7 Responses to “Remember when the shoe was on the other foot?”

1. duffer Says:
   August 21st, 2005 at 8:48 am

   it would probably be inconvenient to point out the clinton had to by-pass the u.n. in order to bomb kosovo, or the fact that there are still 50,000 troops there kinda ruins the exit strategy thing, but other than that….

2. Aine Says:
   August 21st, 2005 at 9:21 am

   What would be inconvenient to point out is that Congress approved of NATO bombing of Kosovo; that the conflict lasted a grand total of 79 days; that we sustained 0 casualties on Americans during the Kosovo conflict.

   The brief Senate resolution on the matter stated that “the president of the United States is authorized to conduct military air operations and missile strikes in cooperation with our NATO allies against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).”

   The goal in Kosovo was clearly stated. The goal was to contain Milosevic. The goal was to stop the extraordinary violation of human rights.

   “I believe it would be a disastrous situation in the region if we don’t act. This is a 19-nation operation,” Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia) said, according to a CNN report at the time.

   Now, was Warner lying? Did the operation in Kosovo fail? Did it result in WWIII as many Republicans thought it would? Did we not find out later that Milosevic had had many more people massacred than we thought he did?

   I’m not a Clinton supporter, believe it or not. I never really liked him or his wife. Still don’t.

3. Aine Says:
   August 25th, 2005 at 6:45 am

   50,000 troops? Whose troops? (cite with a URL!)

   In fact, there are less than half that, composed of NATO troops. NATO encompasses several nations. In 2004, there were only 18,500 NATO troops in Kosovo, unless Bush sent more troops there in the last year.

   http://www.usembassy.it/file2004_03/alia/A4031808.htm

   Either way, you still can’t pin that number on Clinton.

4. Rutty Says:
   August 30th, 2005 at 2:32 pm

   Hi Aine, just thought I’d have a read of your blog for the first time in a while (been busy!). Glad to see that you’re still writing such interesting political content - I really should visit more often!

   This entry has some personal interest for me. I served in Kosovo towards the end of my RAF career - I was on the second Hercules to land in Pristina once the bombing had stopped. I remember lots of critical press while this was going on, from both sides of the Atlantic and I think in Hindsight that the whole Kosovo thing was entirely justified.

   I think a lot of people would also argue that Iraq was justified, although I couldn’t possibly agree with that sentiment. I’m really glad that I left the military when I did (early 2000) otherwise I’d have been visiting both Afghanistan and Iraq.

   I’m glad that blogs like yours remind these politicians of their hypocrisy.

   Oh, and hello again. Hope you’re well

5. Aine Says:
   August 30th, 2005 at 5:48 pm

   Hi Rutty. I try very hard to show people the hypocrisy using cited sources, but they are so afraid to admit that 1) they are wrong, 2) they don’t know jackshit about military actions, foreign policy, or history, and 3) they are scared. Fear can make people do unthinkable things. Bush knows this and he uses it for political purposes, which is also morally reprehensible. Bush doesn’t want the people to know the truth, so this is why we see all this revisionism after-the-fact, but the leaked documents don’t lie.

   Anyway, good to see you here. I haven’t been writing here as often as I was, but I usually post or cross-post at least the essays.

6. Rutty Says:
   September 6th, 2005 at 5:57 am

   You certainly know how to raise a point and express it intelligently and passionately. I like that.

   I just talk about boobies. It’s what I do best

7. Aine Says:
   September 6th, 2005 at 12:18 pm

   Them that’s got ‘em, don’t need to talk about ‘em.

   muahahahahaha

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