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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (12025)	3/30/1999 1:20:00 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13994

<<I am skeptical about initiating wars with undefined goals and limited tactics, which is what Clinton's latest adventure seems to me to be. >> Me too. It goes back to the original complaint against clinton. Principle guides and justifies a mission, a mission is supported by goals, tactics accomplish goals. You must maintain character founded on principle for any of this to work. Clinton has nothing but a desire for his own egotistical legacy to be bound between the pages of our grandchildren's history books.

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (12025)	3/30/1999 8:48:00 PM
From: Catfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Larry, If the truth were known, I think many of Clinton's supporters are already sorry for supporting him. In time, the consequences to the country of having such an incompetent misfit serve as President will become more generally accepted. The damage to the military alone could prove to be catastrophic eventually. (What would the US do if China decided to attack Tiawan? Answer: Nothing.) The association with the Chinese for personal and political gain is in itself extremely troublesome. How far are the Chinese behind us now militarily? I suspect they are much closer to us than we have been told by the media. Darrell

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (12025)	3/30/1999 10:22:00 PM
From: Catfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Kosovo: The Liberals' War National Post Tuesday, March 30, 1999 David Frum Tuesday, March 30, 1999 Kosovo: the liberals' war David Frum National Post I won't be the first one to point this out, but it bears repeating: There is something more than a little weird about hearing former peaceniks -- the people who called on the United States to abandon South Vietnam, who demanded that America unilaterally "freeze" its nuclear weapons, and who opposed the Gulf War -- demand that NATO bomb Serbia into submission. It seems like only yesterday that such people were telling us we must not shed blood for oil. Now we are supposed to shed blood for a greater Albania. How did this happen? It happened because Yugoslavia is the perfect liberal war. It is fought by means liberals prefer for ends that liberals approve. Whatever else this war accomplishes (and I suspect it won't be much) it has illuminated the way the people who currently govern Canada, the United States, Britain and Germany think about the most awesome decisions states must take. 1. Yugoslavia is a liberal war because it rejects the doctrine of national interest. Unlike the war against Saddam Hussein, which was fought to stop him from adding Kuwait's colossal oil reserves to his own very large ones, and also to prevent an avowed enemy of the West's from developing nuclear and biological weapons, the West gains nothing from defeating Milosevic. From our point of view, it is a matter of total indifference whether Kosovo is ruled from Belgrade, Pristina or Tirana. We are not fighting to defend ourselves, we are not fighting to defend our allies, we are not fighting to defend our commerce. Of course, it's the very fact that the nations of the West stand to gain nothing that liberals like best: It's not violence that the peaceniks object to; it's patriotism. 2. Yugoslavia is a liberal war because it's motivated by sentiment rather than calculation. The stated purpose of attacking Serbia was to halt the maltreatment against the Kosovar Albanian civilian population. By all accounts, the attack instead has triggered atrocities on a larger scale, as Milosevic exploits NATO's attack to incite his army and his people to expel the Kosovars from their homes. The war to save Kosovo has caused more suffering in Kosovo over the past four days than non-interference would have. Are the advocates of war chagrined? Not at all. Think how often you have heard them say, "This conflict is a test of our values." They are fighting to feel better about themselves. 3. Yugoslavia is a liberal war because our supreme imperative is to avoid casualties -- on either side. One of the distinctive features of the liberal mind is its unwillingness to think seriously about the costs of its dreams and fantasies. What it is dreaming of in Yugoslavia is an independent Kosovo. To attain that dream, NATO must punish Serbia so cruelly that it realizes it has no choice but to surrender the place the Serbs believe to be the cradle of their culture. But that would require killing and maiming and starving hundreds of thousands of people, conscript soldiers and civilians. That's not something that Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have the stomach for. So instead, NATO warplanes are blowing up gasoline depots and ammunition dumps (after dark, when the employees have gone home) and other inanimate objects. (By the Serbs' own count, they have suffered fewer than 12 dead from the supposedly intense bombardment.) In other words, we are not only not willing to die for Kosovo; we are not willing to kill for it. We are engaged in a gigantic act of symbolism whose purpose is to alter Milosevic's thinking rather than to break his power. 4. Yugoslavia is a liberal war because it's being fought to uphold the peculiar liberal vision of anti-racism. If ethnic cleansing is a bombing offence, when do the planes head for Zimbabwe? Over the past 20 years, Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, has driven into exile all but 70,000 of the 300,000 whites who used to live in his country. Now he is threatening to confiscate the land of those who remain. Why aren't we outraged? Why didn't we send troops to Rwanda when that country was convulsed by interethnic violence in 1994? The answer is very simple: in Zimbabwe blacks are oppressing whites; in Rwanda, blacks were murdering blacks. From the anti-racist point of view, however, the only oppression that rouses indignation is the oppression of a Third World people by Europeans. The Albanians, although unfortunately white, do happen to be Muslim, and thus qualify as at least honourary Third World people. As a result, their plight has been elevated from ordinary that's-just-the-way-the-world-is suffering into the resurgence of Nazism. Since this is the liberals' war, it is the liberals who will be entitled to all the credit if it ends in success: If Serbia yields, if the atrocities stop, and if a stable, autonomous Kosovo joins the family of nations. But if the war ends in failure, the failure will be theirs too. Don't expect them to apologize, however. They never do. Instead they will pass the mess to conservatives to clean up, jeering and hissing as they do. For non-commerical, fair use only. Copyright © Southam Inc. All rights reserved. freerepublic.com