Down with George Bush!

[PigDogg]

(pacman @ May 31 2008,23:33) As bad as he has been for the Iraqis, he has harmed the American cause much more.
He has single-handed destroyed America's moral authority & when the next crisis arrives that requires a co-ordinated international effort, no-one will be listening to what America wants.

After 9/11 the Western democracies and moderate Arabs showed enormous goodwill towards

Bush and his gang has squandered that goodwill.

That's a real shame because technological advances will make terrorists even more dangerous in the coming decades. Force alone is not sufficient to make the world a safer place.

[Lefty]

(JaiDee @ May 28 2008,03:07) make friends with Iran, the most powerful nation in the region when they reached out that olive branch to us in 2001? Why, when we can threaten them and bomb 'em back to the stone age!! George had his chance back then and told them to fuck off....which is when the clerics put in Ahmenedijad and started with the hard line; now we are all fucked.

That is the typical response for a chickenhawk like Dubya and we may as well include his fellow chickenhawk Dickless Cheney with him because Dickless has a strong influence in most all administration decisions. Yessiree, Bush is real tough talking now when someone else's asses are the ones put in the line of fire, but the gutless piece of shit used his old man's connections to avoid Viet Nam by getting into the Texas ANG on the very first day he applied, which was the day his college deferment ended, while other applicants for the Texas ANG were on a waiting list that was months long.
Cheney got how many draft deferments in Wyoming? 5? 6?
Something like that, which meant every time he did, some other Wyoming young man had to go instead. But Cheney is a real tough guy now. That would be the worst thing about anything happening to Bush...as bad and/or inept as he is, Dickwad is pure evil and it makes one shudder to imagine him in charge.

[Lefty]

(strocube @ May 28 2008,04:57) George Bush is a loathsome tool of the military industrial complex and the petrochemical industries. He is a puppet that dances to the tune of his cronies, who are the corporate overlords of those industries. He has done more damage to this country in terms of the economy, civil rights, the environment and this countries standing on the global stage than any other president before him. He's even worse than old Ronnie Ray-gun.

Hunter S. Thompson expressed this better than I ever could:

Jesus Hated Bald Pussy

Let's face it- the yo-yo president of the U.S.A. knows nothing. He is a dunce. He does what he is told to do- says what he is told to say- poses the way he is told to pose. He is a Fool.

Excellent comments sir, and quite correct, sadly. Still, being in the top chair the buck stops with Dubya, even if he is a sock puppet.

[Torurot]

Well Spotted Lefty, I should have referenced that top quote to Vincent Bugliosi. The second part was from
"Ambitious, Idealistic Vision of Freedom"
How McClellan Prettifies Bush
http://counterpunch.org/leupp05312008.html
By GARY LEUPP Weekend Edition May 31 / June 1, 2008

[Lefty]

(PigDogg @ May 30 2008,20:01) It still (with hindsight) was clearly not in the USA interest to go to war. Stupid decision. The world is now more dangerous as a result of the legal invasion.

And certainly not in the interest of the Iraqi man in the street that has friends and family killed or maimed. GWB says the Iraqi people love "freedom". Bullshit. Most prefer stabililty and order and were better off under the Saddam regime.

Had Gore been president I doubt that we'd be in Iraq. Sons and daughters, now six feet under, would instead be celebrating Christmas and Ramadan with their families.

Helluva job Bushie!

A proud that thinks Bush is an a-hole.

Not all needed hindsight to know it was a fool's errand to invade Iraq.
Diverse intelligent US leaders like Russ Feingold, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, to name a few, never supported going into Iraq before or after the fact. I am also one who never believed or supported, before or after the fact, anything Dubya has done in regards to Iraq.
We had some debates about Iraq pre-invasion on the old site gadgets yellow forum and I do recall that some who speak against it now, supported it in Feb 2003. It's good though that some can change their minds when the facts become more clear. We used to have one poster there who used some Arab sounding name like Amir or something similar, who was really attacked on the forum by many others for speaking out against Dubya and the need to invade. After being ganged up on, Amir faded from that forum, though now everything he said, which I agreed with then, has come to pass.

[Torurot]

>IF one bit of CIA info that related to Iraq was shite, then all
>must be considered shite.

Azza, The Parliament/senate/congress? "voted" to go to war NOT the CIA. Their [CIA] "intelligence" told them not to. However elements of the "executive" DELIBERATELY misused the "intel". I also blame Tennat (sp). He was top level and should not of allowed "intelligence" to be twisted for POLITICAL purpose. He didn't stand up and be counted. The whole US political system is broken & corrupt. Karl Rove is the equivalent of Goebels.

[azza33]

(Torurot @ Jun. 01 2008,22:08) >IF one bit of CIA info that related to Iraq was shite, then all
>must be considered shite.

Azza, The Parliament/senate/congress? "voted" to go to war NOT the CIA. Their [CIA] "intelligence" told them not to. However elements of the "executive" DELIBERATELY misused the "intel". I also blame Tennat (sp). He was top level and should not of allowed "intelligence" to be twisted for POLITICAL purpose. He didn't stand up and be counted. The whole US political system is broken & corrupt. Karl Rove is the equivalent of Goebels.

Now you are making up things in mid flight...

All i was indicating that CIA material was presented as evidence that WMD may have still existed... everyone appears to have dismissed this evidence as incorrect or misleading or contorted. (some probably was to push their case, but much of it was real - not conclusive however)

Then along comes a CIA document that supports your case and magically this CIA document is worth every penny.

Sorry you cant have it both ways~~ thats all my point is!

Nothing to do with who voted to go to war

[Lefty]

(janabiyah @ May 28 2008,19:12) I think George is a great leader and history will define him as such.

He has never shrunk from taking difficult decisions and the fallout from these will be very long term.

It's difficult to be a popular leader in a wartime scenario

The modern soldiers life is much more valuable than ever before and politicians who squander these assets are quickly brought to account, unlike days gone by.

Tough times for GWB

I consider you one of the smartest guys I've ever met, on a vast myriad of topics, and one of the most jai dee people I know my friend, but I honestly think you are way off base on this one.
For GWB II to be be defined by history as a great leader, he would have had to made some good decisions and his entire tenure has been nothing but a series of cluster fucks. Trouble is no one else in a position of power, such as anyone in our Senate or House, has the gonads to give anything Dubya does anything more than lip service. Most are just primarily concerned with covering their own pathetic asses.

There are only a handful of true statesmen and patriots in our current congress...people like Ron Paul are too few and far between.

History will, IMO, define Georgie W Bush as an inept chickenhawk piece of shit, as well it should.

[Lefty]

(azza33 @ May 28 2008,20:32) They even moved the US airforce base backwards because it would not be held in an attack from the North.

I was wondering which base you are talking about here. The closest US Air Base to the DMZ is Osan AB and it is still at the same location it's been at since the Korean War. There are plenty of Army Camps closer to the DMZ than is Osan. The only other major Air Force installation in ROK is Kunsan Air Base, which is even further removed from the DMZ. The minor installations at Kwang Ju Air Base and Taegu Air Base are also further from the DMZ than Osan. Suwon Air Base is 17 miles north of Osan and there is also only a small detachment there. None of these bases have been moved since the Korean War, so what are you talking about?

[Lefty]

Here is a good song to dedicate to Dubya, thanks to one of my all time favorites, the incomparable Johnny Cash

[Lefty]

BushCo telling the truth? What a sick fucking joke. We were sold a bill of goods by the most corrupt administration in US history.

[alan1chef]

This thread was already a mockery before I made any comments. It is unbelievable to me that you would single out President Bush yet exclude the leaders of your own countries from any blame whatsoever. You loathe the fact that the US alone takes unilateral action. Yet history has shown time and time again that the world is a much freer place because of the unilateral actions of the US. I challenge all of you to tell me where the world would be today had the US not taken unilateral actions in WWI, WWII and elsewhere. Has the US made mistakes...absolutely. However, better to have a leader that makes decisions than a leader who makes none.

[Lefty]

Hey there flash, got some news for ya, I am a motherfucking American. My ancestry goes back to at least the American Revolution. I am a direct descendant of a well known American General named Anthony Wayne. I believe I have the right to criticize the government of our nation when I feel it is necessary.
If you want to walk with the shepherds, and take a 'my country, right or wrong' attitude, that's your right too, but I prefer to keep my eyes wide fucking open.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear... kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor... with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it...
- General Douglas MacArthur (1957)

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-- President Theodore Roosevelt

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."
... Thus, I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street ... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras `right' for American fruit companies in 1903...
We must give up the Prussian ideal - carrying on offensive warfare and imposing our wills upon other people in distant places. Such doctrine is unAmerican and vicious...
There must be no more reactionary and destructive intelligence work. The true domestic enemies of our nation - hunger, injustice and exploitation - should concern the military intelligence; not the subversive shadows of their own creation ..."
-- Major General Smedley Butler, from "In Time of Peace: The Army," Common Sense, November, 1935

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience ... In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic process.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell speech to the nation, January 17, 1961

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
-- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

[pacman]

Hey Lefty, what a collection of quotes !!!!

You are in the running for post of the year.

I was wanting to comment on some shocking decisions made by US Presidents but have never read a more erudite sample of what the world sees as the problem with the US.

Again I stress it is not the people I have a problem with but the policy direction the country has been following for a long time [very long time going on the above quotes].

One only has to acquaint themself with the opinion of Winston Churchill when FDR refused his advice & sided with Joseph Stalin in agreeing to let the Russians keep the territory they claimed after WWII. The Cold War, the annexation of most of Eastern Europe with the resulting misery suffered by millions was solely caused by an arrogant President WHO DIED ONE WEEK LATER !!!!!

Harry Truman wouldn't have fucked around .... if he could nuke Japan then what's a few more A-Bombs on Russia. Little joke there but at least he would have understood what was at stake.

Churchill was livid.

Then you have the little case of 58,000 dead GIs in Vietnam, all started with a misunderstanding & an acknowledged mistake.

For the most shocking endightment of bad policy watch "The Fog of War" the brilliant documentary where an 85 y.o. Robert McNamara confesses that there was no Red Peril in S.E. Asia, that the reasons they went to war were all a misunderstanding & that he is sorry for all the dead.

It is absolutely riveting to watch & would make any ex-serviceman sick to the stomach.

Alan1chef, your patriotism is admired, I too went along with the decision to go into the Middle East, the argument that you were either for the US or against them was compelling but I have the facts all available for me to realise what an unmittigated disaster it has been.

Yes it is easy to be wise in hindsight but the world doesn't need any more decisions like the last one.

[Torurot]

Excellent collection of quotes Lefty! How little things have changed.