Sorry, I thought that was the header of the MoveOn posting.
Bush doesn't pull this stuff out of his ass. Yeah, he gets mixed signals and probably has some latitude to choose. You can fault him for (perhaps criminally) bad judgment.
But this Clarke thing has nothing to do with that. For a while, Bush drifted on the back of Clinton-era policy decisions with regards to the Middle East. Clarke suggested that more aggressive action was needed, and the Bush administration was slow to effect change, although the gears were turning.
Hard to blame any president for siding on the side of non-escalation. I mean, look at the Cold War. There were all kinds of high-level strategic voices yelling for an attack on Cuba, because intelligence reported that they didn't have nuclear warheads yet. Intelligence was wrong, and if we'd done that, the worst would have happened.
Shit, what if we had ramped up aggressive action against Afghanistan and the planes had hit the towers in that light. That would have made the administration look criminally responsible, doncha think?
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2004-03-25 06:42 am (UTC)Bush doesn't pull this stuff out of his ass. Yeah, he gets mixed signals and probably has some latitude to choose. You can fault him for (perhaps criminally) bad judgment.
But this Clarke thing has nothing to do with that. For a while, Bush drifted on the back of Clinton-era policy decisions with regards to the Middle East. Clarke suggested that more aggressive action was needed, and the Bush administration was slow to effect change, although the gears were turning.
Hard to blame any president for siding on the side of non-escalation. I mean, look at the Cold War. There were all kinds of high-level strategic voices yelling for an attack on Cuba, because intelligence reported that they didn't have nuclear warheads yet. Intelligence was wrong, and if we'd done that, the worst would have happened.
Shit, what if we had ramped up aggressive action against Afghanistan and the planes had hit the towers in that light. That would have made the administration look criminally responsible, doncha think?
-Adam