Clinton on Bush uranium line: 'Everybody makes mistakes'

I don't know what feeling good about the ends does to justifying the means and the role of our government. We can with that logic lie, mislead, and snooker our way to doing anything that makes us feel good about ourselves. The fact is that there's been absolutely zero evidence presented that the Clinton White House tried to influence the CIA to interpret evidence in such a manner to allow Clinton to implement an agenda. Clinton's intelligence failures were just that. Bush's failures are predicated on his administration's meddling with intelligence and trying to orchestrate it in such a way that his agenda is strengthened. So your statement in regards to what Clinton's administration came to believe is misleading because Clinton had huge intelligence failures yet you're here using his conclusions as support for Bush. Passing the buck yet again. Additionally, Clinton never felt strongly enough about this evidence he trumpets now to take any wide scale action against Iraq so now we're to believe his inflated opinion on the threat now? Not to mention, whatever intelligence existed in 1998 (which may have been just as terrible as our latest manipulated intel) is not indicative of anything happening in 2002 anymore than Saddam having WMD in 1990 is proof that he had them in 2002. And you know what, 9/11 didn't change everything. It's just good cover for Bush to do whatever he wants and then consider the matter closed when he's asked to be accountable for his actions. It's evident to me you're bending over backwards to ignore the obvious and believe what's in your party's interest but I thought the truth was in everybody's interest.

 

Hayes you're just being ridiculous.

 

I call it scraps. We waste and waste and waste and when there are atrocities and starvation, it takes Sally Struthers to get anyone to give anything. We give the rest of the world our waste, scraps, and leavings and expect them to treat us like we have provided the manna they have been praying for. I'm not saying that we should handicap America by providing aid, but you have proven my point about the "right" things that you claim we do worldwide. Anything that looks "right" enough might (I stress might, if they are lucky) receive some kind of aid, but we give it while muttering under our breath that these no good third world peons need to fend for themselves.

Add to that the fact that any aid that does come from the US, especially from the government, goes directly into the coffers of the ruling class where it does not help the people it is intended to help.

First, you make the claim that we aren't an evil imperialistic bully. Then you go on to say that it would be nice to get back to the days when we could just cap a guy we didn't like and replace their government. Didn't we just invade a country to replace the government of a country that we intend to buy oil from? The words imperialistic and bully are pretty appropriate.

They found exactly as many chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons as we have since we invaded. If we had intelligence that there were weapons, we could have helped direct the inspections. There were a lot more options than just kicking them out to invade. The rest of the world sure thought so.

To verify that the weapons did not exist.
To enforce the treaty signed in 1991 in order to get the sanctions lifted.

They may have used chemical weapons (in the 80s, by the way) in a war, but there is still no proof that they have had any such weapons in the recent past.

None of which was enough reason for this war. This war was sold to me because of the WMDs and the possibility of a nuclear weapons program. For all the other "reasons" Bush had for attacking, this is what he sold it to me (and much of the rest of the American public) as: A war to take sarin, VX, anthrax, and nukes out of the hands of Saddam.

I will not try to dispute that Saddam was a despicable, evil tyrant. There are hundreds of tyrants, I guess this one just had more oil than all the rest.

 

That's convincing ...

 

Let's look at some examples of US humanitarian efforts:

Intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo to stop genocide - strategic national interest - ZERO. Help to 'ruling elites' - ZERO.

Intervention in Somalia to stop famine - strategic national interest - ZERO. Help to ruling elites - ZERO. In fact, the whole idea was to circumvent warlords control over aid.

Of USAID's funds, about a billion dollars of it is food aid that we use in famine relief and development assistance. Another $300 million is for disaster relief operations, in hurricanes, in wars, and that sort of thing. We spend about $2 billion a year on health, fighting HIV/AIDS, fighting malaria, fighting tuberculosis, and child survival programs to reduce the mortality rate among young children who are very vulnerable. We run agricultural programs. We run education programs. We printed a million--ten million textbooks for Afghanistan for the back to school program last spring, so the textbooks that are being used in Afghan schools are all printed by USAID in conjunction with the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan. USAID's programs in the areas of child survival, maternal health, vulnerable children, infectious diseases, family planning and reproductive health are cornerstones of U.S. foreign assistance. Our health programs save millions of lives through cost effective immunization, disease prevention, breastfeeding, nutrition, sanitation and voluntary family planning programs.

The billions that flow out of the US every year in private aid for lesser developed countries disproves your assertion that we want to abandon these '3rd world peons.' There's a huge private foreign aid program in the United States that is four times bigger than the U.S. Government aid effort. The ethnic diasporas in the United States send $18 billion a year back to Third World countries. Twelve percent of the gross national product of El Salvador is remittances from the Salvadorian community in the United States. Twenty-five percent of the gross national product of Lebanon is remittances from the Lebanese diaspora. And so people don't realize to what degree people who work here send money back to their villages. We found out - this is my last statistic - 50 percent of the micro-enterprise lending for small businesses in Mexico, 50 percent, comes from the Mexican-American diaspora just in California. The Gates Foundation spends more money on public health in the developing world than most European donor governments do. American universities give $1.2 billion of scholarships a year to students from the developing world - private scholarships, no government money - $1.2 billion. That is larger than the aid agency budgets in most European countries.

No more than aid from anyone else, and it is a GROSS overexaggeration to say 'any' aid we provide 'goes to the elites. Simply not true. As one example, I'll cite that we have the largest micro-enterprise loan program of any government in the world, $150 million a year. Where does that money go, into what sectors. These are loans of $50 to $100 per person, and they go into revolving funds. People pay the money back; there's a 92 percent repayment rate, a very high rate. Actually, it's better than some banks get, and the money goes into small enterprise. Sixty percent of that money is put into agricultural development, because people find if they have $50 dollars, if they buy an improved variety of seed that increases production, they can repay their loan and make some money for their family. Doesn't sound like a program to help just the 'ruling elite,' does it?

 

You give two examples of military intervention that were justified. These two examples are supposed to be some massive flow of aid?

You quote about 2 and a half billion dollars, which is nothing compared to the money we waste every year. It is nothing compared to the death and destruction we mete out by supporting civil wars and imposing policies on countries that do not want those policies in place (prohibition, aerial fumigation).

If we are to be seen as a giving people, we would have to spend more on a yearly basis on charitable causes worldwide than we do monthly to occupy a country we shouldn't have invaded in the first place. We are the takers of the world, we take oil, we take freedom, and in return, we give more suffering, repression, and death.

I made that statement to bama after he said "Who says we have to give more of our money away to third world ****holes that don't deserve it and whose leadership would squander it?" We do give some money to good causes worldwide, but we mutter about it under our breath, or as bama did, openly.

The vast majority of aid given by our country, especially our government, does not reach the poor, starving people they put on TV to tug at our heart strings. Before it leaves this country, it is subject to 25%-75% "administrative fees" for the charity in question, and the rest of the money goes mostly into the hands of the elite, who are supposed to use it to stimulate the economy, create jobs, and feed the people.

Kind of sounds like economic policy in the US. Give money to the rich and trust that they are going to use it to stimulate the economy. You know, trickle down economics, where the rich people get the wine and then piss all over the rest of us.

 

i'm not bending over anything!!!

the truth is in everybody's interest. you're absolutely right. and if the president deliberately lied to create a reason for war, then he should be held responsible for that.

i'm just not convinced he did. he relies on others to present him with sound intelligence. he can't personally go out and "check" to see if they're right or wrong. he relies on others. what clinton seems to be saying is, "listen...this was british intelligence...the british still claim it's factual...so how can we indict the guy?" that makes sense to me, your thoughts on my bending notwithstanding.

 

Three, actually. Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia. These are examples of the US making major committments in humanitarian efforts, yes. Efforts that other countries (in the Bosnia and Kosovo examples) would not make. This also points out that the arguments that it is all in our interests are wrong.

Actually the programs mentioned encompass about 10 billion distributed through USAID. That does not include other government aid programs, but merely serves as an example. Not sure where you're getting your 'waste' comparison, or how that's relevant unless you think we should give everything that is not a 'necessity' to other countries (and you don't seem to be saying that).

Please be specific. What wars are you referring to? What policies are we imposing to which countries and how are you weighing those out against the examples I've given?

Hardly a sound criteria from which to judge our actions, not to mention that we DO give more aid than we spend on Iraq (oops). Whether or not we should have invaded Iraq is your opinion. Many feel it was the right thing to do. Whether we give out more suffering etc depends on specifics. You don't give any, and until you do your assertions are just pretty prose.

Not really relevant to whether or not we are a force of 'good' in the world. If more appreciate was shown as a result of the aid we do give, everyday bumpkins like bama might not hold those opinions. Overall, however, the amount of aid both public and private that comes from the US belies this sentiment.

Administrative fees are hardly something you can blame on the government, and it is simply a fact that someone might work at a non-profit but not for no wages. And you should have noticed that the number I quoted was of how much money 'goes out of the country' which would also make your 'admin fees' point irrelevant. As for the rest you are simply wrong about who is the focus of the aid. In many areas the aid (for infrastructure, for instance) does go through governments or elites, it would be impossible to build a waste treatment plant, for example, by handing money out to poor farmers. In many other areas it does not go to ruling elites, as some of the programs I've mentioned above do not.

I haven't been pissed on lately. Stop begging for money at the ATMs late at night and I don't think you'll have this problem either.

 

About the supposed altruism in the United States' Aid practices, the truth is actually quite disturbing.

I personally thought that even though we didn't give so much money as a percentage of GDP, we still gave a lot in absolute terms and the justification was humnanitarian altruism. Since I've read a bit more on the topic (and my girlfriend started working at USAID) I've learned a lot more.

First of all, USAID is such an intensely political organization that the vast majority of aid goes towards "getting people back" in developing countries that have helped the current administration. This isn't a Bush thing or a Clinton thing, it's a "whoever is in office" thing. The leadership of USAID is in large part based on presidential appointment. Furthermore, much of the money in USAID's budget is incredibly earmarked by Congress. Thus, where the money is spent is not determined by the "lifers" at USAID who have been in the development business, rather it's by congressmen who are just getting some pork for their home districts.

Furthermore, Bush has now set up this Millenium Challenge Account, which is outside of USAID's jurisdiction. This is an account where HE sets the rules on how the money is going to be spent. A lot of these rules are very arbitrary and have been criticized by development economists of all persuasions. But it's a political thing.

I sat in a meeting the other day at USAID and at the end, a director of a program there (not a political appointee, but a lifer) said, "You know, I'm really disgusted with the way all of these proposals were, because most of them aren't going to amount to much at all. The real problems weren't met." This was to all of the project managers who were political appointees and whose actions were congressionally or presidentially influenced.

For another example, there's all this talk of spending $3Billion/year to fight AIDS in Africa. Under the current proposal, 1/3 of that money has to be used in abstinence only programs. Now whatever your sexual mores are, the proven fact of the matter is that abstinence only programs have had ZERO effect in Africa (several studies and project evaluations have been conducted).

It's been an eye opener to me, and it just shows that we can't really consider ourselves to be such fine altruists when most of the money is for political purposes. I wish USAID could be an entity outside of governmental jurisdiction (something like the Federal Reserve). Then we could really do some good.

Any argument about our altruism unfortunately has no basis in our current aid patterns in the last 10 years.

(check out "The Other War" by Lael Brainard and others... it's an interesting read)

 

Great insight! However, you can say that any effort is out of self interest if you want to take the argument far enough. Certainly programs will target those with which we have influence or good relations in a particular country. Giving aid to those opposed to us or those whom we have bad relations with would hardly be helpful or successful.

Having it at the total discretion of the 'lifers' at USAID would leave little room for accountability vis-a-vis the money spent. We do, I believe, want our elected officials to decide where our money is spent. This is an executive Agency, right? And as such the President SHOULD be making the appointments, right? I think its probably true that anytime an organization is tasked with more accountability for success, there are grumblings from within the organization. The best possible outcome is probably somewhere in the middle, where politically accountable appointees take heavy input from the 'lifers.'

Even assuming a zero rate of success of the 1 billion you mention, that still leaves 2 billion of new funding for African AIDS. That hardly something to dismiss. And the reality is that one way the Administration can ask for the 3 billion is to give 1/3 to policies potential opponents to the money would like (like the Religious Right). Otherwise there might not be money for African AIDS at all. And how is this not altruistic? True, a more stable and developed Africa could be considered in 'our interests.' But as I said above, you can say any program is in our interests, and not altruistic, if you want to take it that far.

Not saying there is not room to improve. But to say that there is no altruistic sentiment in our aid and contributions to other countries is just plain silly. Bosnia and Kosovo and Somalia prove this. Textbooks to Afghnistan, a payback for the new regime? Or help for the kids? Vaccines for kids, payback for regimes or help for the kids? Famine relief for those starving, payback to regimes in power or help for the starving? Isn't it really more realistic to say - BOTH?

 

I can't speak to the current administration, but one of the things... one of the most valuable things for developing countries, is the USAID program to send and pay for US professors to teach the faculty of colleges, universities and "polytechnic schools" (colleges, but called that in many countries) the latest technology, teaching techniques and similar things so they can catch up with the developed world.

My father did that every summer for well over a decade in India, Pakistan, Bangledesh and Nigeria... to name a few. He loved to travel and I was fortunate to go with him when he taught at Bangalore, in the southern part of India. This was back in the '60's (I was a teenager), so I don't know how things are now, like I mentioned.

Today, Bangalore is a high tech center and one of the foremost engines driving India's progress towards being a developed country. I would like to think my Dad helped that along. Back then we spent a much higher % of our GDP for foreign aid. I think we need to return to similar levels. It's worth it, in the long run.


I just read Vik's post, and I can say without reservation that this was NOT the case during the period I wrote about. That's not good news, if true.