Posted by zeugma on June 18, 2006, at 15:10:42
In reply to Re: Yugoslavia, posted by Declan on June 18, 2006, at 3:04:28
> Was it Hungary,Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states they had in mind? >>
The neoconservative program takes these states as models of formerly dysfunctional and evil, but now beautifully democratic, states. I think the Baltic states in particular were seen by neoconservatives as examples of how democracy could be exported to the Middle east. Plausibilty is defied here, in my opinion, but I am not a member of PNAC or other neoconservative think-tank. They will see it very differently.
Certainly not Yugoslavia...which was at least partly Ottoman once.>>Yes, I am careless. But Yugoslavia is much like Iraq IMO, although I am not equating Tito with Hussein on a moral level. Consider the countries where the U.S. has tried to intervene without success (Lebanon- a couple of hundred Marines blown up in Beirut), (Somalia- ignominious withdrawal afer U.S. soldiers get dragged through the street like Hector on the plains of Troy). We are trying still to intervene in Somalia on a more covert level, but the CIA has admitted it "doesn't have a plan" for doing so, just ad hoc interventions that are bound to worsen matters. The U.N. has a strong interest in lessing the chaos there (which is a convenient way for terrorists to acquire valuable combat experience- chaos I mean) but the diplomat Bush has appointed to be Ambassador to the U.N., said in a well-publicized comment that the U.N. building could stand to lose its top ten stories. Someone (not a member of PNAC or other neoconservative organization) might take that as provocative of terrorism, itself (and in my hometown).
Strange irony of history- neocons thought Clinton was out of his mind to intervene in a former Yugoslav state. When it's 'nation-building,'even if one of the aims is stopping genocide, it's mocked. But if it's a subheading of the "Global War of Terror," then it's worth open-ended commitment, and anyone who questions its relation to the 'global war' is characterized very uncivilly, in my opinion. my own mind reels.> Where have I heard 'Texas on the Euphrates' before?>>
I must have heard it somewhere.
-z
>
poster:zeugma
thread:654613
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060610/msgs/658381.html