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[gonzaga man]

We still have troops in Bosnia. Clinton had said they'd be home by Christmas; he was smart enough not to say which Christmas. Troops in Kosovo and Macedonia, too.

It was a wussy strategy to use high level bombing against the Serbs. Didn't hit a single tank, didn't intimidate anyone, many people still died at the hands of Milosevic. Then to use stealth fighters in the daytime was not a good idea, either.

I supported the idea of going into Bosnia but I wanted our troops to have the mandate to kick ass if necessary, not just kinda stand around as was Clinton's rather vague plan.

Like the relief effort in Somalia; troops were underequipped and not allowed to go after the warlords to keep them from stealing food and rampaging the towns. Then our helicopter gets shot down and we turn tail and run. Bad, bad, bad. Either go in and get the job done whatever it takes or don't go in at all.

Bush has been very forthright about the mission in Iraq; troops will stay until no longer needed. And Democrats blast him for having no exit strategy. That's a good strategy; nobody should be stupid enough to say "the troops will withdraw on such and such a date." The Dems know this but they keep on with the blasting hoping for political gain.

Kerry may have a point that by shouldering most of the fighting responsibilities in Iraq, the Iraqi's aren't sufficiently motivated to go after the terrorists themselves. We are in the process of moving our troops to the borders and away from big cities but it takes time and so politicians can argue that it's going too slowly. His plan that he outlined a few days ago is actually pretty close to what the Bush plan is; the main difference is on timing and Kerry's use of timeline-like targets. In practice, they wouldn't be a timeline but on paper they appear to be pointing to a definitive time for withdrawal.


As for Meiers, was anybody impressed by her nomination? Once the Senate hearings started, wouldn't the Democrats be calling day and night for all the documents related to her from the White House? They got the bonus of watching the Repubs. shred her nomination but once their turn came up, you know they'd have the knives out, too.

And Meiers never made it to the "vocal minority" to which Frist was referring(Democrats on the Judicial committee).