When President Clinton announced the missile strikes against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons plant in Sudan last week, the issues seemed pretty clear cut.

Even for those of us who suspected the timing of these attacks had more to do with Clinton's personal scandals than real foreign policy objectives, we had few doubts that bad guys had actually been targeted.

Remember what the president said? He claimed he stayed "up till 2:30 in the morning trying to make absolutely sure that at that chemical plant there was no night shift." Right out of Michael Douglas' script in "The American President," Clinton added, "I didn't want some person who was a nobody to me, but who may have a family to feed and a life to live, and probably had no earthly idea what else was going on there, to die needlessly."

Touching. But like so many well-rehearsed, contrived statements that emanate from this president's mouth, it had little basis in truth or reality.

Remember, this is the same administration which informed us immediately after the strike that the plant was a highly secretive, tightly secured military-industrial site that produced no commercial products. Whether or not it turns out the plant actually made nerve gas at all, many other initial reports have proven to be lies, including the charge that the plant was directly financed by Saudi millionaire terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Now let's keep in mind that President Clinton personally chose the bombing site, a medicine factory with a United Nations contract, from among a larger set of targets presented to him by military planners. Sounds like he's got some more explaining to do. Can he blame Kenneth Starr for this, too?

Then there's the matter of Osama. We're certainly getting a different picture of this terrorist than we got from the early reports by the Clinton administration.

It turns out Osama bin Laden's family is one of the richest of the rich -- worth an estimated $5 billion. It's a pretty well-connected family, too. His brother is a director of the U.S. telecommunications giant Iridium, which is set to launch a revolutionary new global satellite communications system. And guess who has launched Iridium's satellites into space? You guessed it. Clinton's friends in China. And who are the family's partners on Iridium? Clinton's friends at the Loral Corp. and Hughes Electronics. The family also does millions of dollars of business with the U.S. government, having built an Air Force base for us in Saudi Arabia after Osama was blamed for blowing up the Khobar Towers in 1996.

So let's get this straight. Osama blows up our facilities, and his family gets the contract for rebuilding them. Do you get the feeling there is more going on here than meets the eye?

Then there are the questions concerning the other targets of our cruise missile attacks -- Osama's terrorist bases in Afghanistan. Of course, Osama survived the attacks, having, apparently, been tipped off in advance.

Was he really the target? Or were these attacks one more example of what the Clinton administration has become famous for -- symbolism over substance. If the U.S. really wanted Osama, he could have been picked up any number of times in the past on his frequent visits to America, when he has stayed at the finest hotels in New York.

It all sounds hauntingly like the catastrophic Waco raid also conducted by this administration. David Koresh could have been served with a warrant any time he ventured into town. The local sheriff would have been happy to serve him personally. Instead, the ATF chose to turn a minor affair into a massacre of men, women and children.

There are reports even from Afghanistan that more than terrorists were hit. Normally, we could dismiss accounts that mosques were struck as predictable political propaganda by anti-American extremists. But, with the track record of the Clinton administration insofar as truth is concerned ... just whom are we to believe?