No war for monica. Amazing how people totally forget the big news items from just 10 years ago.
Less than a month after the movie was released, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in a sex scandal arising from his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Over the course of 1998 and early 1999, as the scandal dominated American politics, the US engaged in three military options: Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq that took place as the U.S. House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton; Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan just three days after Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky; and Operation Allied Force, a months-long NATO bombing campaign against Serbia that began just weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial. Critics, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, charged that the former operation was an attempt to distract attention from the Lewinsky scandal, and Serb state television went so far as to broadcast Wag The Dog in the midst of NATO attacks on Serbia. The video cassette version of the film contains an extended feature after the credits that has commentary about the movie in the context of the Lewinsky scandal by the producers of the movie and Tom Brokaw.
Similar accusations may have led to the curtailment of operations against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan on August 20, known as Operation Infinite Reach, 3 days after Clinton admitted to a Grand Jury he had had improper relations with Lewinsky. This would end up being the major reaction to the bombing of the United States' embassies in Africa, as other preemptive actions against Osama bin Laden would be politically impossible for Clinton.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm