Why did they hate America?

Much ado has been made about how Liberals hurt America with their criticisms of the Iraq war. Here is an outrageously abridged compendium of Republican statements made during the Kosovo War of 1999. Obviously the Iraq war and Kosovo war are quite different in general and in specifics. This diary, however, is about the reaction to war, not the war itself.

These quotes undercut claims that the anti-war left's criticisms of the war, the strategy, and the president constitute proof that we "hate" America. They represent only the tip of the iceberg.

This is an "action" diary. I Googled my way through acres of Kosovo quotes, and I'm rather tired of it. Also, we just got a new cat and I want to play with it. So, Kossacks, use Google to see if your Senator, representative, or your favorite right wing blowhard was against supporting our troops in Kosovo, and then see how far their rhetoric went in undermining our mission there. Again, this isn't about particulars of either war, it's about the hypocrisy.

Any quote you find post below. They will be combined into a person-by-person diary later this week.

Why did they second-guess our commitment to freedom from genocide and demand that we cut and run?

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery.  Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

Why did they demoralize our brave men and women in uniform?

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

-Senator Inhofe (R-OK)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

Why didn't they support our president in a time of war?

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)

"The two powers that have ICBMs that can reach the United States are Russia and China. Here we go in. We're taking on not just Milosevic. We can't just say, 'that little guy, we can whip him.' We have these two other powers that have missiles that can reach us, and we have zero defense thanks to this president."

-Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)

"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Why did they blame America first?

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world.  The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Once the bombing commenced, I think then Milosevic unleashed his forces, and then that's when the slaughtering and the massive ethnic cleansing really started"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R)

"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ... who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

-Michael Savage

"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

-Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

-Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)

"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R)

"By the order to launch air strikes against Serbia, NATO and President Clinton have entered uncharted territory in mankind's history. Not even Hitler's grab of the Sudetenland in the 1930s, which eventually led to WW II, ranks as a comparable travesty. For, there are no American interests whatsoever that the NATO bombing will either help, or protect; only needless risks to which it exposes the American soldiers and assets, not to mention the victims on the ground in Serbia."

-Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media

Obviously I'd love some recommends and some visibility so that we can collect as many quotes as possible in this thing.

•  Addendum

  See also: This fantastic Slate article by Will Saletan and anything said by Rush Limbaugh in March-June of 1999. From the Slate article (which I really implore you to read, it's a targeted version of this diary):

  Some Democrats call Republicans who make these arguments unpatriotic. Republicans reply that they're serving their country by debunking and thwarting a bad policy administered by a bad president. You can be sure of only two things: Each party is arguing exactly the opposite of what it argued the last time a Republican president led the nation into war, and exactly the opposite of what it will argue next time.

  
  Heh.

  by Addison on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:10:15 PM PDT

  •  Yep...

    ...should read more comments...I posted this link downriver, though I did add another link about how the DNC knows about this hypocrisy...

    by IlGreven on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 09:08:30 PM PDT

  •  We should put these quotes in the dKoskopedia...

    ...for future reference.  I've done Tom Delay and Sean Hannity.

    by NambyPambyPinkoCommie on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 09:39:02 PM PDT

•  Excellent.

  Though as you say the particulars of the Kosovo conflict differ mightily from the War on Iraq, the generalities reflected in these quotes offer an apt (and damning) juxtaposition.  Recommended.

  by Pyewacket on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:12:02 PM PDT

•  At least Buchanan's consistent! lol

  by PhillyGal on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:13:48 PM PDT

  •  True, and Bill Clinton didn't lie us into it.

    I am sitting here on a Saturday, my only day to get anything done around the house, and I can't do anything because I am so frustrated, no I am pissed off. Yesterday in my car, on the way to work, and doing some errands on lunch hour, and again on the way home, for fun I tuned into conservative talk radio shows, all the talk was about Dick Durbin, and his "non-apology". Calling him a traitor and worse. Now don't get me wrong, Dick Durbin might be on the right side of issues, but he simply doesn't rock my boat, I personally think he is as phony as many other politicians running the country. That is the way I took his remarks, much exaggerated, just for effect, just to be heard. The whole world knows what is wrong with Gitmo, we didn't need Dick Durbin to go over the top for his own reasons, and ruin everything. However Dick Durbin's remarks were nothing compared to the comments on conservative talk radio, talk of recall, and trying him for treason. I had to check where I was. In America, don't we have the freedom to speak our mind, and yes, even criticize our President and his administration for mistakes we think they have made? Don't we enjoy these freedoms without being branded traitors? On one talk show, they played an except of a Mother whose son was in Iraq crying over Senator Durbins remarks,pleeeease! Perhaps she was crying because our treatment of "enemey combatants", will put her son in danger, if God forbid, he gets captured by our enemy any enemy George Bush plans to attack next, and since our abuses in Gitmo and Abdu Ghraib are known to the entire world and our Attorney General has made it perfectly clear we no longer have to abide by the Geneva Accords, concerning torture and treatment of P.O.W.s
    What pisses me off the most is, in the past two weeks we have lost so many young American lives in a war that our beloved President lied us into, and instead of focusing on that very real fact, the other side, and it's talking heads choose to take apart WORDS, words uttered by one single Senator. Just as last week they chose to criticize Howard Dean for his WORDS. Has the entire country gone mad, have we all been reduced to a playground mentality? I expect to tune into C-span one of these days and see Senators and Congresspeople, on each side of the podium, screaming to each other, "I know you are but what am I", or "your Mother is a ..............." Doesn't anyone get it? More than half the country wants us out of Iraq, NOW. Shit is happening all around us, the Senate Majority Leader, who wants very much to run for President in 2008, has lied through his teeth on National television, saying what we all saw him say on the Senate floor, about Terri Shaivo, he never really said, it would appear to me Bushworld is falling apart, and the media, albeit, the conservative media, is having a field day about WORDS, and the Fox watching Americans buy it all, lock, stock and barrel. It just makes me soooooooooo pissed off.

    by Vera Lofaro on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:56:59 PM PDT

•  Some of these would make good bumper stickers!

  Great job, Addison.

  by Abou Ben Adhem on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:19:10 PM PDT

•  DAMN!

  That is so...spooky.  I'm scare now. :(  Espeically that cruise missle comment.  can you imagine a democrat telling reporters we're almost out of missles how republicans would cry "AID AND COMFORT TO THE ENEMY!  HE"S GIVING CLASSIFIED INFO TO TERRORIST!".

  that's really spooky.

  btw what kind of cat did you get?
  

  by DawnG on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:21:22 PM PDT

  •  Dunno

    Some bizarre gigantic mix cat with a huge Siamese nose and long Russian Blue colored fur. Just had a dustup between him and our 15 year old Abyssinian. Our little Abyssinian, surprisingly, won by being unrelenting offensive. Now we're working out some sort of acclimation strategy.

    by Addison on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:26:22 PM PDT

    •  LOL!

      Terms of the cease fire must include fishy smelling treats and lots of catnip.

      I just got a new cat myself after my baby of 15 years passed away last month.  She surprisingly looks JUST LIKE Atrios's grey cat!  Pudgy and all (though the vet assures me she's not overweight she is definately a pudge looking cat just like atrios's).

      I wonder if that means my cat qualifies for "I want a famous face"?

      by DawnG on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:37:21 PM PDT

  •  Yeah

    And yeah, the quote about almost being out of cruise missles and Lugar's bit about letting Clinton fall flat on his face were among the most terrible...

    by Addison on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:28:27 PM PDT

•  Great approach ...

  Addison -- this is really a great approach to pointing toward the hypocrisy (in yet another arena) of the Repugs.  

  So -- are you planning OPEDs?  This should be able to be nuanced into a rather robust piece that someone (we hope) would pick up.  

  I am going off web for a week+ but will try to attack this when I come back.  

  Again -- both great idea and well done -- encourage running further with this ...

  by besieged by bush on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 01:40:06 PM PDT

•  More from WaPo article

  Senator McCain from a WaPo article that quotes Bush in the diary:  But McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, joined other Republicans in denouncing what he called the administration's lack of an "exit strategy" in Kosovo and said he opposes deploying U.S. ground troops unless they are peacekeepers as part of a solid pact to end the fighting. "It's terribly frustrating that there's no endgame here," he said in a telephone interview. "If the bombing doesn't work, what then? The administration will not answer that question. There's no Plan B."

  Patrick J. Buchanan, seeking the GOP nomination for the third time, accused Clinton of preparing to launch "an illegal, presidential war" as part of "an incoherent foreign policy."

  Original article

  Hmpf.  Fucking bald-faced hypocrites.

  by btrflisoul on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 02:09:17 PM PDT

•  Hunh...

  I (and you probably did, too) came across a '99 article on Slate that pretty much mirrors what they're accusing us of doing now.  The thing is, they've done it themselves.

  And don't think Howard Dean and the DNC haven't noticed.  They've even got their own page on the matter...

  by IlGreven on Sat Jun 18, 2005 at 09:06:42 PM PDT

•  I looked, but no real inconsistency

  for either Voinovich or DeWine. Certainly nothing they couldn't wriggle out of if accused of flip flop, and even look good to [some] Ohio voters as they did so.

  Still, I LOVE your idea, and wish you well with the collection, and thanks for making me take the time to actually check out our two bozos in this way.

  by davidincleveland on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 05:04:20 AM PDT

•  Buchanan quote may be counterproductive here...

  First, I'd like to say that this is a great "tribute" to typical Washington hypocrisy.  Thanks.

  But I would point out that, despite his (reluctant) support for Bu$hCorp, Pat Buchanan has opposed the Iraq war from the beginning.  Granted, his "reasoning" is often befuddling, to say the least.  But in this specific context, inclusion of his quote undermines the consistency of the central argument.

  Just my (marginally informed) opinion, of course, but probably best to leave that one out.

  by dkmnow on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 09:20:07 AM PDT