It's news to me that a single guy could be a
conspiracy. Anyway, not exactly. But it
does seem that Clinton was aware of the
bumps he got in the polls any time he
bombed foreigners. It has been true for
some time that bombing foreigners is
generally a pretty safe political bet. Support
for military action in the US only becomes
dicey when ground troops are involved.

-------------------------------------------------

So Clinton is actually OK, it's Bush and the warmongers shoot em up blow em
up radicalised Republicans that are of real concern.

What's the Iraq body bag count now?

Actually, if Clinton was prone to bombings for the
narcissistic motive of keeping his polls up, isn't
that more disgusting?

--------------------------------------------

Sean:
Well hey yeah, IF it was true. But it ain't.
----------------------------------------------------

It used to be popular in response to allegations
of WMD lies to post quotes of everyone outside
of the W administration who claimed Saddam
had WMDs, including Clinton. In fact, Clinton
made it clear and unequivocal, as late as 2005,
that he supported the invasion of Iraq. He had
some minor criticisms of the handling of the
diplomacy and so on.

In any case, I think the invasion of Iraq was
inevitable after 9-11. If 9-11 had happened
a few years earlier, Clinton would have done
it. The W administration says they focused
on WMDs because they thought everyone
agreed on that issue. But was the real point
that Saddam might have some WWI era
poison gas weapons still stockpiled?
Certainly the defiance of the regime in the
face of inspectors might make observers
think he was hiding something.

It turned out he was hiding (from his internal
and neighboring enemies) that he _didn't_
have WMDs. Given the weakness of his
state at that point, it was his last ace.

In any case, the number who died during
sanctions far exceeds the number who
died in the war. In America, the number of
foreigners who die isn't really a consideration,
though. It's okay to bomb a small country
back to the stone age from a safe distance,
but send ground troops... and you are taking
a political risk.

It was said by one of his associates that Saddam
did not expect the US to carry through on the threat
to invade -- the dangers of not having our threats
credible.

Actually, bombings for the sake of opinion polls
are disgusting. I think Noam Chomsky considered
the bombing of the aspirin WMD factory in Sudan
a war crime.

--------------------------------------------------------

SEAN:
me too, but that's the problem when your Intelligence Services are so damn
un-intelligent.
They gave Clinton the "evidence" ... if he didn't do it, all the shoot em up
blow em Repubs would have claimed he was "soft on Terror" and not defending
the US.

How many ways do you want to slice this bundle of spaghetti you are rolling
out believing that it's evn close to rational or sane?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clearly, Clinton felt that he needed a boost in
the polls, and with Lewinski breaking out in the
news, he caved to Repuglican pressure to
actually do something in the former Yugoslavia.

Temporarily. Sometimes you fight a battle just
to win some time. Besides, he new he was the
Comback Kid, the unparalleled Mr. Teflon. You
could also ask why he bothered to commit perjury
about the whole affair if he didn't expect it to go
away? And, actually, it did, finally, go away.

One thing that strikes me about Clintonistas, too,
is that they say the whole thing was just about
"a blowjob," when the reason Monica Lewinski
came up on Starr's radar at all was because of a
sexual harassment lawsuit to which she was
called as a witness. I thought sexual harassment
was important to Democrats. And, if the Lewinski
affair looks like a witch trial, they can only blame
themselves for creating the conditions under which
such witch trials can arise.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Sean:
I'm not a Democrat, for starters, so I couldn't give a rats about that.
But I'm a conscious alive person capable of some genuine thought.
Oddly enough I was in the good ol USA during the "impeachment" fiasco.

Maybe you have no idea how utterly childish and ridiculous the USA sometimes
looks to people around the world. If you did, then maybe you wouldn't write
the sort of things you write. But, that's life.

I noticed there wasn't a cite to support your claim about Clinton, but I'm
sure if you checked Limbaugh archives you'd find heaps.

But mere opinion or a conspiracy theory doesn't actually count, in my book.
It may of course influence other Americans like yourself, but that as many
know, IS the main problem.

Overseas, they often call it ignorance. But they are usually more circumspec
than I. I call it "self-delusions". And even that is pulling my punches.
hehehe

Nice chatting. :-)