From: MEDELMA@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Michael Edelman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Clinton/Gore on foreign policy
Date: 11 Sep 92 18:37:50 GMT
Organization: Wayne State University, C&IT

In article <1992Sep10.215450.29626@athena.mit.edu>
anders@athena.mit.edu (Anders W Hove) writes:
   [...]
>I find most of what Mr. Edelman writes here to be either grossly inaccurate or
>severely distorted.  First, Bill Clinton has indeed said a great deal about
>foreign policy.  In several major foreign policy speeches, Clinton has outlined
>a foreign policy which parts ways with Bush's policy.  Most of the differences
>which Edelman cites, however, do not exist.
>
 
>First, Edelman claims that the Defense Establishment has been shrinking for 42
>years.  In fact, the GNP figure he supplies may be true (I haven't seen it, but
So-  you're admitting I was accurate. In any event you admit you don't
even know what the figures are, which makes your attack on my veracity sound
more motivated by wishfulness than by knowledge. Let's see how the rest of
your argument fares.
 
>that means little).  What matters is that after WWII the Defense Department was
>bloated and continued to be artificially large until Eisenhower came into
 
You haven't actually said anything here. What made it "artificially large"?
What does that even mean? It's nonsense.
 
>office. Therefore, his figures are skewed. Kennedy, claiming that we suffered
>from a "missile gap", launched a new round of spending and modernization.
>Spending increases continued through the end of the Vietnam War.
 
Yep, you don't know the data. There was a bump, but spending was still
lower in the 60s than in the 50s when expressed in %GNP. To make it simple,
what that means is we spent a smaller part of our wealth as a nation on
defense in the 60s than in the 50s, and so on.
>
>Again in 1978, as in 1961, our defense spending was deemed too low to win the
>Cold War.  President Jimmy Carter, contrary to what Edelman implies, began
>another huge build-up.
 
And despite your assertion in the abscence of any figures whatsoever, all the
spending of the 70s was again a smaller fraction of GNP than in the 60s.
 
>Ronald Reagan, taking advise from a far-right defense policy group, came into
>office believing that Defense needed a 7% hike in spending, above inflation.
>The rationale for this figure is still not known.  The $32.6 billion dollar
>increase in defense spending came out of the blue for the Defense Dept, for even
Whoa! Numbers!
 
>they hadn't proposed anything that big.  There weren't even projects to
>fill the figure, so the military revived various programs (like the B-2) which
>had been deemed useless or unnecessary in the past.  By 1984, Reagan's defense
>budget was twice what had been projected under Carter.  Unfortunately, the $32.6
And our GNP was far in excess of what is was under Carter, too. All the
increases under Carter and Reagan resulted in only a 0.6% increase in
the fraction of GNP devoted to defense, including personnel costs.
 
>billion figure was about what Reagan had saved through domestic cuts, so the
>tax cuts he had proposed fed a huge increase in the debt, with which our
>economy is still saddled.
 
This is just an out and out lie. For the fifth time, repeated for the
benifit of the conceptually challanged:
 
Non-defense spending, 1971-1980: 15.7% of GNP
 
Non-defense spending, 1981-1990: 17.6% of GNP
 
If you're going to throw around charges you'd better be able to support them.
My figures are from the latest NIPA figures.
>
>Contrary to what Edelman says, Clinton has taken a stance with regards to
>intervention that is more hawkish than that of President Bush.  It was Clinton
 
Depends when you asked him. We've seen the quotes- as a draft dodging
student he declared that under no circumstances could he countenance
the spilling of the blood of US soldiers in a war where the survival
of the US was not threatened. Suddenly he wants to intervene in Yugoslavia.
 
Was he lying when he gave his reasons for dodging the draft, or is he
lying now about his commitment to Yugoslavia?
 
The nickname "Slick Willie" was not pulled out of thin air. Exactly what
*does* this man believe? Read the Rolling Stone interview in which he
manages to speak of his commitment to labor and then praise the non-union
steel mills in Arkansas in the same breath.
 
>who challenged Bush to intervene to stop the "ethnic cleansing"in Yugoslavia.
>Marlin Fitzwater even went so far as to call this "reckless" (a claim
>which he had to retract after finding that Dick Cheney had been on record as
>supporting this position before it was proposed by Clinton).  According to
>"TIME","both [Clinton and Bush] see the planet as a dangerous place where the
>occasional use of American force will likely be necessary for decades to
>come." ["Time Magazine", April 13, 92, p 28.]  If anything, Bush
>has been behind the curve on intervention.
 
This from the same people who condemned Desert Storm. Remember Clinton
on Desert Storm? He was against it, in principle, but probably would
have voted to sanction it had he been in congress. That's what he said.
How can we trust him?
>
>Edelman also seems to fear the revival of a new Russian militarism.  Dick
>Cheney, who has always been of the most wary of Soviet peril, told the Senate
>Armed Services Committee on Jan. 31 that, since Soviet GNP had fallen 15-20% in
>1991 alone,"it is improbable that a global conventional challenge to US and
>Western security will reemerge from the Eurasian heartland for years to come."
>[Source:  "Technology Review", Aug/Sept 92, p 47.]
 
It's easier when you misstate my position, isn't it? Of course, Cheney was
speaking as a Defense Secretary under Bush, not Clinton. And what I was
talking about was a threat to Russian democracy, not the US. It looked
clear enough when I read it.
>
>Edelman also fears the revival of various third world threats.
>The Gulf War proved that even the best equiped underdeveloped nations such as
>Iraq "lack the broader tachnological sophistication and training required to
>take on a Western power".  [ibid.]  Even if such nations are sold advanced
>weapons by the French, British or Chinese, they can't use them to any effect on
>our military.
 
You do have a penchant for attacking straw men, don't you? I wrote about
Iraq's renewed threat to the region, not the US. I would appreciate it if
you would read my posts before responding to them.
 
>
>Lastly, Edelman asserts that, because Clinton is weak, fiendish dictators like
>Hafez al-Assad of Syria and groups such as the IRA will run ruffshod over their
>respective areas of the globe.  This is nonsense.  As stated above, Clinton's
>stance on intervention is just as aggressive as Bush's.  Moreover, unlike Bush,
No, as cited above Clinton has taken both sides of every military issue.
A Clinton administration would not be a creditible threat.
 
>who has coddled up to the evil governments of Syria, China, Serbia and the like,
>Clinton has proposed making democracy and civil rights the litmus test for US
>support.  He has said as much: "There's no need to play the China card
 
That was what Carter claimed, too. And yet, democracies increased in number
under Reagan and Bush, and had decreased under Carter's watch. Maybe
this isn't important. Others have claimed Reagan and Bush had nothing
to do with that fact. IN that case, of course, Clinton would have no effect
either.
 
>now when our opponents have thrown in their hand; no need to ignore China's
>spreading dangerous weapons technologies and its trampling of human rights.  I
>would deny most-favored-nation status to China, impose trade sanctions and
 
I'll bet you don't know what MFN status is, right? That's usually the case
with people who cite it as a terrible thing to give China. Hint: It's
not what you think it is. If you can cite what MFN really is, I'll be surprised
.
>encourage the younger generation's democratic aspirations."  [Source:  "Time
>Magazine", April 13, 92, p 28.]  In this light, Bush's whimpy policy reminds one
>of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement stance in Munich.
>
The man who engineered Desert Storm is a Chamberlain? This is what I meant
about revisionsim and historical ignorance. Perhaps Clinton would have
attacked China in similar circumstances? We already know he wouldn't have
attacked Iraq. Or maybe he would. Hard to say. Funny, though; you're giving
Clinton attributes that Reagan was attacked for supposedly having.
 
>While Clinton is for an active military, he also wants a lean military.  Where
>Bush has proposed hardly any cuts in wasteful, Cold War oriented programs like
>Star Wars and the B-2, Clinton wants a smaller, more flexible force structure.
>This involves cuts of tens of billions of dollars over the next five years.
>Why?  It is Clinton's belief that a nation with a failling economy isn't really
>strong no matter what the size of the military budget (the Soviet Union proved
>how ephemeral military might can be).
>
Since you've already blindly ignored the fact that we've been spending the
peace dividend for 40 years, you're not going to be swayed on this one.
 
I would like to know, however, how Clinton is going to attack Yugoslavia,
keep a stronmg deterrent posture and all those other wonderful things you
claim while cutting 10 Billion from the millitary?
 
>So, in the end, it is "the economy, stupid" which is the key to retaining
 
I think "the economy, stupid" is a good descriptor for the coming Clinton
era, along with "the foreign policy, weak" and "the spending, massive".
 
>America's stance in the world.  Edelman says foreign policy won't play a role
>in the election.  In this light, he is wrong.  Bill Clinton not only has a
 
In what light? Look at the recent presidential elections- in every one where
the economy was perceived to be weak, the challanger won. Of course, in
'76 we only *thought* we had a weak economy, with fears of "double digit
inflation". It took Carter to teach us what real inflation was.
 
80? A miserable economy gave it to Reagan. Strong economy in 86 and 90
gave it to the Republicans. Ditto back in '72, even as Nixon's Vietnam
strategy was looking very bad. 68? Strong economy. The war hurt Johnson.
 
>strong foreign policy vision, but has a strong economic vision as well.  Since
                                         **********************
Yeah. Tax strongly, spend strongly.
 
>the two are inextricably linked, voters will go to the polls having to
>decide who offers the most in terms of America's strength in the world, as well
>as at home.
 
People get the government they deserve. Have a great four years.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 Michael Joseph Edelman           Wayne State University
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 mje@pookie.pass.wayne.edu        Detroit, Michigan
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