AAA, I appreciate your comments, but too often you sound like a spin doctor. I can't find mention of FDR in the V. Gore text but somehow you did.
Excellent point. Not only was Kosovo an ill-considered intervention against, let's remind ourselves, a country from whom there was not even a hint of threat (unlike Iraq), who was waging a war against terrorist guerrillas operating within its own sovereign borders, the future consequances of the move are likely to be disastrous, as not only have the Kosovo Albanians since gone on to fulfill their original goal, an ethnically clean Kosovo, the territory is rife with all manner of gangsterism and is fast becoming (along with the Muslim part of Bosnia) the breeding grounds and entry point of Islamic terrorism in Europe. Nice work, Clinton. All this wasn't lost on at least one Congressman. Here's an excerpt of the speech, which you can read here. House of Representatives - July 16, 2003 Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. I sat in my office last night and listened to Member after Member on the other side rail about President Bush and whether or not we could trust him in the Iraqi situation. I have listened to my colleagues tonight. Enough is enough. Mr. Speaker, this is just outrageous. So what I have done is I have got a whole file here, and I am going to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about their President for the previous 8 years, and I am going to cite articles and claims and I am going to cite the justification for the invasion of Yugoslavia as outlined by President Clinton. Where were these voices, where were these petitions, where were these outcries when President Clinton told us about the Balkans mass deaths to justify NATO's invasion into the Balkans? The Clinton administration claimed that ethnic cleansing had killed hundreds of thousands of people, and I will include the articles from the papers in the Congressional Record. .... Mr. Speaker, some would say, well, these did not involve death of American citizens or war, and I would remind my colleagues, the justification that President Clinton used to take this country into war in Yugoslavia was basically a bunch of false information. In fact, it was the USA Today in July of 1999, an article that said, ``As the allied forces take control in Kosovo, many of the figures used by the Clinton administration and NATO were greatly exaggerated. Six hundred thousand ethnic Albanian men were not trapped within Kosovo or buried in mass graves, as President Clinton told a veterans group. Instead of 100,000 ethnic Albanian men feared murdered, officials now estimate about 10,000; and we think the confirmed number was 3,000.'' .... Let us go to the Little Rock newspapers. They did an investigative story on January 16, 2000, after the Clinton administration had made these outrageous claims of ethnic cleansing. Why did they say these things, Mr. Speaker? Because they wanted the Congress and they wanted the American people to support his war to get Milosevic out of power. Let us read some of the quotes from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, January 16, 2000: ``Of 500 potential grave sites, 150 have been opened and, no, we have not found the 100,000 missing declared by President Clinton, or the lower but probably equally preposterous figure of 10,000 advanced by British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and repeated by the BBC.'' ... Let us go on, Mr. Speaker, with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette article of January 16, 2000: ``We have more than 10,000 photographs of graves, sites and bodies, and more than 300 hours of video, and we share all our evidence with the war crimes tribunal. From survivors who are giving us testimonies, we calculate there were 6,000 Kosovo Albanians killed in the 3 months of the war,'' not before the war, in the 3 months of the war which President Clinton led, ``and perhaps 2,000 still in Serbian prisons.'' .... Here is an article from the Washington Post, March 26, 2000. The headline, Was It a Mistake? We Were Suckers for the KLA was the headline of this article written by Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwartz. Let us go through some of the claims. ``Clinton's assertion,'' and I am quoting here, Mr. Speaker, ``at a June 25, 1999, postwar news conference that the bombing was a way to stop, quote, deliberate, systematic efforts at genocide,'' he called it genocide in Kosovo. It goes on to say, ``was either disingenuous or ignorant. Before the start of NATO's bombing on March 24, 1999, almost 2,000 civilians, overwhelmingly ethnic Albanians but also Serbs, had been killed in 15 months of bitter warfare. Up to that point, there had been no genocide or ethnic cleansing.'' The genocide and ethnic cleansing started when Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac started the war against Milosevic. .... ``Not only did the forced removal of civilians result from the NATO bombing, but administration claims of mass killings, made to rally popular support for the war, turn out to have been exaggerated. Clinton defended the intervention on the grounds that the Yugoslavs had slaughtered tens of thousands.'' President Clinton said tens of thousands, Mr. Speaker. It never turned out to be true. All lies. Secretary of Defense William Cohen termed it a, quote, horrific slaughter. The numbers we now have, according to this article in the Post, disprove those claims. U.N. numbers and U.S. numbers and Allied numbers say the information provided to Congress was wrong. " I don't think liberals have very much right to the "moral high road" they've taken on the Iraq issue when their mouths were conspicuously silent on what seems to have been an even greater blunder.
This is far from the truth- dare I say myopic on your part. In actuality, the main fear of the Iraqi people right now is that America is going to give up and go home before the rule of law is established. The idea that they want Saddam to return is ridiculous. Iraq actually has an educated and cultured populace, which in the long run will probably prove to be their greatest asset, greater than oil. The idea that the majority of that populace is in support of terrorism and wants to cut off their nose to spite their face is complete bullshit and left wing spin. Those against this effort like to point to outspoken extremists and imagine they represent the broad consensus, out of a natural desire to bolster their position. In reality, the problems are being caused by terrorists- not the broad consensus of Iraqi people. Extremists want to make sure America fails at any cost, because they know what is at stake- if capitalism takes hold the cultural mandate of hate, and power to those who promote hate, is gone. Iraqis in general are ready for it to be gone, and for prosperity to take its place. Iraqis in general have sovereignty issues and want to protect their pride certainly- and who can blame them? But the reality is that they want a rule of law established by Iraqis and for Iraqis as soon as possible, and they know that help is needed in this effort. Does CNN discuss the above? No- they publish bullshit comments from empty heads instead that suit their purposes. If CNN tried to get us to take political comments from a random college student at the University of San Francisco or Florida State seriously, would they succeed? Of course not. Yet they do the same thing in trolling for anti-Iraq bait, and the left doesn't consider the source or the larger issues because, quite simply, they don't want to. As for taking generations to change thinking patterns, that's just plain silly. We are not talking about the minority of extremists here who are fueled by hate no matter what. We are talking about the general populace- the majority of citizens, both in Iraq and in the middle east. The problem is lack of opportunity, not a backwards populace. Give individuals a chance to build a better live for themselves and their families- give them hope that there is a viable long term solution that means freedom and the ability to pursue happiness- and they will seize it with both hands. Do you recall it was said that Germany and Japan could never embrace democracy either? And by the way, your analogy of "a flick of the military wrist" doesn't make sense either. A flick of the wrist means dropping a bomb and going home. It means a short show of effort made for TV with no real followup. A flick of the wrist, in fact, is what liberals demand from their military actions because they do not have the stomach to stay and get the job done. Do you consider getting down in the trenches and staying in the trenches, with an effort of building a technological and political infrastructure that can stand on its own, working side by side with Iraqi leaders to orchestrate a handoff that results in rule of law, and will take months to years, a "flick of the wrist"? You are engaged in sophistry here. Please think more about what you are saying, what is actually being done, and what is actually at stake. Do you really think that the educated citizens of Iraq are saying "no thanks, we'd rather live in poverty and subject ourselves to warlords again then let a foreign nation help us establish rule of law here." Because that's what you're suggesting, and it's nonsense. Again I say, those who oppose this effort blindly have built their arguments on a house of cards that will come crashing down when we start seeing real fruits of progress that will have long run safety and prosperity dividends for Americans as well as Iraqis and the middle east as a whole. The spin can only last so long. And what will be said if/when Iraq clearly succeeds economically under its own power? I can only imagine: new arguments will be made by the left to convince themselves that it would have happened anyway and that America just got in the way.
Is it the different administrations that account for the difference in the voices of the liberals? Can you find no substantive difference between the Kosovo and Iraq interventions?
Yes, I can. And the truth is that the case for intervening in Iraq and the long term consequances of intervening in Iraq were and are both a lot better than Kosovo. Get it?
CIA says insurgents now 50,000 strong Crisis talks over transfer of power Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Baghdad Wednesday November 12 2003 The White House yesterday drew up emergency plans to accelerate the transfer of power in Iraq after being shown a devastating CIA report warning that the guerrilla war was in danger of escalating out of US control. The report, an "appraisal of situation" commissioned by the CIA director, George Tenet, and written by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, said that the insurgency was gaining ground among the population, and already numbers in the tens of thousands. One military intelligence assessment now estimates the insurgents' strength at 50,000. Analysts cautioned that such a figure was speculative, but it does indicate a deep-rooted revolt on a far greater scale than the Pentagon had led the administration to believe. An intelligence source in Washington familiar with the CIA report described it as a "bleak assessment that the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger". "It says we are going to lose the situation unless there is a rapid and dramatic change of course," the source said. "There are thousands in the resistance - not just a core of Ba'athists. They are in the thousands, and growing every day. Not all those people are actually firing, but providing support, shelter and all that." Although, the report was an internal CIA document it was widely circulated within the administration. Even more unusually, it carried an endorsement by Paul Bremer, the civilian head of the US-run occupation of Iraq - a possible sign that he was seeking to bypass his superiors in the Pentagon and send a message directly to President George Bush on how bad the situation has become. Proof of the strength of the insurgents and their ability to strike anywhere in Iraq was provided in another devastating suicide bombing yesterday. This time the target was the Italian military police barracks in the south-eastern city of Nasariya. At least 17 Italians and eight Iraqis were killed, striking a blow at one of the few nations prepared to send troops to help the US and Britain contain the rising violence. Following crisis talks in Washington yesterday, Mr Bremer flew back to Baghdad armed with proposals to bolster the US-backed Iraqi governing council with more powers and more resources in an attempt to speed up elections. Under one of the proposals, the council could be expanded or transformed into a full provisional government backed by an interim constitution. That would represent a radical reversal of earlier US policy which was to put off the transfer of real power to an Iraqi government until after elections, which in turn would have to await a comprehensive new constitution. The new blueprint, which reverses that methodological progression and which is closer to what was done in post-war Afghanistan, emerged from an urgently arranged series of meetings between the president, his top national security advisers, and Mr Bremer, as the security situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate rapidly. In scenes last night reminiscent of the height of the war, US forces went back on the offensive with air strikes and armoured assaults on a suspected guerrilla stronghold near Baghdad. Guerrilla attacks, meanwhile, have become more frequent, bolder and bloodier. In public at least, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has insisted that the attacks are the work of a few remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist party and a handful of Islamic jihadists from other Arab countries. It is understood that Mr Bremer's administration is concerned about the impact of the decision by US forces to escalate their offensive against the insurgents, anxious that bombing and heavy-handed raids will increase popular support for the insurgency. Mr Bremer refused to provide details of the new US plan, but US and British officials said he was carrying proposals from Mr Bush aimed at bolstering the interim Iraqi leadership in the hope of winning the confidence of Iraqis and paving the way for elections pencilled in for the end of next year. But, according to some US officials, elections could be held in four to six months. The UN security council has given the Iraqi governing council until December 15 to come up with a constitutional blueprint and organising elections. The council, deeply divided by internal disputes, has shown little sign of meeting that deadline, but the new US proposals would put it under pressure to accelerate its work and the transfer of power. One of the options discussed in the White House yesterday was replacing the governing council with a new body. The council was hand-picked by Washington after the war, largely from returning exiles, but it has since disappointed US officials by its slow progress. Many of its 24 members fail to turn up to its meetings, and the CIA report said the council had little support among the Iraqi population. However, the secretary of state, Colin Powell insisted: "We are committed to the governing council and are prepared to help them in any way we can." "We're looking at all sorts of ideas, and we do want to accelerate the work of reform," Mr Powell said. Not sure how much do Iraqis view us as liberators spreading democracy. Also they are seeing these actions: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24174 Tough to get them convinced...
Well FDR is synonymous with the New Deal. He started it. when Vidal said "New Deal", that is FDR. OK?
This is the crux of the problem. The State Department types think that we can win over the Iraqi's with money and promises of democracy. They wring their hands everytime the military shoots a terrorist. I would have thought it was obvious to evryone that this approach has produced a disaster. You don't go from repressive dictatorship to Jeffersonian democracy overnight. The first priority should be security. First for our troops, second for the Iraqi's. Everything else is secondary. If Bremer and the CIA are correct, and they have done little to give us any confidence in their judgment thus far, then the correct response would seem to be exactly what the military is doing. If so much of the population wants Saddam back, we have little to lose by blasting away. There are consequences to defying a superpower and apparently these thugs have not learned that lesson yet.
Blast away? Consequences of defying a superpower who invades a nation? Why the hell did we try to help the Afghanistan people when the super-power once known as the Soviet union invaded Afghanistan? Didn't those stupid thugs who fought against the Soviets understand that lesson? Sometimes you come off like a very short sighted chicken hawk. When are you going to learn that military procedures don't win the love of the people an invaded and occupied country? It yet remains wholly presumptuous for the U.S. to attempt to convert an entire society to our way of thinking as what is best for them in the long run, especially when the underlying motive of all of this is our own national interests, specifically the price and supply of crude oil.