Okay. I'm finally piqued enough to post on this.
1. Bill Clinton is unreservedly an idiot.
2. I trust him about as far as I can throw his Big-Mac-eating carcass.
3. I think he is going about this totally wrong.
4. I think he is entering this for entirely the wrong reasons (hell...what ARE his reasons? But they sure as hell aren't humanitarian).
5. I have as much desire to see a ground war there as I have to box Mike Tyson.
6. Its still the right thing to do.
If you are a witness to an atrocity and do nothing to stop it, the blood is on your hands too.
Its not good enough logic to say 'we did nothing in Rawanda, we did nothing in Cambodia, we did nothing for the Kurds, so we should do nothing now.' This just shows that we likely should have got off our collective @$$es before, not that we should remain on them now.
Its a civil war, yes. We had one once, too, and it sure as $#!t didn't look anything like THAT, and it was in a day and age when such things were commonplace. I have no problem with letting them fight it out as long it is more or less soldier v soldier. When it is soldiers machinegunning down civilians hand over fist, that is different. Is it a big gray area? Heck yes. But at one end of the continuum is black and the other is white. This is definately in the black, and at last we've had the courage to say so.
Atrocities on both sides? Yes. Is this by now a big mess? Yes. Both of these point to a failure of statesmanship and resolve in the past. At some point you have to just suck it up and play the hand you've been dealt. We've made bad decisions over there in the past and we're paying for them now.
Can we solve all of the problems of this troubled region with this campaign? With even a properly executed campaign? Hell no. But we can stop this ugly atrocity.
Cut a deal with the UN. We go in, buy the real estate. We turn it over to a TRULY multinational force to nationbuild. GTFO. Quit screwing around. Why yes, Virginia, this means ground troops. So be it.
What gives us the right? Moral authority. Call it Kipling's 'white man's burden' for the 1990s, all the more appropriate since we are the British Empire of this age. We can dicker on the finer points (our prez gets hummers from interns and lies under oath. is this right? no, but in this debate who cares? We're talking genocide here), but this is out and out barbarism, and we can stop it. The question is do we have the strength of will to do so?
And yes, we ARE the British Empire. The buck has stopped with us, whether any of us like it or not. Wishing it would go away and sticking our head in the sand will just hasten our demise. We blink now and we abdicate our authority. We create a power vaccuum. Someone else will step up to the plate. Deal with it.
Flame away. I'm a big fat target...but I have asbestos and kevlar skin
Chink, I got your back.
Mike