He could have had him pure and simple...even bombing him..they could have made sure etc.....Now I'm not laying the blame at Clinton..he plays a part. Bin Laden's quote about the US being soft was BEFORE 911. Its chillling. Even so..its pretty easy to see why folks would think we're soft after Somalia.
About the military..GHW Bush started it...but Clinton gutted it and instituted stupid policies. Things like the air war in Kosovo also emboldened our enemies....high tech instead of muddy boots. Anything we do is analyzed by our enemies. Sometime we don't look at what everybody else is doing...had we studied Chechnya more maybe we'd be doing better in Iraq.
Certain systems we don't need.....why the F-22 which is the swiss army knife of jets that may not do any one thing well....instead of the F-16..which cost 16 million to produce when they first rolled it out. Jets like the F-16 helped win the cold war. I am in no way a defender of the MIC....they don't serve our best interest. Anyway that should cover most of you're post......
The 9/11 Commission did not conclude that Clinton could have had Bin Laden "pure and simple"...that's just not the case.
Clinton did not gut the military. That is propaganda. Type the following phrase "Clinton gutted the military" and look at all the results that state that assertion verbatim. It's a propagandistic talking point.
National Defense Spending
Source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/hist.pdf, page 49-51
In Millions of Current Dollars
Year Budget total As % of Outlays As % of GDP
LBJ 1963 $53,400 48.00% 8.90%
1964 (Vietnam) $54,757 46.20% 8.50%
1965 (Vietnam) $50,620 42.80% 7.40%
1966 (Vietnam) $58,111 43.20% 7.70%
1967 (Vietnam) $71,417 45.40% 8.80%
1968 (Vietnam) $81,926 46.00% 9.40%
Nixon 1969 (Vietnam) $82,497 44.90% 8.70%
1970 (Vietnam) $81,692 41.80% 8.10%
1971 (Vietnam) $78,872 37.50% 7.30%
1972 (Vietnam) $79,174 34.30% 6.70%
1973 $76,681 31.20% 5.80%
Ford 1974 $79,347 29.50% 5.50%
1975 $86,509 26.00% 5.50%
1976 $89,619 24.10% 5.20%
Carter 1977 $97,241 23.80% 4.90%
1978 $104,495 22.80% 4.70%
1979 $116,342 23.10% 4.60%
1980 $133,995 22.70% 4.90%
Reagan 1981 $157,513 23.20% 5.10%
1982 $185,309 24.80% 5.70%
1983 $209,903 26.00% 6.10%
1984 $227,413 26.70% 5.90%
1985 $252,748 26.70% 6.10%
1986 $273,375 27.60% 6.20%
1987 $281,999 28.10% 6.10%
1988 $290,361 27.30% 5.80%
Bush 1989 $303,559 26.50% 5.60%
1990 (Gulf) $299,331 23.90% 5.20%
1991 (Gulf, CW End) $273,292 20.60% 4.60%
1992 $298,350 21.60% 4.80%
Clinton 1993 $291,086 20.70% 4.40%
1994 $281,642 19.30% 4.00%
1995 $272,066 17.90% 3.70%
1996 $265,753 17.00% 3.50%
1997 $270,505 16.90% 3.30%
1998 $268,456 16.20% 3.10%
1999 $274,873 16.20% 3.00%
2000 $394,495 16.50% 3.00%
Bush 2001 (Afghanistan) $305,500 16.40% 3.00%
2002 (Afghanistan) $348,555 17.30% 3.40%
2003 (Afghanistan, Iraq) $404,920 18.80% 3.70%
He did cut some spending that was attendant to the end of the cold war. But to characterize that as "gutting" is nonsense. The US's military expenditures account for about 50% of all military expenditures worldwide. We spend 8 times what the Chinese (second largest spender) spend.
The gutted military seemed to perform well in Afghanistan.
As for the Kososvo military action, wasn't the mission accomplished without a single US casualty from the attack?