Atomic Dog
"Hey dude, are we going to go see Clinton today?" Keith asked me this afternoon.

Sure I thought. That'd be fun. I was always a big George Clinton fan, and any chance to go see Parliament would be too good to be true. Boy, was I surprised when Keith showed up and told me he was referring to William Jefferson Clinton, former president of the United States.

Seriously though, Clinton spoke this afternoon at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center at the University of Florida. He gave a 25 minute speech about his views on what it would take to make the world a more peaceful (and safer) place, and then he answered questions for an additional 25 minutes.

During his talk he discussed three different views of world politics as discussed in the books by three different authors. The first book Clinton discussed was Warrior Politics by Robert Kaplan. Supposedly, Kaplan contends that in world politics, power is more important that virtue and that it is the duty of the more powerful nations to impose their will on other nations in an effort to establish world peace. Clinton describes the book in the context of our current foreign policy; it is very clear that our president feels that it is for the good of the entire world that he enforce his vision of peace among other nations.

The second book Clinton discussed was Nonzero by Robert Wright. Clinton described Nonzero as a middle-road approach; generally societies will come around and recognize that it's in their best interest to get along and work together.

I don't remember the third book, but I want to say it is Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software by Steven Johnson.

Clinton spoke about the best way for nations to accept and get along with each other is for them to recognize that all nations are interconnected. Anything bad that happens to Nation A is bad for Nation B, while what's good for Nation C may be good for Nation D. He used Palestine and Israel as an example, describing how both Palestine and Israel are inextricably intertwined and sooner or later they will need to recognize that about each other, and then they will be able to have peace.

Clinton talked about foreign aid for other countries was good for the United States; he gave as examples Honduras and Ghana. He pointed out that the US offered financial aid for infrastructure in the form of schools and medical services to those countries during his administration, and as he pointed out, Ghanese and Hondurans aren't out to kill americans. Clinton said that of the top 5 countries in the world, we provide the lowest amount of foreign aid, and that it would only cost us 1/6th of the increase that we've had in military and defense spending during the past year in order to double the amount of foreign aid we give away.

I have to admit that I was surprised when Clinton said he felt it was important to disarm Saddam Hussein. I would not have been surprised if he was in the "I support the troops, but not the war" camp, but it appears he supports the war. He said he felt it was important to keep weapons of mass destruction away from people who might drop them into the hands of terrorists, and I can agree with that point. However, Clinton did say he felt that North Korea was a bigger threat. He pointed out that while we made a big deal about removing Saddam's missles that have a 120 mile range, it's silly to ignore North Korea's missles that can be dropped on the continental united states.

The Question and Answer section was a little unusual. Due to security concerns, people were not allowed to ask questions directly. Instead they were submitted via email 2 days in advance to Accent Productions, and the president of Accent asked the questions. I suppose this probably helped reduce the risk of the otherwise inevitable Monica Lewinsky question... The only question I'll go into detail were the questions about North Korea and Palestine.

Clinton was asked if North Korea was a more serious threat than Iraq, and he said that he felt that was the case. Clinton described North Korea as a country that is incapable of growing food, or making goods which could be sold on the international market to buy food. Instead, Clinton asserted that North Korea's forte was making bombs and missles. Clinton also compared North Korea to an unruly child desperately seeking attention; they know that they can't really drop the bombs themselves because they will be wiped out of existence, but they'll continue to be bad if it's the only way they can get noticed by the world governments.

It was an interesting analogy on a number of points.. One, it was fairly humorous (comparing Kim Il Jung to the kid sticking his hand in the cookie jar after being told no). Two, it was a candid look at how Clinton sees North Korea; he obviously has little respect for the North Korean government and sees them more as a pain in the ass than anything else.

The second question of interest was about Palestine and Israel. Clinton went into detail about how it's really a shame that Palestine and Israel haven't worked out their problems. He pointed out that the two were really intertwined, but that they'll continue to have problems until such a time as they recognize that they are. He also said that he feels that Rabin's assasination really hurt the chances for peace in the region because the Israeli people have elected the "most militant and uncompromising person they could find." Clinton also discussed his disappointment with Arafat for not signing the peace treaty in 2001, and that he believes the problems there could have been resolved.

The last bit that he talked about was Rwanda. Clinton spoke about how he feels his greatest mistake was in not sending the military to Rwanda, and that he's troubled that so many people died while he did nothing. I had not remembered, or realized, that almost 800,000 people had been slain in a period of less than four months during the uprising. It really puts my fathers depression into a easier to grasp light.

Oh well, I might not have gotten the chance to hear Atomic Dog, but I did get to hear a pretty interesting talk.

Posted at: 02:25 on 04/04/2003   [ /essays ] #