At 07:00 PM 04/04/2003 -0600, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote:
Tyler Durden wrote:
This should be seen as a trial run. Iraq is seen as an extremely easy and
totally defenceless target.
I beg to differ. Haiti and Yugoslavia were the trial runs; but since they
happened under a Democratic president, the left didn't make a fuss.
Grenada and Panama.
After the Vietnam war PR fiasco (oh, and also the defeat...),
it was a while before the US was willing to get into an
officially recognized war, as opposed to quieter Nicaragua things.
Grenada was a quick and easy invasion, and the public accepted it,
(especially because they'd invaded and won in a day or so,
about as fast as it took the press to take notice at all,)
which gave the Pentagon the confidence to try invading Panama,
which the public also accepted just fine,
and after that they did Desert Scam, which did get lots of protest
but primarily got good support from CNN and the other media,
especially with the quick and effective bombing raid killing a
couple hundred thousand people (about half soldiers and half civilians)
and getting the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
Bush I handed Clinton a Presidency that had soldiers actively
fighting or getting into Iraq, Bosnia, and Somalia,
and the Iraq War had reminded the world that the Military-Industrial-Complex
was still in charge and that nobody had better mess with them
just because they no longer had the mission of Fighting Communism.
As far as the Left not making a fuss because Clinton was a Democrat,
I disagree with that - the Left never thought that Clinton was a liberal,
just the best of the three Republicans running for president that year
(Bush, Perot, and Clinton) who promised to spend money on Liberal causes.
Besides, the Republicans were running a Reverse Wag The Dog,
using the sex scandal to cover the War in Albania and Foobaristan,
and the left was busy bashing the Republicans for being so
amazingly tacky about their attacks on Clinton's sex life,
not that Clinton didn't keep pitching them softballs like
Whitewater and Travelgate even before they found out about Monica.
And at least some of the Haiti things were reinstating a popular
Leftist president and kicking out some of the nastiest people around,
and the nobody remembers who's who in Yugoslavia anyway....
