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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (45078)	9/18/2002 4:42:26 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

But it just ain't that simple. Ahhh, the "Warcry" of a College Professor! But it often is that simple, John. I think we are going to make it through the Elections a lot easier here if we don't start off with the assumption that our Political Opponents are evil. To expand on my post to you from last night, I always figure that our Politicians want to do what is right if they can. They make many compromises, (the steel tariff) that are totally Political. I did not like a lot of the things that Clinton did or wanted to do, and I have felt this way about all the Presidents. But I figure that they start out wanting to do them because they believe it is the right thing to do. I am sure that one of the first questions they ask their advisors is "What will be the Political consequences of this move?" and "What do the polls show we should do?" That is normal "making sausage" Politics. So I propose that we all take it a little easy on our descriptions of our "opponents." I won't call your positions "Stupid" and you don't call mine "Evil"

To: JohnM who wrote (45078)	9/18/2002 7:53:37 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

He could easily believe in what he is doing, run the political stuff through it as well including his election prospects, donors wishes, etc. and still do the wrong thing. According to you. The point is, that Jack Beatty et. al. will never lend any credence to the "believe in what he is doing" part to Bush, but they will to Democrats. And any quote which suggests that political leaders do things for singular motives is wrong. We, poor peasants that we are, can never know what the main motives are. So why are we wasting our time on this thread, if we can never know? And why is it that anytime anyone comes near scoring a point against you, we get a chorus of 'We can never know anything! All we see is shadows on the cave wall!'? You seemed to have a quite definite opinion on Bush's real motives just a few posts back, if I may say so: It looks to me as if the WWP crew, along with the Rumsfeld Cheney crew, came to office with an analysis of foreign policy that said, to put it crudely, the US needed an easy war to win. So long as its principle foreign policy shaping resource was force (a classic neocon position, but certainly not held only by such), the US needed a firm exercise of force, the better to shape the world to its liking. Iraq is the place for that war in this estimation because its military is perceived to be weak, it has very large symbolic status in the ME, the oil argument is not trivial, and it signals Cheney's old buddies in the the Bush I administration that he is finally winnning that argument. Thus, all the flailing around, looking for a justification.