From: coolidge@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Foul Words and False
Date: 5 Nov 1992 19:44:35 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: fddi-speaker.wpd.sgi.com

In article <5NOV199207010394@vxcrna.cern.ch>, casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE) writes:
|> In article <1da3k2INN9dd@fido.asd.sgi.com>, coolidge@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge) writes...
|> >In article <5NOV199202465423@vxcrna.cern.ch>, casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE) writes:
|> > 
|> >No, no, you have it wrong. Clinton was demonstrating *because* his fellow
|> >Americans were dying. As soon as you say "while" instead of "because", you
|> >sink into a semantic tarpit that doesn't care about what happened, but 
|> >rather only about what one can be made to believe about what happened.
|> 
|> I fail to see how demonstrating in a foreign country (where he was also
|> conveniently safe from the draft, yet still "politically viable") did anything
|> to aid these poor victims for which he supposedly cared so much.  Why not
|> come home and take a stand where it might have some effect on the government?
|> Why not openly repudiate the draft then instead of playing administrative
|> games that look for all the world like someone trying to stay out of the draft
|> while keeping a low profile?

I fail to see any difference between demonstrating in London and Boston - with
the possible exception that the various pro-war administrations never paid 
*any* attention to demonstrations in Boston (and I was there the whole time; I
know whereof I speak). To that extent, demonstrating in London may well have 
been more effective. You have nothing to back your opinion other than that 
opinion itself. Circular logic proof doth not make.

If you, like Bush, think that there's a qualitative difference, put up or 
shut up. (Bush did neither.)

As for the draft, I have far more respect for anyone who, opposing the
war, would take any legal step whatsoever to avoid the draft, than I could 
ever have for someone who opposed the war but wimped out and let his ass
be drafted without ever taking a stand. 
 
|> >BTW, the Vietnamese weren't our "enemy". Or perhaps I missed it when
|> >Congress declared the war...? What? No War? Well, then...
|> 
|> Talk about semantic tarpits.  Yeah, ok, they weren't our enemy.  And they
|> *certainly* couldn't have been armed, supported and financed by any other
|> countries with bad intentions toward the US.  They were just out for a little
|> nature walk on the Ho Chi Minh trail with their Kalashnikovs.  Please.

Ha. Ha. Very funny, Comrade.

Of *course* the arming of the Viet Cong was intended to damage the US. Why,
weren't they all bound for Los Angeles next? Then the heartland? And finally
that bastion of revisionist running-dog evil thought, Washington DC itself?

Smartass comments don't prove anything, though.

The Viet Nam War was a civil war. We stuck out noses into it after the French
exhausted themselves trying to play King Canute. Not surprisingly, we did
no better. 

Thye VC weren't attacking the US, they were attacking a corrupt US-installed
puppet regime. The fact that they were no better themselves is totally
irrelevant. We had no legal or moral right to be there; one could persuasively
argue that it was the French and US presences there that caused the Vietnamese
Communist movement in the first place.

The conflict is over. We backed a loser, and it lost. It does nobody any good
to keep fighting that war today. You might try reading Barbara Tuchman's
"The March Of Folly" for a somewhat broader examination of that conflict and
its history than you've apparently been exposed to so far.
  
|> >|> This is what scares me the most about Slickness.  It's the same airy-fairy
|> >|> idealism which led that other great Moral Force of our era, Jimmy Carter, into
|> >|> unmitigated humiliation and disgrace.
|> > 
|> >Glad we now understand your position on questions of ethics.
|> 
|> Ethics alone are great for moralists and Sunday school teachers, but I'm
|> afraid the world outside Podunk, Iowa is a bit rougher.  I'm not questioning
|> Carter's motives, but merely saying that world history is littered with these
|> naive do-gooders who expect tyrants to play by club rules. 

There have been more than a few exceptions to your rule. George Washington.
Thomas Jefferson. Abraham Lincoln. And so on.

Whereas look at the historic carnage that has invariably followed in the wake
of the likes of Bismarck, Disraeli, Cardinal Richelieu, and other so-called
"statesmen" who have practiced politics according to your formula. World War I,
World War II, and the Viet Nam conflict are a few of the more notable recent
examples.

|> The first ethic
|> as far as I'm concerned is self-preservation.  I ask you: was Carter effective
|> at advancing the ethical state of the world?  The sole accomplishment you might
|> point to was Camp David, which itself was an extremely mixed bag.  By selling
|> the Palestinians out, Sadat and Carter basically nullified the chance for a
|> just peace.  Everywhere else: Iran, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Poland, Carter
|> wound up doing more harm than good.
|> 
|> Contrast this to the foreign policy accomplishments of Reagan and Bush.  You
|> may disagree with me on how much credit they deserve, but you cannot deny they
|> played a role in making the world a safer, more peaceful, and more democratic
|> place.

Of course I can deny it! More importantly, I can prove it. As the most blatant 
recent example, Iraq comes to mind. By continuing his balance-of-power games 
and leaving Saddam in control, Bush guaranteed that the Kurdish and Shi'ia 
minorities would be persecuted and murdered. He guaranteed that the region 
would remain poised and prepared for war, rather than finally turning to peace.
He guaranteed that the day when democracy finally comes to Iraq would be pushed
farther and farther into the future.

Croatia and Bosnia also come to mind...but, of course, they have no oil,
so *any* military action is naturally ruled out. People be damned.

|> >|> By your moral criterion then, a more ethical FDR could never have conscienced
|> >|> aiding Stalin in the war against Hitler, since Stalin was not a nice person.
|> >|> The mere fact that he was willing to aid in the struggle against a common
|> >|> enemy who was perhaps only equally as evil (Hitler's evil being directed more
|> >|> outward than Stalin's, however) would be irrelevant under this view, since
|> >|> only the moral value of nations, not their impact on US national security,
|> >|> should be considered.
|> > 
|> >It's precisely the Realpolitik attitude you espouse that *creates* problems
|> >for our security by constantly playing off one nation against another.
|> 
|> Right, everybody should just sit down and be mellow together and there'd be
|> no more international problems.  Why didn't anyone think of that before?

See my earlier note about smartass remarks. If you have nothing of substance
to say, save everybody's bandwidth and get on to your points.
 
|> >|> Look, in the early '80s Iran was the biggest threat to our security in the
|> >|> middle east.  Hussein was willing, for admittedly nefarious reasons of his
|> >|> own, to fight against them.  Compared to the extent he was armed by the
|> >|> Soviets, American contributions to the Iraqi military were insignificant.  It
|> >|> is a credit to the Reagan administration that they were able to contain Iranian
|> >|> radicalism with something short of US military involvement.  At the time Jimmy
|> >|> Carter left office, we looked like we were headed for an armed confrontation.
|> >|> A US-Iranian war during the pre-Gorby years could have touched off a US/Soviet
|> >|> conflict.
|> > 
|> >Hogwash.
|> > 
|> >Iran has never been a threat to our security. They were a threat to our
|> >prestige, but that's all.
|> 
|> Yeah, I guess its not like we need oil or anything.  Even Carter was smart
|> enough to realize that we have a critical interest in the Middle East.

And I suppose that when Iran did cut off our oil, and we boycotted it
in turn, our security suffered? Not a bit. The rest of OPEC, especially
Saudi Arabia (but also Iraq :^), was more than happy to take up the slack.

|> >And anyone who thinks that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is
|> >simply girding for a later conflict with his enemy's enemy.
|> 
|> No, I call it more like "the enemy of my enemy might do something that helps
|> me out and save me from having to fight my enemy"

But as long as we're selling them the military capability to do so, they
become an even bigger potential threat to, if not us, the rest of their
region. As did Iraq. 

A problem with Realpolitik is that it has an extremely short horizon.
Immediate effects are the only ones considered. Future implications are
not only denigrated, but not even considered. The result is an endless
series of insincere alliances, constantly forming and dissolving, all
in the constantly heightening tension of a contest for power. Then, as
soon as one side feels confident enough, war.
 
|> >|> Look, the world is a *fucking dangerous* place, especially when you're the
|> >|> only superpower left and your so-called allies (France, Germany, Japan -
|> >|> Britain being the lone exception) have to be led by the hand every step of the
|> >|> way and told to put the seat down before taking a dump.
|> > 
|> >I'm sure that France, Germany, and especially Japan would be mighty grateful
|> >to receive that sort of personal attention from you.
|> > 
|> >Ever make the connection between that idiot attitude and much of the world's
|> >resentment of the US? No? Take a close look, or maybe even *ask* some of
|> >the citizens of those fully sovereign states what they think of your
|> >analogy - and what Uncle Sam has done to them since WWII.
|> 
|> "Done *to* them?!?!?!"  They've done to us exactly what you accuse the US of
|> doing - they've taken advantage of us to fight their political and often
|> military battles for them!  They've graciously allowed us to bear a massively
|> disproportionate share of paying for their defense!  Hey, like I said, it's
|> great if you can get away with it.  We had to do it because twice this
|> century they've been unable to do it for themselves.  In the final analysis,
|> it was probably worth the enormous cost to us anyway, but please don't try
|> to portray these poor wealthy countries as some kind of victims.

Your patronizing attitude is exactly what I'm talking about ("...we had to do
it because twice this century they've been unable to do it for themselves...").

Nobody denies that we have done them great economic good with both the Marshall
Plan and our appropriating of their defense. But they have lost sovereignty
in the process, and continue to do so. They resent the attitude that Uncle
Sam can tell them what to do.

On the other hand, they discovered that, without the need to constantly play 
schoolyard bullyboy with each other, they can actually cooperate to all of 
their mutual advantages. Maybe someday we can learn the same lesson.
 
|> And yes, in fact, since I live in France, I do hear and see a lot.  Been many
|> Mideast Peace Conferences sponsered by Europeans lately?  Do you see them
|> pushing for strict enforcement of inspections in Iraq?  How long have they sat
|> and wrung their hands over Yugoslavia? 

I, at least, remember that it was Mitterand who forced the UN and the West in
general to finally step in and do something in Yugoslavia. Not Bush, not any
part of the US. Living in France, how could you have missed that?

(Note: I'm no great fan of Mitterand. But he deserves credit for taking action
in Yugoslavia when no other Western leader would.)

|> How many international conferences have
|> concluded lovely little treaties which have had no effect? And then Mitterand
|> and others clamor for the US to please do something! 

Mitterand, unlike the US at the time, actually *did* something in Yugoslavia.
A little truth, please.

|> I'll tell you, the Europeans are great at doing business, but when it comes
|> to building a consensus on foreign policy issues and actually taking action
|> about it, all bets are off.  Their governments are too fragile and their people
|> are too pacifist - I might even say isolationist.  The have become complacent
|> from having their good old Uncle Sam around to stick up for them all these
|> years.  John Major will now become the leader of the Western alliance, and I
|> hope he is able to fill the same role of pointman and consensus-builder that
|> George Bush has played, because you sure aren't going to see the Germans or the
|> French doing much to keep the peace outside their own borders anytime soon. 

John Major will soon be out on his ass. And good riddance.

You may long for the good old days when every 20 years brought a major
European war, but I don't. Nor, I submit, do the Europeans themselves.

"...too pacifist..." indeed! That's funny. As if European wars are a good thing.

|> And the same in spades for the Japanese.  And the Slickster will be too busy
|> protecting the spotted owl to worry about anything as irrelevant as 3rd world
|> nuclear weapons or the threat of a resurgent Iraq. We are basically back to
|> isolationism in the US and appeasement in Europe.

Maybe you're angry that Clinton beat Bush, but you shouldn't let that blind
you so badly. Had you actually listened to any of his speeches, or read his
poistion papers, you'd know how full of RNC nonsense your last paragraph is.

I guess you'll just have to wait and see. Maybe you'll even be man enough
to admit your mistake :^) 

|> >|> The President of the United States is responsible first and foremost for
|> >|> protecting the security and interests of the US.  When those interests coincide
|> >|> with doing some greater good in the world, so much the better.  But when
|> >|> confronted with a choice between defending the US with some less than sanitary
|> >|> instrument or jeopardizing the US in the name of some ethereal Moral Good,
|> >|> I hope, I really hope, he will put the interests of the nation first.  For all
|> >|> his faults, at least JFK understood this.  I have the gravest doubts that
|> >|> Slick Willy Clinton does.
|> > 
|> >I'm certain he understands it better than the paranoid bozos who've been 
|> >running this country's security and defense for the past twelve years...
|> 
|> Wait, so are you now saying The Slick One is student of this Realpolitik you
|> despise so much?  I think not.

The interests of the nation are not served by Realpolitik. Only expediency
is so served. I expect Clinton to pay attention to the real interests of the
nation, with a vision that extends more than four years into the future.
It's been far too long since anybody in a position of authority did so.
 
|> >|> >And gentlemen in England now abed
|> >|> >Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
|> >|> >And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speak
|> >|> >That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.	   [Henry V, 4.3]
|> >|> 
|> >|> 
|> >|> Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.       [Hamlet 2.?]
|> >|> 
|> > 
|> >What fools these mortals be.			[A Midsummer Night's Dream]
|> 
|> How many divisions has the Pope?	[Stalin]

Be vewwy, vewwy quiet...		[Elmer Fudd]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.fan.dan-quayle