To put this in a context bigger than mere sleep deprivation or false memory syndrome:

Roger Cohen: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/opinio n/27Cohen.html

Here's some news for Hillary Clinton: the Bosnian war was over in 1996.

Those of us, like myself, who first went to Bosnia at the start of the war in 1992 and then, in 1994 and 1995, endured President Bill Clinton's circumlocutions as we sat in an encircled Sarajevo watching pregnant women getting blown away by shelling from Serbian gunners, know that.

We know that as President Clinton mumbled about "enmities that go back 500 years, some would say almost a thousand years," Bosnia burned. We know what that talk of intractable grievances dating back to 995 was meant to communicate: no western intervention could achieve anything in the Balkan pit.

Only after the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica, three years after the initial Serbian genocide of 1992 against that population (and one year after a genocide on his watch in Rwanda), did the gelatinous Clinton develop some backbone. NATO bombed, Richard Holbrooke did his brilliant work at Dayton in November 1995, and the guns fell silent in Bosnia.

Since my two diaries I've had constant comments asserting that Hillary was in favour of Lift and Strike, and an active voice arguing for intervention.

But according to Sally Bedell Smith (LOVE OF POLITICS, pp 157-8) Hillary was arguing the opposite.

"Taking the advice of Al Gore and National Security Advisor Tony Lake, Bill agreed to a proposal to bomb Serbian military positions while helping the Muslims acquire weapons to defend themselves--the fulfillment of a pledge he had made during the 1992 campaign. But instead of pushing European leaders, he directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher merely to consult with them. When they balked at the plan, Bill quickly retreated, creating a "perception of drift." The key factor in Bill's policy reversal was Hillary, who was said to have "deep misgivings" and viewed the situation as "a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform." The United States took no further action in Bosnia, and the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs was to continue for four more years, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000 people."

   I can personally witness to the truth of this, too. I can remember, first, one of the Clintons' closest personal advisers--Sidney Blumenthal--referring with acid contempt to Warren Christopher as "a blend of Pontius Pilate with Ichabod Crane." I can remember, second, a meeting with Clinton's then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin at the British Embassy. When I challenged him on the sellout of the Bosnians, he drew me aside and told me that he had asked the White House for permission to land his own plane at Sarajevo airport, if only as a gesture of reassurance that the United States had not forgotten its commitments. The response from the happy couple was unambiguous: He was to do no such thing, lest it distract attention from the first lady's health care "initiative."

Yet there are some who are still asking for other quotations, from more Hillary friendly sources. I found this by a favourable biographer, who was present during many of the deliberations in the first year of Clinton's administration. Here's Bill Reeves, author of Running in Place.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ shows/choice/bill/reeves.html

I think the Bosnian policy of the United States, which I don't disapprove of, is a perfect example of the Clinton presidency. That is, the President wakes up new each morning and so we have had 365 Bosnian policies a day. He may have been talking about it at home, he may have read something, he may have heard something. He is open to information. This is not a closed man, which changes his take on it.

The most dramatic example came toward the end of the first year, when he agreed, at a series of meetings on policy called "Lift and Strike," lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims and strike at Bosnian- Serb targets. That happened on a Friday. Warren Christopher went to Europe to tell NATO allies what we were going to do, and that Monday morning there was a meeting in the Oval Office between Clinton, Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, and Les Aspin, then Secretary of Defense. And as he walked into the room, Clinton was carrying a book called Balkan Ghosts, by Robert Kaplan. And he said, "My wife read this and I read some of it too. And it says that we can't succeed doing anything in that society. They've been killing each other for thousands of years and they're going to keep doing it." And Les Aspin said later, he was sitting there thinking, "He's going to go south on Lift and Strike." And he called Europe, got Christopher, and said, "Don't say anything. The President's going to change his mind." And in fact the President did.

So over to you guys. Doesn't this just darken the deceit. Isn't Hillary not only lying about her role in a non war zone, she's also concealing her true role and guilt in prolonging the war?