The Redhunter

Haiti

On September 19, 1994, President Clinton launched Operation Uphold Democracy, in which United States forces invaded the Caribbean island nation of Haiti. I'm not going to rehash the entire affair, but suffice it to say that it was done with neither congressional nor United Nations authorization.

And one can hardly say that Haiti posed a threat to the United States.

I supported what we did then and I think it was the right thing now. We restored the duly elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and General Raoul Cédras stepped down even before we went in. It was a relatively easy operation in which we only lost one soldier, and on March 31, 1995 we ended our operation and handed it over to the UN.

No authorization from Congress or the UN. And Haiti hardly posed a threat to the US.

Bosnia and Kosovo

The war in the former Yugoslav republics is god-awful complex, and I didn't follow it in detail at the time. Haiti is bad enough, there's no way I'm going to try and rehash what was going on in the Balkans.

Suffice it to say though that in 1999, President Clinton once again ordered United States forces to attack a sovereign nation(s) without authorization from either Congress or the United Nations. Nobody can say that any of the former Yugoslav republics posed a threat to the United States. We called it Operation Allied Force.

Clinton did it under the aegis of NATO, but nowhere in it's charter does it give itself the right to invade a third country. Talk about how the fighting might "spill over" into other countries, or "don't you remember that World War I started there" was balderdash. Article 5 states that "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all...." but Milosevic posed no threat to anyone in NATO.

So again, if I wanted to make silly arguments against what Clinton did in Bosnia it would be pretty easy. And all of you who love your

But as with Haiti, I supported what President Clinton did and I think he did the right thing now. No one else was going to deal with the situation, so he stepped up to the plate and took charge of a difficult situation.

The Point

My point, of course, is that throwing out talking-points such as "no UN authorization" or "X was a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us" is is childish and it's usually more complicated.

Of course I know that obviously Iraq is a huge affair in which we have spent much blood and treasure. From this perspective it's not the same as Iraq. But if you're going to make an argument on principal it is the same. If you're going to argue that we can't invade nations that don't pose a threat to us you must oppose Clinton's invasion of Haiti and his attack on Yugoslavia.

Not a Clinton Hater

I didn't vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 or 1996, and indeed have not voted for any Democrat ever. All in all I do not think he was a good president.

But I will say that at times he did the right thing. At times he was a good president. Yesterday I defended when he ordered cruise missiles fired at a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory, in a case when the intelligence turned out to be faulty. Other examples of good things are negotiating and signing GATT and NAFTA. He held down federal spending more than either Bush has done, and he signed onto welfare reform (though he had a lot of "help" from Republicans in Congress, who acted a lot more responsibly then than they did under GWB).

So unlike some liberals who don't give George Bush credit for anything, I'm not some wingnut who reflexively criticizes everything the other side does.

That's the lesson for today.