If you think there's only 1% difference between presidential candidates, what 1% could mean

[yurbud]

A guest on Democracy Now was talking about all the establishment foreign policy advisers in the various candidates presidential campaigns and said that while there may be only one percent difference between all of them, given that the United States has the ability to kill millions of people, 1% could save tens of thousands of lives.

I just have one quibble with the guy.

We have the ability to kill EVERYONE, so 1% could be tens of millions.

[NoodleBoy]

1. you know where the biggest difference is? between Democratic and Republican advisors.

And let's look at the record:

Bill Clinton in Bosnia: 2 allied soldiers were killed, around 500 civlians killed.

George Fuck The World Bush: 4,000+ American soldiers killed; number of civilians killed unknown, most ranges above about 15,000.


That's a whole shitload more than 1%, skippy.

[yurbud]

2. if you include neoliberal foreign policy, the numbers are closer but Bush still killed way more

it took a year or two of the current Iraq War to kill as many Iraqis as sanctions did.

and neoliberalism is decimating the middle class around the world, leading to starvation and suicide.

I agree that the GOP is much worse, but the goals in foreign policy are largely the same.

[NoodleBoy]

3. the goals are the same? you mean Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards will all practice

Bush-style diplomacy and force the world to accept democracy on our terms? Really?

[yurbud]

5. if you think Bush is trying to spread democracy, you are profoundly ignorant.

He is trying to enforce an economic system that gives the lion's share of the world wealth to a handful of corporations and individuals. That's neoliberalism.

He does it with force and lack of diplomacy.

At the very least, Hillary will pursue neoliberal foreign policy, but with more diplomacy than Bush.

Obama and Edwards may make more fundamental changes but haven't said anything specific to indicate that.

If you can find statements of theirs condemning neoliberalism, I would be glad to see them.

[NoodleBoy]

6. Ok, I never said I thought Bush was trying to spread democracy, and

I'm not the one trying to prove anything-- you're the one who asserted the foreign policies of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama would essentially be the same as that failed experiment of George Bush.

[yurbud]

7. Bush is doing a more extreme, less subtle version of our bipartisan foreign policy consensus

[BB1]

4. Nope, you forget Srebrenica.

Some 7000 bosnians were rounded up and shot, while the UN, the French command and the American command did a LIHOP. The Dutch were blamed, Mladic and Karadcic were blamed, but those last two have never seen the inside of a ICC-prisoncell, and neither has Bill Clinton, or George Bush.

Nevertheless, I agree that 1% could represent tens of millions. Great news for the rest of us.