Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
George W freakin idiot war criminal Bush is the one and only cause of todays near total instability in the middle east.
If blaming Obama is coming from a 10 year old, then blaming Bush is from an 8 year old. I seem to remember a little thing called 911, and every Democrat, save a few, jumped on the invade Iraq band wagon.
Many of you liberals are quick to blame Bush, while defending Obama as not being in control of such things. You can't have it both ways, yet you refuse to understand this simple fact.
Do yourselves a favor, vote for Gary Johnson or Rand Paul. This will solve quite a lot!
If blaming Obama is coming from a 10 year old, then blaming Bush is from an 8 year old. I seem to remember a little thing called 911, and every Democrat, save a few, jumped on the invade Iraq band wagon.
Many of you liberals are quick to blame Bush, while defending Obama as not being in control of such things. You can't have it both ways, yet you refuse to understand this simple fact.
Do yourselves a favor, vote for Gary Johnson or Rand Paul. This will solve quite a lot!
The problem being that after 09/11, Prexy W had to do something. He opted to send in SF & commandoes & the like into Afghanistan, when the Taliban refused to hand over Al Qaeda & Osama bin Laden. Our SF were ideal - they included organic translators & people familiar with the cultures, they had unlimited air, missile, long-range arty, transport support - with laser target designators & GPS & secure sat phones, they could rain down deadly accurate fire day & night. The Taliban broke, Al Qaeda broke.
The problem was that they made it look easy. VP Cheney & all the retreads from PNAC (& here I do fault W - he hired these people, or brought in Cheney & assordid people who did hire their old pals & fellow believers). Cheney's office suborned CIA intel, they set up their own stovepiping to get around rational analysis @ the intel agencies (think Achmed Chalabi - ah, where is he now?, ANC, his patriot army that he was going to raise & crush Saddam Hussein with, the oil that would pay for everything, the Sunni & Kurds who would greet us as liberators, & on & on).
Convinced that Iraq would also be a gimmee, W & Cheney & crew planned to conquer Iraq on the cheap. They kept reducing the manpower & logistics tail, until they got to something they could sell to Congress. Sect. State Colin Powell & NSA Condoleeza Rice, Tenet DCIA, marched to their orders. With Judith Miller @ NYT & other cheerleaders (some of whom died with their boots on, embedded with US military), the W admin rolled over Congress, Judiciary, the mass media, & convinced enough people to make a good show of it.
Then the plans met reality, & everything in Iraq went to hell - beginning with the infrastructure. A series of extremely bad decisions - demob the standing military, officers with their weapons, de-Baathify the government - which meant all the expertise walked out the door.
A decade later, here we are. Afghanistan was understandable, the effort in Iraq - we shouldn't have bothered, with all the micro- & mis-handling from above - we cashiered everybody who knew better (@ Pentagon, @ CIA, @ all the various intel agencies). W opted for photo ops (Mission Accomplished!) over reality, appointed PR people to trumpet our immaculate foreign policy - as if wars were won by pressers.
I usually despise Obama's actions, but he is at least partly right on this. Muslims in the ME have been killing each other and anyone else they can get their hands on for 1000 years. Neither Bush, Obama or anyone else is going to change that. I see no reason to waste any more American lives trying to help the people of the ME. We should get and keep all of our people out and let them keep doing what they do. Not our country, not our problem.
1000 years? The Arabs and Israelis have been fighting for at least 5000 years. I realize Islam, the religion, isn't that old, but just sayin'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
Darn them for following the guidelines Bush provided. I remember when this occurred and the VAST majority on the right here kept saying Obama couldn't take credit for Bush's plans.
The reality? Iraq's elected government asked us to leave. We had no valid reason to refuse. Especially after some of the private military contractors started messing stuff up.
Oh, my yes, they were! If I weren't exhausted, I'd dig up some old posts from "back in the day".
The Middle east has been broken for nearly a century. It was never the most stable region. Has Obama contributed? Maybe, but then so did Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, and all the way back to W. Wilson.
The problem being that after 09/11, Prexy W had to do something. He opted to send in SF & commandoes & the like into Afghanistan, when the Taliban refused to hand over Al Qaeda & Osama bin Laden. Our SF were ideal - they included organic translators & people familiar with the cultures, they had unlimited air, missile, long-range arty, transport support - with laser target designators & GPS & secure sat phones, they could rain down deadly accurate fire day & night. The Taliban broke, Al Qaeda broke.
The problem was that they made it look easy. VP Cheney & all the retreads from PNAC (& here I do fault W - he hired these people, or brought in Cheney & assordid people who did hire their old pals & fellow believers). Cheney's office suborned CIA intel, they set up their own stovepiping to get around rational analysis @ the intel agencies (think Achmed Chalabi - ah, where is he now?, ANC, his patriot army that he was going to raise & crush Saddam Hussein with, the oil that would pay for everything, the Sunni & Kurds who would greet us as liberators, & on & on).
Convinced that Iraq would also be a gimmee, W & Cheney & crew planned to conquer Iraq on the cheap. They kept reducing the manpower & logistics tail, until they got to something they could sell to Congress. Sect. State Colin Powell & NSA Condoleeza Rice, Tenet DCIA, marched to their orders. With Judith Miller @ NYT & other cheerleaders (some of whom died with their boots on, embedded with US military), the W admin rolled over Congress, Judiciary, the mass media, & convinced enough people to make a good show of it.
Then the plans met reality, & everything in Iraq went to hell - beginning with the infrastructure. A series of extremely bad decisions - demob the standing military, officers with their weapons, de-Baathify the government - which meant all the expertise walked out the door.
A decade later, here we are. Afghanistan was understandable, the effort in Iraq - we shouldn't have bothered, with all the micro- & mis-handling from above - we cashiered everybody who knew better (@ Pentagon, @ CIA, @ all the various intel agencies). W opted for photo ops (Mission Accomplished!) over reality, appointed PR people to trumpet our immaculate foreign policy - as if wars were won by pressers.
And I agree with much of what you said. But you have digressed from what I actually said. Obama is just as much to blame for how he has handled what Bush left him, as Bush is to blame for what he left. The Dems were just as much to blame for going into Iraq as Bush was for getting them to back him.
THAT is the premise of my argument.
The Dems were so against it, only after they were for it. That is an absurd position.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tinman01
The Middle east has been broken for nearly a century. It was never the most stable region. Has Obama contributed? Maybe, but then so did Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, and all the way back to W. Wilson.
Though basically correct, we could have done far better than we did. Obama could have backed the students in Iran a couple years back, but instead blew the perfect opportunity. This is much the same as the CIA forcing JFK to abandon the freedom fighters, and leaving them to be slaughtered in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The US is filled with such missed steps in our history.
What we have to do is live in the now, stop blaming the past, and look for solutions to the mess we've created.
Arming the Kurds, who are very very good allies, is a good start. IF Obama follows through on this, I'll be the first to wave his flag.
The world was such a peaceful place in 2009, why couldn't we leave a few hundred thousand soldiers for another10-20 years, Bush handed Obama two wars on a silver platter.
And I agree with much of what you said. But you have digressed from what I actually said. Obama is just as much to blame for how he has handled what Bush left him, as Bush is to blame for what he left. The Dems were just as much to blame for going into Iraq as Bush was for getting them to back him.
THAT is the premise of my argument.
The Dems were so against it, only after they were for it. That is an absurd position.
Though basically correct, we could have done far better than we did. Obama could have backed the students in Iran a couple years back, but instead blew the perfect opportunity. This is much the same as the CIA forcing JFK to abandon the freedom fighters, and leaving them to be slaughtered in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The US is filled with such missed steps in our history.
What we have to do is live in the now, stop blaming the past, and look for solutions to the mess we've created.
Arming the Kurds, who are very very good allies, is a good start. IF Obama follows through on this, I'll be the first to wave his flag.
Prexy W & his crew cooked the books, & took advantage of 09/11 to hijack the decision-making @ the spook agencies & Legislature. He had a ready-made plan whomped up by PNAC - all they needed was a good excuse to implement it. The W admin browbeat a non-intelligence Tenet @ CIA, fired everyone who disagreed, & cowed everyone who objected to the so-called plans.
My argument was that Prexy W was dead-set on becoming a war-time president - never mind that it was a war of choice, as far as Iraq went. VP Cheney's office cooked the intel there, brought in Snowball (A. Chalabi's cousin, I believe), lied about yellowcake, lied about tubing for biochem weapons, mobile biochem labs, drones to dispense biochem weapons, & on & on.
The Kurds. After Prexy George H. W. incited the Sunni in the south of Iraq to rise up after we & the coalition liberated Kuwait, & then let them be slaughtered by Saddam's national police, & after Prexy Nixon/Sec. State Kissinger blithely sold out our dear allies & partisans, the Kurds, in order to cement our relationship with Iran (under the Shah, I believe) - it's a wonder that anyone, anywhere will do business with us @ all. The Kurds understand, of course, that our political will is a quondam thing - subject to all kinds of political whims @ home. They'll work with us, but they'll also be ready to cut & run @ the first sign of betrayal. It's the Middle East, after all ...
And that is a fact !!! As a people be do not benefit by this constant war mongering !!!!!! Or we wouldn't be broke !!!!
In fact we would all be rich having been at war for nearly all of the last 65 years.
The military industrial complex is doing very well out of all the clusterflucks. They really don't care about the civies, what do they know??????
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A storm of flags, the golden hour
