Why does Clinton get a pass for his military interventions in the 90s?

[Saint Milei]

Dude was borderline neo-con with his interventions. He is arguably the biggest War Hawk in American history.

[Mr. Smith]

He doesn't get a pass from me, however compared everyone post-Eisenhower not named Carter (including Obama on this), he looks like squeaky clean bleeding heart pacifist.


And please do refrain from hyperbole, Polk's still the biggest hawk by any objective measure.

[Lief 🗽]

His military interventions were mostly limited and successful; if anything, he didn't intervene enough (e.g. Rwanda or going after bin Laden). The only reason you'd have to criticize him is if you have some ideological opposition to military intervention that ignores reality.

[Lief 🗽]

If you're seriously equating Clinton's military interventions with Bush's then you're a f[inks]ing idiot, period, full stop. Jesus christ. You criticize me for having a black and white view, but your post is literally "ALL MILITARY INTERVENTIONS EVER = BAD"

[bedstuy]

His military interventions were mostly limited and successful; if anything, he didn't intervene enough (e.g. Rwanda or going after bin Laden). The only reason you'd have to criticize him is if you have some ideological opposition to military intervention that ignores reality.

Correct.  You can't compare a one year military engagement with less than 10 combat casualties to 8 or 10 year war where thousands of Americans died, many more thousands were crippled and trillions of dollars were wasted.  It's beyond idiotic.

[Ebsy]

His military interventions were mostly limited and successful; if anything, he didn't intervene enough (e.g. Rwanda or going after bin Laden). The only reason you'd have to criticize him is if you have some ideological opposition to military intervention that ignores reality.

Correct.  You can't compare a one year military engagement with less than 10 combat casualties to 8 or 10 year war where thousands of Americans died, many more thousands were crippled and trillions of dollars were wasted.  It's beyond idiotic.

Well, he does have a green avatar....

[Sol]

What I don't get is why people criticize Clinton so much over bombing Serbia--considering who he was fighting against. And Kosovo is the most successful example of genocide prevention I can think of.

[Sumner 1868]

I don't think he really gets a pass at this point. At least he stayed out of Rwanda.

[Sol]

I don't think he really gets a pass at this point. At least he stayed out of Rwanda.

I'm glad to learn that you hate Tutsis.

[Sumner 1868]

I don't think he really gets a pass at this point. At least he stayed out of Rwanda.

I'm glad to learn that you hate Tutsis.

I don't. If I did, I'd call for a Western intervention that would multiply their casualty rate by the truckload.

[Sol]

Umm, I'm pretty sure that what would have been a fairly minor military operation, in all likelihood through the UN, would have had fewer deaths than the deliberate targeting for mass murder of civilian populations. But what do I know, I'm just a Tutsi hater.

[bedstuy]

His military interventions were mostly limited and successful; if anything, he didn't intervene enough (e.g. Rwanda or going after bin Laden). The only reason you'd have to criticize him is if you have some ideological opposition to military intervention that ignores reality.

Correct.  You can't compare a one year military engagement with less than 10 combat casualties to 8 or 10 year war where thousands of Americans died, many more thousands were crippled and trillions of dollars were wasted.  It's beyond idiotic.

Well, he does have a green avatar....

Yes, and comments such as yours always reinforce my decision. I would also appreciate it if you stopped twisting my words. I have NOT compared Bush's military action to Clinton's (even though I consider all of them illegitimate).  

You did compare them.  And, you seem totally uninformed.

I'm sorry, but everything is not black and white.  It's not a choice of always being in favor of military action and never being in favor of military action.  As Barack Obama famously said, "I don't oppose all wars... What I am opposed to is a dumb war."

If you're opposed to all wars, fine.  But, don't act like there's no middle ground where reasonable people can disagree.  Not acknowledging the difference between the Iraq War and something like the US action in Haiti is just dishonest Republican hackery.  By what logic are those actions exactly the same?  You have to explain yourself or seem like an idiot.

[bedstuy]

First of all, success looks like peace and prosperity. 

The US lowered its military budget during the Clinton Presidency, saw fewer US troop casualties and injuries, and we didn't suffer any major foreign policy setbacks.  That's not necessarily all attributable to Bill Clinton, but these are facts. 

Under Bush, the military budget significantly increased, ten of thousands of Americans were injured or killed at war, we were attacked on our own soil, and the world got more dangerous, partly because of our own catastrophic errors.  And, forget about policy, Bush was horrendously incompetent.  Our invasion of Iraq was completely bungled by President Bush.  Bush was a terrible military leader.

Now, Kosovo and Iraq under Clinton.  Kosovo was a success.  We stopped the ethnic cleansing, we had zero combat fatalities, we worked hand-in-hand with our NATO allies, it was over in a year and the region has become more stable long-term.  It was successful.

Our Iraq policy was basically working under Clinton.  Saddam Hussein was being contained and weakened by our sanctions and he couldn't threaten neighboring countries,  And despite your incorrect statement, we didn't bomb them every day.  The only large scale bombing was Desert Fox in 1998.  But, Desert Fox had no American casualties and lasted for 3 days.

Obviously, Bill Clinton made mistakes as do all Presidents.  But, President Bush was an unmitigated disaster.  And, here you as, comparing two incidents with 0 (count em' zero) US combat fatalities to the Iraq War.  What are you smoking?

[Blair]

Well lets look

Somali-Not handled well, but had a UN Mandate. Not sure what he could of done.
Rwanda- Should have been more aggressive but scared after Somali
Kosovo- Only got in after Blair begged/foreced him to come in, but provided much needed air support.
Iraq- Launched stupid attacks that didn't really do much,

Sure, Clinton used the military. Much like Obama used it in Libya, and Bush used it in Panama. I thought Presidents get 1-2 free invasions before we start to question them.

[H. Ross Peron]

His military interventions were mostly limited and successful; if anything, he didn't intervene enough (e.g. Rwanda or going after bin Laden). The only reason you'd have to criticize him is if you have some ideological opposition to military intervention that ignores reality.

^This. For that matter, liberals didn't oppose the Iraq War because the President ordering it was a Republican but because it was unjustified and handled poorly; hence why they mostly supported the war in Afghanistan or the elder Bush's First Persian Gulf War.

[publicunofficial]

Ask anyone from the Balkans if they think Clinton was sucsessful and helped the region.

Then ask anyone from the Middle East what they think of George W. Bush.


It's not just some political hypocrisy, you faux-moderate tryhard.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Uh, our strategy in Kosovo was to bomb Serbian civilian targets completely outside the conflict zone until Milosevic surrendered, causing massive damage to civilian infrastructure in Belgrade, Novi Sad, and other cities. What's more, the conflict in Kosovo (which, again, was started by Albanian terrorists and drug cartels) continued on the ground, and NATO did nothing about the Serbian civilians who were driven out of Kosovo (or for that matter the Roma who also faced the brunt of Albanian violence). The current Kosovar prime minister was involved in organ smuggling.

In conclusion,

>2015
>taking the term "humanitarian intervention" seriously

[Хahar 🤔]

While I agree with Lief and bedstuy because I am in the possession of functioning synapses, it should be noted while we are on the subject of foreign policy that Africa is one place (perhaps the only place) where the Bush administration was much better than the Clinton administration, and nobody with knowledge of the situation denies this. Susan Rice's inaction with regard to the Congo was almost criminal, and when the United States began taking a proactive role in the region in 2001 it did wonders.

[bedstuy]

First of all, success looks like peace and prosperity.  

The US lowered its military budget during the Clinton Presidency, saw fewer US troop casualties and injuries, and we didn't suffer any major foreign policy setbacks.  That's not necessarily all attributable to Bill Clinton, but these are facts.  

Under Bush, the military budget significantly increased, ten of thousands of Americans were injured or killed at war, we were attacked on our own soil, and the world got more dangerous, partly because of our own catastrophic errors.  And, forget about policy, Bush was horrendously incompetent.  Our invasion of Iraq was completely bungled by President Bush.  Bush was a terrible military leader.

Now, Kosovo and Iraq under Clinton.  Kosovo was a success.  We stopped the ethnic cleansing, we had zero combat fatalities, we worked hand-in-hand with our NATO allies, it was over in a year and the region has become more stable long-term.  It was successful.

Our Iraq policy was basically working under Clinton.  Saddam Hussein was being contained and weakened by our sanctions and he couldn't threaten neighboring countries,  And despite your incorrect statement, we didn't bomb them every day.  The only large scale bombing was Desert Fox in 1998.  But, Desert Fox had no American casualties and lasted for 3 days.

Obviously, Bill Clinton made mistakes as do all Presidents.  But, President Bush was an unmitigated disaster.  And, here you as, comparing two incidents with 0 (count em' zero) US combat fatalities to the Iraq War.  What are you smoking?

Like I said before, it was a civil war. All sides in the conflict committed atrocities and ethnic cleansing. What about all the Serbs who were killed after or before the intervention? What about the UN which didn't grant Clinton the permission to bomb Yugoslavia? What about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children who died in the 90s as a result of the sanctions against Iraq? You keep talking about American casualties, but what about casualties in the other countries?

Our Iraq policy was basically working under Clinton.  Saddam Hussein was being contained and weakened by our sanctions and he couldn't threaten neighboring countries.

Why should Saddam Hussein have been weakened? Because of all the WMD which never existed? Also, if Saddam Hussein had ever intended to threaten or attack neighboring countries, he would have been crushed. He never intended to do it and Clinton still bombed Iraq.

Saddam Hussein invaded two of his neighboring countries, he had pursued WMDs and used chemical weapons, and was a genocidal dictator.  Let's not rewrite history.  But, that doesn't mean it's a prudent choice to invade an occupy Iraq.  Just like it's not a prudent idea to invade Sudan or North Korea.  But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to isolate and punish those regimes for their crimes.

As for the civilian casualties angle, what about the people who would have been killed if we allow every regime to ethnically cleanse and commit genocide?  And, the Iraq War killed a lot more Iraqi civilians than anything Bill Clinton did, by a long shot.

If you're a pacifist, sanctions and short-term bombing against air defense and military targets is bad, right?  And, in any case, Bill Clinton's actions in Iraq were better than the Iraq War in terms of civilian casualties and overall damage to both countries.  No?  We're talking orders of magnitude different.

But, let's get down to brass tacks, what is your principle for claiming these two Presidencies were basically the same?  I don't think you have one.  You're just claiming to be a pacifist so you can criticize Bill Clinton because you're a Republican hack.

If your principle is that you don't care about US troop casualties, the cost of the wars, the merit of the cause or the scale of the wars, that's crazy.  Is it just number of military engagements that matter to you? 

Intervention in Kosovo + 3 days of bombing Iraq in 1998 = 2
Iraq War = 1

Nobody looks at this issue that way.  You're just playing dumb because you're a Republican hack.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Because he's a Democrat.

[free my dawg]

[Boston Bread]

Because he's a Democrat.

Look on the why is Clinton hated thread and you'll see that's not the case.