>>>
>I still don't understand how could the complete apparatus of US Services buy into this story that somehow Tuđman in Croatia, a proven Holocaust denier and a person with a lot of sympathies for his predecessors from 1941, and Izetbegović in Bosnia, whose book was an open proposal for establishing an Islamic state, and who more or less openly received help from Iran and others (Osama bin Laden probably still has the Bosnian passport, and the mujahedeen are finally being expelled from there after 12+ years) were somehow on your side, while Milošević, who was pretty much the same piece of work as they, was the master villain. The official story is that they played PR much better, while he played PR to the "the worse, the better" tune. That may be an official explanation, but I'm not buying that - CIA should have known better. German Services knew, the French knew, but nobody listened. So in the end you get the KLA classified as a terrorist organization by FBI and at the same
> time receiving lots of aid from the military and CIA. That's what I don't get.

I make no claim whatsoever that we got it even vaguely right in the Balkans - but then, has anyone, ever ? Of course, there is the question of why should the US have had to do anything at all in the Balkans? Oh, yeah, because the entire military budget of all the EU is about the same as the police budget for Chicago. Really helps the budget and makes possible a heck of a social safety net when you defense since 1945 is paid for by the the US taxpayer. ( not to say that even had they spent like Israel France would have lasted very long in the face of Soviet armor <g> ) I really never felt the Balkans problem should have required anything from us.

Where is the leadership to fix Darfur ? Is that our job too?

>>All true except - what was it that was needed to accomplish? Saddam was a toothless tiger. The country was in apathy, just like any country gets after a decade of sanctions. Going there in the first place was the first catastrophic decision (which was made in September 2001, IIRC), everything else followed.
>>
>>The problem was we didn't do the first Gulf War as what it should have been - a war for oil. It would have been a very good time to make a deal with the Kuwaitis - those who liberate you get oil at $15 a barrel forever ( and remember what happened to Hamlin when they didn't pay the Piper ) <g>
>
>That's assuming that the right of the might is the underlying principle of the international relations. If it is, why not simply occupy the whole world and stop pretending? May turn out cheaper.
>

Not an issue of might makes right - that was the principle Saddam was fighting for. It is the idea that first rule of being a mercenary is : get paid. Kuwait could afford it. They needed a king size army to throw out Saddam. I will say they at least made a gesture in that direction, but we could have struck a harder bargain.


>>You will get no argument from me about Saudi Arabia not being our friend. I was rather hoping the purpose of the bases in Iraq was to offer us options.
>
>I still don't understand why would any soldier on any foreign soil be treated as anything but a, well, a soldier of a foreign country, ergo occupier, ergo a legal target for any rebellion which may be trying to liberate the country.

Or why any group that declares itself our blood enemies and vows to kill as many of our people as they can manage should be given any quarter. "Death to America" may be an example of Arab bombast, but it shows bad manners. Cutting off people's heads on the Internet or dragging bodies through the streets is exactly the kind of barbarism that should be chastised.

>
>>>And, as for leadership coming from somewhere else - there were plenty of initiatives coming from elsewhere, and what's on the record there? How did the US respond?
>>
>>I hope you don't mean the United Nations? Do you think we need another Kellog-Briand pact? Perhaps some Security Council resolution forbidding people from doing bad things?
>
>There's the incentive on the table to reform the SC (not South Carolina :). What's the reaction here? I didn't hear much, if any.

You mean dropping an irrelevant country like France from permanent membership and adding Japan, or India. I'm all for it. I don't think the US was the biggest opponent to that proposal. If you mean making Libya or Sudan the chairman of the Human Rights committee - well, you've probably guessed I don't put a lot of faith in the UN <s>



>
>There were many offers to mediate on Middle East, specially around Palestine, but they were largely ignored by the US.

Yes, I am sure there we people prepared to give Saddam a stern talking-to. That oil for food program certainly kept him in line. I don't think there was any credible mediator - and I don't think Saddam had any interest in mediation ( nor, for that matter did we )

I don't see anyone mediating re Palestine ( or do you mean the "Saudi Plan" ? ) And why is the US responsible for other people's mediation efforts. If the Israelis and the Palestinians trust another party, they certainly could get into the mix. France? Russia? The UN? are you serious?

>Ms. Rice's reaction last summer was not just a show of NIH syndrome. Also, during the 1999 bombing, we heard a lot of stories of European generals being fed up by American generals bossing them around.

I think joint military commands are always tricky. Historically command depended a lot on who showed up in battle day with the most spears. In the case of the Balkans I would have prefered all the military was from the EU and there were no American generals to boss them around. I am sure the French generals would have responded very well to direction from their German counterparts ( there is, after all, precedent.)

>
>>I will certainly grant you that our disfunctional relationship with those who have never accomplished anything as a culture other than to have lived someplace when somebody else who had invented things that had a use for it discovered oil under their sand is troubling.
>
>They may have lost it during the colonization, but Arabs were a proud civilization, probably far ahead of Europe during the Dark Ages - which were dark only in Christian countries. Just look at their influence on Spain while they kept parts of it, or their invention of algebra (yes, it's "al gebr al mukabala" - "about moving from one side (of equation) to the other"), advances in astronomy, navigation, medicine and, let's not forget, Renaissance wouldn't have been possible had the Arabs lost the Greek originals and their transcripts. But they kept them and studied them, and delivered them to Europe when the time came.

But Arab civilization did not fall to Western colonialism - it fell to the Selcuk Turks - a more dynamic people. That empire found its colonization of the Arab world later replaced by the European variety, but only after it had decayed on its own merits.

And in the case of the oil sheiks, we are not talking about the Abbasid Caliphate or Sala adin. The House of Saud's history is not nearly as distinguished and bears about as little relation to the accomplishment of the last Arab civilization (I don't believe there has been one since) as present day Egyptians can take credit for the Pyramids.

I think we would have much better luck dealing with Harun al-Rashid.