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12. THE WORLD'S SOLE SUPERPOWER

THE BOOMER CLINTON TAKES THE WHITE HOUSE (1993-2001)

CONTENTS

Bill Clinton (President – 1993-2001)

Domestic politics during the Clinton years

Clinton and the world

Particular  events that shake the country deeply in the 90s

The textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work
        America's Story – A Spiritual Journey © 2021, pages 385-403.
BILL CLINTON (PRESIDENT – 1993-2001)

William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton.  Clinton was born in Hope Arkansas in 1946, just after the end of World War Two, thus qualifying (even exemplifying) himself as a Boomer.  But unlike most Boomers, Clinton's life as a child and youth was anything but normal for the times.   His actual father had died just before his birth, and his mother, a rather dramatic individual, remarried four years later to a quiet, not terribly successful, alcoholic – who proved to be abusive of her.

In his family's move (when he was just six) to the most unusual Southern city of Hot Springs, Arkansas, Clinton found himself in the midst of a multi-ethnic (and corrupt:  gambling, Mafia, etc.) environment.   And with both his parents working, he found himself alone at home much of the time, or on his own exploring the larger world around him.  Actually the family housekeeper offered the nurture that his parents did not, and would become a strong influence in his own Christian development.

He even walked by himself regularly to the huge Park Place Baptist Church and became very active in Sunday School there. The contrast between the violence of his step-father (the Clinton surname came from his step-father, not his biological father) and the Christian counsel he found both at church and from the housekeeper – who advised him "live and let live, for God will ultimately take care of all matters" – turned the young Clinton even more closely to God.  At age nine he confessed Jesus as Lord of his life and was baptized, an event he claimed was a major part of his personal development.  Also the fact that Billy Graham refused to segregate a crusade he once held in his town touched Clinton's heart deeply.

Clinton's need to grow his world himself led him to push himself educationally, take up music (saxophone), and become active in every social circle possible, winning awards and finding himself taking up leadership positions widely.  In this he saw himself called by God to make a big difference in the world.

His high academic performance opened his way in 1964 to Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., quickly even there finding leadership, as president of both his freshman and sophomore classes.  But he did not follow the 1960s trends, and failed to win that position his senior year (1967-1968), as he was now viewed as too much a part of the "Establishment" that Boomers by this time were in the streets protesting against everywhere – and especially in D.C.

He continued his schooling, the next year (1968-1969) at Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar, and then after that Yale Law School.  Here he met the equally scholarly and ambitious Wellesley graduate, Hillary Rodham.  The two of them would eventually move to Clinton's home state of Arkansas to practice law, and both become Law School faculty at the University of Arkansas.  And in 1976 Hillary would set aside her hesitations and marry Bill Clinton.

His ambition now turned in the direction of public office, and in 1974 he ran for the position as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, though he proved not to be successful in the venture.  But two years later he ran (unopposed) for the position of Arkansas Attorney General, a key stepping stone on his way to the Arkansas governorship.  And this he won in 1978, making him the youngest governor in the country.

Not surprisingly, he was a very active "reformer" as governor, taking on tax reform strongly, which upset voters sufficiently for him not to be reelected two years later.  But he was the "Comeback Kid", and two years after his defeat, he was reelected on the basis of a more "moderate" platform, having learned how to read the public's interest a bit better.  And from that point on, he would be reelected continually, until his run for and election to the U.S. Presidency ten years later.  Meanwhile Hillary worked hard on building the couple's family fortunes.[1]

As governor, Clinton proved to be still a reformer at heart, and poured his efforts into educational reform, his reform programming taking the state from the country's lowest ranking on the testing scale to the most greatly improved in all the nation, drawing him much attention from the nation in the process.  This brought him the invitation to offer an opening-night address at the Democratic Party national convention in 1988, now making him indeed a national political figure.  At this point, the U.S. presidency itself interested Clinton as a new personal political goal.

He used his talents learned from his rise in Arkansas politics to very carefully pick up support here and there for his candidacy.  And in the process, he was able to arrive at the 1992 Democratic National Convention with the key states of Florida, Texas, New York and California committed to his nomination.  Thus he easily secured the presidential nomination at the convention itself.

As for his Christian life, not untypical of a self-advancing youth, he had let his churchgoing fall to the wayside during his college years, and in fact would not resume active church attendance until 1980, when he was reelected as Arkansas governor after his first reelection defeat to an active churchgoer.  So it certainly helped his political image to now be a churchgoer in his second attempt at reelection.  But part of the change was undoubtedly authentic, as he sought God's support in the road that still lay ahead. Indeed, he would draw very close to his Immanuel Baptist Church pastor, W.O. Vaught, all the way up to Vaught's death in 1989.[2]

[1]One of the Clintons' financial ventures, the Whitewater Development Corporation – a vacation properties investment venture undertaken with Jim and Susan McDougal in 1978 – failed badly a few years later.  Then in 1992 McDougal’s Madison Guarantee Savings and Loan Association was accused by the New York Times of illegally granting money from the financially shaky (and ultimately insolvent) Madison Guarantee to the Clinton campaign organization.  This raised other questions, such as the possible involvement of McDougal’s bank in funding the Whitewater venture as well.  Soon accusations about various questionable financial transactions (and Hillary’s and her Rose Law Firm’s involvement as legal counsel to the McDougals) were raising the matter to the level of major political scandal.  And in 1995 – with Clinton in the White House as U.S. president – the U.S. Senate finally set up the Whitewater Committee to look into the matter.  Ultimately in 1998 (as the public’s attention was turning to the Lewinsky-Clinton sex scandal) the Whitewater Special Prosecutor Ken Starr (who was also now investigating the Lewinsky scandal) concluded that there was insufficient evidence in the Whitewater affair to indict the Clintons of any criminal act (although fifteen other people were convicted of various crimes in this matter – including Jim Guy Tucker, Governor of Arkansas) – and the investigation was thus dropped.

[2]Hillary however would remain true to her Methodist upbringing, attending the also Liberal First United Methodist Church in Little Rock, even teaching Sunday School there.

DOMESTIC POLITICS DURING THE CLINTON YEARS

"Two presidents for the price of one."  Actually America had elected a husband-wife team of Bill and Hillary – proudly declared by Clinton himself when he uttered the famous phrase that a vote for him would amount to "two presidents for the price of one."  He fully intended to put Hillary to work at the very top of his Administration.

Hillary was born a year after Bill (1947) in a Chicago suburb to a strongly Methodist family, with a father as founder and director of a small textile company and a typical at-home mom.  Hillary too proved to be academically talented as well as an active leader in high school.  And she, like her family, started out as a political conservative, but was professionally quite ambitious – and very irritated at the roadblocks females experienced on such a road. She went on to all-girls Wellesley College, majoring in political science, and saw her political loyalties shift to the Democratic Party – feeling that the Republicans were not strong enough on their civil rights stands. And then at her graduation, she was called on to address her fellow graduates (Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke was actually the commencement speaker), receiving a seven-minute standing ovation from fellow graduates for her speech – and bringing her national recognition in the process.

She then went on the Yale Law School, where found herself focused on child care, poverty, and migrant labor issues.  And she soon met Bill and the two moved in together in New Haven.  She then finally made the decision (after many requests) to follow him to Arkansas to begin his – and her – professional careers, as faculty at the University of Arkansas Law School.  And in 1975 they finally married.

But she nonetheless worked hard at keeping their professional lives quite independent of each other, as she took on her own assignments, such as moving to Indianapolis in 1976 to help the Carter presidential campaign.  But finally she settled down (somewhat) in joining the Rose Law Firm, a leading Arkansas group ... working now more in the business realm, but still active in children's issues as pro bono supplementary work.

National health care reform.  Now as president, Bill immediately assigned Hillary the task of putting together a new national health program – similar to the ones in Europe – considered highly Socialist in typical American thinking.

Almost immediately things did not go well with this effort.  The doctors' national organization, the AMA (American Medical Association), was highly opposed – as was the private insurance industry.  Too many people (including lawyers) were getting very rich from the way the health industry worked in America – and were in no mood to see things changed.  Thus the idea soon got dropped by Clinton – both Clintons.

Homosexuals in the military.  Then Clinton attempted to move down the Boomer path that not only saw nothing amiss about homosexuality but indeed viewed bitterly the lack of sympathy of most of American society to the plight of the homosexual – especially since so many of them had begun to suffer agonizing deaths from the AIDS virus that broke out within their circles in the 1980s.  As usual, the U.S. military's chain of command reaching all the way to the White House seemed to be the perfect laboratory to conduct the moral reform of America with respect to its traditionally very negative reaction to homosexuality.

But here too, Clinton's effort did not take him very far – when it became clear that American society was not yet ready to undergo such reform.  He finally agreed to settle on the principle of "don't ask, don't tell" – actually not a new principle at all.  Something like thus understanding had pretty much been policy all along.  Homosexuality in the military existed – and was tolerated – as long as it remained "in the closet."   The homosexual community (and its Boomer supporters) would thus have to wait – until yet another generation came along – the Gen-Xers and their President Barack Obama – to finally "change"[3] the official American position on the practice of homosexuality in the military – and in American society in general.

Deficit reduction through the raising of taxes.  One area that Clinton did indeed find success was in attacking the problem of the growing federal deficit.  In sponsoring the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, he was able to raise taxes on a wide variety of incomes – which naturally met resistance from those whose taxes would increase.  But nonetheless, the bill passed, though only by the slimmest of margins (the Republicans strongly opposed ... as well as numerous Democrats).  Nonetheless it would have a dramatic impact in bringing the federal budget into balance – even reducing the deficit somewhat.

The Gingrich challenge moves Clinton to the political center (1994).  In the House of Representatives, the Congressman (and former university professor) from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, had taken the lead of his party as Minority Whip, and had begun to rebuild the party around a program which he clearly outlined in his publication, Contract with America.  It called for the classic Republican doctrines of balancing the budget – not by raising taxes but instead by reducing the immense size and cost of the Washington bureaucracy.  It also called for the reforming of the welfare programs that had many Americans living off the dole rather than from their earnings from jobs.  And it called for a transformation of Congress itself through the infusion of new blood.

And indeed, in the 1994 elections the Republicans came in control of both Houses of Congress – ending the 40-year reign of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives – which then would also elevate Gingrich to the powerful position as Speaker of the House.

But this would then lead to a political standoff between the Republican Congress and the Democratic White House – a reversal of the previous political profile of Washington politics.  At the heart of this standoff was a federal budget approved by Congress – which followed Gingrich's lines quite closely – and which got vetoed by Clinton (as was the case also with much of the Republican Party's other bills).  Finally, a shutdown of the Federal bureaucracy occurred in mid-November (1995) when neither the White House nor Congress would back down with their opposing positions on the budget bill.

But of course, this was portrayed by the press as a result entirely of Gingrich's intransigence – such hardness of heart that Americans were having to go without various governmental services.  Clinton's vetoes were not mentioned.  The American press – now almost entirely on the Leftist side of the political spectrum – hated Gingrich, depicting him in the worst possible light.

But at this point Clinton was already beginning his move to the political center, sensing the opportunity there to undercut Gingrich – even by taking on some of Gingrich's programs.  For instance, after twice vetoing Republican bills calling for reform of the welfare system – offering job training instead of outright monetary grants to individuals – Clinton finally signed on with the program (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 ... also known as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act, or TANF) – actually making it appear as if this new approach to unemployment and poverty was his idea!  Initially the Democratic Party was very unhappy at this Clinton betrayal.  But it certainly was greeted with strong approval by the Americans themselves – and Clinton's move to the center finally was accepted by his party.[4]

Then there was the matter of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico – opening the economic borders with America's neighbors to the north and south.  Actually the Agreement had been put together in the last days of the Bush presidency.  But it was Clinton who came up against the American labor unions and their Democratic Party voices in Congress when he pushed for Congress's ratification of the NAFTA treaty.  But its passage by the Republican Congress actually soon demonstrated that this helped boost the American economy greatly – even for labor union workers!

Clinton also took up the task of deregulating the banking industry (pleasing the Republicans) at the same time supporting the expansion of low income mortgages through Fannie Mae (FNMA or Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC or Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) – government-subsidized lending (pleasing the Democrats) ... however leaving both lending organizations vulnerable to financial mishap (which would indeed take place disastrously a dozen years into the future).

Consequently, the American economy entered into a long period of growth – some seeing Clinton as the force behind this development, some seeing Gingrich as its author.  Actually, it was a bit of both.

Clinton as a Christian president.  When in 1993 the Clinton's came to reside in the White House, the two eventually attended together quite regularly the Foundry United Methodist Church located nearby.  And Clinton's relationship with Graham deepened, Graham being called on to deliver the benediction at Clinton's inauguration ceremony and the two meeting often for prayer and consultation thereafter.

[3]Actually, reverse the position, now making any visible opposition to homosexuality the new social crime highly punishable under the law.

[4]After at first supporting the concept as an Illinois state senator, Obama, as president, would work to reduce the work requirements of the TANF welfare program.

CLINTON AND THE WORLD

In the field of foreign affairs Clinton was to demonstrate an instinct for Realpolitik – perhaps picked up from his university days at Georgetown, perhaps by learning from the examples set before him by both Reagan and Bush ... and certainly learned from his own experience as Arkansas governor when he had to change course in order to make a political comeback after having lost an election to a more populist opponent.

His moves abroad were carefully calculated on the basis of cost versus reward in promoting the American national interest (the central thesis of Political Realism), but also the global interest – thanks to America now being the world's sole superpower.

Black Hawk down" in Somalia (1993).  Somalia would be an early test case.  The United Nations looked to America for help in its efforts to get food aid to thousands of civilian victims of a civil war going on in Somalia among various tribal and gang groups, a war that was tearing that country apart.  In October of 1993 Clinton ordered an air assault on the group holding the Somali capital of Mogadishu – which did not turn out well when the local citizens shot back – and two Black Hawk helicopters were downed.  Clearly such American intervention had little local support from the Somalis (probably too afraid to come up against the gangs).

At this point Clinton's goal became one of simply extracting American troops from Somalia.  There would be no further effort to straighten out Somalia.  Actually – as with Reagan's failure in Lebanon in his early years as President – Clinton's pullout from Somalia was greeted with respect on the part of those watching the drama unfold there.  Clinton had done the right thing – in not letting his ego get the better of him – and admitting failure in the effort.  As a Realist he had simply cut costs and moved on.

Haiti intervention (1994).  In Haiti, Clinton was faced with another rapidly deteriorating situation as a result of the overthrow by a military junta in 1991 of the elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide. Deteriorating conditions in that country had set Haitians in huge numbers (tens of thousands) fleeing the country, heading for America by sea – but with many of the overloaded and unseaworthy boats sinking along the way.

In this matter, Clinton was more circumspect because of the Mogadishu mess.  In 1994, with full backing from the United Nations  – even as he began military preparations for intervention in Haiti – he sent representatives (former President Carter, General Colin Powell of Iraq War fame and Senator Nunn) to Haiti to let the military junta know that the US was getting ready to send troops to their country, and that they had better restore the civilian government of Aristide before these troops landed.

The Haitian military officers ultimately backed down just as some 20,000 troops (mostly the American 82nd Airborne, but including some from other nations)  were about to land in Haiti (September 19, 1994) – and in October Aristide returned to power in Haiti – under the protection of US troops sent to Haiti to oversee the transfer of power.  The American troops were then soon pulled out.

Clinton came away from this venture looking very presidential.

"No" – to Rwanda (1994).  On the other hand, Clinton had to say "no" to a request from the UN to intervene in the slaughter taking place in Rwanda, as Hutu tribesmen and Tutsi tribesmen fell into mutual slaughter – causing virtual genocide – when possibly as many as a million Rwandans  (no one knows for sure the actual count) were butchered in the fighting.  This was way too big for America to take on.  Clinton's "no" was greeted with scorn by fellow Liberals.  But Clinton was very wise not to drag America into something that would only tragically drain a huge amount of American blood with little likelihood that it would make much difference in how things worked out among the Hutus and Tutsis.

But "yes" to Bosnia (1995).  Ever since Tito died in 1980, it had been a struggle to keep the various ethnic groups making up Yugoslavia together.  Basically, divisions were getting deeper – and increasingly hostile.  Then with the example set in the departure of the East European countries from the Soviet Empire, the various national groupings in Yugoslavia began to declare independence, starting in early 1990 with Croats and Slovenians (basically Roman Catholic rather than Eastern Orthodox like the dominant Serbs).  Then Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence in 1991 – except independence would carry away a huge section of the Serbian population (about a third of the population in Bosnia).  At this, the Serbs invaded Bosnia (also about 44% Muslim – with another 17% Croatian), and ethnic and religious tensions exploded.  Civil war soon became mere genocide – as, for instance, in the town of Srebrenica when in 1995 some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were executed by Serbs.  And the beautiful city of Sarajevo (the site of the Winter Olympic Games of 1984) became a no-man's land and a physical disaster.

Europeans looked on in horror, and began to discuss the possibility of NATO intervening to stop the genocide.  At first, Clinton's reaction was shaped by his experience in Somalia.  But the situation grew so grim that he agreed to lead NATO airstrikes against Serb positions – at the same time that Croatian and other Muslim nationals engaged ground troops against the Serbs.

Finally, toward the end of 1995, an armistice – followed by peace negotiations at Dayton, Ohio, plus an agreed-on stationing of 60,000 international troops (20,000 of which were American) – brought the region to a nervous peace.  At this point a quarter of a million people had been killed and over a million had been made homeless and living in refugee camps.  Getting the states of former Yugoslavia back into some kind of order could now begin – although it was not going to happen quickly – and would require the continuation of the stationing of international troops in the region – on a reduced basis, but there in any case as a warning not to start things up again.

In the end this measured response worked the best way possible.  There would be no victory parades and no heroic talk.  But the job had been done – and again, Clinton looked very presidential!

The Kosovo Crisis (1999).  Then ethnic tensions flared up again in the former Yugoslavia – this time in the southern region of Kosovo – pitting a Serbian minority (but backed by Serbian power to the north) against the Albanian-speaking and largely Muslim Kosovar majority.  Genocide again became the rule of the day – with a million Kosovars forced to flee their homes or be slaughtered by the invading Serbs (but small Serbian communities here and there suffered as well from groups of Kosovar militia).

Having so recently experienced the Bosnian crisis, NATO was quick to respond this time – with Americans once again involved in heavy air attacks on Serbian positions – including even the Serbian capital at Belgrade.  Rather quickly Serbian President Milosevich was forced to yield – and accept another peacekeeping force of 50,000 troops (7,000 of them American).  Milosevich was subsequently arrested and brought before the International Court of Justice at The Hague for war crimes – but died in a Dutch prison during his long trial.  And the Kosovars erected a large statue of Clinton in their capital of Priština – certainly the hero to many in Kosovo!

The new friendship with the Russians.  The Russians, now under Boris Yeltsin, were experiencing something that roughly qualified as democracy – and enjoyed watching the developing friendship between Clinton and Yeltsin.  But underneath it all was a Russia that was having a very hard time coping with a world in which the Russians themselves – and not just their government – found themselves responsible for the social rewards that came their way.  A few of them (mostly younger) grew quite rich – some through what would qualify in the West as purely criminal behavior.  Others just could not figure out how this democracy thing was supposed to work – and found their lives gradually growing poorer and poorer.  Life expectancy dropped by a full ten years – and Russia began to look and act like a Third World country.  Increasingly, disenchantment with "Russian democracy" mounted in Russia.

The development of the European Union and NATO.  For the West, these were very good times.  European nations were coming closer together through the European Union – and the new Maastricht Treaty (1992) which pointed to a full unity of European states – through Europe's single currency, the Euro, and through the free movement of workers and industrial products from country to country within the Union (with Britain still a bit standoffish in keeping their Pound rather than the Euro as their currency).

In addition, the military side of this unity, NATO, was looking very good after action in old Yugoslavia – and was also taking on new members from the former Soviet bloc (to the annoyance of Russian hardliners): the new Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – bringing the total membership in NATO to 19 countries.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq.  Ever since the ouster of Saddam from Kuwait, America had kept a close watch on the Iraqi dictator's doings.  He had been forced to accept U.N. terms allowing inspectors into his country to confirm that he was keeping his side of the agreement to suspend chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development ("weapons of mass destruction" or WMDs).  But Clinton was not convinced that the inspections were digging deeply enough.  Thus in October of 1988 he signed the Iraq Liberation Act, financing Iraqi opposition to the Saddam regime.  Then in December of that year he forced the inspectors out of Iraq in order to conduct four days of missile attacks on Iraq – although they appeared designed more to undercut the Iraqi government than simply take out questionable weapons production sites (mostly military installations and their personnel were targeted).

There was considerable international opposition to Clinton's program this time, not only from outraged Arabs but also from Russia, China and even France – which reacted with a call to end the oil embargo aimed at Iraqi exports.  Others loudly accused Clinton of undertaking in this attack merely a diversion away from the spotlight aimed at him because of the scandal of his having sex with a White House intern.  But it certainly was also part of Clinton's tough response to the bombing of the American Embassies in East Africa just a few months earlier.  He was getting very tired of dealing with rising Arab Islamic radicalism – from any source, whatever that might be.

Dealing with Islamic Jihad.  This matter arose from a growing problem brewing in the Middle East – one that did not necessarily take conventional national lines and thus fairly expected behavior.  Muslim fanatics, young and extremely dedicated in their hatred of things Western, were growing in number – in various ways that had little to do with nations or even countries and their governments.  These fanatics, mujahideen or jihadists – both words formed from the Arabic jihad, meaning "struggle" (against evil) – could be found widely around the Middle East (even as far away as the Philippines) – forming here, moving there, so that it was all that Western intelligence agencies (such as the America's CIA, Britain's MI6 or MI5, or Israel's Mossad, etc.) could do to keep up with their activities.

The Taliban.  One such group was the Taliban (from talib, Arabic for "student") – that had formed originally at various conservative Muslim schools – most notably the one in Pakistan headed by the mullah Omar.  They were found strongly positioned among the Pashtun tribesmen of Northern Pakistan and Southern Afghanistan.  This was the group actually helped by America in their effort to oust the Russian Soviet troops from Afghanistan in the 1980s.  But now (1994) from a political base in the southern Afghan (Pashtun) city of Kandahar, the Taliban were focused on overthrowing a tribal coalition governing in Kabul – one which the Americans were trying to work with.  In 1996 the Taliban advanced on Kabul and drove the coalition from the capital city – the coalition retreating to the north of the country to become the Northern Alliance under the leadership of the Tajik, Ahmed Shah Massoud.  But the regime of the Taliban was so oppressive (they executed thousands of civilian Shi'ites and minority Hazaris – and drove thousands more to the north of the country as refugees) that Americans felt compelled to support Massoud and the Northern Alliance.  This in turn brought friction between America on the one hand and its old allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on the other – Sunni Muslim states actively supporting the Taliban. Clinton thus had to move cautiously concerning the mounting crisis in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda (or more properly al-Qa'ida).  Even more ominously for America, another group of Muslim jihadists – al-Qaeda – was being organized by a Saudi Arab, Osama Bin Laden.  His anger at the Saudi Royal family for allowing the stationing of kaffir (infidel or unbelieving) American troops on holy Arabian soil (Saudi Arabia itself) during the Gulf War of 1991-1992 had led to his expulsion and flight to the Sudan.  In the Sudan, his family name (he was the son of a very wealthy Saudi businessman) convinced the Sudanese government to give him permission to set up a training camp there to prepare young Muslims for jihad – until his organization started conducting attacks on Sudan's neighbors – and he was again expelled.  This time he moved to Pashtun lands (both in Afghanistan and Pakistan) where his radicalism was well received.  From this position, Bin Laden began to organize cells of operatives instructed in the art of suicide bombing against various kaffir targets – all done to the glory of Allah.  At the same time al-Qaeda missionaries were sent around the world to various mosques to bring them to al-Qaeda's jihadist vision.

Part of this was also done in competition with Shi'ite Iran – to promote a Sunni lead in the destruction of infidel Western culture – in Europe, in Asia (principally the Philippines), in Africa, and in America.

The 1993 New York World Trade Center bombing.  In late February of 1993 a van parked in the garage of the New York Trade Center exploded – with the purpose of collapsing the North Tower against the South Tower and killing the tens of thousands of people working at these immense towers.  Instead, it merely destroyed six stories of the building – although it did kill six people and wound thousands of others.  Had the van been parked closer to one of the main supports of the North Tower, the bomb might well have succeeded in its evil design.

The attack was supported financially by a Pakistani al-Qaeda member, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, uncle of the actual organizer of the event, Ramzi Yousef – who would also be the mastermind of the second (and successful) attack on the World Trade Center in September of 2001 (9/11).

The 1993 operation involved a number of mosques in the New York metropolitan area, and the arrest of a number of the conspirators gradually followed.  From the outset, American investigators were strongly suspicious of the al-Qaeda organization as the source of the enterprise – though no precise connection was established in the investigation.  But at this point, al-Qaeda was put at the top of America's list of terrorist organizations.

The attack on American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya (1998).  In August of 1998 two American embassies in East Africa were bombed, with hundreds of people killed.  This time al-Qaeda's connection (through its Egyptian affiliate, Egyptian Islamic Jihad) was clearly identified as responsible for the bombings.  Clinton struck back immediately, with missile strikes on Afghan and Sudanese targets (although the Sudanese site may have been unconnected to the event).  Many Arabs cheered the al-Qaeda attack on the embassies – and took to the streets in protest against the American retaliation.

America's relations with significant parts of the Arab Islamic world were clearly reaching a very low point.

PARTICULAR EVENTS THAT SHAKE THE COUNTRY DEEPLY IN THE 90s

Although the country had settled down greatly since the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, there were a number of incidents (besides the Twin Towers bombing of 1993) that shook the country, incidents that stood out not because they represented the sweep of new political impulses, but incidents that for unique reasons of their own shattered the American image of prevailing peace and social justice.

The Rodney King incident (1991-1992).  A major tragedy hit the nation in 1992 when a court decision in Los Angeles did not go the way Blacks felt that it should, and for the next six days they rioted, plundered and torched the world around them, causing over $1 billion in property damage to some 1,600 businesses (some 40% of them owned by local Korean shopkeepers), a social catastrophe that injured 2,000 and killed 63 people as well.

The incident occurred over the arrest of Rodney King the previous year, whose takedown by police was videoed by someone drawn to the commotion by police sirens and helicopters.  The video was submitted to a scandal-hungry press, which repeatedly showed only the last moments when King was beaten to the ground, failing to mention in their report the long chase of his (and two companions) car through the city's streets and failing to show (in the same video) King's repeated efforts to break from the police when finally caught.  But the jury that tried the case did have all the contextual information, and acquitted the police.

That was not a decision that the Blacks wanted.  So they rioted ... urged on by LA Mayor Tom Bradley, expressing his own anger at the jury decision (understandable on the part of a Black mayor, but one disastrous for LA in the way it encouraged the wrong kind of behavior, not to mention disastrous for Bradley's own political career).

Ironically, King eventually sued the city of Los Angeles, and was awarded $3.8 million in compensation (plus $1.7 million for his lawyers).  Thus supposedly American justice was served.  King would continue to drink and take drugs, was arrested eleven more times, and finally drowned in his own swimming pool years later.

The Ruby Ridge incident (August 1992).  A local feud among neighbors in Idaho turned into a major Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) disaster when an angry neighbor – who lost a property claim in court – took revenge on the Weaver family by reporting them to the FBI and Secret Service as having made threats on the life of the President, the Pope and the Idaho governor (pure fabrication by the neighbor), and eager government officials took the bait.  The matter was put in the hands of the ATF and they set a trap to bring Randy Weaver into custody, and the event went wrong.  Their warrant, deviously place in his hands when Randy Weaver attempted to help ATF agents pretending to be stranded motorists, listed the wrong date for the court appearance.  And when he did not show up, ATF agents were sent to arrest him, resulting in months of a standoff when Weaver refused to give himself up.  Then when a TV cameraman filming from a helicopter the action accused (quite falsely) the Weavers of having fired on his helicopter, the Feds felt that they finally had the just cause to act directly against Weaver.  Thus six Federal Marshals were sent to raid his home.  When Harris, a family friend, and the Weaver's 14-year-old son went out to investigate the family dog's barking, shooting broke out between Harris and the Federal agents and the son was killed – as well as a US Marshall.  Then a sniper killed the wife when she went to the door to let Harris back into the house, and for the next twelve days a standoff occurred at the site as agents negotiated Weaver's surrender.

Ultimately the ATF had no case to stand on other than Weaver not originally showing up at court on schedule.  Harris was found not guilty of all charges on the basis that he had simply responded to being fired on by an agent who had failed to identify himself before firing.  In fact it became clear that the Federal agents had disregarded the Rule of Engagement (ROE) completely.

Ultimately the "Ruby Ridge" episode became famous as a case of government misconduct – books, songs, and even a CBS miniseries was published over the tragedy, and a lawsuit (quite light in terms of the horrible damage to the Weaver family) was brought successfully against the government.

The Waco Siege (February-April 1993).  A similar incident of government malfeasance occurred the following year in Waco, Texas, when locals reported to local officials all kinds of misconduct going on at a very secretive commune of Branch Davidians (a break-away millennialist group from the Seventh-Day Adventists).  The locals had no evidence of any of the "facts" they were reporting – only rumors which grew more graphic with the retelling.  Thus it was that the ATF was once again brought into a local drama in order to bring "justice" to the matter.

Here too a standoff occurred, which the ATF tried to resolve by simply invading the compound, only for a firefight to break out between the two groups.  Four federal officers and five Davidians died and more than 20 other federal officials were wounded in the action.  Now the matter became truly a war.  Water was cut off to the compound and over 900 officers assembled to begin a full-scale attack (including armored tanks), which on April 19th finally took place.  In the melee, the compound burst into flames, 76 Davidians (including numerous women and 25 children) died in the blazing inferno (only nine Davidians came out alive from the event).

The trial of the survivors dragged on for years, even reached the Supreme Court, which finally reduced greatly the sentences imposed on the survivors, and the ATF again came away looking very bad as the facts of the whole incident became ever clearer.

The Oklahoma City bombing (April 19, 1995).   Two years later on exactly the same date as the Waco disaster, a huge explosion took out the front portion of a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people (19 of them children at a day-care center located in the building) and injuring some 680 others, and causing property damage reaching blocks away.

Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice Terry Nichols were stopped for a license plate violation, which in the process revealed to police a record of weapons possession – which in turn led the police to realize that these two were the ones who had carried out the explosion.

McVeigh explained his action as revenge for both the Ruby Ridge and Waco disasters caused by federal authorities (the latter determining the date for McVeigh's action).  But McVeigh's vigilante act gave him no just cause in the eyes of the jury and he was found guilty (1997) and executed (2001), with Nichols receiving life imprisonment.  This in turn prompted Congress to pass the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, providing for stronger protection at federal facilities.

The O.J. Simpson murder case (1994-1995).  Another event which had the potential to shake the country to the core was the trial of O.J. Simpson, accused by Los Angeles authorities of having killed his ex-wife, Nicole and her boyfriend Ron Goldman on the night of June 12, 1994.  Evidence, (a bloody glove found at the scene of the crime in front of Nicole's home and a matching bloody glove found at the home of Simpson) immediately pointed to this famous football (and media) celebrity.  Thus when the news hit the media, a huge national drama unfolded.  At first it looked as if Simpson might take his own life rather than surrender himself.  But ultimately, he gave himself up, and the country prepared for a major courtroom media event.

To make the case as "fair" as possible, a predominantly Black jury was chosen, and the defense thus was able to employ the "bad police" defense (the prosecuting attorney was a "genocidal racist"; racist police could have planted the second glove at Simpson's home to make him look guilty).  But the racist argument was countered by pointing to the fact that police had been called to the Simpson's home eight times by battered wife Nicole and only the last time was Simpson actually arrested.  However the October 3rd (1995) verdict was foreordained.  There was no way that a predominantly Black jury was going to find Simpson guilty of the murders.[5]   Thus the hundreds of police (remembering the Rodney King situation), who were ready to deal with a situation that was expected to follow if he were found guilty, were able to stand down.

The Million-Man March (1995).  Just two weeks after the Simpson verdict a huge "Million-Man March" on Washington, D.C., was assembled by Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan.  But it was designed to encourage a very different sense of honor among Black males than simply "burn, baby burn."  Behind this event was deep concern that it was Black women who were left with the responsibility of holding the Black family together – in the face of widespread male no-show at the family scene.  The March was a call to men to repent of the way they related to the women of their community, to put themselves before God, and take up the family and social responsibilities that should be theirs as men.

The gathering was peaceful and dignified throughout, seemed to please the White world (which actually commented very little about the event), but did draw some complaints from Black feminists – who did not find anything redemptive about any event that was focused just on men and them alone.

In any case, would this appeal work?  Would it restore the Black family (over 70% of Black children lived in homes with only the mother present) – once the bulwark of Black strength through some very terrible times in American history.  But to address that issue, America would also have to address the welfare system that rewarded Black families only when an employable male was not present. This was a major financial disincentive facing the Black family.  Thus ironically, the effort of the welfare system to help the Black community had only seemed to make things worse.

The "workfare" policy of Gingrich/Clinton was designed to address this situation, but seemed only to give Black women greater talent as members of the workforce (a good thing) without addressing the matter of the missing male (a bad thing).  In the meantime, young Black males were still being left to enter manhood without any guidance from a loving father at hand to help them make that entry.  Gang membership was too often providing such instruction to rising Black males.  But that was hardly a good thing.

What could be done to correct this matter?  No one seemed to have any good answers.  The Million Man March was an excellent step forward – but ultimately seemed to have changed very little over the longer run.

Impeach, impeach, impeach.  Clinton's last two years in office were darkened by revelations of an affair he had been having with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.  Sex or money in exchange for status and power has not been a particularly new thing in Washington, or for that matter in the world or across the centuries.  This does not make it right.  There are rules against it.  But being powerful tends to cause people to think themselves exempt from such rules.  You are just not supposed to get caught.[6] 

Naturally, Clinton denied having the affair.  Then the truth of this affair came out, along with a number of other women who testified that they themselves had had the same experience with Clinton along his way to power.  Ah-hah!, so he lied about the affair!  Certainly lying to Congress about this affair constituted supposedly one of those "high crimes and misdemeanors" that then allowed the Republicans to begin impeachment hearings against the president.

But the American public was in no mood for such a move against the president, and the November 1998 elections cut back the Republican majority in the House from 21 seats to 12 seats.  This in turn caused a Republican revolt against House Speaker Gingrich, who then announced his resignation as Speaker.[7]  Nonetheless, the impeachment hearings continued forward and on December 19th the vote went against Clinton on two counts and in his favor on two other counts (most of the voting along party lines).

Thus the Republicans joined the Democrats in confirming the new political practice of impeaching the President when any opportunity to do so would present itself, a horrible political activity to mix into the "normal" process of Washington politics.

But when the case went to trial in the Senate, the best the Republicans could do was a 50-50 vote on one count and an even worse 45-55 vote on the other, neither coming close to the 2/3s vote needed to convict.

There were some interesting outfalls from all this.  First of all, a new email campaign which called itself "moveon.com" mobilized the young "wired" generation during the 1998 electoral campaign to "move on" past this meaningless scandal, the organization then itself "moving on" to become a major Democratic Party campaign support group in future elections.

And most bizarre of all, Clinton ended his last months in office (prior to the end of his term in January of 2001) with one of the highest approval ratings of a president at the end of his term!  Indeed, the nation had "moved on."

The Columbine High School Massacre (April 1999).  A tragic event became part of the closing of the 20th century when two high school students undertook a long-planned massacre of fellow students at their Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.  A bomb by which they had planned to blow up the school failed to detonate.  But they were fully armed and succeeded in killing twelve students and a teacher, before they turned the guns on themselves and ended their lives when the police arrived on the scene. Ultimately, there was no reason given as to their actions, other than the desire to commit a grander murder than had been the case in the Oklahoma City bombing.

This raised the question, would there be more copycat killings (as this one seemed to be), by people who simply wanted to be significant, to be noticed?  People do the most horrible things for the worst reasons imaginable, especially when it becomes a trend (like mass rioting, pillaging and ultimately killing).  Would America see more of this kind of behavior in the future?

[5]Black jury members included even a former member of the Black Panthers – who in the announcement of the verdict, raised the Black Power fist salute to Simpson!

[6]A classic example was King David of ancient Israel, who had sex with a man’s wife while the husband was off fighting wars for the King. And bitterly ironic, Gingrich, who was leading the impeachment effort against Clinton, was having his own affair with a woman not his wife (but soon to become his third wife) while Clinton was being tried for his sexual "high crimes and misdemeanors"!

[7]Gingrich, despite being returned to his House seat by a huge majority in the November 1998 elections, in January of 1999 – when new terms were due to start – announced that he was stepping down from even his position as simply a House member.  Actually, this seems to have been the startup of a spiritual journey for Gingrich, from a Secular Realist (we were both of that same moral-spiritual order back when we were friends, both doing our doctoral research in Brussels in the late 1960s) finally developing into to the strong Catholic Christian he is today.



Go on to the next section:  Social Developments during the Reagan-Bush-Clinton Years

  Miles H. Hodges