Clinton Legacies

November 26, 2000

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U.S. Marine: Clinton's Trip to Vietnam Cost $63 Million

“Ayatollah Klintonmeini” Morphs into “Sultan of Little Rock”

Adding Gore Insult to Clinton Injury: Demoralized U.S. Military Now Also Disenfranchised in Florida Vote

By Bob Djurdjevic

PHOENIX, Nov. 26 - Over four years ago, a public disclosure of the Clinton administration’s illicit support of Iran-Bosnia weapons and mujahideen (“Allah’s warrior”) shipments earned the American president the nickname “Ayatollah Klintonmeini” (see the Apr. 6, 1996 TiM Bulletin, "Ayatollah Klintonmeini" - TiM Bulletin 98-04).  After Bill Clinton’s recent visit to Brunei and Vietnam, however, it may time to upgrade his title of to “Sultan of Little Rock.”

The reason?  It took 26 C-5's, 33 C-17's, 4 C-141's, 10 KC-10's, and one C-130 to carry out the one-week airlift, according to a Nov. 16 memo from an active duty U.S. Marine officer who was involved in the operation (for an explanation of all these short forms, see the footnote at the end of this article provided to TiM by a retired US Air Force colonel).  “This amount of airlift is enough to support a medium sized war!”, the colonel said.

Far from going to war, after schmoozing with the Russian president Vladimir Putin, among others, at an ostentatious palace in the sultanate of Brunei, America’s arguably most infamous draftdodger finally got to Vietnam about three decades too late.  And he arrived on the Air Force One like a royal potentate, ready to do what he does best - kow-tow to his communist hosts. 

Clinton’s one-week trip to the Asia/Pacific cost the American taxpayers over $63 million, according to the above US Marines officer.  By contrast, the III MEF's (Third Marine Expeditionary Force) total airlift budget for FY01 was $6.9 Million.  So $6.9 million to move 27,000 US Marines and 3,000 tons of materiel for one year; $63 million to move the “Sultan of Little Rock” and his wife and daughter for one week.

Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, the newly elected senator for New York, who carried on a parallel royal tour of Vietnam, also figured prominently in that 1996 “Ayatollah Klintonmeni” piece.  Here’s an excerpt:

"I have to admit that a good deal of what my husband and I have learned (about Islam) has come from my daughter," said Hillary Clinton, addressing the members of the American Muslim Council (AMC) at the first-ever White House celebration of Eid al-Fitr (a Muslim religious holiday) on February 20, 1996. "(As) some of you who are our friends know, she (Chelsea) took a course last year in Islamic history."

Chelsea has been educating her parents about Islam ever since, the First Lady explained. As she accepted the two AMC gifts of Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, Mrs. Clinton said: "I am honored to have these gifts... one for my husband, and one for me, as Chelsea already has her copy."

So the First Lady who introduced Islam to the White House now gets to represent in the Senate the state with the most significant Jewish vote in America.  The U.S. politics at its most bizarre?  Barring Florida, of course.

Clinton’s Vietnam trip got even more bizarre.  Here was his daughter Chelsea, yes the one who evidently taught her parents the virtues of Islam, now enjoying the perks of her Dad’s being the Commander-in-Chief of the very U.S. military she had once spurned.  Once again, we return to that “Ayatollah Klintonmeini” article:

"During Clinton’s first year in office," writes (the U.S. Marines) Lt. Col. Tom McKenney in the (1994) book, "The Clinton Chronicles," "an incident occurred which was buried by the news media."

"The occasion was a departure for a state function, a routine operation," Col. McKenney writes. "Vehicles were lined up outside the White House... Young Chelsea Clinton, like everyone else, was assigned a specific sedan."

But when Chelsea was about to get into her limo, she turned around and declared: "I won’t ride in this car! There’s a military man in here, and I don’t ride with military men!"

The "military man" happened to be a senior U.S. officer. Being a gentleman, however, he quietly got out of the car and found another ride.

In a separate incident, Chelsea asked her young Marine security escort to wear civilian clothes in the future. "My family doesn’t like military people," she explained.

Where, do you suppose, the "young Chelsea" acquired such attitudes? At her home, of course.”

In the “Sultanate of Little Rock,” now temporarily transferred to the White House (also see the cartoon at our web site).

The current administration’s disdain for the military was also evident during the last two weeks of legal wrangling in Florida, when the lawyers for the vice president Al Gore moved heaven and earth to try to disallow as many absentee military ballots as possible. It was adding a Gore insult to a Clinton injury.

A participant in the Saturday (Nov. 25) rally in Florida said several thousand people were crowding the streets in downtown Pensacola to hear Congressman Joe Scarborough and others speak at the steps of the courthouse on behalf of the disenfranchised absentee military voters.  Among them were three retired US Navy admirals with combined military service of 100 years, this participant reported. 

“All of these men said they had never before in their lives ever publicly expressed a political view, but that this time, the acts by the Democrats were of such grave importance that they felt compelled to condemn it - PUBLICLY!”, this source said.

Well, if only they were three, or 30 or 300… ACTIVE duty military officers.  The American electoral “demo farce” would probably be over by now.  And along with it, the long suffering and humiliation of our armed forces.

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FOOTNOTE: "C" stands for Cargo. The C-5s, 17s, 141s and 130 are all Cargo aircraft. The C-5 is one of the largest aircraft in the world, capable of carrying two M1 main battle tanks, each weighing 135,400 pounds.  The payload will vary depending on runway length or how far the plane needs to fly, but even using 250,000 pounds of cargo as an average, those 26 C-5s alone could move more than 8,000 TONS! of cargo. The C-141 is a large 4-jet, long-haul aircraft, its 93-foot-long cargo bay can take up to 208 ground troops or 168 paratroops. The C-17 a smaller, 4-jet, intra-theater aircraft is designed to operated closer to the battlefield.  The C-130 is a 4-engine turbo-prop support aircraft that is the workhorse of many of the world's air forces.  The KC-10 is a tanker aircraft which provides in-flight refueling for the other aircraft; it is a modified version of the DC-10 commercial passenger jumbo-jet.

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Bob Djurdjevic, founder of TRUTH IN MEDIA of Phoenix, Arizona, is an internationally published author, e-mail: publisher@truthinmedia.org 

Also check out... Ayatollah Klintomeini (1996)