Xah Lee's Unixism

[Morten Reistad]

In article <4140A885.90B945AC at yahoo.com>,
CBFalconer  <cbfalconer at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Morten Reistad wrote:
>> 
>... snip ...
>> 
>> A lack of focus on world politics has been a characteristica of
>> the US presidents since Eisenhower. Bush is not special, he just
>> got the mess in his lap and had to deal with it; just as Nixon
>> inherited the Vietnam war.
>
>That is understandable considering the relative sizes of the US
>GDP and the rest of the world (until recently), the isolationist
>ethic between the wars, and such things as the world attitude that
>Spain was much more then the US could bite off in 1898.  Wilson,
>Roosevelt (both), Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Nixon are
>among the counter-examples.  Even Reagan, while a sad example of
>domestic policy, did fairly well in the foreign affairs
>department.  Elephants do not need to pay too much attention to
>the surrounding fauna.

I do not agree. Kennedy and  Clinton had a lousy foreign-policy
record. The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, the Cuba crisis were all 
examples of glorious miscalculations. Ditto Rwanda, Somalia, and
the 

Carter was not so bad; but remained unfocused; using all energy
withing the US. I still don't get why they didn't see the Iranian
blow-up. Everyone else did.  

Nixon is a special case; the way he inherited the Vietnam war, 
the Cold war and the way he messed up domestic policy. I think
he did all right, but no better, on a foreign policy front.

>However Bush is demonstrably poor.  He ignored the warnings from
>the CIA, FBI, outgoing Clinton administration about imminent
>attacks.  He was focused on attacking Saddam and Iraq from the
>first, and perverted 9/11 into that at the earliest opportunity. 
>He has offended many more than most of his predecessors.  I will
>say that he seems to have learned the names of some foreign
>leaders since being elected.

Bush has had an agenda all right; but I don't quite get what it is. 

If it is oil, then he is mishandling it big time; Iraqi oil is NOT
flowing. Iraq is a huge mess. Why was that guy Bremer chosen; his
qualifications does not make sense. 

You either have to make converts or do a Pinochet. (hit so hard
everyone is afraid they will NOT die.)

-- mrr