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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
Here in America we are afforded a narcotic lifestyle like no other nation can match. Even our cultural lookalikes in Europe, and perhaps even Canada (maybe some of our Canadian comrades here can chime in on their own behalf), do not lead the same sheltered, consumption-obsessed lifestyle that we do.
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Not exactly on topic, but what could you possibly be basing this on?
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Originally Posted by host
mixedmedia, our military is not a force of miracle workers. Tragic as the killing in Rwanda was, at the time, there was no grassroots domestic pressure upon the POTUS to involve US troops, and even if Clinton had overridden objections, the description above makes an argument for the idea that it would not have been a responsible use of US troops, given the level of unrest and the lack of support from other UN members. The lack of support from other UN members was a good argument for delaying the March, 2003, US invasion of Iraq, too.
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That was actually my biggest issue with Clinton. He had no courage or convictions. He always did what was politically popular, he didn't do anything because he felt it was right. How many US troops died in Somalia? Less than 20 I believe, and we turned tail and abandoned Somalia to chaos.
The UN is made up of countries with opposing political ambitions and is therefore largely incapable of action. Look at Darfur. This has been going on for years and years and even with US pressure, no action was taken. If UN support is required before anything is done in these situations, then it's pretty much guaranteed that nothing will happen until it's much, much too late.
It's easy to bash Bush for making unwise decisions on the use of force, and handling things incompetently, but one thing I have to give him is that he has courage in his convictions. That's not to say I am a Bush supporter, but the thing that always bothered me most about Clinton was I felt that being popular was his #1 priority and he would never chose to make an unpopular choice even if it was the right thing to do.
Hmm interesting, if you make 2 posts in a row in the same thread it merges them? Didn't realize that hehe.