MWO's (INCOMPLETE) POCKET GUIDE TO RIGHT-WING LIES ABOUT BILL CLINTON
AND OSAMA BIN LADEN
from:
http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/The right-wing and the Media Whores continue to spread the atrocious lie that Bill Clinton did little or nothing to stand up to Osama bin Laden. It has been part of the right-wing excuse machine since September 11 -- the old trick of, when cornered, blame Clinton. Rush Limbaugh's smear in the Wall Street Journal was typical: "Mr. Clinton can be held culpable for not doing enough when he was commander-in-chief to combat the terrorists who wound up attacking the World Trade Center and Pentagon."
...And now, in the wake of the continuing breaking news of the Bush 9/11 scandal, the right wing and the Whores are at it once again, trying to apply a fresh coat of Teflon to the pitted Bush Administration by telling lies about Bill Clinton. Supposedly, Clinton did nothing when Al Qaeda attacked American embassies in Somalia and elsewhere, when it attacked the U.S.S. Cole,
and so on and so on. The right wing and its pliable Whores have even convinced a sizeable portion of the American people -- at least according to one of the Media Whore polls -- that Clinton's inaction is in partly to blame for the atrocities of September 11.
CLINTON'S INACTION? This is one of the ugliest right-wing/Media Whore lies yet. But since the news media are too frightened of Dubya and Karl to tell the truth, MWO has to fill in the gap. Here, adapted from one of Bill Press's old columns, is a highly incomplete list of steps that Bill Clinton and his Administration took against bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Compare it to the utter inaction/
failure -- indeed, the complete abandonment of Clinton's determined anti-terrorist policies -- by the Bush Administration over the first eight months of 2001.
1996
Clinton administration brokers an agreement with the government of Sudan to arrest bin Laden and turn him over to Saudi Arabia. For 10 weeks, Clinton tried to persuade the Saudis to accept the offer. They refused. With no cooperation from the Saudis, the deal fell apart. No media operation bothers to look into what influence the Saudis' old friends in the Bush family may have had in convincing the Saudis to refuse to cooperate.
1998
-- Clinton gives the CIA a green light to use whatever covert means are necessary to gather information on Osama bin Laden and his followers, and to disrupt and preempt any planned terrorist activities against the United States.
-- The CIA, under Clinton, trains and equips five dozen commandos from Pakistan to enter Afghanistan and capture bin Laden. The efforts collapse when a military coup overthrows the Pakistani government and installs a new one.
-- Clinton signs a secret agreement with Uzbekistan to begin joint covert operations against bin Laden and Afghanistan's Taliban regime. U.S. Special Forces have been training there ever since.
-- Clinton's unleashes cruise missile attacks on bin Laden in Afghanistan and the Sudan, following the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Operating on limited intelligence --
at that time, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tazikistan refused to share information on the terrorists whereabouts inside Afghanistan -- American forces miss killing bin Laden by only a couple of hours.
-- Republicans (led by Trent Lott) and Naderites (led by Ralph Nader) accuse Clinton of only firing missiles in order to divert media attention from the Lewinsky hearings. A longer campaign against bin Laden would have stirred up even more criticism.
1998-99
-- Clinton sponsors legislation to freeze the financial assets of international organizations suspected of funneling money to bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, but it is killed, on behalf of big banks, by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. George Bush will later call for identical legislation
-- but only after September 11, 2001.
1999-2000
-- Clinton Administration, through press spokesman Joe Lockhart, goes public with warnings of a "general" threat from Al Qaeda. Clinton's intelligence agencies then stop cold bin Laden's planned "millennium" bombing plot aimed against the Los Angeles International Airport.
As we say, this is a HIGHLY incomplete list. (MWO invites readers to send in their favorite additional examples.) For more details about Clinton Administration anti-bin Laden activities in 2000, and Bush Administration indifference, see Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff's current Newsweek article, including the following passage:
By the end of the Clinton administration, the then national-security adviser Sandy Berger had become "totally preoccupied" with fears of a domestic terror attack, a colleague recalls. True, the Clintonites had failed to act decisively against Al Qaeda, but by the end they were certain of the danger it posed. When, in January 2001, Berger gave Rice her handover briefing, he covered the bin Laden threat in detail, and, sources say, warned her: "You will be spending more time on this issue than on any other."
Rice was alarmed by what she heard, and asked for a strategy review. But the effort was marginalized and scarcely mentioned in ensuing months as the administration committed itself to other priorities, like national missile defense (NMD) and Iraq. Clinton fought bin Laden tooth and nail -- whereas the Bush Administration cut off drone tracking of bin Laden, abandoned federal oversight of terrorist money laundering and offshore banking operations, and, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, ordered federal agencies to "back off" the bin Laden family.
Full StoriesBill Press
NewsweekFeel free to download this handy pocket guide and carry it around with you. And the next time a Republic or a Naderite within earshot tries to unload the lies about Clinton's inaction regarding bin Laden, let 'em have it, right from the source!!
