A review of Jeffrey Kuzmarov's book about a vile man
Originally posted on Substack
Review: Warmonger: How Clinton's Malign Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden by Jeremy Kuzmarov
Was Bill a proto-Trump?
I’d never been a fan of Bill Clinton. He did seem a cross between a jerk and a grifter, and his tenure was that of a bore. Granted, some of the electorate idolized him and the press gave him a pass, which is normal practice for mainstream media and Democrats.
In the Trump era, folks to the left will try to say Donald takes the crown. No one should try to pretend The Donald is a Holy Innocent, but a reading of Jeremy Kuzmarov’s Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden might disabuse one of the desire to canonize Slick Willie.
Jeremy Kuzmarov is a prolific writer on foreign policy and is a social critic. He is managing editor at CovertAction Magazine and you can read his substack here.
As biography, He goes over a lot, beginning with the Clinton’s childhood, but the not perfect early life is not overly dwelt on. It is in college settings that he begins moving up. He was an aide to J. William Fullbright which burnished antiwar credentials. Clinton finessed a ROTC enlistment to not serve. Early on, he displayed a talent for gaming a situation.
Which might be expected from a boy from the Arkansas mafia town of Hot Springs where what he had for a family fit in.
He would leave for college and law school and Oxford, but you could take the boy out of Arkansas, but you could not take that state out of the boy. He would join the McGovern campaign, and throw it over. If something didn’t work for him, he was out.
Bill’s governorship was in the Arkansas tradition, but his ascension to the presidency would take him to high vistas of corruption. Yet many only remember him for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, whether that proved his vile character or marked him as a victim of a witch hunt depends on one’s viewpoint.
Warmonger is several hundred researched pages about a man who served himself, but his nation and constituents only incidentally.
The litany of Clinton’s vile acts and policies is long and cannot be looked at in depth in a review, but we can get a flavor.
Ranking them would be difficult, but though it is only a couple of pages, the bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum stood out, if only because your reviewer remembers it in the news, but at the time just thought it par for the course. Vaguely, it came to mind as it occurred about the time Clinton was also taking heat regarding the Lewinsky embarrassment.
Though the author mentions the impeachment trial, it is not at all its focus. Rather, it is an in-depth exposition of a murderous event.
What was The al-Shifa plant? To quote the author, It was “Treasured by the Sudan government as the “pride of Africa” after its opening in June 1997, the al-Shifa factory had provided over 50 percent of Sudan’s medicines, including 90 percent of the most critically needed drugs. Government subsidies enabled free distribution to Sudan’s poor” The author noted a recent authorization for exports to Iraq might have prompted the attack.
Among the horrors left by the bombing there was no treatment left for malaria. A Boston Globe reporter observed the rise of deaths due to the plant’s destruction and the sanctions that prevented imports of medicines.
Of course, there were excuses:
The CIA claimed, based on an analysis of a soil sample found outside it, that al-Shifa manufactured chemicals used in the production of deadly nerve gas, and that the manufacture had been financed by bin Laden. After the bombing Clinton described the plant as an “imminent threat to our national security.” National Security adviser Sandy Berger stated: “let me be very clear about this….This was a plant that was producing chemical warfare related-weapons and we have physical evidence of that fact.”
The paragraphs that followed make the case convincingly that the president and his adviser were, shall one say it, not displaying absolute fidelity to the truth. Of course, this does not come as a shock even to the hard-core Clinton devotees.
A Defense Intelligence Agency review contradicted the president and a former ambassador called it a mistake.
Most damning, a Ramsey Clark led investigation determined the bombing “followed the definition of a war crime.”
In our hemisphere, Clinton would bash about playing at statesmanship while spreading horror. Looking at one spot where he rampaged is instructive if only because the U.S. has made a mess of the place many times while claiming the havoc was a responsible action.
Mr. Kuzmaroz titles the section on the Second Oldest Republic in the Western Hemisphere “Devastating Haiti.” It is apt in that we did not act sisterly to our younger sister, but had our way with her like a psychotic older brother.
The section begins with a 2010 apology by the ex-president of his forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on rice from the U.S. that was subsidized during his presidency, wiping out Haitian farmers.
The author quotes Clinton: “It may have been good for some of farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake.” The words, “it has not worked” should lead one to ask what would you expect.
Next Clinton quote is “I have to live everyday with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed these people because of what I did.”
We need not make a window into Bill’s soul to guess how much he suffers.
The Haitian president who had adopted the liberalized trade policy that included the rice tariff reduction would be removed in a coup, we would respond with marines without observing the war powers act.
The occupation settled affairs nicely, restoring the ousted Aristide and bringing about a functioning democracy, except, according to journalist Allan Nairn the real purpose was,
“To prevent the Haitian population from taking politics into its own hands and to forestall the danger of radical mass mobilization…. The United States intends to contain Haiti’s popular movement by force if necessary…. The objective in the words of one U.S. Army psychological operations official, is to see to it that Haitians don’t get the idea they can do what they want.”
The author saw the current invasion as analogous to the one under President Wilson. Military advisors were given desks in most of the country’s ministries. An American anthropologist directed funding that was poured into the private sector.
President Aristide had so little power, that he couldn’t even raise the minimum wage from a dollar a day.
Attempts by the Aristide administration to prosecute coup regime crimes were thwarted by the Clinton Administration.
Aristide abolished the army, but Clinton had the new police infested with cronies and members of the old army.
There is more, and it is horrible, but one might argue that the ne plus ultra was his HIV policy:
“Instituting mandatory HIV testing and then segregating those who tested positive. He then created the world’s first HIV detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, where conditions were horrible. As political analyst Nathan J. Robinson described it, the facility was a “leaky barracks with poor sanitation, surrounded by razor wire and guard towers.” and the overrun with snakes, lizards and scorpions.”
Unlike the rice tariff, Bill has never apologized for the depravity his administration caused.
There is more, but it almost writes itself. Suffice it to say, as someone who has read about Haitian history starting in junior high school, if there is one thing that is more than self-evident, helping Haiti never works for the Haitians.
Jeremy Kuzmarov has provided an exhaustive account of a man whose corruption is overwhelming. Though it is hardly unheard of for an American president to leave office wealthier than when he entered, William Jefferson Clinton did more than well.
There is a segment of the American electorate that is exercised over the activities of the current chief executive who is certainly bombastic.
We shall let history judge between the incumbent president and Slick Willie.
