Hypocracy - or That Was Then, & This Is Now

A guy on a Con blog suggested that "wag the dog" was only about Clinton's missiles fired into the tents in Afghanistan. Earlier in the same conversation, he also said that regardless of our politics, we have to get behind our President. (Easy for the NeoCon to say... 8)

This was from one of the first links that came up when I searched "Clinton" "wag the dog" "Balkins"

I used it to prove my point, of course, but then I started really reading it...
See if you can spot any familiar themes...
(My how times change)
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Clinton's Post-Impeachment Push for Power -- March 1999 Phyllis Schlafly Report

Clinton's Post-Impeachment Push for Power
How Clinton Is Using Kosovo
Bill Clinton is riding high since his "not guilty" verdict and, unfortunately, the Republican Congress is letting him get away with his foreign and domestic grabs for power. Kosovo is much more important to Americans than just pictures on the evening television news about a faraway conflict.

First, it's a "wag the dog" public relations ploy to involve us in a war in order to divert attention from his personal scandals (only a few of which were addressed in the Senate trial). He is again following the scenario of the "life is truer than fiction" movie Wag the Dog. The very day after his acquittal, Clinton moved quickly to "move on" from the subject of impeachment by announcing threats to bomb and to send U.S. ground troops into the civil war in Kosovo between Serbian authorities and ethnic Albanians fighting for independence. He scheduled Americans to be part of a NATO force under non-American command.

Clinton overrode major concerns of senior Pentagon officials that the Administration has no clear-cut military goals and that the fighting will get bloodier as the weather improves. They believe this will seriously overburden U.S. ground forces already committed to other missions in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, and Korea.

The claim that our expedition into Kosovo is to guard a "peace settlement" is another Clinton lie because there is no peace to keep, there is no hope that our involvement can eliminate the causes of the conflict, and there are even questions about who is at fault in the civil war. Clinton's Kosovo war will, like Bosnia (where we still have 6,900 U.S. troops), become a permanent, no-exit, costly U.S. project, and it could even degenerate into a Somalia-type fiasco. Clinton's statements about Kosovo are no more to be trusted than anything else he says.

Second, by putting U.S. troops in Kosovo, Clinton is provoking terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals connected to Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden, who has declared a worldwide war on Americans. Fanatics bent on jihad against the "Great Satan" United States could hardly ask for a more tempting target than Americans deployed close to terrorist bases in northern Albania.

Even more dangerous, entering the Kosovo war may provoke terrorist retaliation within the United States. It's not only our U.S. troops who will be put in mortal danger. Bin Laden has stated unequivocally that all Americans, including "those who pay taxes," are targets. At a recent Senate hearing, CIA Director George Tenet warned against the danger of a stepped-up terrorist campaign, saying, "There is not the slightest doubt that Osama bin Laden, his worldwide allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against us."

Clinton's reckless meddling in Kosovo, Bosnia, Macedonia, Sudan, and Iraq exposes Americans to retaliation from terrorists regardless of whether he achieves any phony "peace" or actually sends in troops.

Clinton predicted on January 22 that it is "highly likely" that a terrorist group will attack on American soil within the next few years. He is using this risk as the excuse to create a Domestic Terrorism Team headed by a military "commander in chief," with a $2.8 billion budget. We should not underestimate the deceit and deviousness of Clinton's plans to use aggressive presidential actions to wipe out public memory of his impeachment trial.

Clinton has already issued a Presidential Decision Directive to authorize military intervention against terrorism on our own soil. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said in an Army Times interview that "Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection."

Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre has been floating the idea of designating a unit of U.S. troops as a Homelands Defense Command to take charge in case of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Hamre argues that the military's role should be formalized under a four-star general, and he has even speculated about creating a bi-national command with Canada called the "Atlantic Command."

The far-reaching nature of the plans being discussed within the Clinton Administration is indicated in the Autumn 1997 Parameters, the scholarly publication of the Army War College. The article predicts that "the growing prospect of terrorism in our own country . . . will almost inevitably trigger an intervention by the military." The article casually adds, "legal niceties or strict construction of prohibited conduct will be a minor concern."

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is supposed to protect us against a President using the Army to enforce the law against civilians. The spectacle of the military patrolling the streets of U.S. cities is something that should happen only in totalitarian countries and in movies like The Siege.

Later laws, however, have carved out a number of exceptions. The 1984 Stafford Disaster Relief Act authorizes the President, after proclaiming a state of emergency, to send active-duty soldiers to respond to a crisis and serve under the direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). On June 3, 1994, Clinton issued Executive Order 12919 entitled National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness. It invests FEMA with plenary and dictatorial authority over communications, energy, food, transportation, health, housing, and other resources.

Our recent experiences with law enforcement by the U.S. military show the dangers. When U.S. Army tanks stormed the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993, scores of innocent people were killed, and when the Marines patrolled the Texas border in 1997, an 18-year-old goat herder was shot and killed.

Third, Kosovo provides a wonderful excuse to demand more spending for the military and to con the Republican Congress into approving billions of new tax dollars for what is called "defense" spending but, under Clinton, is really war spending. The Kosovo expedition will be expensive like Bosnia, which has already cost the United States $8 billion, and current costs are running at another $2 billion a year.

Instead of giving the American people the tax cuts we deserve, Congress will piously claim they are increasing "defense" spending --- but the money won't go for defense or for the anti-missile system we need to protect our people against the 13 Communist Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles whose accuracy was enhanced by Clinton's treacherous China policy. The "defense" spending will go for wars in Kosovo and Bosnia and any place else Clinton sends U.S. troops.

Fourth, Clinton's Kosovo foray will take America another large step into what he called the "web of institutions and arrangements" for the "new global era." Clinton and his chief foreign policy gurus, Strobe ("global nation") Talbott and Madeleine ("why have a military if we can't use it") Albright are determined to use American troops as global policemen and global social workers all over the world.

As far back as Clinton's issuance of Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25) in 1994, Clinton has been asserting his power to assign U.S. troops to serve under foreign command. The Washington Post reported on January 30 that "senior Pentagon officials [Clinton's appointees, of course] for the first time said they would be willing to place U.S. troops under foreign command" in Kosovo.

Where is the outrage from Republican leaders? The 1996 Republican Platform promised that "Republicans will not subordinate United States sovereignty to any international authority. We oppose the commitment of American troops to U.N. 'peacekeeping' operations under foreign commanders."

Even the overpublicized 1994 "Contract With America" promised that "We would prohibit the Defense Department from taking part in military operations that place U.S. troops under foreign command." So, where are the words of protest we have a right to expect from the many Members of Congress who signed that Contract? Except from a few patriots such as Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), we hear a deafening silence.

Unfortunately, some establishment Republicans are compromised because they are making money from foreign governments through lobbying or speechmaking or financial deals. They are giving Clinton a veneer of "bipartisanship" for his expensive interventionist escapades.

Fifth, the Kosovo escapade is another Clinton test of Congress and the American people to see if they will let him get by with such a patently dictatorial, unconstitutional action. Events in Kosovo are absolutely no threat to U.S. national security. The Clinton Administration pretends to fear that the Kosovo conflict could spread if we don't intervene. When asked on the Lehrer NewsHour on February 23 where he was afraid it would spread to, Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said Albania and Bosnia -- which, of course, are just as remote as Kosovo. It is far more likely that U.S. intervention will cause any spread in the conflict, not prevent it.

Not only is there nothing in the U.S. Constitution to justify U.S. intervention in Kosovo, there is also nothing in the NATO Charter to justify it. NATO action in Kosovo is a radical departure from anything NATO has done in the past or has ever been authorized to do. Kosovo is outside of NATO's own territorial domain, and by its threats of air strikes and ground troops, NATO is breaching the territory of a sovereign nation.

Clinton's intervention in Kosovo validates the position of Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO) and others who opposed the ratification of the NATO Expansion Treaty last year. That treaty purported to be merely a promise to go to war to defend the borders of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, but it was actually a mechanism to entrap the United States into sending our service personnel, under foreign commanders, to answer 911 calls to break up domestic brawls in any foreign country. Clinton is threatening to bomb the Serbs, not because they have invaded another country, but because they refuse to accept a U.S.-crafted agreement enforced by NATO troops.

Every now and then, some Americans voice the hope that, if these conflicts are a bother to Europe, European countries should take over the task of dealing with them. But Europeans, who are busy trying to make the euro replace the dollar as the world's premier currency, continue to expect American mercenaries to do our duty as their policemen.

Clinton's intervention in Kosovo cannot possibly solve the problem there any more than our years in Bosnia have solved that problem. Americans simply are not capable of erasing ethnic enmities that have festered for centuries. The Serbs consider Kosovo part of their country because it is the cradle of their culture and Orthodox Christian religion. The ethnic Albanians, who are mostly Muslims, want independence from Serb control, institutions and language.

If Republicans allow Clinton to go ahead with his unconstitutional, costly, foolish and dangerous expedition to Kosovo, where we have no national security interest, they are forfeiting any claim to lead America. This issue should be a litmus test for all candidates for President. The big issue that will divide them is, Do they stand for American national security interests, or do they stand with Clinton in his foolish interventionist policies?

Presidential candidates would do well to listen to the advice of President John Quincy Adams, who as Secretary of State in 1821 rejected the request for U.S. intervention in support of Greek independence. America, said Adams, "is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

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Power Grab through Executive Order

Bill Clinton has unleashed a blizzard of Executive Orders to grab new powers for the executive branch, make broad public policy changes, and even restructure our governmental system. Executive Orders have a proper place in federal rulemaking and in implementing the routine business of the executive departments. But Clinton has discovered that Presidential Executive Orders function in a Never Never Land of almost unlimited power, and he is pressing the envelope to move his agenda, both domestic and foreign.

Clinton advanced three of his favorite goals when he issued Executive Order (EO) 13107 on December 10. He increased executive branch authority, he moved America closer into the "web" of treaties, which he promised in his address to the United Nations on September 22, 1997, and he rewarded the feminists who are stood by him in his impeachment trial.

EO 13107, entitled Implementation of Human Rights Treaties, sets up an Interagency Working Group, with representatives from major federal departments, to implement our alleged "obligations" under the many United Nations treaties on human rights "to which the United States is now or may become a party in the future."

Clinton's impudence in presuming to implement treaties that the Senate has refused to ratify is characteristic. Congress had to pass legislation last year to forbid him from using funds to implement the Global Warming Treaty, which the Senate won't ratify.

Bill Clinton has almost two more years as President. Congress and the American people must call a halt to his unprecedented and unconstitutional grab for new executive-branch powers through phony "peacekeeping" expeditions, using the Army for domestic law enforcement, monitoring our bank accounts and cell phone whereabouts, building databases of our medical records, and issuing power-grabbing Executive Orders. Our freedom and independence are at stake.
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