From: lintz@fred.cis.udel.edu (Brian Lintz)
Subject: Re: Why Vote for Bush?
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 17:58:38 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.235854.13514@chinet.chi.il.us> pat@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Louis Sugent) writes:

>>>  Whether or not you agree with this issue,
>>>I would hope that you would concede that it takes skilled foreign policy
>>>to get it to happen.
>>
>>Absolutely. It was an amazing feat just getting all the parties to sit
>>down together. I think the was more the results of James Baker than
>>George Bush. While I don't agree with Baker politically I do think
>>he has been a very skilled Secretary of State. I would say that Bush's
>>only good foreign policy move has been picking Baker.  
>
>   I don't think Clinton would appoint Baker.  Baker is an extension
>of U.S. foreign policy under Bush.

I agree that Clinton wouldn't appoint Baker, but I don't think Baker
is an extension of Bush's foreign policy. I think Bush had an idea
of where he wanted to go with foriegn policy, and picked Baker because
he would be the best person that shared his views, that would be able
to carry it through. I don't think Bush would have done nearly as well
in foreign policy without Baker. 

>   Allies does not equal ready partners of a coalition.  Read "Commanders"
>for a more detailed anology, but it was no "piece of cake" to even get
>Saudi Arabia to go along and Saudi had Iraqi forces forming on their border.
>
>  Each country was its own individual problems, and they were all dealt 
>with well.  Dismissing the egos and concerns of any international
>coalition by saying they "...were already allies"  greatly simplifies
>a difficult task.  

Alright, I admit that I did oversimplify this point, and I will retract
what I initially said. I agree, it was tough to put the coalition 
together and keep it together. In fact, I think that's why we went to
war; Bush was afraid the coalition would fall apart. 

>  It should be noted that I was not simply admiring the military venture.
>I give a great deal of credit to Bush (and his foreign policy team) in
>getting the UN and the economic embargo together.  Once again, whether
>or not you agree with the economic embargo, this is tough to do.

>  In fact, at first the Bush administration rejected the idea of an
>emargo even though they thought it was the best option.  This was
>not because they did not think it would work if implemented, but rather
>because they thought it would be impossible to actually organize.

>  Bush's initial private reaction (made public by Mr. Woodward) was
>"..we just can't accept what's happened in Kuwait just because
>it's too hard to do anything about."  At that time, he was also
>not advocating use of military force, the embargo was his main consideration.

I wish he would have kept it this way.

>  On your other points, I'll have to let them lie.  I still think you
>oversimplify the matter.  The mid-east is often a lose-lose situation, and
>I'm not terribly sure this was different. I had a page and half response written
>, but I realized that my response was destined to lead to one of those debates
>that never dies.  Rather than take up the nets time with it, I'll email
>it to you if you like.  

I probably am oversimplifying a bit, but I think the main points I
made were valid. I'd be interested in your response, so go ahead
and email it; we can continue the discussion over email if you want,
rather than waste bandwidth.

>  However, even without that, I still stand behind the fact that
>saying "Bush's only success in foreign policy was the Gulf War", is
>incorrect.  I'm not sure you are the one that originally said this, but
>this is the quote I was responding to.  I have a difficult time
>letting such an inbalanced statement go by...

>Patrick Sugent                       

I wasn't the one that made the initial statement, I was just
responding to you response to it. Although I agree with you
that there were some incredible things going on (the coalition,
the embargo, etc.), I still don't think Bush handled the situation
as well as he could have. 

Brian Lintz
lintz@udel.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections