🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct12.163346.9100@u.washington.edu> monaghan@cac.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan ) writes:
>In article <MS-C.718850250.1103527590.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> writes:
>>Bush spent most of his time bragging about his record in international affairs
>
>The irony being that Bush doesn't have *that* great of a foreign policy
>record.
>
>In Panama, we beat up a fourth rate "defense force" while levelling whole
>neighborhoods and killing hundreds (or thousands) of civilians, to capture
>our dictator whom we lost control of, to stop a drug trade which continues
>in Panama.
>
>We allow Iraq to divert grain credits for the purchase of arms and
>chemical and nuclear weapons technology, then spend millions to beat up on
>that third rate army.

... while levelling (sic) whole neighborhoods and killing thousands (and
thousands) of civilians, and we didn't capture the dictator this time.

>Bush ignored the Russian revolution until the reality slapped him in the
>face, while coddling China's dictators after they massacred they students.

I thought Bush REALLY blew this one by not supporting Gorbachev with $$$$
while he was still in power. If Bush had given him some money, just a
fraction of what was wasted on the Persian Gulf War, the Soviet Union 
might well still be united, and I think this would have cut down on the
bitter ethnic civil war that we're seeing all over Eastern Europe, IMHO.
Even if it had been decided that it would be better to not have Gorbachev
remain in power, the transition could have been managed better.

Back to the original topic ...

I saw an interesting profile of Bush just a couple of days ago (it was
either on PBS or CNN?). It demonstrated (with specific examples) how, time 
and time again, Bush's way to operate is totally reactive. He lets things
come to a crisis point, then takes decisive action. 

Bush does have a better foreign policy record than domestic policy record.
I guess this technique works better in the foreign arena. It sure isn't how 
a manager is _supposed_ to manage though (!! unless Bush has been reading a
whole different set of "how to manage" books than me).

I got a kick how Bush said that if he's re-elected, he'd have James Baker
take over domestic policy because Baker's been so effective on foreign policy.
I had two thoughts: 1) Let's get rid of the middle man; who needs Bush
when we can have James Baker!, and 2) Foreign policy requires a different 
skill set than domestic policy, and Bush has spent four years proving this 
point!


Cindy