--- Davd Brin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here I will do something and I want you to watch > carefully, Gautam. You too John. It's is called > being American and not a partisan. >
Well here, Dr. Brin, I'm going to do something and ask you to watch carefully, too. It's called knowing what I'm talking about. You have seen me do it before. There are others who do it too. Try to notice. You talk all the time about Kosovo. Do you know _anything_ about the war? It doesn't seem like it. Or what we did in Iraq, for that matter. Here's one ...Milosevic continued to run Serbia for quite a while after our Kosovo campaign. That might have made a difference. Serbia was a bitty country with the economic resources of my college roommates. Iraq has some of the largest oil reserves in the world. Yugoslavia is in the middle of Europe, with democratic countries nearby. The nearest democracy to Iraq is Israel. Our goal in the Kosovo war was to persuade the Serbian government not to conduct genocide in Kosovo. Our goal in Iraq was to overthrow the Iraqi government. All of that just for starters. I know that somewhere, as you acquired such extensive expertise in national security affairs, you might have picked up an understanding that different wars require different tactics. Iraq <> Kosovo. Therefore prolonged air bombardment might not have gotten what we wanted. One final point. You continually talk about Kosovo as a well-conducted campaign. Within limits, I agree, although, _knowing something about that campaign_, I give Wesley Clark far less credit than you do for it. Could you name another military figure involved in the campaign, btw? Just out of curiosity. But John Keegan, often called the finest military historian of his generation (that is, again, Dr. Brin, someone who knows what he is talking about - a useful characteristic), described a recent war conducted by the US as the most successful war ever fought by a democracy against a dictatorship. Except he wasn't referring to Kosovo. He was referring to our recent campaign against Saddam. But I'm sure that, like everyone else who disagrees with you, he's just a partisan hack. I would at least think, Dr. Brin, given the extent to which your statements during the main campaign itself were, ummm, not supported by events, you'd be a little more cautious treading on a field that's just a _little bit_ outside your area of expertise. I will continue this discussion if it seems you're interested in discussing, not lecturing from a position of Olympian ignorance. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
