:: Da' Militant One's Lair ::

:: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 ::

This is a re-repost from four years ago:

:: Friday, August 23, 2002 ::

Blast From the Past:

October 2001 response to some Knucklehead from the Washington Times on "Clinton-Hating". It is very disgraceful the way you and other "Clinton Haters" can not let it go. My memory is not as short as your integrity. As I remember things, every time Clinton engaged in any retaliation or attack against terrorists or dictators, people like you said that he was trying to divert attention from his scandals. So much for unity and standing behind your president.

Let's go back to Kosovo. Here is an excerpt from an article dated 4/29/99:"

WASHINGTON -- In a sharp challenge to President Clinton, the House voted Wednesday to bar the President from sending ground troops to Yugoslavia without Congressional approval and then on a tie vote refused to support NATO air strikes against Serbia. The votes came during a day of heated and sometimes anguished speeches that showcased deep divisions in Congress over the escalating conflict in the Balkans. The all-day session marked the first formal Congressional debate since NATO began its bombing campaign on March 24 to drive the forces of the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, out of Kosovo. The Senate had voted on March 23 to approve the air strikes. The House voted 249 to 180 to require the President to seek Congressional approval for ground forces. Forty-five Democrats and an independent joined 203 Republicans to support the measure. Sixteen Republicans and 164 Democrats opposed the bill. But the surprise came when the House finished its deliberations this evening by failing to pass a Democratic resolution intended to give symbolic support to the President's air campaign. The measure failed in a tie vote of 213 to 213 even though Speaker J. Dennis Hastert threw his support behind it. In all, 31 Republicans broke with their party to back the air campaign and 26 Democrats voted against it.

"Wait there's more. How about May 1999:

WASHINGTON (May 2, 1999 5:34 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - President Clinton welcomed Yugoslavia's dramatic release Sunday of three U.S. soldiers, but his administration rebuffed a request for a pause in the airstrikes and for a meeting between Slobodan Milosevic and the president until the Serb leader agrees to all NATO demands. "This gesture ... of goodwill cannot obliterate or overcome the stench of evil and death that has been inflicted in those killing fields in Kosovo," Defense Secretary William Cohen said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Cohen and other U.S. officials sounded a hardline, suggesting Milosevic had simply engaged in a "PR stunt" in releasing the American prisoners. But the administration was coming under pressure from a variety of sources to seek a diplomatic end to the crisis - from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who arranged the soldiers' release, to two top Republican leaders in Congress. "As Jesse Jackson would say, 'Give peace a chance here,"' Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said on CNN's "Late Edition." "There seems to be some momentum. There's seems to be an opportunity. We should seize this moment." House Majority Whip Tom Delay, R-Texas, told "Fox News Sunday" that Clinton should meet Milosevic to negotiate an end to "this failed policy of bombing for diplomacy."

How about this one:

In Washington, some congressmen are calling for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from the Balkans. "The U.S. involvement should end now. We never should have been involved in the first place," a spokesman for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) told CNS.Paul and 17 other Members of Congress – two Democrats and fifteen Republicans – are suing President Clinton in federal court for allegedly violating the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Act by ordering air strikes in Yugoslavia.House Majority Whip Rep. Tom DeLay was also blunt on the bombing, as he addressed the House today. " I don't think we should be bombing in the Balkans. I don't think the present military presence should be maintained," said DeLay. DeLay also reiterated his support for a measure introduced by Rep. Campbell (R-CA) calling for the withdrawal of "any U.S. forces presently engaged in the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia."

Here's another one:

WASHINGTON, May 6 (IPS) - Despite six weeks of non-stop NATO bombing operations against Yugoslavia, the US Congress has been unable to form any consensus either for or against Washington's biggest military engagement since the 1991 Gulf War. For the administration and the Atlantic alliance, the lack of clear Congressional support for the campaign was ominous, given the failure so far to achieve any of their war aims on the ground and the legendary impatience of the US public. Votes taken in both the Senate and the House of Representatives - as well as ad hoc diplomatic efforts over the past week - exposed deep divisions among both Democrats and Republicans over the war and the way it was being fought. ''Not only can we (Congress) not speak with one voice on Kosovo,'' said one aide to a key Democratic Senator. ' 'We can't even speak with three or four or five. People are all over the map on this.'' Those divisions, both ideological and partisan, reflected differences between interventionists and anti-interventionists, isolationists and internationalists, and realists and idealists in both parties. They also reflected frustrations by many Republicans over their failure to dent the popularity of President Bill Clinton. For example, right-wing Republicans who back the military at any cost - particularly when US troops are engaged in combat - have done the most to undermine support for the NATO campaign, or ''Clinton's War,'' as they refer to it. Led by Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the driving force behind last year's unsuccessful impeachment effort against Clinton, these forces believed that the Kosovo intervention would end in disaster and seal the president's disgrace. Their position infuriated both the Democrats and much of the Republican foreign-policy establishment. The lack of support for the war defied the ''rally-'round-the-flag'' impulse which normally sweeps Congress once US troops are committed to action. The fact, however, that until Wednesday, when two Apache helicopter pilots were killed in a training mission in Albania, no US soldiers had died in the conflict appears to have tempered that reflex. Congressional incoherence on Kosovo became clear last week when the House cast three key votes on US strategy. The first - which requires Clinton to seek prior Congressional approval before committing ground forces to Kosovo - passed 249-180, with 45 Democrats joining the vast majority of Republicans on the vote. That result, which affirmed the constitutional role of Congress in war-making, was expected. But then, in a stunning blow to Clinton's policy, the House voted 213-213 to reject a resolution authorising US involvement in the current NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. In that vote, 26 Democrats joined some 190 Republicans to defeat the measure, which was virtually identical to one passed by the Republican-led Senate five weeks before. While House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the titular leader of the Republicans, voted for the measure, DeLay led the opposition, actively lobbying members on the floor. ''The extreme right wing of the Republican party remains in control of that party,'' commented an angry and amazed Minority Leader Dick Gephardt after the vote. But then, having just voted against the air war, the House rejected a third resolution - to withdraw all US military forces from the war within 30 days - 139-209, with a majority of Republicans, however, voting to pull out. In yet another reversal, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee the following day more than doubled a six- billion-dollar request by Clinton to fund US participation in the air war and humanitarian relief for Kosovar refugees. That bill, which is now worth 12.9 billion dollars, is expected to pass this week. ''Congress Set to Provide Money, But No Guidance, for Kosovo Mission,'' is the way the authoritative 'Congressional Weekly' headlined the votes, although some editorial writers and many Democrats were considerably harsher in assessing the House's performance. The incoherence, especially among Republicans, has not been confined to the House. Earlier this week, the leadership of both parties used procedural manoeuvres to prevent a vote on a resolution that would authorise Clinton to use ''all necessary force'' to achieve US and NATO's war aims in Yugoslavia. The resolution was sponsored by Republican Senator and presidential aspirant John McCain and two prominent foreign-policy Democrats, all of whom had emerged as among the war's foremost defenders since the air campaign began Mar 24. The idea behind the resolution was to empower Clinton to move towards a ground war in Yugoslavia without having to seek further authority from Congress. Fearing the resolution's defeat, the administration worked actively to get it off the agenda. But the debate surrounding the resolution highlighted deep ideological and partisan differences within the Senate. Like his right-wing colleagues in the House, for example, Majority Leader Trent Lott repeatedly referred to the NATO operation as ''Clinton's war.'' And, echoing anti-war Democrats of a previous generation, many Republicans said the proposal amounted to a ''Gulf of Tonkin'' resolution which in 1964 gave President Lyndon Johnson the authority to carry out the disastrous Vietnam War. In an ironic reversal, many Democrats, including some who participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement, argued that Washington's and NATO's credibility was at stake in Kosovo and withholding military options at this point would only undermine that credibility and encourage Serbia to resist. That reversal highlighted a trend within both parties which has become increasingly pronounced since the end of the Cold War. Democrats, the ''doves'' accused of isolationism for their opposition to the Vietnam War, have become interventionist ''hawks'' in the post-Cold War era. Republicans, the hawks of the Cold War, on the other hand, have become increasingly opposed to Washington's overseas entanglements, even as they support big increases in US military spending.


So as you can see Clinton was opposed by the republican congress at almost every turn. The likes of Tom Delay and Trent Lott did as much to further the cause of those who want to destroy America by thwarting Clinton at almost every turn. Don't worry, I will send you more examples concerning Clinton's fight on terrorism. The feckless nature of the republican congress concerning Kosovo is still vivid for me so I used it as my first argument. So don't tell me what Clinton would have done. Instead tell me about the unpatriotic nature of the republican congress in supporting the president when he needed them to rally around him and the country! I understand that this is impossible for people like you. Facts be damned!
:: DM1 8/23/2002 12:25:47 PM [+] :: ...

:: DM1 11/08/2005 05:52:00 AM [+] ::
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