Nerve Endings Firing Away

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A favorite ducking tactic of the neo-conservatives is blaming Clinton. Every time a controversial decision is taken or a dubious policy implemented, the Clinton mantra is revived to show how before Bush, President Clinton had done something similar. This is done under the pretext that if Clinton could do it and get away, so can we. Except of course, if memory serves us correctly, Clinton never really got away with anything. When the Libby pardon issue made the news, every conservative worth his salt pointed to the Clinton pardons unmindful of the fact that every President before Clinton such as their favorite Reagan and Bush Senior had done the same. Of course, a little fact that the Libby pardon implied taking care of their own never seemed to make an impression. If pardons inherently are so bad then why not amend the Constitution and do away with it? After all, amending the Constitution has been brought up previous in far serious matters like habeus corpus.

But this isn’t about dissecting the pardon conundrum but rather examining the fascination of neocons for Clinton especially when it comes to justifying their actions. Over the weekend, NY Times reported some serious news that failed to make it on the news circuit. Of course, we can’t blame the mainstream media because after whipping up a frenzy over the iPhone and following Paris Hilton, they hardly have time left for such trivialities. NY Times reported that the United States aborted a raid on Al-Qeada chiefs in Pakistan as late as 2005. Incidentally, Ayman Al-Zawahri, Osama Bin Laden’s top deputy was in attendance at that meeting:

The mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled.

Mr. Rumsfeld decided that the operation, which had ballooned from a small number of military personnel and C.I.A. operatives to several hundred, was cumbersome and put too many American lives at risk, the current and former officials said. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan, an often reluctant ally that has barred the American military from operating in its tribal areas.

So Mr.Rumsfeld, the hardened Secretary of Defense who was in charge of his boss’s mission to smoke them out chickened out at the last minute. Why? Because he was afraid of putting lives at risk and causing a rift with their local ally, Pakistan. Gosh! He almost sounds like a liberal. Mind you, this perhaps would be a sound decision considering the delicate power relationships formed post-9/11 . America, of course, could not act on its own and perhaps needed Pakistan’s help in nabbing key Al-Qaeda operatives but such nuanced consequences-oriented policy doesn’t go down well their the neocon base who often indulge in rhetoric like ‘bombing them back to stone age’.

So where does the Clinton angle come in this scenario? Well, if you remember then in that Administration-place documentary on genesis of 9/11 on ABC last year, the conservative pundits had blasted Clinton and National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger for hesitating to act in a similar situation in Afghanistha. This was many years before 9/11 so perhaps their was no public outcry expected. But Rumsfeld’s decision to ‘pull a Clinton’ shows that not much has changed. Yet no one is mentioning the Clinton angle here. Pray why not?

Update: It seems that Republicans aren’t simply aiming to emulate Clinton on political matters but also personal matters. Sen. David Vitter (also a former Rhodes scholar like Clinton) who had asked for Clinton’s resignation from the Presidency over an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky was found to be associated with the infamous DC Madam. Now will he heed his own advice to Clinton? His wife was quite the feisty woman at the time the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke - “I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.” Now please Mrs.Vitter, carry out your threat.

by Patrix | on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 6:27 pm | Current Affairs, Media, Politicking, United States . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.