The liar leading our military

[klenke]

Question #2: I forget who takes over in an impeachment)?

Answer: the Vice-President, i.e. Dick Cheney. That is why not to impeach Bush. Ever. Ah yes, makes sense to me now.

 

This is definitely not the age of the politician. I can't think of one that is without some sort of fault or doesn't have at least one skeleton (or an alleged skeleton) in his/her closet.

[murraysovereign]

Mabe Clinton lied about Kosovo because starting a war has traditionally helped presidents in their polls (look at Bush's during the begining of the occupation). It i not hard for one to see the possibility that if he did not lie about Monica, there might be no Kosovo. Really, if there were no 100,000 dead Albanians, why else would we have gone over there?

 

Clinton didn't "start" the war in Kosovo. In fact, it had been going for quite some time, and the international community had been pleading with NATO, and particularly the U.S., to intervene in hopes of a) stopping the bloodshed and b) preventing its spread throughout the rest of an unstable region. NATO had been there for some time, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that either a major air campaign or a deployment of hundreds of thousands of ground forces was going to be needed. Nobody wanted to send in ground forces, fearing a meat-grinder, so the air campaign was the default option. The United States eventually agreed to help out, and the worst of the civil war ended soon after they got involved. Somehow this is a black mark on Clinton's record?

 

and Mattp:

(1) Not a single American soldier died. (2) The bad guy's gone and there a more favorable government in place (?). (3)It appears that we stopped lots of bloodshed.

 

1) There have been a number of NATO casualties in the former Yugoslavia, but you may be right that none of them were Americans. In any case I'm not sure that's the standard we should be using to determine the "rightness" of a particular action.

2) Kosovo is still officially a part of Serbia-Montenegro, but has been under U.N. administration since sometime in the late 90s. The rest of Serbia is now comparatively calm, with Milosevic and his key supporters in The Hague awaiting trial, but Kosovo itself is still a bit of a powder-keg.

3) Yes, a good deal of bloodshed was prevented. But it's not over yet - just yesterday NATO announced the deployment of an additional 350 troops to Kosovo in an effort to quell an outbreak of ethnic fighting that killed a few dozen and injured hundreds. That brings the total of NATO/UN troops in the region to just under 19,000.

[scott_harpell]

JoshK-

 

That's what I don't get. What is these guy's beef with Kosovo? (1) Not a single American soldier died. (2) The bad guy's gone and there a more favorable government in place (?). (3)It appears that we stopped lots of bloodshed.

 

These statements don't apply to Iraq.

 

I don't think the negative aspects of war stop with american deaths. What about the high altitue bombing raids that killed many civilians? You state that a bad guy is gone and a better government is in place. Is that not waht is happening now in Iraq? Do you debate that Saddam was bad? Time will tell if the rest will be accomplished.

[mattp]

There is not yet a more favorable government place there but, like you say, time will tell.

 

Can you explain what the big travesty about our Kosovo policy was? Did we kill more people there than we have in Iraq? Is that it? I seriously don't understand the constant cry of "remember Kosovo?"

[chucK]

"constant cry"? If I just used that *** you are ignoring this user *** button, I would never hear about Kosovo.

 

With respect to Scott's beef with "nobody died when Clinton lied", his counterexample of Kosovo may be appropriate. He is alleging that, just like Bush, Clinton lied to the American people, congress, the world, in order to justify a war.

 

However, is it as obvious that Clinton just made up what you called a lie, and that he knowingly lied with the purpose of deceiving the American public (about Kosovo, that is )? Did Cllnton persevere amid massive obvious dissent among both our allies and the American public? These are genuine questions, well, at least the first one is . I know the answer to the second.

 

But anyway, Scott, you are getting us off topic here. This thread is about Bush being a lying sack of shit. The most crooked president since Tricky Dick. At least Tricky Dick got us out of a Viet Nam.

 

What's the body count today?

[mattp]

That crook Nixon wanted to set up a national health insurance system and he was into appeasement with his China policy. What a scoundrel.

[rbw1966]

I don't understand why Kosovo keeps getting brought up either. The analogy between Kosovo and Iraq is inappropriate in this case. Clinton had nothing to gain politically (or financially) by lying about Monica or about Kosovo. The current administration has a lot to gain by developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[chucK]

 

OK, most crooked president since U.S. Grant?

[scott_harpell]

I don't understand why Kosovo keeps getting brought up either. The analogy between Kosovo and Iraq is inappropriate in this case. Clinton had nothing to gain politically (or financially) by lying about Monica or about Kosovo. The current administration has a lot to gain by developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Hmm... Clinton had nothing to gain by lying about MOnica or Kosovo? What about the instantaneous poll increase? What about taking the people's minds off of the oval office scandal? You don't think that their were not economic reasons in Kosovo either? Mabe you should look at the fact taht Kosovo has the largest deposit of (i think it is) lead and zinc (?). This mine was owned by the ethnic minority. The serbians! Not the Albanians. This was taken over by NATO and was mined using U.S. tax dollars. Hmm... Mabe there was something to gain.

[sexual_chocolate]

hell yeah clinton had much to gain.

 

wake up people and cease with the partisan sniping.

Both parties are deserving of critical analysis, not just Republicans.

[scott_harpell]

[slothrop]

Both parties are deserving of critical analysis, not just Republicans.

 

Right. But that's no reason not to snipe at Republicans, because they are currently in power and making the bad decisions. There's not some kind of cosmic balance in which the misdeeds of Democrats cancel out those of Republicans just because people like to think of them as matter and antimatter. It's not that simple.

 

The more useful debate is the one about what's going on right now, not about what happened back when. Did the Bush administration lie to bring us into a war? Yes. Do many more people/countries hate us now because of said lies and their consequences? Yes. Are these things bad for the US? Yes.

[scott_harpell]

They are both horrible presidents who lied to the public to start a war for economic and political reasons rather than the humanitarian ones they so adamntly claim. What I am countering is the democrats here that are not willing to see that there are correlations.

[sexual_chocolate]

hey i didn't say not to snipe at republicans, although i hope for something more substantive than sniping.

 

What i was speaking of was the tendency to villify one's opposition, whilst making excuses for the behaviour of one's ally.

[scott_harpell]

ditto

[mattp]

Murray -

 

Thanks for the history. Like others, I don't know the history of that particular conflict. I still don't get what the right-wing beef about it is, though.

[scott_harpell]

Matt, If you want to know more google the KLA. They were a terrorist group of Albanians which were trying to take over Kosovo for the Albanians. It is not merely a case of The Serbian government attempting genocide. Many Albanians were slaughtered by other Albanians. Much of this conflict can be based on religious issues. The serbians were persecuted by the ottomans for centuries. Now that orthodox serbians were being "invaded" by the "ottomans" once again, they fought back. This is their version. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. Albright was teh first person to put all of the blame on Milosevic. NATO then said they would air-strike if the serb military was not pulled out. Milosevic said he would do so, but only if they rescinded the statement about the air strikes. NATO said they wouldn't and the KLA assumed that this meant that NATO was on their side. The KLA then revamped their miltary in Kosovo and that is when everythig really went south.

[sexual_chocolate]

Albright seemed to me a rigid facsimile of a human being. Her diatribes were an outright embarrassment.

 

And scott hits it straight-up, in that there was (is) way more to the serbia/kosovo scene than most of us came to see.

[mattp]

Scott, thank you too.

 

Putting together this and Murray's posts, I get a picture of a messy situation in a messy part of the world, where it is hard to figure out who is who. With the support and general agreement of pretty much all our allies, we intervened, although it is a messy situation in a messy part of the world and it had at least some unintended consequenes and everything didn't come out perfect.

 

I still don't get what the big right-wing beef is here.

[sexual_chocolate]

With the support and general agreement of pretty much all our allies, we intervened

 

People (nations) have a tendency to jump on the winning (powerful) team, and in the process, overlook moral and ethical considerations.

[chucK]

So what does that tell us about Iraq?

[scott_harpell]

Well Matt. Some say that the only reason we sided against the Serbians is for the mining resource. This valued at $5 billion. I don't really by that, but I do feel that if anything, an outsiders role should have been as a peace keeper rather than taking sides (essentially) with a known terrorist group (KLA). I am not a conservative, but I see my beef with this being that both of these wars were fought: 1) Based on lies 2) We stood too gain natural resources 3) We stepped into a religious conflict 4) The presidents both based their decisions on political allies (Bush-Blair, Clinton- Allbright) and 5) both people in power were given ridiculous treaties to sign to avoid getting their coutries ripped apart. Milosevic was given the more ridiculous of the two, baisically devoiding the sovereingty of his nation and opening the door for the Albanians to begin to take over.

 

Simply out, I feel that if one is to condone one of these wars, then they should condone the other.

[sexual_chocolate]

So what does that tell us about Iraq?

 

What do you mean? I have 1500 posts exactly.

[Winter]

Quit letting the conservatives distract you all from Bush's lying, coke-snorting, gun-selling, money-grubbing ways. Iraq is a tragedy. How many Iraqi civilians have we killed? How much money have we spent? How many lies did the Bush admin tell? Why are they undermining the 9-11 panel? These are serious questions. Get over Clinton. Focus on Bush. He's a criminal.

[sexual_chocolate]

context can improve one's insight.

 

BTW, Clinton's Iraq policies led to way more deaths than this war has led to so far; interesting little tidbit, in my opinion.