Les Clinton face à GW : chacun son chemin

Les Clinton face à GW : chacun son chemin

2 août 2003 — Les Clinton ne sont pas hors du circuit politique. Ils sont toujours là et, c’est assez caractéristique, ils expriment leur position politique de façon très spécifique. On l’a vu ces dernières semaines où les époux Clinton ont exprimé une position politique opposée sur la question polémique, essentielle aujourd’hui à Washington, de l’implication de l’administration GW Bush dans une éventuelle manipulation des “preuves” contre le régime de Saddam Hussein

• La sénatrice Hillary Clinton, de l’État de New York, a pris une position très ferme, condamnant les manipulations des “preuves” anti-Saddam (l’affaire de l’uranium du Niger, l’affaire de l’existence des armes de destruction massive, etc) et mettant en cause l’administration.

• Bill Clinton, interrogé sur cette question, a répondu de façon presque inverse à la réponse de sa femme. C’est ce point que le site analyse dans le texte publié ci-dessous. Nous pensons qu’il est intéressant de le publier dans le contexte nouveau qui est celui d’une possible défaite de GW en 2004, dans une situation où les positions (puisqu’il faut parler de deux positions différentes) des Clinton compteront.

Il faut signaler, dans ce même contexte, que la position de Hillary Clinton importe évidemment beaucoup plus que celle de son mari. Elle importe d’autant plus que des rumeurs ont recommencé à circuler ces dernières semaines sur la possibilité que, finalement, Hillary Clinton se présente aux élections de 2004 (alors qu’on en est officiellement à des spéculations sur une présence en 2008, spéculations que Hillary a toujours pris bien soin de ne pas commenter, ni dans un sens, ni dans l’autre).

Un scénario qui est envisagé est celui d’une campagne “à la Robert Kennedy”. En 1968, Robert Kennedy était intervenu tardivement dans les primaires, après qu’un premier candidat (le sénateur Eugene MacCarthy) ait ébranlé la position du président Johnson et montré que Johnson n’était pas inexpugnable comme candidat automatique du parti démocrate. Robert Kennedy était alors entré dans la course et, par ses premiers bons résultats, avait précipité la décision de Johnson de se retirer. Bien sûr, avec Hillary la situation est différente puisque GW est du parti adverse mais le principe tactique est le même : s’abstenir au départ, voir si les premiers résultats indiquent une réelle vulnérabilité de GW, si cette vulnérabilité est avérée entrer dans la course.

Hillary Clinton a été encouragée à considérer cette possibilité, outre par les avatars de GW qui amènent un déclin de sa popularité, par les formidables résultats de vente de son livre (2 millions d’exemplaires vendus en 5 semaines) qui indiquent une réelle popularité potentielle.

En attendant, — et sans la moindre certitude d’un soutien automatique de son mari si Hillary Clinton se présentait, — voici une appréciation de la position de Bill Clinton.

Bush and Clinton: Birds of a feather'

By Matthew Riemer, July 24, 2003, YellowTimes.org

Undoubtedly, all the die hard political partisans were shocked this week when Bill Clinton came out and essentially exonerated the Bush administration for its manipulation of critical intelligence and lying to the world in support of its drive to war.

Clinton told Larry King: ''You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president. I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in awhile. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That's what I think.''

The former president also went on subtly to bolster the Bush administration's case for war: ''People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.''

Yet it shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise for an expert at lying to step forward and defend another of his ilk. Clinton has been called a wonderful Republican president, and the two men and their foreign policies are more similar than most will even care to consider.

But perhaps the greatest parallel between the two rulers is that they were (one of them still is) both involved in incidents where manipulated or fabricated intelligence was used to carry out their militaristic agendas and then sold that agenda to the public.

Everyone's read a thousand articles and op/eds by now regarding the Bush administration's intentional inclusion of intelligence that was widely known to be untrue to further sensationalize its argument for preemptive action in Iraq. But how many have read about the Clinton administration's Tomahawk cruise missile strike on a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan in 1998, and how it was based on bogus intelligence?

In August of 1998, the U.S. destroyed a factory owned by the al-Shifa pharmaceutical company because Washington alleged that the factory was making ''precursors'' for chemical weapons, was being supported by Osama bin Laden, and was shipping these ''precursors'' to Iraq. It was soon revealed that the factory had contracts with the United Nations and was part of the Oil for Food program, supplying vital medicines to Iraq. A British engineer, who helped design and worked at the factory, came out and said the Clinton administration's claim was outrageous. Soil samples from the site all tested negative for any indication of the chemicals claimed to be in use at the factory. Finally, the owner of the plant, whose law firm was based in Washington, pressured the Clinton administration to prove their allegations and they backed down. For a comprehensive report on the incident, see ''The destruction of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical company.'' [http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=692]

In both cases, an argument was presented to the public to justify the respective actions. In both cases, as time went by and more scrutiny was given to Washington's argument, those arguments began to fall apart quite quickly and convincingly amidst a clamor of excuses, rationalizations, and doubletalk.

Luckily for the Clinton administration, the incident in Sudan was a minor event right before a larger war in Yugoslavia, and Clinton wasn't up for reelection in 14 months. The situation is obviously different with the current president. George Bush is finding himself in an increasingly difficult position with each passing day, as he and his administration are no longer convincing in their morally wrapped rhetoric and unbelievable justifications.

[Matthew Riemer has written for years about a myriad of topics, such as: philosophy, religion, psychology, culture, and politics. He studied Russian language and culture for five years and traveled in the former Soviet Union in 1990. In the midst of a larger autobiographical/cultural work, Matthew is the Director of Operations at YellowTimes.org. He lives in the United States. Matthew Riemer encourages your comments: mriemer@YellowTimes.org]

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