Clinton's Accomplishments???

[Bunz]

Well Berreal, I didnt think Id say this again, but I agree with you on your notions.
Clinton not going after OBL when "he had the chance" is not quite a fair statement in my opinion. Who knows if the missles get fired if they hit thier intended target. Dont misread to say that he was aiming at civilians etc. But who knows if person A. Will be there when missle X hits where they think they are. This is something all military and political leaders gamble with when attempting that sort of thing. Bush didnt have much luck with similar situations on Saddam or OBL. But neither did German Generals in thier attempts on Hitler. Despite serveral other examples that I cant think of in the 20th & 21st century. The one that pops into my mind was the shoot down of Adm. Yamamoto in WWII.
In comparision with Clinton and all the rest of the post Vietnam Presidents he is right on par with Reagan and Bush 41. Bush sr. did a good job with successful actions in Panama and the first Gulf War. Reagan did well in Grenada. Clinton did manage to with key help with our allies bring the former Yugoslavia into a much more peaceful place than when he took office. Granted we still have troops there, but if it is necessary I am fine with it, because they are acting as peace keepers and not police officers and not being killed or wounded on a daily basis. Clinton, Bush 41 and Reagan was wise to follow the Powell Doctrine in those disputes. The lessons learned by Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton in military action taught by Powell seem to be rather absent in our current President. All Bush has done was to marginalize a man who could have easily been President of this nation. Powell is what brought Bush some legitamacy to his administration, and all Bush did was cash in all of the credibility Powell had acrued in his public life. This I think is the most shameful personal act that Bush has done in his time in office.
About Somalia, we had one bad day, there is no doubt about that. The important lesson to be learned from that one is this. We shouldnt be in countries despite our noble ideals on why we are there, when the local citizenry or government doesnt want us there. Basically it boils down to this. We need to scale back our lightly veiled imperialism, and just as importantly we need not continue in unpopular conflicts in the eyes of the American people. If your country is embroiled in civil war and the population is starving and despite the US's effort to help, you kill a bunch of Americans and damage untold millions in equipment. Fine we will take our toys and go home and you can sort it out among yourselves. Bottom line is, Americans dont like turning on thier TVs and seeing burning helicopters and dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets and mutilated. The commander in Chief is first loyal to the constitution and then to the American people. When the American people want out, we need to get out. If not, the President better have a damn good reason that will convince us otherwise.

 

[Coyote]

Clinton made plenty of mistakes. In my opinion, the worst one is not seizing Osama when he had the chance. I also think his mishandling of the Somalia issue was an extremely costly mistake. Osama cites Somalia as his single most important recruiting/propaganda tool in securing Islamic suicide bombers -- saying that Clinton's actions made America look like a "paper tiger that would run after a few blows of defeat" or something to that extent.

According to the facts - getting Osama was never even a real possibility. In terms of choices and handling Somalia, it's also important to remember he was dealing with a hostile and isolationist Congress. Neither Congress nor the American public were supportive of foreign military operations beyond airstrikes that did not put Americans in harms way.

In reality - it is Bush's actions that make America look like a "paper tiger". Bush and co. started a war of "choice" and refused to commit 100% to the effort. In effect - they were trying to show that they could run a war on the cheap, in multiple arena's and win rather than commit the troops necessary in the beginning (and listen to their military experts) to get the job done. In addition - unlike Clinton who ammassed troops at the border to back up his negotiations with N. Korea - Bush's policy has been nothing more then rhetoric. He has proposed war on weaker targets that offered little real threat to the US - Iraq - and ignored stronger threats (N. Korea). He has shown the world that the US either can't or won't back up it's words, is bogged down in an endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneiously issuing military threats to Iran and North Korea that it can't back up. Not every thing needs to be handled by military options.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Bunz, I agree with a lot of what you say. However, I still believe that Clinton (Berger, really) should have given the agents the go-ahead when they had OBL in their sights.

Concerning Somalia, whether or not you think we should have been there I still believe that it was a mistake to immediately pull-out after the Black Hawk Down incident and not finish the job (getting Aidid). One of my best friends (a Marine) was in Somalia at the time (though he didn't see any combat) and he said that everyone up and down the chain of command knew where Aidid was and had the means to get him but Clinton and Berger tied their hands, creating a national embarrasment that served as bin Laden's most important recruiting tool leading up to the embassay bombings, Cole, 9/11, etc.

On foreign involvement, I too would like to see us scale back on our inteventionism and foreign aid.

 

[Coyote]

Bunz, I agree with a lot of what you say. However, I still believe that Clinton (Berger, really) should have given the agents the go-ahead when they had OBL in their sights.

Concerning Somalia, whether or not you think we should have been there I still believe that it was a mistake to immediately pull-out after the Black Hawk Down incident and not finish the job (getting Aidid). One of my best friends (a Marine) was in Somalia at the time (though he didn't see any combat) and he said that everyone up and down the chain of command knew where Aidid was and had the means to get him but Clinton and Berger tied their hands, creating a national embarrasment that served as bin Laden's most important recruiting tool leading up to the embassay bombings, Cole, 9/11, etc.

On foreign involvement, I too would like to see us scale back on our inteventionism and foreign aid.

It wasn't Clinton that wanted the immediate pull-out from Somalia, it was the Republican Congress.

Republican Senators forced Clinton to withdraw troops by imposing troop withdrawal deadlines on him and threatening further restrictions on his ability to keep troops there.

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

It wasn't Clinton that wanted the immediate pull-out from Somalia, it was the Republican Congress.

Republican Senators forced Clinton to withdraw troops by imposing troop withdrawal deadlines on him and threatening further restrictions on his ability to keep troops there.

owned

nice post. you're not going to change anyone's mind though. opinions are made up by D's and R's and supporting evidence can always be found to support it.

 

[palerider]

.Under President Clinton's leadership, almost 6 million
new jobs were created in the first two years of his
Administration -- an average of 250,000 new jobs every
month.

Which initiative created these jobs?

In 1994, the economy had the lowest combination of
unemployment and inflation in 25 years.

Which legislation brought that about?

.As part of the 1993 Economic Plan, President Clinton cut
taxes on 15 million low-income families and made tax cuts
available to 90 percent of small businesses, while raising
taxes on just 1.2 percent of the wealthiest taxpayers.

I am far from the wealthiest and my taxes went up. And those low income families didn't pay taxes in the first place.

.President Clinton signed into law the largest deficit
reduction plan in history, resulting in over $600 billion
in deficit reduction. The deficit went down for 3 years
in a row for the first time since Harry Truman was
president.

And it failed. As indicated by your own graphs, the deficit went up every year of his administration. Maybe you need lessons in reading a graph.

.The economy created 7.7 million new jobs in the first 34
months of this Administration.

Once more, what did he do to create all those jobs?

.Passed the largest deficit-cutting plan in history --
saving more than $1 trillion over seven years.

If reducing the deficit was the goal, it failed because the deficit never went down. Again, refer to your own graphs.

 

[Bunz]

Firstly, USMC, I dont always agree with you, but I do have respect for your opinions, it brings a different but valuable side of the story. I agree that we pulled out to quick from Somalia. Regardless of who it was, at the cost of 18 lives, at the very least we should have gotten Aidid. It is interesting to note how a relatively routine operation for the soldiers involved turned into a total domino fall cluster F**K. It was a failure on many different level, as any disaster always is. But I will agree, with Coyote, I remember a GOP congress that raised hell over the issue, as they did with Operation Desert Fox, after Saddam ejected WMD inspectors.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Firstly, USMC, I dont always agree with you, but I do have respect for your opinions, it brings a different but valuable side of the story.

Thank you and the same to you, sir.

I agree that we pulled out to quick from Somalia. Regardless of who it was, at the cost of 18 lives, at the very least we should have gotten Aidid.

This is what I am saying. In addition to the national embarrasment aspect (having their dead bodies dragged through the streets), we did only lose 18 soldiers while I have seen estimates of the number of Aidid's militia killed anywhere between 1,000 to 10,000. We certainly didn't lose on the battlefield, we lost in the political arena and in the media.

It is interesting to note how a relatively routine operation for the soldiers involved turned into a total domino fall cluster F**K. It was a failure on many different level, as any disaster always is. But I will agree, with Coyote, I remember a GOP congress that raised hell over the issue, as they did with Operation Desert Fox, after Saddam ejected WMD inspectors.

This is true. I'll admit, I wasn't too interested in politics back in 1993 (all I cared about was which girl I was going to date next) but it does seem as though we saw this coming. Aidid was using hunger as his weapon -- which is the UN was there in the first place but they failed like usual and had to call on the big, bad imperialist U.S. to come help -- and his militia was determined at preventing any food relief from reaching the Somalis. Clearly, trouble was on the horizon.

 

[top gun]

According to the facts - getting Osama was never even a real possibility. In terms of choices and handling Somalia, it's also important to remember he was dealing with a hostile and isolationist Congress. Neither Congress nor the American public were supportive of foreign military operations beyond airstrikes that did not put Americans in harms way.

In reality - it is Bush's actions that make America look like a "paper tiger". Bush and co. started a war of "choice" and refused to commit 100% to the effort. In effect - they were trying to show that they could run a war on the cheap, in multiple arena's and win rather than commit the troops necessary in the beginning (and listen to their military experts) to get the job done. In addition - unlike Clinton who ammassed troops at the border to back up his negotiations with N. Korea - Bush's policy has been nothing more then rhetoric. He has proposed war on weaker targets that offered little real threat to the US - Iraq - and ignored stronger threats (N. Korea). He has shown the world that the US either can't or won't back up it's words, is bogged down in an endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneiously issuing military threats to Iran and North Korea that it can't back up. Not every thing needs to be handled by military options.

As expected I would agree with your assessment Coyote.

Bin Laden has proven to be a very slippery character. Clinton did make attempts to get him... but much like the Tora Bora situation under Bush Bin Laden has that extremely loyal internal support from the locals and a superior knowledge of the terrain which makes him a very hard target indeed.

Somalia had it's own unique problems as all uprisings of that type do.

I think if we look at the fact that with between 150,000 and 200,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined Bush has not been able to capture or kill Bin Laden you can't judge Clinton to harshly at all at that early stage of the game.

People tend to forget that although these terrorists love to show that desert training camp film all their damage (before we entered Iraq) was really done by small groups of lunatic bombers... in 9-11 suicide hijackers. Now that they have a large local target they have grouped up somewhat to try and kill our brave men & women.

Terrorists are different than a standing opposing Army. The strategy has to reflect that.

 

[top gun]

The whole "look at the graphs" argument only helps document how well Clinton did. If you look at the graphs before Clinton and after Clinton you see that under Clinton was the only time from Reagan to date that the deficit line became almost a straight line EAST. It moderated dramatically from the skyrocketing NORTH, NORTH, NORTH trends under everyone else.

Saying that it's not deficit cutting by President Clinton stopping that out of control REPUBLICAN NORTHERN SPIRAL cutting REPUBLICAN projected deficit by hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars to an almost static number that would have definitely created a large surplus had the Clinton plan been left in place...is silly and just partisan banter.

I think any reasonable person would agree that in reducing a huge projected defect you first stop the bleeding by stopping the rate of the arch of increase... then bring it down to even... then build the surplus. Even a monkey can look at those graphs and see Clinton did a great job.

The experts are experts for a reason... they were absolutely right!

Experts Agree That President Clinton's 1993 Economic Plan Helped Cut the Deficit, Lower Interest Rates, Spur Business Investment, and Strengthen the Economy. The economy and the budget are now working in a virtuous circle -- lower deficits have led to lower interest rates which have led to faster business investment which led to faster growth which led to even lower deficits. Experts agree that President Clinton's 1993 Economic Plan helped create this virtuous circle.

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman, 2/20/96: The deficit reduction in the President's 1993 Economic Plan was "an unquestioned factor in contributing to the improvement in economic activity that occurred thereafter."

Business Week, 5/19/97: "Clinton's 1993 budget cuts, which reduced projected red ink by more than $400 billion over five years, sparked a major drop in interest rates that helped boost investment in all the equipment and systems that brought forth the New Age economy of technological innovation and rising productivity."

Goldman Sachs, March 1998: One of the reasons Goldman Sachs cites for "the best economy ever" is that "on the policy side, trade, fiscal, and monetary policies have been excellent, working in ways that have facilitated growth without inflation. The Clinton Administration has worked to liberalize trade and has used any revenue windfalls to reduce the federal budget deficit."

U.S. News & World Report, 6/17/96: "President Clinton's budget deficit program begun in 1993... [led] to lower interest rates, which begat greater investment growth (by double digits since 1993, the highest rate since the Kennedy administration), which begat three-plus years of solid economic growth averaging 2.6 percent annually, 50 percent higher than during the Bush presidency."

Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Audacity, Fall 1994: "The deficit has come down, and I give the Clinton Administration and President Clinton himself a lot of credit for that... and I think we're seeing some benefits."

Fortune, 10/3/94: "[The President's 1993] economic plan helped bring interest rates down, spurring the recovery."

 

[Popeye]

Which initiative created these jobs?



Which legislation brought that about?



I am far from the wealthiest and my taxes went up. And those low income families didn't pay taxes in the first place.



And it failed. As indicated by your own graphs, the deficit went up every year of his administration. Maybe you need lessons in reading a graph.



If reducing the deficit was the goal, it failed because the deficit never went down. Again, refer to your own graphs.

These questions and baseless conclusions of yours have been answered and refuted again, and again and again. His accomplishments, with sources, have been listed again, and again and again. You are in such denial of Bill Clinton's accomplishments that you have even gone so far as to call a man such as Alan Greenspan a liar. That you would have to go to such questionable lengths to try and deny his accomplishments, says something about the strength and success of Bill Clinton's presidency. When Bill Clinton was President, the country exuded optimism, now under George Bush it exudes pessimism. History will rate Bill Clinton as one of our finest, accept it.

 

[Coyote]

If reducing the deficit was the goal, it failed because the deficit never went down. Again, refer to your own graphs.

Despite a hostile Congress - he managed to get the growth of the debt down to 0.32% (one third of one percent) his last year in office. That's better then either his predecessor or his successors.

 

[ArmChair General]

These questions and baseless conclusions of yours have been answered and refuted again, and again and again. His accomplishments, with sources, have been listed again, and again and again. You are in such denial of Bill Clinton's accomplishments that you have even gone so far as to call a man such as Alan Greenspan a liar. That you would have to go to such questionable lengths to try and deny his accomplishments, says something about the strength and success of Bill Clinton's presidency. When Bill Clinton was President, the country exuded optimism, now under George Bush it exudes pessimism. History will rate Bill Clinton as one of our finest, accept it.

thats pretty much what he does in every thread. but its cool. me and P-Rider we homys.

 

[vyo476]

These questions and baseless conclusions of yours have been answered and refuted again, and again and again. His accomplishments, with sources, have been listed again, and again and again. You are in such denial of Bill Clinton's accomplishments that you have even gone so far as to call a man such as Alan Greenspan a liar. That you would have to go to such questionable lengths to try and deny his accomplishments, says something about the strength and success of Bill Clinton's presidency. When Bill Clinton was President, the country exuded optimism, now under George Bush it exudes pessimism. History will rate Bill Clinton as one of our finest, accept it.

In most cases, I don't believe pale rider is denying that these positive things happened (like, for instance, the creation of jobs). What he is denying is that Bill Clinton caused them to happen.

 

[vyo476]

thats pretty much what he does in every thread. but its cool. me and P-Rider we homys.

It's ArmChair's world. We just live in it.