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Yoepus
Neo-condimist

Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Ketchup fields, Texas
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Jul-19-2004 23:45
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Renegade
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Registered: May 2001
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
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I'm not going to address everything (most of these claims are entire topics in themselves), but:
| quote: | Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia - good...
Bush awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq - bad... |
The situations under which the contracts were awarded were completely different. It's difficult to find any information on the Halliburton cotnract awarded in Yugoslavia, but from one source:
| quote: | | Between 1992 and 1999, the Pentagon paid BRS more than $1.2 billion for its work in trouble spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the US Army Corps of Engineers re-enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract worth $731 million. |
http://www.motherjones.com/news/fea.../08/cheney.html
(BRS is a subsidiary company of Halliburton.)
Here the contract was awarded by an semi-impartial body (I'd presume that engineers would know what is necessary, at ground level, and impartially reccomend contracts accordingly) and paid for by the Pentagon (i.e. the US). The Iraqi Halliburton contract, however, was awarded by the CPA (essentially an extension of the US government) and paid for, wrongly, with Iraqi money (it should have been paid for with the IRRF - funded by the US - instead of the DFI, funded by Iraqi oil revenue). Oh, and did I mention that the Whitehouse refuses to disclose any information about the Halliburton contracts to international accounting bodies (click), that the US management of contracts paid for with Iraqi money has been sharply criticised by KPMG (click and click), that Halliburton are being subpoenaed for overcharging on their Iraq contracts (click) or that Dick Cheney (VP and former CEO of Halliburton) was directly involved in the contract?
Even if we presume the worst case scenario (that Clinton did dish-out a single source contract to Halliburton - something that I can't find any evidence for) the circumstances under which the Iraqi contracts were awarded are a lot more clandestine and questionable than those under which the Serbian ones were.
| quote: | Clinton spends $77 billion on war in Serbia, without Congress approval -good...
Bush spends $87 billion in Iraq, with Congress approval - bad... |
Actually, it was less than $3 billion:

Even the approximate cost of total reconstruction in Serbia (a bill the US will not be footing anyway) is significantly less than $77 billion, so I'm not sure where the author got that figure from. The point is, though, when you're committed to running balanced budgets (as opposed to half a trillion dollar deficits) you don't spend $87 billion on wars, do you?
| quote: | Clinton imposes regime change in Serbia, without UN approval - good...
Bush accomplishes regime change in Iraq,with UN approval - bad... |
Funny, I must have missed that UNSC meeting where they authorized the Iraqi conflict. Last time I took any notice, they weren't going to be able to get the nine votes necessary (out of fifteen) to pass their war resolution and had three of the five veto holding powers threatening to use it. Still, why would Bush give a shit about what Russia, China, France and Germany though when he has Iceland and Afghanistan on his side?
Besides, Clinton didn't impose regime change in Serbia, NATO did. That's because he actually had an international coalition and the majority of world opinion on his side. I supported the NATO intervention in Kosovo and opposed the war in Iraq and there is nothing hypocritical about this stance. While this topic would take too long to get into at any sort of depth (though I'm happy to discuss it if anyone wants to), this is what I said in another topic:
| quote: | | This stance may have been hypocritical if the situations were identical, but the fact is they weren't. In Yugoslavia, Milosevic was engaging in genocide even as the international community decried it. Literally the only way to stop Milosevic was militarily - there were no avenues of diplomatic negotiation left. In the case of Saddam Hussein - while the humanitarian attrocities committed by his regime prior to the Gulf War are well documented - at no point in the past 13 years was there any danger of him committing humanitarian attrocities even approaching those committed by Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. Milosevic had made it clear that the ethnic purging was going to continue regardless of international scrutiny - Saddam had been kept largely under wraps for the last 12 years of his time in power. During this period, he was not an "imminent threat" to other ethnicities (the Kurds and the Shiites were under UN and NATO protection for most of this period), bordering nations or - least of all - the US. |
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=154084
| quote: | Clinton bombs Christian Serbs on behalf of Muslim Albanian terrorists -good...
Bush liberates 25 million Muslims from a genocidal fascist dictator - bad... |
What an absolute crock of shit. "On behalf of Muslim Albanian terrorists"? I presume that these "terrorists" are the defenceless men, women and children slaughtered by the genocidal Serbian Army because they weren't of the right religion or ethnicity? Who are the real terrorists here? You're a fucking idiot for posting that, even if you did just copy and paste it from another forum without reading it properly.
As for the "liberation" of Iraq, I think you all know me well enough to know where I stand on this particular issue. I even think that, by now, many of you are starting to agree with me that the Iraq war was a mistake.
| quote: | | Clinton bombs Chinese embassy - good... |
No he didn't. NATO did.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/338424.stm
| quote: | | Bush bombs terrorists in Falluja - bad... |
Bush bombs mosques in Falluja, killing dozens of innocent civilians - bad...
| quote: | | Clinton commits perjury and obstruction of justice while in office -good... |
"Perjury and obstruction of justice"? Could have sworn it was only a blow-job...
| quote: | Clinton refuses to take custody of Bin Laden, when offered by Sudanese - good...
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Inaccurate. Sudan (allegedly) offerred to extradite Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia (who don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to capturing and prosecuting terrorists anyway) in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The US and the Saudis failed to reach any agreement and in the meantime Sudan booted Osama bin Laden out of the country and - of course - he eventually ended up in Afghanistan.
According to Bill Clinton:
| quote: | | To the best of my knowledge it is not true that we were ever offered him by the Sudanese even though they later claimed it. I think it's total bull. Mr. Absurabi, the head of the Sudanese government was a buddy of bin Laden's. They were business partners together. There was no way in the wide world this guy who was in business with bin Laden in Sudan was going to give him up to us. |
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004...ain625205.shtml
In any case, at least the Clinton administration recongnised the threat that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda posed. Of course, once the Bush admin came to power they ignored all the warnings left to them, or - as the article states - the "failed to connect the dots". Most of the 9/11 commission's reports will confirm exactly what Dick Clark and a host of other experts have already said: the Bush admin didn't take the bin Laden / Al Qaeda threat seriously enough.
| quote: | Terrorist training in Afghanistan under Clinton - good...
Bush destroys training camps in Afghanistan - bad... |
Reagan establishes and funds terrorist training camps in Afghanistan - good... ?
| quote: | Milosevic, at trial for 3 years in Hague under ICC not yet convicted -
good...
Saddam on trial by Iraq government - bad... |
Where has anyone ever said that Saddam's trial is bad?
| quote: | Stock market crashes and recession in 2000 under Clinton - good...
Recession ends and stock market rebounds due to Bush tax cuts - bad... |
Ah, selective economic indicators. Nice.
You forgot to mention this:

Or this:

I think even occrider will agree with me that Bill Clinton was a far better manager of the US economy than Bush will ever be.
Anyway, that'll do. Bring on the next misinformed, conservative cut & paste job.
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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Jul-20-2004 03:30
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occrider
Traveladdict

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: New York
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Hehe I knew you were working on this post when I saw you logged in for more than an hour . Anyway I don't have much to say cept for a few things.
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
The situations under which the contracts were awarded were completely different. It's difficult to find any information on the Halliburton cotnract awarded in Yugoslavia, but from one source:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/fea.../08/cheney.html
(BRS is a subsidiary company of Halliburton.)
Here the contract was awarded by an semi-impartial body (I'd presume that engineers would know what is necessary, at ground level, and impartially reccomend contracts accordingly) and paid for by the Pentagon (i.e. the US). The Iraqi Halliburton contract, however, was awarded by the CPA (essentially an extension of the US government) and paid for, wrongly, with Iraqi money (it should have been paid for with the IRRF - funded by the US - instead of the DFI, funded by Iraqi oil revenue). Oh, and did I mention that the Whitehouse refuses to disclose any information about the Halliburton contracts to international accounting bodies (click), that the US management of contracts paid for with Iraqi money has been sharply criticised by KPMG (click and click), that Halliburton are being subpoenaed for overcharging on their Iraq contracts (click) or that Dick Cheney (VP and former CEO of Halliburton) was directly involved in the contract?
Even if we presume the worst case scenario (that Clinton did dish-out a single source contract to Halliburton - something that I can't find any evidence for) the circumstances under which the Iraqi contracts were awarded are a lot more clandestine and questionable than those under which the Serbian ones were.
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I may agree with you on the part of the funding, however, I still disagree with the fervor over the no-bid process. To the best of my knowledge, the army corp of engineers did arrive at the decision for utilizing the logcap 3 contract to utilize kbr:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2004/kbr.pdf
However, even if they didn't, I don't believe they are the ultimate authority on the decision to utilize a logcap contract or not, one would think that CENTCOM has the authority to do so. But at any rate, on March 11, 2004 the commanding general of US Army Material Command (as expert of a source as the army corp of engineers? More so perhaps since his primary job function is logistics?) explained and defended the rationale to utilize the logcap contract:
http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFil...20Testimony.pdf
If anything, I have more doubts about the Clinton issuance of no bid contracts to a company that did NOT have the logcap contract. Why wasn't the contract given to DynCorps, and why was it no bid? Personally it's not a big deal, but if I did THINK it was, I would be more concerned with the Clintonian no bid, no logcap contract as opposed to the Bush logcap contract.
| quote: |
I think even occrider will agree with me that Bill Clinton was a far better manager of the US economy than Bush will ever be.
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Yea I thought he was probably better. He raised taxes which was what should have been done, although I thought he should have raised them more and stopped the deficit spending sooner. If Bush had raised taxes after the second tax cuts and curbed spending than I probably would have thought that he would be a better manager ...
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Retro ...
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Jul-20-2004 04:40
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