mr clinton meet reality, reality meet mr clinton

if only...
newsmax relates a portion of a lengthy new york magazine article [pages 4-5 for relevant passages] in which the former president laments the lost opportunity to go after osama bin laden by linking him to the USS cole bombing of october 2000. that new york metro article notes both sympathetically and skeptically:

The sentiment sounds both sincere and self-justifying—both a regret and a preemptive exercise in legacy protection.

no mention as to the lack of follow through despite bin laden's infamous fatwah or the african embassy bombings which led to the august 1998 action which destroyed some random targets including a pharmaceutical plant

According to a well-researched article written by Richard Becker, Sara Flounders and John Parker in CAQ, the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant was responsible for over 50% of Sudan’s medicine. This included 90% of the most critically needed drugs. In their words:
“...the bombing will inexorably cause the suffering and death of tens of thousands of innocent people all over Africa, many of them children, by depriving them of basic medicines against malaria, tuberculosis, and other easily curable diseases.”

update [256pm]: the captain further nails down the 'unreality' of the statement by referring to the 9/11 Commission maintaining a link between the cole and bin laden in november 2004, a few months before clinton exited office.

¶ - nitish @ 12:56 PM