Saturday, May 18, 2002

To the emailer with an almost terminal case of CHA disease, who I hope will one day be able to get through a night without being tormented by horrific nightmares about Clinton's Tubesteak Messiah, here's a letter to the New Yorker:


Lewis Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, suggested to Nicholas Lemann that the Clinton Administration's counterterrorism policy made it "easier for someone like Osama bin Ladin to rise up" ("The Next World Order," April 1st). As a former special adviser to President Clinton on national security, I must object. Libby cites the "lack of a serious response" to a laundry list of Clinton-era terrorist incidents, beginning in 1993. Why start there? Why not include the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed seventeen Americans; the 1983 bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut, which killed two hundred and forty-one Americans; the 1986 Berlin disco bombing, which killed an American soldier; and, of course, the 1988 sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed two hundred and seventy people? Except for the very limited action against Libya, the Reagan Administration did not respond militarily to any of these attacks.

Under Clinton, spending on counterterrorism more than doubled; the 1993 World Trade Center bombers were caught; and the largest counterterrorism operation in U.S. history thwarted planned millennium attacks. After the 1998 attack on our embassies in Africa, President Clinton authorized Tomahawk missile strikes against bin Ladin. It is also worth noting reports that the current Bush administration backed away from some of the more aggressive measures for dealing with Al Qaeda which Clinton had passed on. President Bush has wisely asked that we all work together to strengthen our counterterrorism policy. Playing the blame game doesn't help anyone.


William Danvers
Arlington, Va.

not online, and stolen from Ted Barlow who actually had to type the whole damn thing in.