On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:35:41 -0500, Dan Minette
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I just saw this "pox on both your houses" commentary by Sebastian Mallaby.
> I don't fully agree with it. In my opinion, there is too wide a range of
> things that have gone wrong in exactly the
> same way to attribute it to pure bungling. I am looking at expressing the
> problem as two parts of a dilemma that must be solved being advcocated by
> two groups in the US. What we need is a synthesis between the two views.
>
> This idea isn't fully developed yet, but I do think Mr. Mallaby is just a
> bit off the mark, but close enough to be worth considering.
>
> <quote>
>
> Bush smashed the Taliban in Afghanistan, even though large parts of the
> Democratic foreign policy establishment opposed any strategy involving
> boots
> on the ground. Bush announced the biggest expansion in foreign assistance
> in
> recent memory and designed a smart way of dispensing it. Bush ousted Saddam
> Hussein, whereas the Democratic establishment, which also believed that
> Iraq
> had weapons of mass destruction and also talked the talk of regime change,
> would never have done anything so risky.
>
> John Kerry, on the other hand, is a lot more timid. He's fudging the
> question about whether he would have gone into Iraq, but his record
> suggests
> that his appetite for foreign policy risk is between small and zero. He
> voted against stationing intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe in the
> 1980s, against the Nicaraguan contras and against the Persian Gulf War.
> Seared by the experience of Vietnam, he is on the risk-averse wing of the
> risk-averse party. But the United States does not have the option of
> withdrawing from the war on terrorism in the way that it withdrew from
> Saigon. Kerry's inclinations seem wrong for the times that we live in.
>
> Now I'll flop the other way. Bush's clear foreign policy principles are
> matched by clear foreign policy incompetence. After routing the Taliban,
> Bush's Pentagon insisted, against all experience and good sense, that the
> country could be rebuilt with a peacekeeping force of only 5,000 troops
> confined to the capital. At one point a senior State Department official
> mooted a fivefold expansion in that force, and just about every outside
> expert on nation-building agreed. But these voices were ignored. As a
> result, Afghanistan is descending into the hands of drug-dealing warlords.
>
> Then came the Iraq mess. Bush and his officials over-interpreted the
> evidence on weapons of mass destruction, treating suppositions as hard
> facts. They failed to plan for the postwar operation, and they acted
> surprised when the power vacuum caused by the regime's implosion triggered
> looting and mayhem. They needlessly alienated allies with taunts about "old
> Europe." And they permitted the Abu Ghraib abuses, which have damaged
> America's reputation and influence for years to come.
>
> By going into Iraq, Bush showed a welcome willingness to take risks and
> preempt threats; he showed that the United States could project force
> aggressively. But by going into Iraq, Bush showed an inability to calibrate
> risk and preempt possible setbacks; he has damaged America's ability to
> project force aggressively.
>
> Now take economic policy. Despite early steel and farm protectionism, Bush
> has turned out to be good on trade and globalization. His team launched the
> Doha round of global trade talks, which will focus on liberalization that
> helps poor countries. It has kept them moving ahead, despite the
> protectionist pressures generated by a weak economy. It has resisted
> turning
> China into a trade whipping boy, despite pressure to do so from both
> business and labor.
>
> Again, Kerry is not so forthright. He refuses to support the Central
> American Free Trade Agreement because he says it has inadequate labor
> protections, even though there are real labor protections in the deal and
> even though the best protection for workers is the economic growth to which
> free trade contributes. Kerry cannot bring himself to issue a statement
> welcoming progress in the Doha talks, even though global free trade could
> lift 500 million people out of poverty, according to William Cline of the
> Center for Global Development, and even though it could enrich the United
> States to the tune of $200 billion annually, according to Harvard's Jeff
> Frankel, a former Clinton official.
>
> On the other hand you have domestic economic policy. Bush's tax cuts are
> regressive, even though technology and globalization are already increasing
> inequality. Bush's tax cuts are enormous, even though we face a baby bust
> and terrifying long-term trends in health care inflation. And Bush has
> presided over an explosion of government spending. He has never once
> wielded
> his veto to block pork-barrel waste, and his efforts on entitlements
> consist
> of ignoring the recommendations of his own Social Security commission, plus
> creating a brand new entitlement to prescription drugs for retirees.
>
> So which should I prefer? A candidate whose foreign policy instincts are
> wrong? Or one whose implementation discredits his good policy? A candidate
> who lacks the guts to be for trade, or a candidate with an anorexic
> compulsion to starve the government of money? There are ways to balance
> these factors, and I'll do that another time. But if people see this as an
> easy choice, they see something I'm missing.
>
> <end quote>
Where might one find the entire article, so as to read it in its
entirety and draw one's own conclusions?
Julia
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