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Howard Dean's Letter to Clinton in 1995

This is funny.

quote:

The Honorable William J. Clinton President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: After long and careful thought, and after several years of watching the gross atrocities committed by the Bosnian Serbs, I have reluctantly concluded that the efforts of the United Nations and NATO in Bosnia are a complete failure. I think your policy up to this date has been absolutely correct. We must give, and have given, this policy with our allies and with the United Nations every opportunity to work. It is evident, however, that the cost in human lives in allowing this policy to continue is too great. In addition, and perhaps more importantly for the United States, we are now in a position of ignoring, as many did in the 1940s, one of the worst crimes committed in history. If we ignore these behaviors, no matter where they occur, our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility and our people lose confidence in themselves as moral beings if the United States does not take action. Since it is clearly no longer possible to take action in conjunction with NATO and the United Nations, I have reluctantly concluded that we must take unilateral action. While I completely agree with you that no ground troops should be committed for other than humanitarian purposes in Bosnia, I would ask that you take the following steps in Bosnia. First, lift the arms embargo as it applies to the Bosnian government. Second, enforce a full embargo of the sort that is now in effect in Iraq on the Bosnian Serbs and upon Yugoslavia. Third, break off diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. Fourth, commit American air power to support the Bosnian government until the situation is stabilized and the civilian murders and atrocities by the Bosnian Serbs have been stopped. I understand the risks of this policy and their implications for the NATO Alliance and the future success of the United Nations. Surely, however, as you watch and read about the huge amount of unwarranted human suffering, particularly of children, you would agree that our current course must now be changed. I urge you to make these changes as soon as possible, and I look forward to supporting your policy fully to the best of my ability. Sincerely, Howard Dean, M.D. Governor

And here's the accompanying news story:

quote:

Dean urged Clinton to take unilateral action in Bosnia By Steve Komarow, USA TODAY Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean, a strong critic of what he calls President Bush's unilateral approach to foreign policy, urged President Clinton to act unilaterally and enter the war in Bosnia in 1995. "I have reluctantly concluded that the efforts of the United States and NATO in Bosnia are a complete failure," he wrote, citing reports of genocide during the Bosnian civil war. "If we ignore these behaviors ... our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. ... We must take unilateral action." The July 19, 1995, letter, obtained by USA TODAY, was written on Dean's official stationery as Vermont governor. The language appears to contradict Dean's core complaint that President Bush has followed a unilateral foreign policy, instead of a multilateral approach that relies on consultation and joint action with allies. He has repeatedly attacked Bush's decision to invade Iraq. "I think getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a wonderful thing," he saidlast month. "But the question is, is it a good idea to send 135,000 troops unilaterally to do it?" In the 1995 letter, Dean argued for unilateral action in Bosnia on moral grounds. "As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility," he wrote. The civil war in the former Yugoslavia gave rise to war crimes and mass murders not seen in the West since World War II. U.N. peacekeeping had failed, but the Clinton administration was undecided on whether to take military action. Dean told Clinton that America had to intervene alone because the United Nations and NATO were unable to act effectively. He called for Clinton to bomb the Bosnian Serbs and supply arms to the Bosnian Muslims. He opposed using American ground troops. Clinton eventually won approval from NATO but not the United Nations for a limited bombing campaign that led to peace talks and a NATO peacekeeping force at the end of 1995. About 3,000 U.S. troops are in Bosnia today. Dean's support for the war in Bosnia is one of several examples he uses to differentiate himself from Democrats who oppose virtually all international intervention. His advisers say his stance has remained consistent over the years: A humanitarian crisis of the scale that occurred in Bosnia should trigger an armed intervention. So, too, would an attack or imminent attack on the United States. The word "imminent" is key to differentiating Dean's policy from the president's decision to invade Iraq, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, policy director for Dean's campaign. Bush "sold the war on the basis of an imminent threat to U.S. security, and that has now been shown to be false," Ben-Ami said. Since the threat from Iraq was not imminent, the administration could not properly justify the war, he said. However, when Bush laid out the case for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address, he said the United States should not wait for an imminent threat. "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent," Bush said. "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein ... is not an option."

Very interesting. Certainly makes him look like a hypocrite.

There is a difference in genocide and accusing another country of being a direct threat to the security of the united states. As horrible as Saddam was, he wasn't commiting genocide.

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Originally posted by surferfb There is a difference in genocide and accusing another country of being a direct threat to the security of the united states. As horrible as Saddam was, he wasn't commiting genocide.

Hehehe, I think a few Shia's might disagree with you there. The difference, however, is that the reasoning provided for going into Iraq weren't humanitarian as opposed to Bosnia.

Yet another reason why my vote will not go to Dean

i fail to see the bad with this, you can't really compare those two wars.

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Originally posted by St_Andrew i fail to see the bad with this, you can't really compare those two wars.

I more or less agree with you. If anything, I think having a hardcore pacifist in office would be dangerous. In some instances such as Bosnia, there is a time and place for a call to action. Still don't like dean all that much though

might want to ask the kurds in the north who were gassed too.

Though I totally agree that dubya didn't mention any of the genocide issues when he invaded iraq. It was all about these fictional WMD.

quote:

Originally posted by failsafe might want to ask the kurds in the north who were gassed too.

Blame the Iranians - they gassed them, not Saddam.

That ought to stir the conspiracy pot for awhile.

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Hehehe, I think a few Shia's might disagree with you there. The difference, however, is that the reasoning provided for going into Iraq weren't humanitarian as opposed to Bosnia.

I'm going to sound cold for saying this, but going to war strictly for humanitarian reasons makes very little sense. If there is nothing to gain, there is no reason to sacrifice and spend billions in the first place. Decisions should be mutual--exchanging value for value.

I do not believe that the U.S. went to Iraq for oil--I believe whole heartedly that in the end, the country that will profit from Iraq's oil reserves is.....IRAQ! Imagine that. However, having a friendlier, democratic government in place should grease the wheels of commerce and benefit everyone (value for value, mutually beneficial transaction). The Iraqi's will enjoy a higher standard of living as well as individual voices once they are allowed to have a say so in their country's domestic and foreign affairs.

I think the mass graves in Iraq are evidence enough of the years of genocide that went on there. Whether or not Dubya pointed it out when he made his case (which I'm pretty sure he alluded to on several occasions), doesn't change the fact that it was going on there, and WE ALL KNEW THIS WAS GOING ON. Maybe some people wanted more evidence at the time, but aren't hundreds of thousands of mass graves evidence enough?

I'm not a Dean man either, I run Georgetown for Clark's website, just thought I'd add that.

Um, Dean has said all along that he supported the humanitarian wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as the war in Afghanistan. I know how eager you all are to "catch Dean out" but this is a policy-line he's held fast to throughout his campaign.

This stance may have been hypocritical if the situations were identical, but the fact is they weren't. In Yugoslavia, Milosevic was engaging in genocide even as the international community decried it. Literally the only way to stop Milosevic was militarily - there were no avenues of diplomatic negotiation left. In the case of Saddam Hussein - while the humanitarian attrocities committed by his regime prior to the Gulf War are well documented - at no point in the past 13 years was there any danger of him committing humanitarian attrocities even approaching those committed by Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. Milosevic had made it clear that the ethnic purging was going to continue regardless of international scrutiny - Saddam had been kept largely under wraps for the last 12 years of his time in power. During this period, he was not an "imminent threat" to other ethnicities (the Kurds and the Shiites were under UN and NATO protection for most of this period), bordering nations or - least of all - the US.

Second of all, let's look at the letter a bit more closely shall we (can I get a source for the letter and the articles, please)? While he does use the term "unilateral action" in the letter, the similarities between the solution he advocated for Bonsnia and the "solution" the Bush administration advocated for Iraq are wildly different. If the Bush administration had come under half of the amount of scrutiny that has been applied to Dean by the supposedly "liberal media" over the past couple of months then all of this would be moot. Bush wouldn't even get past the Republican primaries.

So, having said that:

quote:

I think your policy up to this date has been absolutely correct. We must give, and have given, this policy with our allies and with the United Nations every opportunity to work.

He's advocating the use of diplomacy until all such solutions are exhausted? My God, what a monster! Perhaps if the Bush admin had at least attempted a diplomatic solution, the US wouldn't be half as hated as it currently is? Do you not see the difference between using unilateral solutions as a last resort and using unilateral solutions as an a priori preference?

quote:

In addition, and perhaps more importantly for the United States, we are now in a position of ignoring, as many did in the 1940s, one of the worst crimes committed in history. If we ignore these behaviors, no matter where they occur, our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility and our people lose confidence in themselves as moral beings if the United States does not take action.

Dean's advocating unilateralism to curb a humanitarian disaster that is already occurring, not one that's supposedly "imminent". There is a difference.

quote:

I completely agree with you that no ground troops should be committed for other than humanitarian purposes in Bosnia

Note the difference between what Dean is advocating here and what he was opposing in the Iraqi war? He wasn't advocating a military invasion of Serbia, nor a troop-based advance on Belgrade (in which case similarities could be drawn between this policy and the Iraq policy he opposed) he was advocating humanitarian support for the Bosnian people within Bosnia. I fail to see the problem?

quote:

First, lift the arms embargo as it applies to the Bosnian government.

So he wants to:

- Help the Bosnian people defend themselves from Milosevic.

quote:

Second, enforce a full embargo of the sort that is now in effect in Iraq on the Bosnian Serbs and upon Yugoslavia.

- Prevent the Serbs from attacking the Bosnians in the same way we prevented Saddam from attacking the Kurds and the Shiites.

quote:

Third, break off diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia.

- Cut off ties with a genocidal regime.

quote:

Fourth, commit American air power to support the Bosnian government until the situation is stabilized and the civilian murders and atrocities by the Bosnian Serbs have been stopped.

- Offer limited military support to the Bosnians until the humanitarian crisis has been averted.

None of these in any way approach the scale of military involvement Dean opposed in the Iraqi war. He did not advocate the involvement of US troops. He did not advocate a declaration of a war against Serbia. He did not advocate "regime change" or "nation-building". He did not base his stance on spurious claims of WMD, terrorism or of any threat to the US. He based his stance on an existing humanitarian crisis that could not be stopped in any other way. There are no similarities here between the Iraqi war and the Bosnian war that could be identified so as to lay any claim of hypocritical policy. He was right to advocate limited military assistance to the Bosnian people and he was right to oppose the Bush-led military invasion of Iraq There is no hypocracy here, merely good judgement.

Now as I alluded to before, there seems to be a concerted media-based effort to portray Dean as either a extreme-Leftist (which is innaccurate) or as too irresponsible or inexperienced (even though he's spent more time in politics than most of his Democratic rivals) to become president. If I can offer all of you only one piece of advice it is this: do not base your opinion of Dean on what the media tells you. The decidedly conservative US media is keen on picking up on any rumour or claim (except when it's directed against Bush of course) and repeating it - despite any evidence that may arise to the contrary - until enough people believe it. Ignore any media pieces that either admonish or praise a candidate and do the research yourself about the policies not the personalities that have been largely created by the media in the first place, from carefully selected audio and visual snippets.

Dean is still by far the best of the Democratic candidates, and overhyped crap like this doesn't change that fact a damn bit.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Blame the Iranians - they gassed them, not Saddam. That ought to stir the conspiracy pot for awhile.

Well, I don't know about that, but it's certainly a lot murkier than a lot of people would care to admit:

http://quixote-quest.org/resources/...H2O_013103.html

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Saddam had been kept largely under wraps for the last 12 years of his time in power.

So then, it's OK to let a murderer continue to walk the streets, as long as he doesn't go on another murderous rampage? Furthermore then, it's acceptable to let a murderer maintain dictatorial authority over an entire country until he decides to start killing again? Just let bygones be bygones, right? Come on, that's not how it works. This is probably a major reason that it was an ongoing U.S. policy (Enforced by the beloved Clinton administration ) that regime change in Iraq was a tenet of U.S. foreign policy.

You're basically saying, "It's ok to murder and you get away with it free of consequence, as long as I don't catch you doing it again, at which point I still won't do anything about it because I can't get the French to agree to a final, final, final resolution to take action..." This Iraq conflict is being used as an excuse by non-Bush supporters to criticize him even more because they're bitter that he won (yes WON) the election fair & square. Ah, the irony of moveon.org is farcical.

Final: Forming or occurring at the end; last: the final scene of a film.
-Of or constituting the end result of a succession or process; ultimate: an act with both an immediate and a final purpose.
-Not to be changed or reconsidered; unalterable: The judge's decision is final.

At what point were people going to grow a backbone and mean what they said?

We learned from the Cold War, as well as WWII, and numerous other times in history that a policy of appeasement simply DOES NOT WORK.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Well, I don't know about that, but it's certainly a lot murkier than a lot of people would care to admit: http://quixote-quest.org/resources/...H2O_013103.html

It's not any murkier. The only difference is that we could possibly subtract one village out of the many that Iraq has used chemical weapons against heh.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...gas#post1374498

quote:

Blame the Iranians - they gassed them, not Saddam. That ought to stir the conspiracy pot for awhile.

Careful you! Your state is in danger of getting kicked out of the Union considering its only export is preaching!

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Well, I don't know about that, but it's certainly a lot murkier than a lot of people would care to admit: http://quixote-quest.org/resources/...H2O_013103.html

It's not any murkier. The only difference is that we could possibly subtract one village out of the many that Iraq has used chemical weapons against heh.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...gas#post1374498

quote:

Blame the Iranians - they gassed them, not Saddam. That ought to stir the conspiracy pot for awhile.

Careful you! Your state is in danger of getting kicked out of the Union considering its only export is preaching!

why can't there ever be a worthwhile canidate to vote for? It's a sad day when ross perot is by far the best canidate.

You could always write in Turd Furgusen

Here is a key line from his letter that seems to be getting overlooked that goes right to the root of his hypocrisy:

quote:

If we ignore these behaviors, no matter where they occur, our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened.

Speaks for itself.

Thankfully Dean is now locked in a three way tie in Iowa and I hope he loses there. I have never liked the guy as a candidate, I will take anyone over Dean for the Democratic nomination, serious candidates that is.

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Originally posted by failsafe why can't there ever be a worthwhile canidate to vote for? It's a sad day when ross perot is by far the best canidate.

Vote for Clark.

actually i'd vote for perrot just to see him talk in public for 4 years. that guy always cracks me up.

quote:

Originally posted by anuneventrade Vote for Clark.

I'm waiting for the specific details to emerge as to why Clark was fired/discharged.

I'm no fan of a man who wants to increase the top marginal tax rate to over 45% while letting over 50% of the population essentially pay ZILCH in taxes. That screams of vote buying, not to mention it's an idea which will kill productivity. Fortunately, I don't think he could ever pass such a radical and misguided revenue package.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka I'm no fan of a man who wants to increase the top marginal tax rate to over 45% while letting over 50% of the population essentially pay ZILCH in taxes. That screams of vote buying, not to mention it's an idea which will kill productivity. Fortunately, I don't think he could ever pass such a radical and misguided revenue package.

i think that sounds like nice guy

quote:

Originally posted by St_Andrew i think that sounds like nice guy

Don't be so easily bought off. Let's see what you say when you have an income to worry about.

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