Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: greenspirit who wrote (79378)	3/3/2003 11:29:28 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

John, the perceptions you speak of were mostly driven by those in the "Big Industrial Media". If the same pressure were applied to "seek a U.N. resolution", Clinton would have looked far worse then Bush does today. Fortunately for Clinton, those on the right never had any respect for the U.N. to make much of an issue of it. No, Michael, I think the venue was different. There was no Gulf War precedent for Clinton so going through NATO rather than the UN was easier. Read the Halberstam book. You will see that the Clinton folk, specifically Holbrooke and Clark with an occasional bit from Clinton, had a terrible time with NATO. But if you read Clark's recent book, he writes of himself as very committed to making certain that NATO not only survived through the Kosovo period but even thrived. He had/has an extremely strong commitment to international institutions. It's the lack of that that is the principle difference with the Bush folk. There can be little doubt we (as Americans), have far more reasons to take out Hussein then we did Molosivic. Granted, Milosovic was dangerous and evil, but on a scale of 1-10, Milosovic would get about a four, while Hussein would get an eight. He was certainly no direct, or indirect threat to America the way Hussien is. But, to go back to the same point I type about and I know you are tired of it, Bush has not convinced global public opinion of that. The Bosnia/Kosovo attacks were widely seen as humanitarian conflicts meant to put a break on ethnic cleansing. Bush has not managed the same type of argument about Saddam. His wmd argument has not been received as a global argument, rather as a, narrowly construed, US self interest argument. And, coupled with the perception of him and his administration, as go it alone cowboys, they've been very successful, sadly so, convincing the world they are more of a problem than Saddam. We killed hundreds (perhaps thousands), of civilians with our bombs over Kosovo, but those were D bombs so it didn't matter as much to the peace-niks. I assume the term "peace-niks" is meant to be a put down of folk who are critical of the US war effort. I think of them as responsible citizens who are exercising their right of public protest. One of the virtues of democracies. Consider for a moment how an errant bomb dropped on the Chinese embassy would be viewed by the anti-Bush crusaders of today? Now you've got me. Given how badly the Bush folk have managed the framing issues, if something like that happens in the Iraq invasion, it will be extraordinarily bad. They have no room for that kind of error.