You know its funny you said this, because Dr. Rice's comments where that she did not disagree with the interventions (most of the Republicans were repeating and following the mantra that both of these did not involve US strategi interest so we should not be there), just that Clinton micromanaged them too much. Her opinion was that there were problems in both because Clinton put too many political restrictions. But in defense of Bubba, the military told him that you couldn't win the war without putting boots on the ground, and Clinton thought he could do it with just bombing. The Apaches had a much stronger risk of being shot down. But Clinto pulled it off. Not one US casuality and he got the Serbs out of Kosovo. You have to give credit where credit is due.

I thought the deal with the Apaches was that the civilian leadership (Clinton and others) ordered the helicopters deployed over the Army's objections, and the Army dragged its feet so as to ensure that the Apaches never saw action. I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to blame or credit Clinton for his role, since I would hope that he wasn't worrying about such details, but the Apaches had their share of problems in Iraq, making it look like the Army had some good reasons to be worried.

You are not going to catch a Neo-con criticizing any intervention anywhere. The only criticism that they would have is that your firepower was not superior enough and that your retaliation was not swift enough.

One if by land, two if by, uh, land.
 

Don't think I've seen much here on the Minuteman Project. In its first day, apparently the number of media reps rivals the number of volunteers:

• We have already accomplished our goal a hundredfold," Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and project organizer, said as more than 100 members of the media jostled and jockeyed for position outside a registration building on Friday morning. "We've got our message out to the American public."
  
  Gilchrist estimated the number of media at 100 to 120. He claimed to have four times as many volunteers registering in Tombstone to participate in patrols to detect undocumented immigrants in the San Pedro Valley, a bustling smuggling corridor, and report them to the U.S. Border Patrol.
  
  But there was no way to independently verify the number of volunteers, who were registered in two buildings.
  
  The turnout fell far short of the 1,000 hyped before the event, although Gilchrist said more volunteers are expected throughout the month.
  
  On the first day of the project, the media showed up en masse, with satellite trucks lining the streets of this historic town in Cochise County, an illegal-immigration epicenter that accounted for 1 in 5 of the 1.1 million arrests along the Southwestern border last year.
  
  ***
  
  Marc Cooper, a senior fellow with the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California, said the project "caught a wave" of positive press, particularly with popular, conservative cable shows.
  
  "The spectacle we're seeing today has been primarily driven by the media," he said, adding that it received an incredibly disproportionate amount of coverage, even from mainstream press. "There's a sexy story here, and the media bit the hook."

I do think that one good arising from this circus is the focus on the inadequacies of the US Border Patrol and the security threat to what is a particularly porous border. That said, the temptation to make some mocking predictions is irresistible.

Better than even odds for the following to occur:

* Look to see Hannity and Colmes film on location after the end of The Pope Watch, scheduled to be sometime in mid-august. The barbed wire in the background will be a nice touch.

*The over/under for Minutemen arrested during the Project: 14

*The over/under for Mexican immigrants somehow falling dead during an attempted border crossing: 32

* Over/under date for the abrupt end of the Minuteman Project once the American public starts paying $8.32/lb for strawberries -- May 2

Gattigap

I am a big fan of McCain and not a fan of Bubba. However, during the Kosovo intervention McCain was constantly critisizing Clinton that you can not win a war using only airpower. The Generals were bitching to McCain that the Airpower was never going to accomplish anything and that Clinton was risking our pilots on another limited war like Vietnam that we could not win unless we committed ground troops. Bubba was right in the end.

One if by land, two if by, uh, land.
 

I don't recall where I read that the proportion of border crossings in this "porous" area was quite low until they closed off other areas more completely -- this area may not have a lot of patrols, but the terrain is so harsh that it was unpopular (and thus didn't need so many patrols) until it became the only area. Huge number of people die attempting to cross because it's miles and miles and miles of desert and no water. Apparently you can't walk it and carry on your person the amount of water you would need to live. Kind of fucking scary.

Now I'm depressed. Someone go post something about sex.

That's kind of like criticizing Reagan in '86 (?) for using only airpower against Libya instead of invading. The military point is well taken, but Kosovo (and Libya) involved more limited conflicts in which the use of airpower tested the political resolve of the other side.

On Somalia, SS and I were trying to point out that we went in under Bush, not Clinton.

a scene from the Schiavo protests
 

Wish I'd seen this at the time:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/idiots.jpg

One if by land, two if by, uh, land.
 

On the immigration issue Bush is right and the rest of the Republican leadership is wrong. Dead wrong. Mexico is our problem. The only reason Mexicans want to come to the United States is because their economy sucks. The only way to fix the problem is to raise the standard of living in Mexico. NAFTA was a big step in that direction. If you got rid of all the illegal Mexican immigrants in the US and sealed the border the California economy would collapse. France, Germany and England had this same problem with Spain and Portugal. But once Spain and Portugal were integrated with the European economy their standard of living increased and the problem was over.

One if by land, two if by, uh, land.
 

I hate this thing more than I hate most hairbrained right-wing vigilante schemes.

Part of it comes from having (legal citizen)family members that could possibly be shot by these yahoos, not to mention close (not so legal) alien resident friends; part of it comes from coming from Texas where we don't care as much about such things as they apper to in Arizona; and part of it comes from the general worry that this is going to escalate into an ethnicly charged battle.

What I find interesting, though, is the different attitudes about illegal immigration in different border states. With the exception of Kinky Freedman (who lost any and all hope of my support for his wacky candidacy because of the relevant statements), I don't really hear that much negative about illegal immigration here. Everyone knows that several industries would collapse immediately if cheap labor were messed with. Hell, the restaurant industry alone would be toast, and we Houston fats love to eat too much to allow that to happen. New Mexico seems to be the same way. The good people of Arizona, on the other hand, seem to get into an irate frenzy over the thought of anyone coming into the country, and California has oddly shown signs of leaning anti-immigration as well.

I'd think it had to do with the relative populations and history of the states, but California was also once part of Mexico.

I do know that my family was here first. Er, well before any of those pesky Anglos got here, and you don't see ME shooting anyone. And lord knows we were hurt a lot more by invaders than those idiots in Arizona.

ETA: Anecdotally, it seems that there are a lot more border checks than there were before 9/11. Driving down to South Texas is a little more of a pain in the ass than it used to be with all the stops. They even took away the rowboat from Terlingua to the bar on the other side of the river. I mean, honestly, who the fuck is going to invade the country through Terlingua, Texas in a rowboat?

One if by land, two if by, uh, land.
 

Vigilante efforts to stop illegal immigration go way, way back in the history of this country.

Cheney on the Courts
 

Ahhhh, are Gatti's feelings hurt? Looks like someone can dish but not take.

Cheney on the Courts
 

Maybe he just wondered what the point was.

Cheney on the Courts
 

Yez. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

GOP Senator on the Courts
 

From WaPo:

• In a Senate floor speech in which he sharply criticized a recent Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty, Cornyn (R-Tex.) -- a former Texas Supreme Court justice and member of the Judiciary Committee -- said Americans are growing increasingly frustrated by what he describes as activist jurists.
  
  "It causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions," he said. Sometimes, he said, "the Supreme Court has taken on this role as a policymaker rather than an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people."
  
  Cornyn continued: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence. Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have."