Bush doing a good Job

Niraj you are a fake.

 

Many specific descriptions have been published, occasionally even in the USA. I would point to photos taken in Iraqi prisons and elsewhere, but I'm sure I can't convince you that they're not fake photos created by The Bad Guyz.

Here's one letter you no doubt read yourself, it's famous in every nation on the planet. Nearly every english-speaking person on Earth has read this one.

He describes Americans torturing someone until he died from "stress."

I'm not saying Americans are bad people, just that when given orders to commit atrocities, they follow orders. And there's no disputing that such orders have, at times, been given.

 

Obviously you aren't familiar Cheney's Ties to Haliburton, Bush's Ties to The Carlyle Group and the large amounts of money they are pulling in from the War in Iraq. Check out these Links. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15445, http://www.hereinreality.com/carlyle.html, http://covenantnews.com/baldwin030328.htm

They Didn't actually PHYSICALLY cut money from afghanistan, but because of Iraq, much of the money that would have ALL gone to Afghanistan and rebuilding, went to funding the Iraq Occupation instead, and now, I and many people believe that is the main reason afghanistan is still economically unstable and has not changed for the better since the US invasion. http://www.freep.com/news/nw/iraq14_20040514.htm: Lawmakers have been angered by reports that funds given in 2001 for the war in Afghanistan were diverted instead to prepare for the Iraq war without legislative approval, as Bob Woodward writes in his book, "Plan of Attack." http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200405%5CNAT20040506a.html "The newspaper noted that Congress already has approved $166 billion in emergency wartime spending, most of it for military operations in Iraq."

Well, we all have different opinions. My opinion is that Bush and his regime stole the 2000 election, fucked the american people in the ass (Unless they were a billionaire of course) and now started a war that cannot be won. War on Terror, PLEASE! I for one would LOVE to see terror stopped, and we should do things to help stop it, but carpet bombing middle eastern countries won't stop anything, the people there aren't afraid to die for their cause, and they will. Also, the Bush admininistration has brainwashed a good majority of the country to believe that terrorim is a middle eastern deal, it isn't. It is a global deal, there is terrorism in Ireland, America, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Japan, Europe...It is everywhere, and if this were REALLY a fight against evil dictatorship, we would have gone to china, obviously this a fight that is being fought BY the american people for the Bush administrations personal agenda.

Ya know what man, getting torn up by the Media is part of being a president buddy, its happened to basically every president in history. When you accept the job as president, you have to deal with that, being president is very stressful, and i think Bush believes that it shouldn't be that way, and that because he is the president, he can do whatever he wants, but its not like that. We do NOT represent Bush, Bush represents us. Its US who keeps this country going, not the government. If bush was Supposubly elected BY the people (which he obviously wasn't) than it is his duty to testify in front of the 9/11 commission in public, so we the people can see it. Gulliani got ripped up by the media, and he took it, so did Condoleeza Rice, so why the hell shouldn't Bush and Cheney have to go through it, if they are on top, they should have been the first to testify.

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

Yes, Bush is making money from the war in Iraq. But pliticians have made money off every war ever fought, this one is no different. Bush (and every president before him) dosen't have to worry about money for the rest of his life, he wouldn't have risked a second term in office for something he didn't feel was necessary.

Umm, the only thing in that article that suggests money was diverted from Afganistan to Iraq was the exerp from the book, and books are hardy a reliable form of news. The articles makes it clear that Bush is raising money from other places, not Afganistan, to fund the war in Iraq.

What? Carpet bombing? Where? You want carpet bombing, take a look at what Saddam did to the Kurds. There has never been anything like carpet bombing in Iraq.

And Bush stealing the election? How exactly is that? There have been at least 5 presidents in the last century that have won the electoral college vote, but lost the popular vote. Did they "steal the elections" as well? I agree that the system is bad, there certainly wasn't a "stolen election." The election was messy, and could have been realistically been called either way.

If you don't like the war on terror, what would you prefer? As you say, these people are willing to die for their cause. There is no reasoning with someone who is willing to blow up a school bus full of kids to make a political stand. None. It's useless to try. If you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Yeah but the IRA never destroyed the World Trade Center, and Serbian militants never bombed any U.S. embassies. We aren't fighting terrorism for the sake of fighting terrorism, we're fighting terrorism that targets Americans. And Muslim extremists from the Middle East make up most (if not all) of terrorists who target Americans. China is an evil place and all, and it is my firm belief that it's the responsibility of the democratic nations of the world to remove, by force if necessary, all opressive dictatorships, but at the time China is not a threat to us. Saddam was funding terrorist camps and exporting huge amounts of illegal war materials as "scrap metal" in a time shortly before and during the war. It's not the job of the U.S. to make the world free of terrorism (that's the UN's, and what a wonderful job they're doing).

Fine, but but you see, testifying behind closed doors is not a new thing that Bush discovered. Clinton did it, as well as many other presidents before him, so don't complain about Bush avoiding something that other presidents had to do.

 

You're right, but that doesn't justify it, Presidents shouldn't make money from war because then they will be much more inclined to push for war, even when it isn't necessary like that in Iraq. You try and say they don't need anymore money because they have enough, that's not true, because people in power want MORE money all the time, it's like a game for them. The Enron 7 didn't have to worry about money for the rest of their lives, and look what they did!
Bush can easily win a 2nd term even know he has fucked up, all he has to do is turn the terror alert up to a higher color, find some "Indesputable" evidence from the CIA that there will be another terrorist attack and that he, not kerry, is the only person who can defend the American Homeland.

Obviously you didn't read the section I put right on the post, he had gotten 166 billion to fund the war on terror, and instead of ALL going to Afghanistan, Much of it went to Iraq instead.

Take a look at what Bush Sr. Did when Saddam gassed the kurds. He kept it as secret as he could, and turned the other cheek to it so he could make money, and until it was conveniant for them to use that as an excuse to go to war, they kept that to themselves. Also, if you don't think that our own government gasses and kills its own people, take a look at the waco massacre buddy, the FBI gassed little children...

Yes, and those presidents DID steal an election. What the hell is the use of a democratic society, in which we can all vote, if our votes can just be thrown out because a group of people might disagree. It's like our vote doesn't even count anymore because of the electorial college, it is wrong, and must be overturned if you want to live in a free, democratic society in which WE elect our own officials.

First, I would turn our foreign policy around, no more supporting countries whose human rights violations are through the roof. I would make people come before profits, and instead of spending BILLIONS and BILLIONS on military and defense, i would lower it to a more adaquete level, and use the extra money to form organizations who can go over to troubled countries and help them. Look at Kennedy's presidency during the Cold War, he created the peace corps, which went to countries, mostly communist ones, to help the people living there. It was obviously politically motivated to stopping communism, but instead of funding for new Nukes like Bush is trying to do now, they made organizations to help the poor and needy in those countries. If the US was to go over to a middle eastern country and help out the little children, they wouldn't grow up hating us like the generations before them who only saw the dark side of the US government and it's foreign policy.

Yes, you are right, the IRA didn't attack the WTC, but you forget that it was obvious the Bush Admin. could have done more to stop it. Also, If it was in fact Osama Bin Laden who masterminded this, who do you think gave him millions of dollars, weapons, and CIA training during their war with the soviets? We basically gave birth to this guy. 3rd, How can one trust our government to protect us when on 9/11, the airforce just, dissapeared, just stopped, for the first time in US history. Obviously 9/11 should have been a lesson to the US, to reverse their foreign policy, and stop their government from breeding terrorists, but of course, our government turned the completely wrong way and now look at the situation were in. I feel deep, deep sorrow for all those who had family members die or hurt in 9/11, and I wish to god NOTHING like that ever happens here again. But the US forgets that things like this have happened in other countries before, in which we turned our backs and don't do anything about it. After 9/11, the entire western hemisphere was on our side, and supported what we were doing, and then Bush had to go and do his own thing, which lost us the respect of the UN and international Community.

oh come on, you don't expect me to be one of those "Bush Sucks, Clinton Rocks" people do you? I don't Clinton or Bush, they are both corporate whores. Clinton SHOULDNT have testified behind closed doors, and neither should Bush and Cheney, but one thing that's different is when Clinton testified behind closed doors, it wasn't a big deal like 9/11, thousands of people hadn't died from a security failure, when it's a big deal like that, you HAVE to testify in front of people, im suprised the American people actually let that go. Im sure if Bush was a Dem. and he did that, the repubs. would have his ass impeached.

 

Yeah, I agree politicians shouldn't make money off wars. Neither should anybody else, but they do. They always have and always will, but this time it wasn't about money. Saddam had WMD, or had the capacity to make them (the UN confirmed it, see here). Plus he was funding terrorist training camps. Bush is making money off this war and there's no doubt abut it, but this time money wasn't the issue.

Bush wouldn't have asked for the money in the first place if we didn't go to war with Iraq. He would have given more tax cuts or just left it where it was. Afganistan has it's own budget, and it's not being "taken away from".

Like I said, it isn't the U.S.'s job to police the world (although it should be, since the UN is worthless). If Saddam is gassing Kurds while leaving the U.S. alone, fine. If Saddam is gassing Kurds while funding terrorist camps to kill Americans, then it becomes a problem.

No argument. The electoral college should be changed, but Bush didn't do anything wrong, it's the system's fault. He was just in the right place at the right time I guess.

That's good, but something like that takes time. These people hate us now. It has been ingrained into them that we are all evil and deserving of death, and nothing can change that (I'm talking about the terrorists, not the common folk who have no strong feelings either way). Do we cut military spending while terrorist cells keep on killing innocent people? It's a great plan for the long term, but we need the war on terror now.

A memo reading "something may happen in the airlines this month" is not fair warning of a terrorist attack. Bush didn't have any idea of what would happen on 9/11, it could have meant anything. And people have a hard time understanding that the only reason we supported people like Saddam and Osama was because we were in the middle of the Cold War. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but at one point the USSR had nukes pointed at the continental United States. Nukes, my friend. The U.S. had to do anything and everything to stop the Soviets from gaining spheres of influence in the middle East (or anywhere else for that matter), in order to prevent the possibility of a nuclear war. Even if it meant supporting Saddam and training Osama.

You're probably right, but I see the logic behind such a move. Considering the gravity of the situation, if the media interpreted a poorly written statemement the wrong way, it couldd have meant disaster for the entire administration.

 

If Saddam was in fact training terrorists, that is bad, and nobody here is disputing the claim that saddam should have been taken out of power some way or another. Also, i am sure he was looking for ways to make nuclear weapons, saddam is a whackjob, but him and bush share a very similar opinion on nuclear weapons, and in fact, Bush wants to pass a bill for new nuclear weapons funding, what does that say about the us government? They say they are making us safer by disarming other countries, yet they refuse to disarm themselves. Millions of people are homeless on the streets and Bush wants to use money for more weapons funding. That is very tyrannical, and is something thst Saddam would do himself. Bush makes Tax Cuts to help his rich friends, yet screws the working class families, that is also something saddam would do. Who are we to tell a country not to train terrorists, when we are training the CIA and Military in this country, which in MANY cases has killed large numbers of innocent civilians, accidental and on purpose. Look at the FBI members trained at the waco massacre, who gassed little children with tear gas, that is terrorism on their own people, that is something that saddam did to his people. We need to change OUR country's foreign policy and defense budget, we need to put the money to the right places, and stop letting people like GWB and his entire family get rich from invading other countries and killing its people. DO you know how we got saddam? We payed a bunch of kurds to find him, WHY couldn't the CIA just secretly go there and pay the kurds to do it, and take him out of power, NOT that i am justifying that either, but what I am saying is the Government and CIA could have done it, but instead decided to drag the war out to get LOTS of cash. This is my opinion man, and i know i won't change yours, but i am keeping this thing going because I am enjoying this debate.

Personally, I do not agree, for his entire presidency since the War on Terror started, he has been asking for LARGE sums of money (Like the $87 Billion Dollar one), If the War in Iraq hadn't started, it would have been Liberia, or Syria. This war is strictly buisness for those fatcats, They know perfectly well there are other, more peaceful solutions to a lot of problems, but instead decide to drag it out (Like Nixon in Veitnam).

I agree man, it isn't, and ever since WWI that's been the midset of the American Government. I also feel in a lot of ways the UN is worthless as well (Oil-for-Food...), And these are the things we should be working on, strengthening the UN and making it better, so they ACTUALLY help people who suffer humans rights violations, and who are living in a country run by tyrants, but who do not go straight to war, instead, look for other, more peaceful ways to help those people (Look at ghandi, he defeated the British Empire in India without firing a shot).

But Bush used the fact that the electoral college was usable to win, and i personally believe he may Have bribed them, I have no proof of this, so i am not going to say its true, but i believe Bush Sr.'s Money may have been involved in Bush winning the election. Also, if Bush's Father hadn't been president, Bush would still be a cokehead in Texas, but because of his Father's name, he was easily accepted and sucked up to in the political world. This was obviously a biased and unfair election. Also, do you think Jeb Bush May have had to do anything with the recount being in Florida? AND all those minorities in florida who just happened to Democratic voters who had their votes thrown out? That is not a fair democratic election, that sounds more to me like Nazi Germany.

Yes, you're right, and its a very sad fact. Because this fact, we as the American people should shut down our government now, kick the Bush administration out, and create a completely new, better government, and better election processes, etc. Call me crazy, but our government is to greedy, to corrupt, to secretive, to be trusted in something like dealing with other countries, Afterall, it was the Bush family who was friends with Bin Laden's Family, The reagan administration who trained the "Contras" to be terrorist thugs, and sold them millions of dollars in weapons, It was Rumsfeld who became friends with Saddam and was selling him weapons in the 80s, which led to Iraq invading Kuwait. It's like we started a war to start our own war and win. These actions are not of a democratic, American govenment, this is terrorism.

They should have released this warning to the American Public, and said "If you are going to fly in the next couple of months, i would be VERY wary, and we advise you to drive or take trains to all locations you travel to in the following weeks." We americans have the right to know this, the fact that they hid that memo from the American Public in the first place is absurd. Also, The cold War was started By the US creating the Nuclear Atomic Bomb, it is completely our fault. Also, how do you expect Castro to like us after the CIA repeatadly hired people to kill him (Even with explosive Cigars!), It was wrong for him to point nukes at us, but if we had accepted their way of life in Cuba and stopped trying to kill castro, i am sure would have a little better of an outlook on America (I mention Cuba because the USSR never had nukes pointed at us from the USSR, they asked castro to let them use CUBA as a spot to point them at us). I also do not want you to think I am a Person who believes that the US government is always wrong, and other governments are always right. I just feel at the Current Administration we have, they aren't doing a big number of things right at all. Also, The chance of the USSR using nukes in the middle east is just as big of a chance as us using them on the Middle east as of now, Especially being that Bush wants more money in Nuclear Weapons funding. This will only make more people like Saddam and Osama Rise up against the US, and lead an assault on us for atleast the next decade. One thing people have to understand is all these hostilities are created by governments, not people, and it is unfair for a government to represent his or her country the wrong way.

Well, as i said before, i just believe that is a responsibility of a president.

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

I agree, tax cuts should go to the middle class. But Bush and Saddam certainly don't share opinions on nuclear weapons, because if Saddam had them he would nuke Israel or Kuwait. As of now, the U.S. dosen't have any active nukes. If Bush wanted to drop the bomb tomorrow, he'd have to wait because all of our nukes (or at least a great majority) have been de-comminssioned and locked up somehwere in Nevada. We won't destroy them because it would give places like North Korea an edge over us militarily. Plus when you destroy a nuke, it's a little more complicated than throwing out a candy bar. I'm all for disarming, but it has to be a mutual effort. Everyone has to do it, not just us. And North Korea, Pakistan, and India aren't going to be disarming anytime soon.

I'm not going to defend the FBI/CIA because they were wrong, but 74 people being killed in waco is a lot different from 1 million kurds being killed over the course of a year. Big difference. And if you think we could have just "paid the Kurds to do it, you're mistaken. His had thousands of bodyguards around him at all times and every telephone line bugged. No information got exchanged without the gov't knowing about it, that's how a totalitarian state works. Anyone who was suspected of treason got arrested and killed. It's damn near impossible to assasinate someone like Saddam.

I wouldn't compare Iraq to Vietnam, because more people died in one day in Vietnam than have died in the entire Iraq war. Second, it looks like you're never going to budge from your "Bush invaded for oil and money. Period." stand, but I'll say one more time that Saddam was training terrorists and exporting WMD parts as "scrap iron" shortly before the war. I think more could have been done diplomatically, but sooner or later it would have come to forcing Saddam out. Just like it's going to come to war with N. Korea sooner or later. Bush just chose sooner for Iraq.

People like to use Ghandi as an example of why not to go to war for liberation, but it really dosen't hold water. The British empire wasn't anything like North Korea or Iraq, there was none of the mass censorships or propoganda in India at the time. If Ghandi were trying to use "civil disobedience" in China or N. Korea today, he would be killed, and that would be that. It happens every day. The British didn't believe in that, so they let him go on salt marches and lay in the streets until finally they had enough and just left.

And India was a province of the Empire, not the homeland. Giving India independence meant nothing to the British government. Abdicating from power means everything to dictators like Kim Jong Il.

Bush didn't "use" the electoral college, because he can't tell people who to vote for. It just happened to work out in his favor. As for his father bribing his sons way into office, who would he have paid? Who would get the money? Not to mention that it's a ridiculous claim in the first place, or else why not argue that every rich person who ever earned anything just bought it? Which is not to say the being the ex-president's son didn't help him, it definitely did. But then again, nepotism is what politics is all about in the first place.

Heh, my post was over 10,000 character long. Continued on next post......

 

If you're talking about a revolution, you're just being a kid. No offense. Our government is greedy, corrupt, etc., but no more so that any other government in the world. You're blind if you don't think that special interests and big business control politics outsode the U.S. That's the nature of the beast. There are plenty of reforms to be made, but overthrowing the government and starting from scratch isn't the way to go.

Bin Laden and the Contras leads me back to the Cold War argument, which I'll get to next. And umm, the U.S. never sold Saddam weapons, I don't know where you got that from. In fact, most of the guns and tanks he used in the war were bought from the Soviets in the 80's, and he might have had a few French planes, but that's it.

Do you know what it would be like if the government warned us about every memo, every anonymous tip, and every warning that they get from the CIA? Forget about it. There are thousands of them a week, if we took every one of them seriously no one would ever leave their house.

No, the USSR was well on their way to splitting an atom, it was only a matter of time. If WWII had dragged on for a while longer, Berlin would have gone up in a Soviet-induced mushroom cloud. And probably Tokyo too. It's in no way "completely out fault." And we tried to kill Castro because, as I said before, if he was dead there wouldn't have been nukes in Cuba would there? The Cuban missile crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war, soldiers were literally pissing themselves in Florida, thinking they were going to go to war. The USSR would have found a way to use Cuba as a military tool even if we were friendly with Castro.

Bush isn't going to drop the bomb in the middle East, quit being paranoid. He won't even blow up a damn mosque for Christs sake, what makes you think he'll nuke someone?

 

Max

This ‘cold war’ argument seems to be something of a catchall. If anyone brings up the US’s past foreign policy and you come back with
But that was the cold war (to which you often add) I'm not sure if you've heard of it.

To you it seems any action however nasty or depraved can be dismissed with this one argument.

The problem was that this was really just an old fashioned clash of great powers. The result of which was a lot of misery for many people. If the US and Americans had truly been willing to help people in such places as Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Iran, etc etc it could have, but that may have clashed with certain financial interests. So US governments supported brutal regimes and sold the American people the idea that they only did this to ‘fight’ communism.

 

you're a funny one!

 

I only employ the 'cold war' catchall when someone else employs the 'U.S. supported bad people in the past and so it is their fault that people hate them now' catchall. Which is more or less true, but nobody will see that supporitng people like Saddam was necessary to stop the USSR. Yes, a lot of shit happened that shouldn't have and lots of people in the government used the Cold War to take out their political enemies, but on the whole it was necessary. We have problems because of our foreign policy in the Cold War, and no one can deny that. BUT, our situation right now could be 100x worse (think nuclear winter worse) if we had not done everything in our power to stop the Soviets (y'know, the people who killed at least 20 million of their own citizens under one administration? Them.)

 

Are you sure? What you've just said was the standard Red Scare cry from the Cold War days, that the Soviets had to be stopped at all costs. I don't believe I'm copping out or resorting to a catchall by saying that doctrine was largely a result of fear-mongering and propaganda. In a way, we and the Soviets fed each others fears - the Soviets of course believed that the wicked booshwah pigs had to be stopped at all costs. It went both ways, and there was no clear good or bad guy (well, except Stalin).

 

We started the nuclear arms race, and when NATO planners looked back on the various war plans drawn up by the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, they were of the same defensive, non-aggressive nature as ours. The whole thing was just bullshit....

 

None of Stalin's succesors were very nice people either, except Gorbachev. Labor camps in Siberia and insane asylums everywhere were never at a shortage for political dissidents, no matter who was running the USSR.

Russia wasn't very far behind in creating a nuclear bomb, Stalin had Kurchatov(sp?) working on it before Hitler even invaded. If WWII had dragged on for a while longer, Belin could have gone up in a mushroom cloud. We detonated the first nuke, but it's not as if nuclear weapons wouldn't exist if we hadn't.

 

AngelHeadHipster:

"DO you know how we got saddam? We payed a bunch of kurds to find him, WHY couldn't the CIA just secretly go there and pay the kurds to do it, and take him out of power, NOT that i am justifying that either, but what I am saying is the Government and CIA could have done it, but instead decided to drag the war out to get LOTS of cash. This is my opinion man, and i know i won't change yours, but i am keeping this thing going because I am enjoying this debate."

-The CIA did have plan with the kurds to overthrow Saddam but while they were awaiting the go-ahead clinton called the CIA back to the America and charged them with federal crimes for "attempting to assasinate a head of state". The charges were dropped but once again the Americans abandoned the kurds and again lost their faith. The CIA man I believe was Field Officer Robert Baer.

 

fuck bush. fuck the government.

 

Max

Let me see if I can summarise your argument –
The Soviet/Communist threat meant the US had to act in a way it would not have if that threat hadn’t existed?

That the US didn’t have any alternative than to supporting the brutal regimes it did in fact support?

That the world would have been far, far worse had the US acted any differently?



The thing is that US foreign policy toward Central and Southern America was little different before Soviet Russia became such a threat?

The other two parts of this argument are generalised assertions, that is rhetoric not ‘truth’.

**

The thing about your argument is that to accept it you must first accept that US foreign policy was always in some way done for the best interests of the people of the world. So any suffering that may have been caused by such policies should be dismissed as irrelevant in the face of the benefit to the ‘general good’. The problem is that this viewpoint in so many cases just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The US could have looked less toward it’s own sordid financial profits or dogmatic ideology and worked toward helping people rather than suppress them.

I have said that American ignorance of the details and willingness to accept the assertions both general and specific of their political and monetary elite. You seem to have come half way you understand that in many details the US acted badly and not in the interests of the majority of people involved, why is it you still think that these wrongs were right and that alternative could not have been found that would have been for the benefit of the majority of the people involved?

 

Balbus

What this comes down to is my opinion against yours. I think that Soviet Russia was an evil (yes, evil) that had to be stopped from spreading, which was one of thier main goals. You don't feel the same way. Yes, alternatives could have been found that didn't involve killing innocent people, and they should have been, but it's not as if the U.S. just said "oh fuck 'em, lets go kill us some commies. YEEEE-HAWWWW!" No. When you're way of life is being threatened by an enemy that has nukes which could destroy the entire world in less than a week (and has proven that they will resort to such methods as the Soviets used on their own people, much less their enemies), you don't tend to think of the big picture or the general good. Don't get me wrong, I don't support what we did to with the Contras, Saddam, Osama, or any of it, but in retrospect it was probably necessary. Not right, not good, not worth condoning, but necessary.

 

Maxpower...Since you keep bringing up the coldwar, think about this...

Why do you think Bush and Co. want to make the Middle East seem SO horrible and so threatening the American way of life? To scare people, why? Because ever since the Cold war has been over, the Government can't use the USSR as a way to scare the people into doing things in their favor, so now they see the Middle East as a good target in scaring the American people just like the coldwar, and getting hte population on their side for war against Middle Eastern countries, or "terrorist" countries for the natural resources, and the ability to put their foot in the Middle East since the USSR got out of it.

Peace and Love,
Dan