Flashback to 98.

[tjwash]

I remember the Neo-Cons being shocked SHOCKED that a draft dodging, pot smoking hippie would DARE misuse our great military in this way.

U.S. Cruise Missiles Strike Sudan and Afghan Targets Tied to Terrorist Network.

By JAMES BENNET

WASHINGTON -- Dozens of U.S. cruise missiles struck targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan on Thursday in what President Clinton described as an act of self-defense against imminent terrorist plots and of retribution for the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa two weeks ago.

The strikes were launched from ships in the Arabian and Red Seas at dusk. It was not immediately clear whether the raids were a military success. Pentagon officials said that no Americans died but that they had no immediate estimate of other casualties or damage. Early Friday, an Islamic press agency reported 15 deaths from the bombings in Afghanistan.

With about 75 missiles timed to explode simultaneously in unsuspecting countries on two continents, the operation was the most formidable U.S. military assault ever against a private sponsor of terrorism.

The targets were identified by Pentagon officials as an extensive terrorism training complex in Afghanistan, 94 miles south of Kabul, and a factory for the building blocks of chemical weapons near Khartoum, the Sudan.

Clinton and his national security team linked both sites to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire tied by U.S. intelligence to the twin bombings on Aug. 7 in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombings killed 12 Americans and nearly 300 Africans.

More screaming of MONICAGATE from the corporate media.

Reporters Recoil at Thought of Missiles as Scandal Scuttlers

Three days after admitting a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton authorized cruise-missile attacks on suspected terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan. Was this attack intended to divert attention from Monicagate?

All the networks noted the similarities to the satirical film Wag the Dog, in which the White House creates a fictional war with Albania to distract from a sex scandal. If the timing had been a cynical damage control strategy, it surely worked in the short run: From Thursday to Sunday, the evening shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN carried 78 stories on the attack to just six Lewinsky pieces (one report mixed the stories together). In the four mornings after the attack, from Friday through Monday, the Big Three aired 61 full segments on the attack to just seven on Lewinsky (another 13 segments mixed both).

Media and Republican figures initially questioned the attack’s timing, but the backlash came quickly. In Time’s daily Internet update, Frank Pellegrini reported: "Although Clinton-haters Newt Gingrich and Dan Burton have avowed their support of the strike, Republicans Arlen Specter and Dan Coats did not shy from the low road." U.S. News & World Report writer Stephen Budiansky flayed the press: "The only comforting bit of normality in the entire week was provided by the reliable inanity of the Washington press corps. The reporter who demanded to know if Defense Secretary William Cohen had seen the movie Wag the Dog reassured us that in one corner of the globe, the world was all right."

PBS actually gave decent information on OBL and the Sudan and Afghani connection in 1998. It was mainly ignored by the wingers.

That network is believed to be headed by Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi multi-millionaire and Islamic extremist. bin Laden makes his base in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban, the ultra conservative Islamic militia that controls most of the country.

He reportedly operates from a cave equipped with state-of-the-art communication technology. His headquarters is heavily guarded by troops and rugged mountain terrain. It's considered the command center for bin Laden's network. Earlier this year bin Laden issued a call for a holy war against the United States.

U.S. intelligence believe he's already been involved in numerous attacks on American installations, including the 1996 truck bomb in the Khobar barracks in Saudi Arabia. That attack killed 19 U.S. soldiers. bin Laden has denied being involved in that particular attack.

[Sinti]

1. But, notice how we have Iran in the pincers

after invading 2 nations with no viable military, thus suffering relatively few American casualties (from a Pentagon statistical POV). Clever, isn't it? I will truly be shocked if we keep our guns out of Iran, this looks like an elementary strategic set up to do just that.

[tjwash]

2. Not exactly. there is actually barely a skeleton presence in Afghanistan..

...now because the Shrub cut and ran out of there, and the Taliban has made a massive resurgence there to the point where they are actually pretty much back in power.

The Afghani poppy harvest, which is the main source of financing for the Taliban warlords has had a bumper year as well, helped by the fact that the shrub cut and ran out of there.

So, we are hardly sitting pretty.