Leo,
How do you figure?
I see a distinction between setting off a car bomb and shooting at a
policeman, but I fail to see how Clinton (and other presidents) are more
like the latter than the former.
When Clinton bombed the factory is Sudan, there was no danger of anyone
firing back, and the evidence linking the factory to Bin-Laden was
basically nil. It was a civilian target, and the order was almost
certainly politically motivated rather than an attempt to cripple
Bin-Laden's activities. And I wonder how Pakistanis view the errant
missle, meant for Bin-Laden's HQ, that struck their country? When Clinton
bombed the Serbs, there was virtually no chance of US casualties, civilian
targets were routinely hit, civilian casualties were a matter of record
during the bombing, and even Albanians refugees were killed by US
munitions. Add in the environmental damage caused by destroyed chemical
plants and the use of DU shells, and its hard to argue that the bombing
was anything but a terrorist campaign.
Then there is the ongoing sanctions against Iraq, which has caused a
tremendous amount of civilian suffering. The sanctions are worse than
indiscriminate because they target the most vulnerable (and innocent)
segments of Iraqi society while the top governement officials suffer the
least.
Brett
>>McVeigh and the Irish Republican who sets off a bomb on a crowded street
are
>>in the same moral situation as Clinton, Bush, and their servants, who if
>>the newspapers are to be believed have also set off bombs on crowded
>>streets and blown up day care centers. (Literally, they have other
people
>>do these things, speaking of cowardice.) I haven't seen anything by
>>Cockburn or Vidal that justify this sort of thing as good in itself;
what
>>they are pointing out is that McVeigh is not
>>different from Clinton and the others except for the scale of his
>>operations.
>
>In my view, this collapses the distinctions once again. What Clinton is
>responsible for is something more akin to shoot ing at a policeman or a
>soldier.