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Tough President on Anti-TerrorAnother berkeley designing commentary 12/23/01A Washington Post story strongly criticizing Bill Clinton as weak or non-responsive to a string of terror attacks by bin Laden brought Mr Clinton to reveal quite the contrary. In fact, Clinton’s handling of bin Laden’s terrorizing was better than his predecessor and Clinton in typical fashion had the proof. Bin Laden was almost nailed by Clinton during a surprise cruise missile attack on Afghanistan, said soft-spoken Clinton spokesperson Lannie Davis to a skeptical Bill O’Reilly on the O’Reilly Factor, a Fox News program. “Missed him by just three hours” Davis said confidently, and the usually hard-hitting journalist found little response than a feeble “What did he do?!”. It is indeed true that bin Laden may have been in the camps three hours earlier, as the former president assured us, although other reports say the camps had been deserted for months. But even if true that bin Laden had not been there in Afghanistan, it could be that he had been visiting the Sudan medicine factory just hours before it was simultaneously hit with the cruise missile strike. This leads to a serious question as to whether Clinton’s limited and far less costly strikes may have been as effective in missing bin Laden as were George’s Bushes recent all out military campaign. While Clinton spent just tens of millions missing bin Laden, Bush’s figures may have hit into the billions, 60 billion dollars, perhaps. Davis continued with a list of accomplishments in Clinton’s anti-terrorist campaign. With O’Reilly’s repeated tossing of “But what did he do?”, Davis sternly explained “I think he was a very good president”, bringing a stymied O’Reilly to shake his head and say “Let’s go to break”. Clinton’s one evening cruise missile attack stands out as his single big accomplishment on fighting terror, and it didn’t cost 60 billion dollars. While some have criticized use of the slow moving cruise missiles on a moving target as the wrong weapon (after all, someone at the coast can merely call ahead and give about an hour warning), it’s also true that this particular weapon did not put American lives at risk and didn’t cost 60 billion dollars. And the Sudanese medicine factory did not simply “walk away” from the incoming missiles as the 50 million dollar US compensation to the plant’s owner proved, a far cry from the possible 60 billion dollars spent by his predecessor. Clinton was tough; and cost-effective. Mr. Davis certainly proved Mr. Clinton to be tough -- with PR not anti-terror. Back to News Page |
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