Think Back
When thinking back drew a blank, I googled back to find that it will be difficult to pin this one on Clinton - Russian withdrawal was in early 1989.
pbs.org
FINAL RETREAT?
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour -- February 9, 1989
ROBERT MacNEIL: We turn now to a concluding chapter in a nine year story: the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Most of the 115,000 occupying troops have left the country. The remaining ones are trying to arrange an orderly exit by the February 15th deadline set in the peace agreement negotiated last year through the United Nations. Their departure leaves the communist government in Kabul facing an uncertain future as rebel Mujahadeen guerrillas move to take over positions vacated by the Russians.
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Bush (II) will help the Afghanis, but do you really think President Daschle or President Gore (God forbid) would make it a priority?
God and Scalia did forbid it, but we have this summary of the candidates' debate positions:
issues2000.org
Bush compromises between internationalists and isolationists
Bush has woven a middle ground between two battling factions of his party - internationalists who support engagement with great powers like China and isolationists who are deeply suspicious of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.
Drawing on the advice of Gen. Colin L. Powell, widely viewed as a potential secretary of state in a Bush administration, Bush is far more tentative about committing American troops and rules out their use for what he dismisses as nation building. “There may be some moments when we use our troops as peacekeepers, but not often,” he said in the final presidential debate. In the second debate he suggested a broader philosophical disagreement with Mr. Gore: “I’m not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, ‘This is the way it’s got to be.’”
Gore, on the other hand, has repeatedly portrayed himself as a man who has come to believe in vigorous American intervention abroad
Source: David Sanger, NY Times Oct 30, 2000
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Neither party has much favored foreign intervention since Vietnam, though the success of the Gulf War under Bush I changed that somewhat. I can recall a distinct lack of enthusiasm for intervention in Haiti by the Republicans, for example.
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