Latest DEAN Shocker: Dean the Unilateralist

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  • Reply 21 of 54
    I am saying we should have gone back into iraq in 1991, unilaterally if necessary, that is all. There was no immediacy to Saddam's threat to his people in the genocide sense in 2003.
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  • Reply 22 of 54
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shetline

    It's only the "end of story" if you believe that Dean has taken a stand that unilateral action is always wrong. He has taken no such stand. You're attempting to manufacture hypocrisy out of thin air. The case is only as black and white as a limited ability to process important details makes it.



    Obviously Dean doesn't believe all unilateralism is wrong. Trade wars and Democrats acting unilaterally with the U.N. is fine. Republicans acting without the U.N. isn't, especially when you want the job that one of those Republicans currently holds.



    See I noted the important hypocr... I mean details I noted.





    Nick
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  • Reply 23 of 54
    x xx x Posts: 189member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by billybobsky

    I am saying we should have gone back into iraq in 1991, unilaterally if necessary, that is all.



    I concur, and I think most people realize that was one of the mistakes made at that time.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by billybobsky

    There was no immediacy to Saddam's threat to his people in the genocide sense in 2003.



    From a genocidal sense, I believe your right.





    Regards!
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  • Reply 24 of 54
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by X X

    I concur, and I think most people realize that was one of the mistakes made at that time.











    One of the biggest mistake of the middle east history. I did not understood this decision at the time.

    Anyway we can't remake the history.
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  • Reply 25 of 54
    x xx x Posts: 189member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Powerdoc

    One of the biggest mistake of the middle east history. I did not understood this decision at the time.

    Anyway we can't remake the history.




    I haven't followed a whole lot of the decision making of that time and why, etc., but from what I heard was that because our stated mission at the time was to drive Iraq out of Kuwait and liberate them, then once that mission was accomplished we were done. I also heard that a lot of people back here in America were dropping their support for the war once we kicked Iraq out of Kuwait and were heading to Baghdad because we had completed our mission and the pictures of total domination by the coalition, e.g. "highway of death", made people feel this was just flat out overkill.



    I'm certain it's a far more complicated issue underneath. Like you said, if history could be remade then I'm sure the U.N. would've gone the whole way. Alas!
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  • Reply 26 of 54
    shawnjshawnj Posts: 6,656member
    Even as an ardent Dean supporter, I want to give SDW some credit. To an extent, it truly is *shocking* or at least surprising that Dean had supported unilateral action in at least one case in the past. Although this information was freely available, it certainly wasn't widely known. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.



    Of course we're going to disagree on what his letter actually means. I think it's explicit, at least in rhetoric, that Dean feels "reluctant" about using unilateral force. There seems to be no indication, again- at least in rhetoric, that Gov. Dean supports a general policy of unilateralism. We seem to have every indication that President Bush does. The only potential problem I can see is whether Gov. Dean truly resorted to unilateralism last. President Bush certainly hadn't. He threw the UN Weapons Inspectors out of Iraq before they were finished. But Did Dean do the same in his mind more or less? How did Clinton manage to get NATO on board? I think it's an interesting topic, but one where hasty conclusions shouldn't apply...



    (btw I agree with shetline and Hassan's arguments.)
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  • Reply 27 of 54
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ShawnJ

    ... There seems to be no indication, again- at least in rhetoric, that Gov. Dean supports a general policy of unilateralism. We seem to have every indication that President Bush does. ...





    Actually there's no indication that Bush supports a "general policy of unilateralism". Bush hasn't resulted to "unilateralism" once since taking office.
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  • Reply 28 of 54
    Good call Scott.



    I can see scott doing an arm shuffle in his lab.
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  • Reply 29 of 54
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    What does that mean?
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  • Reply 30 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    Actually there's no indication that Bush supports a "general policy of unilateralism". Bush hasn't resulted to "unilateralism" once since taking office.



    Apart from scuppering the Kyoto treaty, of course. And going to war in Iraq.
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  • Reply 31 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    What does that mean?



    Dancing at your desk without moving feet or chair.





    Iraq didnt have UN approval, no. But it is a collaboration of more than one country (heh).
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  • Reply 32 of 54
    northgatenorthgate Posts: 4,461member
    This whole thread is a complete waste of time.
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  • Reply 33 of 54
    ya!



    There is no argument.
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  • Reply 34 of 54
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    Yeah foreign policy is the same no matter what the circumstances.



    Imagine a politician that can see the nuances of foreign policy and recognize when to go without the UN and when to put more pressure on the UN and when to find consensus outside the UN to get something done.



    Helps when there's overwhelming evidence that there's mass ethnic cleansing going on that could be and needed to be stopped.



    Yeah Bosnia and Iraq were completely the same. If you're for one and against the other you're a hypocrit.



    Get a grip.



    Or start complaining about all the republicans that were screaming "national interest?!".. "exit strategy?!"... "wag the dog policy!!!!" when clinton decided RELUCTANTLY something had to be done.



    Talk about F?CKING HYPOCRITS!
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  • Reply 35 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah

    Apart from scuppering the Kyoto treaty, of course. And going to war in Iraq.



    Kyoto again? So how well is the EU doing on that score?



    Oh and ShawnJ, Bush's policy vis a vis North Korea isn't unilateral. Ditto for Iran.
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  • Reply 36 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    Yeah foreign policy is the same no matter what the circumstances...



    Pardon me, but who said ANY such thing?
    Quote:

    ... Get a grip.



    Physician, heal thyself. Dean has complained about Bush's unilateral foreign policy. And here's this document that indicates that he doesn't really have a problem with unilateralism per se. This is not a distinction I've heard him make on the campaign trail. Have you? If he has, then he's not a hypocrite. If he hasn't, then charge stands.
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  • Reply 37 of 54
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox

    Dean has complained about Bush's unilateral foreign policy.



    Where are these complaints? Let's talk about specific quotes. Show us what Dean says now compared to what he said then.



    Does Dean say he's against ANY unilateral foreign policy? Does he say he's against Bush's policy towards Iraq? Is he against Bush's Iraqi policy simply because it's unilateral, or because the fact that it is unilateral has caused problems with some of our allies?



    I think you're oversimplifying his position (creating a straw man) for the benefit of your argument. I think it would make more sense if Dean were saying he's against the unilateral attack of Iraq because there was no immediate need for an attack like there was in Bosnia. Find some quotes that shed some light on Dean's motive.
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  • Reply 38 of 54
    shawnjshawnj Posts: 6,656member
    Josh Marshall comments on the whole thing:



    Quote:

    Briefly on this matter of Dean and 'unilateral' action in Bosnia. I'm running late on a few deadlines at the moment. So I don't have time to go into this at length. But I don't think this is much of a contradiction, except possibly on the most superficial level.



    The tenor of the whole Iraq debate has tended to make a fetish out of the narrow meaning of unilateral and multilateral. Both have their place. And I don't think it's a contradiction on Dean's part at all to say we should not have waited for NATO to conduct air operations in Bosnia and yet also mount a critique of the president's approach on Iraq.



    Remember that in Kosovo, we knew the Russians would veto our plan. So we didn't go to the UN, but went with NATO instead. As Fareed Zakaria aptly noted almost a year ago, the US never got UN approval for any of its three major military engagements in the 1990s. And few significant players suggested that it was necessary for us to do so.



    So why all the hollering now over Iraq? Some on the right suggest that this is because of animosity toward president Bush or a rise in 'anti-Americanism.' But it's not. It's because the US has begun playing by very different rules in the last three years. It has moved from being a dominant power which most often works through a sort of informal consensus to one that increasingly seeks to act through dictation. We've become impatient with the minimal restraints on our power created by our participation in various international institutions and agreements -- ones which actually serve to magnify our power. And nations around the world -- not to mention publics -- have increasingly looked to the UN as a brake on US power.



    In short, the issue is not so much whether you get sign off from the UN or NATO on every particular thing you do. It's a question of the totality of one's approach to allies and the rest of the nation's of the world. By that measure, the whole situation in the Balkans and the current one in Iraq could scarcely be more different.



    This is a big issue and one that deserves more discussion. It's also worth noting that getting our key European allies on board in the Balkans did play a big role in the long-term success of those operations -- and the diplomatic isolation which eventually played a key role in Milosevic's fall. And perhaps Dean has himself made too much of a fetish out of the word 'unilateralism' without fleshing out the critique more fully. But basically this issue with Dean and 'unilateral' action in Bosnia just strikes me as more silly word-game gotcha. Nothing more than that.



    -- Josh Marshall



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  • Reply 39 of 54
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    Simply said... Dean's opposition the the Iraq War was not based on unilateralism... but pre-emption.



    Were Bosnia and Iraq the same? Did the U.S. and it's president behave the same way in both cases? No. So you can't claim supporting one and not the other is hypocrisy.
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  • Reply 40 of 54
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,067member
    Amazing. Now it's turned into semantics and hair-splitting. Howard Dean opposes the "unilateral" war in Iraq. He supported a unilateral action in Bosnia. It's so hypocritical and damaging it's actually amusing.



    If Dean opposes unilateral action in Iraq, then why not in Bosnia? What's the difference? If anything, there were many more reasons to invade Iraq, AND...we do have many other partner nations in the process. In addition, we had a UN resolution that said "serious consequences" would occur if Iraq did not fully cooperate with UN inspections. Not one person on this board can tell me Iraq complied. Iraq's government plotted the assasination of a former President, fired on coalition aircraft, cheated in the inspections process, made openly aggressive and hostile statements towards the US, openly praised 9/11 in public statements and had a history of developing and USING chemical weapons. Whether or not you supported the war on these grounds, the fact is that there was far more reason to go to war in Iraq than to get involved in Bosnia. In Bosnia there was a horrendus humanitarian situation....which is nothing to sneeze at....but does that in itself justify unilateral action? If so, then there is no argument against unilateralism in Iraq. It just doesn't add up.



    (I'll again ignore the fact that our action was anything but unilateral...but that's besides the point)
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