Nation building? Peacekeeping? Bush is starting to look a lot like Clinton

CNN ^ | Monday, July 7, 2003 | Michael Elliot

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Where's Madeleine Albright when we need her? As the Bush Administration inches deeper into nation building in Iraq and closer to peacekeeping in Liberia, it would be nice to have an official around who actually believed that building nations and keeping the peace were worthy goals of U.S. foreign policy.

[rintense]

Since when does CNN listen to Rush?

[Support Free Republic]

Lighten Up, Francis!

Fundraising posts only happen quarterly, and are gone as soon as we meet the goal. Help make it happen.

[Cicero]

You forgot the moron alert.

What is the difference between clinton's wars and Bush's wars? clinton's wars were against our national interest. Bush's wars in in our national interest. That's a good starting place, anyway. But a lot more could be said.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Shhh... they probably watch FOX, too!

[squidly]

A U.S. intervention in Liberia, let us be clear, would be for purely humanitarian, Albrightish motives. Notwithstanding the role the U.S. played in establishing the country, if you think what happens in Liberia is of the slightest importance to American interests, conventionally defined, you've spent too long away with the fairies. Plenty of oil off the Liberian coast.

[RLK]

Nation building? Peacekeeping? Bush is starting to look a lot like Clinton

----------------------

Bush has been repeating Clinton's and Kofi Annan's speaches nearly word for word for over a year and a half.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Oil and minerals, and halting the spread of terrorism, and filling the vaccuum that the 'quiet diplomacy' standstill has created... I think those are many of the reasons why Bush has turned his attention to all of Africa.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I only read the headline, not the article. However, one distinct difference popped into my mind. In Kosovo, Clinton ginned up a genocide scare in order to arm the Islamist against the Serbs. Why? Hillary kissed up to Arafat and the terrorists. Why? Clinton made a big deaL out of sending our whole inventory of cruise missiles (about $425 million) into Iraq ( on the eve of Monica's testimony). Why?

Sigh. The left are liars and history revisers because their message rest on lies. 'nuff said!

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Bush has been repeating Clinton's and Kofi Annan's speaches nearly word for word for over a year and a half.

Do you intend that as a criticism of Clinton?

[dandelion]

Wow, does this mean CNN worships Dubya now??

[DraftAshcroft2004]

It took till nation-building to notice that Bush is looking and sounding like the Clintons?

How about the AW ban, the prescription-drug giveaway, the billions more in foreign aid to Africa?

[Magic Fingers]

"Bush has been repeating Clinton's and Kofi Annan's speaches nearly word for word for over a year and a half."

Examples please?

By the way, it's "speeches".

[ExSoldier]

"Bush's wars are in our national interest."

I'll agree to that, 100%! But if Bush pulls a "Clinton" in Iraq (Like Clinton did in Somalia) of using U.S. troops to go door to door to confiscate the arms of the citizens...I'll have to say it's another dry run for doing the same thing in this country.

The indicators are that he thought of doing that and then thought better of the idea. Whether he thinks the timing is "wrong" currently and may be "right" later on...or whether he thinks it's not a good idea at all...is the big question.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

You mention Somalia... I do not believe that Bush will allow Liberia to turn into another Somalia. I think he will assess the risks, and then send in the appropriate force.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Has Congress passed the AIDS package for Africa, yet?

[Burkeman1]

Bosh. The lamestream still can't come to grips with the Kosovo and Bosnian frauds. Since our "Victory" in Kosovo as the "Weakly Standard" headline declared- Christian Serbs have been driven out and live in squalor in the rump of Serbia and Montenegro. A full quarter of a million of them. That doesn't include the other quarter million Serbs driven out of lands now occupied by Croatians in an offensive in which we gave air support.

Clinton's wars were usually just diversions from his domestic woes. The last one- Kosovo- spent a lot of good will in Europe that could have been used by Bush in his stupid war in Iraq.

Clintons foreign policy was transparently corrupt, inept, and ad hoc. Bush's foreign policy is pie in the sky intellectual nonesense that doesn't even have the balls to attempt to sell itself honestly to the American public (thus the scary fairy tales of WMDS). To be honest - Bush and Liberia makes no sense to me. Is he trying to please liberals?

[Monti Cello]

Can't disagree with you, Burkeman1. And don't forget about the Sudanese 'soil sample' fraud.

Bush tried too hard to make the Iraq war fit into pre 9/11 precepts.

Concrete evidence of WMD wasn't necessary to depose Saddam. He exhibited all the same symptoms of bin laden, in flying colors. And he deserved to die a million times over. That's enough.

The understanding should be that murderous tyrants exist only to the degree that it is inconvenient or severely impolitic for us to remove them.

Once it becomes convenient, or even advantageous to remove them, as in the case of Saddam, they should be done. In the case of the Saudis, it's inconvenient, but at some point it won't be.

And freedom advances.

[Burkeman1]

Can't disagree with you, Burkeman1. And don't forget about the Sudanese 'soil sample' fraud.

I think Bush either lied his bum off or was lied too about Iraq and WMD's. But Bush at least has plausible deniability surrounding his decisions and believed he was acting in the nation's interests. Clinton cannot claim that in his decision to bomb Sudan when Monica testified. He was advised against it from every level of government strenuously and he based his decision on the thinest of dead reeds- on intel he knew was flimsly at best! He had a security guard killed in Sudan for his own political interests. It could have been dozens killed. He didn't care. All for his own political skin and to dull a headline for a day!