Who really fought a war on terror?

With my third shift schedule and random patterns of sleeping, I never get a chance to listen to NPR's Fresh Air during the week, so I felt lucky to catch a repeat while running some errands yesterday. Richard Clarke was he guest on the repeated show, and near the end he had this to say which I found very interesting, if not very incriminating. (No link, found transcript via Lexis/Nexis.) It's a rather long exchange between Clarke and Gross, so put on your reading goggles.

GROSS: Let me read something you say about President Bush in your book. You write, 'When he focused, he asked the kind of questions that revealed a bumper-sticker description of the problem. Once he had that, he could put energy behind a drive to achieve his goal. The problem was that many of the important issues, like terrorism, like Iraq, were laced with important subtlety and nuance. These issues needed analysis, and Bush and his inner circle had no real interest in complicated analyses on the issues they cared about. They already knew the answers. It was received wisdom.' Let's get back to what you're saying about President Bush here; that he had a 'bumper-sticker description of problems.'

Mr. CLARKE: Well, I think one of my favorite quotes from President Bush is, quote, "I don't do nuance," unquote. That's his self-description. And, you know, many of these problems are very nuanced, technical, detailed kinds of things that you can't reduce to a bumper-sticker slogan, like, 'Fight the war on terrorism.' And it takes attention, it takes time, it takes analysis. And they're not too fond of analysis.

GROSS: What do you hope your testimony to the September 11th commission will accomplish?

Mr. CLARKE: Well, I think, for one thing, it will set the record straight about what the Clinton administration did and did not do; set the record straight about what the Bush administration did and did not do. You know, the Clinton administration is not blameless here. And recent press coverage of my book has focused on my criticism of the Bush administration, but that's one chapter in the book. There's a lot of blame to go around. The Clinton administration did accomplish some things, which are not widely known, but it also failed in some areas. Among the things it did, which are not widely known, is it did retaliate militarily for terrorist attacks against Iraq, against al-Qaeda, which the previous Bush administration and the previous Reagan administration had not done. We had hundreds of Americans killed during the Reagan administration in Beirut, and there was no military retaliation against the terrorists. Hundreds of Americans killed by Libya in Pan Am 103 in the Bush administration, and there was no military retaliation against the terrorists.

So Clinton did use military retaliation. He effectively stopped Iraqi-sponsored terrorism against the United States. He effectively stopped Iranian-sponsored terrorism against the United States. He prevented al-Qaeda from taking over Bosnia when it was trying to do so. He stopped the attacks in the millennium period. He stopped many al-Qaeda attacks. But he did not eliminate al-Qaeda. Why? It's easy for us now, after 9/11, to say that we should have done this or that beforehand. But when Clinton left office, fewer than 50 Americans had been killed by al-Qaeda over the course of eight years. Contrast that to the figures I just gave you for the terrorist deaths under Reagan and Bush. A lot of people [tasnote: read Bush] thought that al-Qaeda was a kind of nuisance-level problem. Clinton didn't. His administration was working hard to go after al-Qaeda. It didn't do some of the things that it might have done. For example, it didn't bomb all of the infrastructure, all of the terrorist camps. It did once bomb in Afghanistan, but it didn't go back and bomb and bomb and bomb and destroy the terrorist camps. It should have done that.

GROSS: In terms of the Clinton administration and its attempts to destroy al-Qaeda, you were very angry about the distraction of the impeachment process and how much attention was paid by the government to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. You write, 'Clinton was weakened by continued political attack. He couldn't get the CIA, the Pentagon and FBI to act sufficiently to deal with the threats.' To what extent do you think that the impeachment process hindered the United States' ability to stop the threat of terrorism or to at least decrease that threat?

[tasnote: And here's where we're reminded of just how much Republicans cared about terrorism before 9/11.]

Mr. CLARKE: After the two US embassies were attacked in August of 1998, President Clinton responded with a military retaliation against al-Qaeda camps. And instead of the Congress and the media and the American people saying, 'Yes, that's what we want; use military force against terrorists,' what happened was a wave of criticism of Clinton. The Republicans and many in the right-wing media said what the president was trying to do was to divert attention from his own personal problems in the Lewinsky investigation.

They recalled a movie called "Wag The Dog." And you remember that movie had the following scenario: A president in trouble politically decides to use military force to divert attention, and he makes up a reason to invade Albania. And so after Clinton attacked the camps, he was accused of 'wagging the dog'; in other words, using military force when it wasn't necessary in order to divert attention. Well, after you've used military force once and you get that kind of reaction, let's just say you're not precluded from doing it again, but the threshold is raised. It becomes more difficult for the president to decide to do it again. And, frankly, Terry, if anybody has wagged the dog here, I think it's not Bill Clinton. It's George Bush because, just as in the movie when we made up a reason to invade Albania, I'd say we've made up a reason to invade Iraq.

As far as I'm concerned, this is pretty damning for the Bush administration, and the GOP in general. Look at what Clinton did before 9/11 compared to Bush, who's administration called focusing on bin Laden "a mistake" (link via Buzzflash).

These people didn't give a damn about terrorism before 9/11, and nothing Condi Rice says will change that. I didn't catch her 60 Minutes interview tonight (third shift/sleeping, blah) but honestly, do I think I would have learned anything from it? Would I have been converted? Would I have even believed a word she said? No, of course not. I hate to be that closed minded, but I simply can't believe a word anybody from this administration says anymore. Whenever the White House speaks out against its opponents, they simply attempt to smear them without addressing the facts of the situation. You know what I'm talking about, in this case it's what Clarke's motives are? Well gee, try this one on for size: Maybe his motive is to make the country a better, safer place. Shockola! One would hope that Clarke, Bush, and his defenders would all have that same motive in mind, but apparently they don't since one is willing to deal with the facts and the other doesn't want those facts to see the light of day.

And speaking of Rice, how come she has enough time to go in 60 Minutes, but somehow can't bring herself to testify publicly in front of the 9/11 Commission? And it's amazing that she can go on national television and tell us, "al Qaeda is not more dangerous today than it was on September 11," and "The world is a lot safer and the war on terrorism is well-served by the victory in Iraq." Try selling your snake oil to the people of Spain, Condi.