March 15, 2006

The Milosevic / Saddam connection

No, LB Buddy, not that Saddam was helping Milosevic, but rather how Clinton's foreign policy post 97 is connected in with Bush's foreign policy post fall 01.

The point I'm going for here is most emphatically not some partisan back and forth, but trying to see the big picture. There's going to be a great book written connecting the foreign policies of Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton (2nd Term), and Bush 43, not intellectually in terms of idealism vs. realism (although there is that in spades---I think Bay is spot on finding the connections between the interventions in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Iraq) but in terms of how Wilson and the Versailles Treaty negotiations dealt with the collapse/break up of the Ottoman Empire, and how so much of our conflict since the fall of the Berlin Wall (with the exception of dealing with North Korea) has been addressing the fallout of the collapse of the Ottomans. In that sense, we have been in effect at war for almost 70 years on and off dealing with the consequences of the end of World War I, and its subsequent collapse of the old Russian (Cold War), German (WWII), and Ottoman (GWOT) empires.

NO, I'M NOT GOING TO GO ALL MALKIN ON YOU: so no, I'm not going to even consider a Zimmerman Telegram/Mexican immigration invasion of El Norte. Do I look like a pyscho?

H/T to Insty.

Posted by Steve at March 15, 2006 12:22 PM | TrackBack
Comments

So the Great War for Democracy still isn't over?

Posted by: rbj at March 15, 2006 12:57 PM

The Clinton intervention in Kosovo, Bush I's Dessert Storm and Panamanian war, Bush II's unprovoked attack aginst Iraq, Reagan in Granada (and all that traitorous behavior in Central America), Kennedy and LBJ in Vietnam, Eisenhower in Korea, are all unified in their fundamental goal. Protection of American investments and corporate interests through strategic global hegemony. At the same time as Milosovich, Turkey was in the process of a genocide of approximately 10X the scale with repression of the Kurds. So why Kosovo? Clinton intervened in Kosovo because it threatened European stability, which would have significant economic impact. Strategic importance of the Middle East is obvious. I think you are right Steve that it is the same war over and over, but I believe there is no idealism v. realism debate (particularly with George the lesser). It is only (and has always only been) about protecting US interests and investments. Freedom, democracy, cold war, Islamofascism is just to get rubes to line up behind wars they otherwise would have no interest in.

Posted by: LB buddy at March 16, 2006 11:26 AM