Bill’s Big-Time Blunder: Letting Osama Slip Through
THE ISSUE: Bill Clinton’s disclosure that he didn’t kill Osama bin Laden out of concern for 300 Afghan lives.
Bill Clinton should have killed Osama bin Laden in the late ’90s (“Bill’s Shot at Osama,” Aug. 1).
His concern for foreign collateral damage instead of for American citizens was misguided and echoes a recurring mistake that all presidents have made since World War II. Three hundred Afghan casualties do not take precedence over one American casualty, let alone 3,000. Apparently, Bill disagreed, even though we had enough intelligence to conclude that bin Laden planned to attack America.
Does Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worry about collateral damage in Israel’s defensive objective against Hamas? It is unfortunate for America that Netanyahu was not our president then, or now, for that matter. Elio Valenti
Brooklyn
I guess Bill thought it better not to kill 300 in
nocent people in Kandahar than to possibly save American lives at the hand of bin Laden.
Dave Oniffrey Stamford, Conn.
l Clinton’s statement that, had he caused civilian casualties in an attempt to kill bin Laden, “then I would have been no better than him” is the starkest example that one is likely to encounter of the moral equivalence and relativism that
are destroying America.
The moral rigor that Clinton apparently believed himself to be demonstrating is a suicidal form of moral preening and narcissism that also afflicts the current occupant of the White House.
David Rabinovitz
Brooklyn
l Clinton has admitted that he had a chance — several chances, most likely — to take down bin Laden, but failed to act.
I have been waiting years for someone in the media to ask the obvious question: What part did Hillary’s planned campaign for the Senate (and, eventually, the presidency) play in Mr. Clinton’s foreignpolicy decisions? Did 3,000 Americans die because he did not want to interfere with his wife’s run for high office? Robert A. Palermo
West Orange, NJ