure why it frightens you to discuss it at all.
quote:Honestly, Dagonee, have you really not heard the phrase, "it's a different world since 9/11" coming from politicians? How about, "it's a post 9/11 world"? Maybe heard politicians criticized for their "pre-9/11 thinking"?
So? This would seem a responsible reply to someone who opposed all searches at airports or who says that terrorism isn't a threat.
The fact that the phrase has been misused does NOT mean that all uses of it are bad.
quote:How many things have been justified by that rhetoric?
States' rights rhetoric has justified horrible things. That doesn't mean all invocation of states' rights are bad.
"Innocent life should be protected" is invoked to justify bans on abortion. Should people who oppose such bans declare that the justification is wrong no matter when it is invoked?
"People should be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin" has been used to justify good changes (civil rights act)and, according to many people, bad things (revocation of affirmative action programs). Should the principle be discarded by those who favor AA because their opponents misuse it?
Hey Squick, care to explain how that's at all relevant to what I said?
I haven't ventured a comment on OSC's article, and I seriously doubt your ability to guess what my comment would be.
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quote:I haven't ventured a comment on OSC's article
And you won't. Nor will you entertain this the next time you go to bat for him. That pretty much says it all to me.
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posted
Perhaps not, and perhaps my purpose is what I stated it to be.
quote:I think that the direction the Bush Administration and a whole lot of Congress is heading with respect to how we treat prisoners suspected of terrorism is a very, very important thing-too important to risk by making statements that are easily discounted.
I think it's safe to say you have very little idea what I think this country is about, at least safe to say on the basis of your perceptions of what I'm actually writing.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I guess this is the part where the vague political rhetoric of others is reasonable to apply criticism to the specific statements of people here.
I don't take issue with your suggestion that 9/11 caused an ideological shift for Mr. Card. (was there a retraction?) I take issue with the premise - not necessarily yours, and I should have made that clearer - the tragedy of 9/11 should justify ideological shifts for this country.
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quote:I haven't ventured a comment on OSC's article
And you won't. ... That pretty much says it all to me.
What it should say is that I'm not going to go comment on this, especially when you haven't bothered to do so yourself, and nothing else.
But it won't sy that to you, because you are the all-knowing motive reader.
quote:Nor will you entertain this the next time you go to bat for him.
Not if, in typical fashion, you attempt to use this article to prove that he meant something other than what he's actually saying in the next article you decide to post about.
I'm guessing that's a "no," by the way, on explaining why that post was at all relevant to what I said. Big surprise.
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posted
Given your repeated willingness to impute beliefs and motives to him, Dagonee, based only on his criticisms of factually and legally incorrect statements you make about President Bush, I can easily imagine he'd be reluctant to do so and expose himself to further misrepresentations and insults.
Perhaps if you weren't so obviously gnawing at the bit to catch him in something and jump him for it-and given your past jumpings, it's equally clear you won't let little things like what he actually says get in your way-he might talk about things on your terms.
Because apparently that's a requirement around here. "Talk about this issue in my terms, or you're going to bat for the person!"
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posted
Hmmm... I just realized you might mean something else by "And you won't. Nor will you entertain this the next time you go to bat for him. That pretty much says it all to me." That I'm going to defend something he says, and that this is a wrong thing to do because something earlier he said wasn't worth defending.
I hope you doin't mean that, because, if you do, it would be a really petty and anti-intellectual thing to be thinking.
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posted
Rakeesh, could you please clarify to whom that's addressed?
That is, is ", Dagonee," supposed to give specificity to the "him" to whom motives are being imputed to or is ", Dagonee," supposed to indicate that whole post is addressed to me and I am doing the imputing?
I think I know, but I don't want to presume.
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posted
That was to Mr. Squicky, about reasons why I imagine you (Dagonee) might be reluctant to enter a discussion on his (Mr. Squicky's) terms.
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posted
Well, what do you think this country should be about? You're right; I can't guess. While you say you think some things are important, you seem only to be interested in curbing the response of someone who thinks they are important enough to get upset about.
So I'll ask (and Dagonee can jump in here, too).
Do you think that 9/11 is sufficient justification to make the changes we have and are making with regards to secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, wire tapping without warrant, torture, and holding people without trial?
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posted
Dag, I believe that this establishes, pretty clearly, that OSC at least sometimes makes vitriolic perjorative statements about people with little to no evidence, little concern for the fairness of his accusations, and, when they turn out to be wrong, no appology or even aknowledgement.
From a man who has publically looked down on both of us (which, incidentally, speaks to me about the validity of your "he didn't say what you think that obviously says" defenses) as obviously not considering what he writes about as much as he does, this seems like a serious flaw.
---
I find this relevant especially because of the recent hypocritical attacks on Bill Clinton, many from the same people did as OSC did and unjustly attacked him at the time for his attempts to get bin Laden. I don't have a problem with people saying that the timing seemed somewhat suspicious. But hurling invective with absolute conviction seems to me a bit overboard. It seems to me that publicly, falsely smearing someone so vigorously would suggest a need for some sort of apology or perhaps just acknowledgement.
You know. The character thing.
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quote:While you say you think some things are important, you seem only to be interested in curbing the response of someone who thinks they are important enough to get upset about.
Is it really difficult to guess? I have trouble believing that, frankly. I say I think the direction we're going with regards to civil rights in the United States is very important, to the extent I want to make it more difficult for people who agree with that direction to discount criticisms easily.
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quote:I believe that this establishes, pretty clearly, that OSC at least sometimes makes vitriolic perjorative statements about people with little to no evidence, little concern for the fairness of his accusations, and, when they turn out to be wrong, no appology or even aknowledgement.
Without discussing the merits of what this article "establishes," I don't see why you think I don't agree with that statement - with the all important word "sometimes" that you included.
quote:I find this relevant especially because of the recent hypocritical attacks on Bill Clinton, many from the same people did as OSC did and unjustly attacked him at the time for his attempts to get bin Laden. I don't have a problem with people saying that the timing seemed somewhat suspicious. But hurling invective with absolute conviction seems to me a bit overboard.
Add this is relevant to me or the quote I made how, exactly? Or were you just using that quote to finally comment on the article you posted?
If so, I'm flattered. Usually you're capable of using your own words to comment on OSC's articles. I think only part of my statement actually applies to the article, though.
quote:From a man who has publically looked down on both of us (which, incidentally, speaks to me about the validity of your "he didn't say what you think that obviously says" defenses) as obviously not considering what he writes about as much as he does, this seems like a serious flaw.
And thank goodness you're here to dig through 6-year old editorials to point out his flaws!
quote:It seems to me that publicly, falsely smearing someone so vigorously would suggest a need for some sort of apology or perhaps just acknowledgement.
You know. The character thing.
Did I miss your retraction and apology for your accusation that Novak was being treated differently than Miller and the other reporter because he was favorable to the administration? I'm sorry if I did.
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posted
Yet instead of actually criticizing them, you spend your time taking me to task for how I criticize them.
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quote:I say I think the direction we're going with regards to civil rights in the United States is very important, to the extent I want to make it more difficult for people who agree with that direction to discount criticisms easily.
Given that, I submit that a more useful approach than criticising criticisms that you consider easy to discount might be to make criticisms which are harder to discount.
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quote:While you say you think some things are important, you seem only to be interested in curbing the response of someone who thinks they are important enough to get upset about.
Is it really difficult to guess? I have trouble believing that, frankly. I say I think the direction we're going with regards to civil rights in the United States is very important, to the extent I want to make it more difficult for people who agree with that direction to discount criticisms easily.
Apparently, it is. So I'll ask again:
Do you think that 9/11 is sufficient justification to make the changes we have and are making with regards to secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, wire tapping without warrant, torture, and holding people without trial?
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