Quote:
Originally posted by sjwalter@Oct 19 2004, 03:12 AM
Why does Clinton need a coalition. US is a world power, they don't need help from other countries.
Clinton avoided the issue IMO by shooting the missiles, just to divert the people's attention from, we were attacked, to, we fought back, even if it was a week strike against the terrorists.
He hit how many camps? I'm sure there were hundreds more then the ones he hit, so in retrospect he did nothing to cut short the terrorism.
And i guess they do cancel each other out, although i'll stand by mine. 
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My friend, you need to get educated on the situation and why things are done the way they are. You are aware that Afghanistan is a land locked country? You are aware that to fire a missle at the country in question requires you to cross the airspace of another sovereign nation, and to do so requires permission to access this airspace? You can not unilaterally decide to fire a missle at anbother country, even if you are the United States. You have to have permission to fly that missle through the airspace of the other country.
As well you have to recognize that al Qeada was not considered the major threat it was prior to the attacks on the African embassies and the USS Cole. After this the intelligence community really stepped up their efforts to pull together their information on this organization. Prior to this the intelligence community was still developing much of their intel. bin Laden had been pin pointed but much of the senior al Qeada officiers had not been fully documented. Also it was not a given where bin Laden was at this time. This is why Clinton authorized the bombing of targets within both Sudan AND Afghanistan. bin Laden was actually in transition after the Cole attack, moving from Sudan to Afghanistan.
You also have to understand that there were not "hundreds" of camps. That would have been fiscally impossible for bin Laden and al Qeada to support. It also would have been extremely difficult to maintain. There were three or four (I've seen references to both) camps in Afghanistan and they weren't exactly what we would see as great targets anyways. The facilities really were nothing more than rock buildings and some rudimentary training tools. The attacks were more of a message than an attempt to put anything out of business.
Frankly it doesn't make much sense to think that al Qeada was a target for extermination. For one thing, it was illegal under US law at the time. This changed, but it was not possible for the President to authorize an assassination until long after the Cole attack. So to try and blame Clinton is kind of lame. He developed the intelligence bodies that were non-existent under Reagan and Bush41. He worked within the framework that the laws of the time allowed for. He did what he could and what was acceptable at that point.