What do you think of George W. Bush?

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All this talk about Iran, Libya, etc. If we're so ready to invade countries that don't have freedom, why not CUBA? Right off our shores!

An even better question would be why can't we buy anything from Cuba? We can buy any number of items that were made in China. The government itself routinely buys flags that were made in China. Somehow Cuba is far more dangerous than China is? It is all outrageous.

This appears to be pure speculation based on your belief that only George W. Bush could possibly have taken action. By all means, I welcome the opportunity for you to provide all of the reference materials that will back up this claim. I will add them to my reading list.

Oh. That's right. They used intelligence that had already been debunked months earlier. Virtually all of their claims have now been debunked by the U.S. Government itself. I suppose the biggest difference between you and I is that I am not willing to just forgive a mistake that has killed thousands of people. Maybe if they had left the inspectors in there (who had returned) a little while, they would have determined that no WMDs had been produced since 1991. The U.S. Government admits right now that none have been produced since then. By their own report, they found no evidence of any working program that would have produced them over the past decade. The end result is that Iraq posed no imediate threat to the United States. More damage has been done to the US and its citizens by people in/from Saudi Arabia than Iraq.



Oh. I thought you were making the case that Iraq violating a UN resolution was a just cause to invade. It has to be more than one? How many have to be violated to justify invasion? Is it an arbitrary number? Was our intelligence so bad during the Reagan administration that we thought Saddam was a nice guy? I thought Clinton was supposed to be the one responsible for the bad intelligence on Iraq? You're claiming either that the US government had no idea Saddam was not a nice guy in the 80s, or that Saddam only became a bad guy in the 90s? History says Saddam did not suddenly become a bad guy once he had invaded Kuwait. If Clinton was responsible for the bad intelligence, then why did Reagan presumably think Saddam was a nice guy just a handful of years before he invaded Iraq?



I am not quite sure what you mean here. It was the Kurds that he was testing his chemical weapons on. We act outraged now about it, but at the time it was considered relatively minor. One wonders, still, why we pretend to be more worried about what Saddam does to Kurds, but not what Turkey does to Kurds. The reason is because we consider Turkey a buddy, and we are trying to grasp straws to justify going after Iraq.

The US Department of Defense has also de-classified a project where they tested sarin gas and other nerve agents on sailors on Navy ships without their knowledge. We aren't exempt when it comes to testing chemical weapons on our people. One example is Project 112, which you can read about at the Department of Defense website.

Steve, I did not say knee jerk unassessed actions. And this was not one of them, Saddam had been playing his games for Years, it just got tiring. Even Clinton lauched occassional attacks to compel Saddam to comply.

That Gore assessment was based on general analogies I have heard about him from various sources: Network news, comedy shows, and cable news and also upon a general direction, as proven by some of Clintons actions, that the Democrats often seem to take too long to decide action even when timely action is required. Sure debating about and finding facts and analyzing data are good things and debating about the results, but when timely action is needed this effort must be streamlined or a temporary solution found until such debates and findings are done.

How could they have debunked other nations intelligence as well as their own until after they had gone into Iraq? I thought that was when it was discovered they had misleading information.

Yes, I was, but that was not the only reason, it was a conglomaration of the various reasons together, that tilted the need to stop Saddam.

True. But I could say the same thing about the Allies siding with Japan in WWI and Soviet Union in WWII. And even the lack of knowledge that Germany was committing genecide until the troops arrived at the camps, rumors aside, no either believed them or knew to what degree it was carried out. Nations have a history of temporarily siding with not so friendly governments. It was a cold war move. And the U.S. did not expect Saddam to keep invading after the Iran thing went south.

There were attacks in the south as well. True. But testing is not a Bush thing. The governemt did that under Democratic Administrations durging WWII and in the Sixties.

The Tekneek response are in order from the Gore thing down.

Whether or not I agree with you or you agree with me it is interesting and important to see both sides of any arguement. Whether or not you agree with Bush, you should at least comprehend the reasons. And the whether or not we should have gone in is relatively moot now since we are there. Perhaps he could have waited a little longer or given the inspectors more time, but then again, Saddam and Iraq already about 11 or 12 years of this, how much is enough time. Now it is more like rebuilding Germany, Italy, and Japan, it takes awhile and it could be worse for us if we leave too soon. Re: Woodless Wilson and the allies and thier treatment of Germany after WWI, North Africa after the first Barbary Coast wars when the U.S. tried to return the deposed king and his followers to rule Tripoli, we left too soon and a one time friend felt betrayed were wiped out, just a few miles from success.

Another point regarding Iraq, is that it feels like if we had not tried to stop it, both the ignorance of the peace accords and his overly beligerent practices, it would be like WWI and WWII and the deaths of some 100 million people would have been for nothing, because we saw a problem with it then, but we let it go now. Neville Chamberlain tried appeasement and to allow previous peace agreements to be ignored, but the tyrant just kept grabbing for a little more. This was one of the things I felt about Saddam and Milsovich (except with genocide). Sure Saddam had not attacked a neighbor in awhile, but if we let him get away with conquering and occupying a neighbor in a bid for empire creation, and did not enforce the peace, then he eventually weasel out or around it, build up his arsenal and army again and attack other neighbors. Saddam was biding his time, if he had been genuine about peace and not building new WMDs like nukes, or keeping old WMDs like chemical and bio weapons, he would have allowed U.N. inspectors free access in the first place many years ago, and would have shown proof of his compliance. If he really had nothing to hide then why did he try? Even if his research teams embellished their progress on nuke development how long would he have been fooled by thier lies and found another way. Why, why did he tried to decieve and hide if he never had anything to protect? I still wonder what he was upto with that behavior.

Last edited by Epimonandas on 29 Jan 2005, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Because the guy's a psychopathic nutcase with a God complex, and the overwhelming need to feel powerful and inportant - pretending to have loads of shiny WMDs and worrying the rest of the world was a pretty good way of satisfying this.



Dashed good point old bean - the Saudi Arabian state actively sponsors institutions that spew out brainwashed, pre-programmed, hate-filled, martyrdom-obsessed, West-hating, fanatical religious nutcases at an absolutely staggering rate..... These are the people that are threatening our peace and stability, not some spoiled little 2nd rate Stalin-wannabe ruling a (then) militarily disabled nation..... The Saudis pose more of a threat to us all than anyone has since Mssrs. Stalin and Hitler (and maybe Kruschev....) - so why aren't we sorting out the Saudis right now? Could it be the oil they so happily let us have, hmmmmm?

Because we need oil more than we need cigars, salsa and dodgy-looking mustaches..... You only get "freedom" if your country has something we want, and we can't get it with your current government in charge.....

#1 Reagan was a great president, and even the French respected him, and the French respecting someone is very rare. #2, President Bush managed to fix all the s*** that Clinton did when he was President. #3 President George W. Bush is the single greatest American President since Lincoln.

I'd get very worried if the French ever respected anybody I admired......

Rakkety_Tamm, could you please explain to me what s*** Clinton left behind?

Oh, and if it has anything to do with his Lewinsky thing, it isn't a valid argument.

There was all that "trying to make America a better place for poorer people" stuff that he did, remember? The dire consequences of those actions must be accounted for.

Let's see some Clinton actions

not so good things and similar actions for which Bush is being patronized:
Higher taxes that contributed only partially to evening out the budget
Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees signed executive ..order in 1993 and rescinded in 2000 upon leaving office.
Went through a record 4 cheifs of staff.
gays in the military backtrack
1994 proved disastrous for the Democrats. They lost control of both houses ..of Congress for the first time in 40 years, in large part due to stalled ..legislation, including a failed attempt to create a comprehensive health ..care system under a plan developed by the First Lady
Inability to compromise or come to terms with Congress resulting in several shutdowns
Delayed signing welfare reform
Unable to complete Palestine peace
Whitewater Scandal
No Democrat voted for impeachment
Travelgate
Filegate
Chinagate - Democrats accepting improper campaign contributions
Pardoned 16 members of a group that was responible for several ..bombings in New York and Chicago
140 pardons in his last days as president including his brother, Marc Rich, a ..drug dealer, and Patty Hearst.
Not so successful War on Drugs
Waco wackos of 1993
Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1994 (not good for ..Democrats)
Started Social Security Reform research and then declined to heed any ..recommendations
NAFTA
Did nothing about genocide in Rwanda, Clinton even claimed that it was a huge foreign policy failure

Iraq/Al-quaeda run ins:
al-Quaeda tried to kill Bill Clinton in 2002
Stopped an Iraqi attempt to assassinate Bush, Sr.

Military Use:
war-torn Bosnia
bombed Iraq
Battle of Mogadishu
Haiti
Kosovo
Missle Strike on Afghanistan
ousting of Slobadon Milosovich

Terrorist Attacks under Clinton:
World Trade Center 1993
Kenya Embassy
Tanzania Embassy
U.S.S. Cole
Oklahoma City

Noteable legislation under Clinton:
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 deter terrorism, ..provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for ..other purpose
Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 "It should be the policy of the United States to ..support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from ..power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic ..government to replace that regime."
In 1994, Clinton negotiated and signed the Nuclear Accords with North ..Korea. The underlying concern was that North Korea was developing ..nuclear weapons technology under the guise of a nuclear power plant
Deal to give Israel $100 million to help trackdown terrorists

Good things:
reprogramming and disarming of nukes with the Russians 1994
Over 22 million new jobs
Highest homeownership in U.S. history
Lowest unemployment in 30 years
Higher incomes at all levels
$360 billion of the national debt paid off
Largest budget deficit in American history converted to the largest surplus
Lowest government spending in three decades
Lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years
Higher stock ownership by families than ever before
Americorps created
Minimum wage hike
NAFTA (could be bad could be good, depending on your viewpoint)
Brady Bill
Nanotech iniatives
Eased tensions in Northern Ireland

Still may add some more to the good list later, but I am off to a good start for his negatives and positives and some similar issues with Bush's presidency.

LMAO. But because of his professional acting experience in several B-movies, Reagan managed to pull off most of his public appearances without stumbling through his lines the way W does.

And to clarify, I can't remember who said it, but it really isn't fair that W is blamed for everything from 9/11 to starting a war in Iraq over an abundance of lies to the 72 different Medicare discount cards my Great-Aunt Louise must sift through before she goes to the pharmacy. Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, I. Lewis Libby et al. (many of them leftovers from the Reagan-Bush I years) are the "people" who formulate the policies of the US government (I feel nauseous typing that), but none of them have that frat boy image that so many gullible people find so appealing (in my case, appalling). W is a simpleton; I believe his supporters even describe it as "a lack of intellectual curiosity." Given the popularity of American Idol and Nascar (if you're not from the US, you probably don't know about Nascar; I would be blissful in such ignorance), most people suffer from "a lack of intellectual curiosity," and therefore they can identify with him. So W, the chosen son, is the face that can sell the neocon agenda, although he is too dim to comprehend it.

By the way has anyone covered the reports of Gramps Prescott's business dealings with the Nazis?

Couldn't agree more - Bush (as with seemingly all Republican Presidents) is purely a front with whom your average redneck can identify and feel 'one' with. The decisions and power clearly lie elsewhere. I doubt anybody could trust Bush to be able to decide what side of bed to get up from in a morning......



"I'm like Schindler - we both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, God d**n it!" C. Montgomery Burns

Is your contention steve that the Democrats or their presidents are any better? If so, check my previous post. Clinton engaged with all the same parties Bush has, he just did so less successfully, as the waring shots on Iraq and Afganistan and his other terrorist and military exploits did little to change their minds or stem the tide of these enemies aggressive actions. And he created legislation involving many of these same parties. Terrorist attacks were increasing during Clinton's presidency, is it any wonder that it culminated in a major attack shortly after Bush went into office. I don't think it was Clinton's fault that the attacks occured, but blaming Bush for 9/11 is no more true or constructive than blaming Clinton for the embassy bombings or the other attacks. I think Clinton's actions also showed a general trend in both parties toward more serious reactions and actions to stop terrorists and their allies.