Well, John, that's one way of putting it, but you know as well
as I do that it isn't the entire picture.
The push to downsize of the US military began during the GHW Bush's
term. Once the USSR collapsed, there was no longer any organ ised
enemy of millions to fight, and we weren't going to see T-72s
rolling across the German plains. While there was nothing wrong
with downsizing per se, the US military did need to retool to fight
a different kind of war, and they failed to do that. The mess in
Somalia highlighted that need, but the military was slow to adapt.
To put it simply, would the US military in 1989 be equipped to
fight the current war in Iraq by virtue of its size?
Clinton, being a Democrat, focussed more on domestic issues, and
say what you like of him, he handled the ecenomy well and did a
good job with national debt (okay, maybe you could argue that Sir
Alan was a big part of that as well, but Clinton was at the wheel).
That's not something that Michael Moore harps on about in his rabid
rantings.
That's inaccurate. The CIA formed a Bin Laden desk in 1996,
under Clinton's instructions. This desk worked constantly to get
Bin Laden, planning missile strikes and a capture operation in
conjunction with Afghan dissident groups. The problem was Pakistan,
which sympathised with the Taliban government and got in the way of
a number of those operations. Also, because of the nuclear testing
situation between India and Pakistan, the US government could not
lean on the Pakistanis too hard.
Aw, come on. Do you think that a president, despite his
strongest sentiments, would be allowed to make such a
politically-explosive statement to blame his predecessor? Besides,
he had the 9/11 Commission to rake Clinton over the coals for
him.
