You were surprised, Obama because Bush was right all along

[Bob]

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/09/14/obama-just-proved-bush-was-right-all-along

By Tammy Bruce, Washington Times
It may come as a surprise to President Obama, but he has actually proved that when it comes to foreign policy and the war on terrorism, President George W. Bush and America have been right all along. After years of an Obama foreign policy that existed simply to be the opposite of whatever Mr. Bush did or would do, Islamist terrorism and Middle East turmoil have exploded. As Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has noted, the Islamic State is “a force and a dimension that the world has never seen before.”
The left, led by Mr. Obama and his sycophantic supporters, truly believed all the world’s ills were the result of America’s arrogance and intrusion. The left’s juvenile solution was to remove America from the scene and cut her down to size. Their theory presumed that if the world saw how Mr. Obama, the messianic Anti-Bush, was punishing America and removing her caustic influence, all balance would be restored, love and peace would prevail, and unicorns would once again fly over the rainbow.
Oh, yes, and Islamist terrorism would stop and the Middle East would prosper — so long as America was on her knees.

[Green Arrow]

Bush was right that pulling out early would be bad, and Obama was wrong to announce the timetable.

However, Bush was also wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. No matter when we decided to pull out, we'd still have the same problem because we broke Iraq.

[Common Sense]

Nice OP ED...

I like this clearly unbiased line..."The left, led by Mr. Obama and his sycophantic supporters, truly believed all the world’s ills were the result of America’s arrogance and intrusion."

[Common Sense]

That Op ed reads more like a "teenager" full of angst typing out some cathartic blog in one of those TV shows where women in their mid 20's play teenagers.

[Mainecoons]

I'll remember this the next time you post one of your lefty rants with similar languaging.

:grin:

[Mainecoons]

Bush was right that pulling out early would be bad, and Obama was wrong to announce the timetable.

However, Bush was also wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. No matter when we decided to pull out, we'd still have the same problem because we broke Iraq.

Exactly.

[The Xl]

Invading was the mistake in the first place.

[del]

8868

[Bob]

Bush was right that pulling out early would be bad, and Obama was wrong to announce the timetable.

However, Bush was also wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. No matter when we decided to pull out, we'd still have the same problem because we broke Iraq.

Bush was right to try hard to free two countries.

General Tommy Franks damage to Iraq was very minimal and to military targets and key Saddam buildings.

It would pay you to have closely studied his awesome book to find out the facts.

[Bob]

That Op ed reads more like a "teenager" full of angst typing out some cathartic blog in one of those TV shows where women in their mid 20's play teenagers.

You never read General Tommy Franks book either by the looks of things.

Bush can now be said to be wrong but his mission was to free humans.

It stuns me when people claim freeing humans is wrong.

[Green Arrow]

Bush was right to try hard to free two countries.

General Tommy Franks damage to Iraq was very minimal and to military targets and key Saddam buildings.

It would pay you to have closely studied his awesome book to find out the facts.

With all due respect, I disagree. As much as I wish superheroes like the Green Arrow and Captain America exist, they simply don't. President Bush was a human being, just like the rest of us. And just like the rest of us, he was motivated by all of the Seven Deadly Sins. I don't believe his actions were to free humans any more than Lincoln's desire in the Civil War was to free humans, or Obama's desire to stop ISIL is to free humans. It's not. It's just power and politics, pure and simple.

[donttread]

If Bush was right your asking the wrong question

[Common Sense]

You never read General Tommy Franks book either by the looks of things.

Bush can now be said to be wrong but his mission was to free humans.

It stuns me when people claim freeing humans is wrong.

Oh bullshit.

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. . . . The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." GWB

Freeing humans was an afterthought...I nice way to round out his memoirs. He really freed the shit out of that country. So much that many are now free of their bodies.

[Mainecoons]

In his own way, Bush was a weakling like Obama. In his case, the real hawk was Cheney and his obsolete and dangerous cold war viewpoint on the world. Bush was also given a lot of bad intelligence by a badly decimated CIA headed by George Tenet, a Clinton appointee.

I tend to believe that the Israelis really knew the score but saw this as an opportunity to get one of their big opponents knocked off. They also failed to grasp the consequences of removing the only kind of government that could hold an artificial construct of a country like Iraq together.

[Ransom]

Bush was right that pulling out early would be bad, and Obama was wrong to announce the timetable.

However, Bush was also wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. No matter when we decided to pull out, we'd still have the same problem because we broke Iraq.

Yeah. Cause Iraq the definition of stability prior to Bush's sitting in the WH by 2001. History lesson needed.....badly.

[Mac-7]

Oh bullshit.

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. . . . The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." GWB

Freeing humans was an afterthought...I nice way to round out his memoirs. He really freed the shit out of that country. So much that many are now free of their bodies.


Why not compromise and call Bush stupid for attempting the impossible - which was to tame the untamable Arabs and lead them to a better life of peace?

remember Bush was a proclaimed do-gooder who called himself a compassionate conservative.

that wasn't just a slogan to him.

[Ransom]

With all due respect, I disagree. As much as I wish superheroes like the Green Arrow and Captain America exist, they simply don't. President Bush was a human being, just like the rest of us. And just like the rest of us, he was motivated by all of the Seven Deadly Sins. I don't believe his actions were to free humans any more than Lincoln's desire in the Civil War was to free humans, or Obama's desire to stop ISIL is to free humans. It's not. It's just power and politics, pure and simple.

Well then. Since you don't believe his actions were motivated properly...I note you give no facts to back that up merely offer your opinion, but if you think so, it must be true. :cya20:

[Ransom]

In his own way, Bush was a weakling like Obama. In his case, the real hawk was Cheney and his obsolete and dangerous cold war viewpoint on the world. Bush was also given a lot of bad intelligence by a badly decimated CIA headed by George Tenet, a Clinton appointee.

Media influence all over that sentence. Pied Piper music.


I tend to believe that the Israelis really knew the score but saw this as an opportunity to get one of their big opponents knocked off. They also failed to grasp the consequences of removing the only kind of government that could hold an artificial construct of a country like Iraq together.

Or perhaps understood what would happen once self determination was permitted to root.

[Mac-7]

You know greens are at least as stupid as bush when it comes to fighting unnecessary wars and hurting our country.

they are really hurting our economy with their unreasonable fear of global warming

the war on c02 may end up costing us more than the war in Iraq did.

[Ransom]

You know greens are at least as stupid as bush when it comes to fighting unnecessary wars and hurting our country.

they are really hurting our economy with their unreasonable fear of global warming

the war on c02 may end up costing us more than the war in Iraq did.

But can we remain on topic , this isn't an anti-Green thread.

[Mac-7]

But can we remain on topic , this isn't an anti-Green thread.

In my opinion EVERY thread should include a reminder of how bad for America greens are.

but I don't want to belabor the point or derail your topic.

[rembrant]

Bush was right that pulling out early would be bad, and Obama was wrong to announce the timetable.

However, Bush was also wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. No matter when we decided to pull out, we'd still have the same problem because we broke Iraq.

Bush...went in on false pretense. I actually was okay with dumping Saddam who was a time bomb..had nasty ambitions..and I felt at the time..the EXCUSE was a sham but it let the USA act on a basis that we could say they violated the prioer cease fire..so..we did not need a new okay from the UN or our congress. We blew it.. not seeing how the Fedayeen were a prepared terrorist/geurilla force that's more problem than Iraq's regular Army. We bungled the Nation building. Iraq is in reality 3 nations wioth a bitter history held togather by a rubber band. We wanted Democracy..a good ideal.. but that meant Shiites rule. Sunnis who HAD ruled..were out and the Kurds as usual.. were left out but DID get some autonomy. Had we SEEN the resalities.. we set up a systenm where Shiite and Sunni and Kurd regions were in large part..self governing. Our long war.. was a byproduct of that mistake. Both Sunni and Shiite saw us as both Outsider Infidels and tools of their historic enemy.

Another major factor we never understood....each Mosque is almost it's own version of Islam. Some are moderate and harmless..some are rabid Jihadist..and ... our poliocy was to ignore that. We seemed unable to see how a militant mosque was the CENTER of politics/terrorism..the so called insurgents in any locale. We had no intel..we let Mosques be off limits.

A moment as we were moving on Bagdad,was when we captured a huge ammo dump...warehouses full of all sorts of weapons. A few days later.. a news crew shows Iraqi's in pickup trucks hauling off all that stuff. We moved on..left it open and unguarded. I watched "civillians" hauling out 152 mm artillery shells. What use do civillians have for that if they do not have a howitzer? UH..how about 10 years worth if IEDs... that's what killed many of our people. It was on TV.. and the Bush people... must have tuned into Cartoon Network instead. How do you screw that up?

Cheney.. had ties to Halliburton who got to be General Contractor for EVERYTHIng...so...we'd pay Halliburton 5...10 times more to do what a soldier usually did. It cost us a hundred BILLION or more. Cheney got a piece of the action.

Halliburton used a chain of sham subcontractors, often subsidiaries or run by Halliburton Execs.. to inflate the charges and hide the numbers. Halliburton's deal hd a loophole where they diod NOT need to fully account for subcontractors.. so.. if they pay a guy $100 hr.. by the time they bill the Pentagon...it's over $200 hr....and that's for a job usually done by a soldier at $20 an hour or less.

[Cigar]

:rollseyes:

[Bob]

Nice OP ED...

I like this clearly unbiased line..."The left, led by Mr. Obama and his sycophantic supporters, truly believed all the world’s ills were the result of America’s arrogance and intrusion."




Glad you noticed. This is the standard way the left reports things. I am pleased that after all these years of that stuff by the left, at last we now see it from the right.

[Bob]

Bush...went in on false pretense. I actually was okay with dumping Saddam who was a time bomb..had nasty ambitions..and I felt at the time..the EXCUSE was a sham but it let the USA act on a basis that we could say they violated the prioer cease fire..so..we did not need a new okay from the UN or our congress. We blew it.. not seeing how the Fedayeen were a prepared terrorist/geurilla force that's more problem than Iraq's regular Army. We bungled the Nation building. Iraq is in reality 3 nations wioth a bitter history held togather by a rubber band. We wanted Democracy..a good ideal.. but that meant Shiites rule. Sunnis who HAD ruled..were out and the Kurds as usual.. were left out but DID get some autonomy. Had we SEEN the resalities.. we set up a systenm where Shiite and Sunni and Kurd regions were in large part..self governing. Our long war.. was a byproduct of that mistake. Both Sunni and Shiite saw us as both Outsider Infidels and tools of their historic enemy.

Another major factor we never understood....each Mosque is almost it's own version of Islam. Some are moderate and harmless..some are rabid Jihadist..and ... our poliocy was to ignore that. We seemed unable to see how a militant mosque was the CENTER of politics/terrorism..the so called insurgents in any locale. We had no intel..we let Mosques be off limits.

A moment as we were moving on Bagdad,was when we captured a huge ammo dump...warehouses full of all sorts of weapons. A few days later.. a news crew shows Iraqi's in pickup trucks hauling off all that stuff. We moved on..left it open and unguarded. I watched "civillians" hauling out 152 mm artillery shells. What use do civillians have for that if they do not have a howitzer? UH..how about 10 years worth if IEDs... that's what killed many of our people. It was on TV.. and the Bush people... must have tuned into Cartoon Network instead. How do you screw that up?

Cheney.. had ties to Halliburton who got to be General Contractor for EVERYTHIng...so...we'd pay Halliburton 5...10 times more to do what a soldier usually did. It cost us a hundred BILLION or more. Cheney got a piece of the action.

Halliburton used a chain of sham subcontractors, often subsidiaries or run by Halliburton Execs.. to inflate the charges and hide the numbers. Halliburton's deal hd a loophole where they diod NOT need to fully account for subcontractors.. so.. if they pay a guy $100 hr.. by the time they bill the Pentagon...it's over $200 hr....and that's for a job usually done by a soldier at $20 an hour or less.

I enjoy fiction as much as you enjoy writing fiction.

You wrote a lot. Good fiction also has truth mixed in. So not all above amounts to fiction. Maybe it is that the author simply has not educated himself or herself.

If you were there, you are reporting what you saw. I won't even say that is not true. i accept it as true so long as you not only saw, but also have the full facts to report, over and above that you saw. Witnesses per the law often make mistakes.

First, did Bush go in based on false pretenses.

This assumes you know everything Bush knew. By reading his book, and reading General Tommy Franks book, then Rumsfeld and Cheney's books, plus Paul Bremer's fine book, one absorbs various reports from which to make conclusions. That is what i did.

Congress and Bill Clinton signed the law and it became US policy by 1998 to eliminate Saddam as ruler of Iraq. Some argue Iraq is 3 countries but I ask them when was this?

If the Kurd's wish to peel off Iraq, i don't fault them at all.

if you bother to study the 1998 law signed by Clinton, it was based on WMD as well as other things. Bush had that law to use when he became president.

Bush named the action Iraqi Freedom because that is his true mission, to FREE a country and hand them freedom. The fact they messed it up for themselves can't be blamed on Bush.

Bush had a full okay from Congress. We do not need approval by the UN. Notice when Clinton bombed (an act of war) the former Yugoslavia, he did it despite not having approval from the Congress nor the UN. HE claimed he got his authority from NATO. NATO has no authority to open up a war. It is defensive and you can study the NATO charter to see I am correct.

It is next to impossible to have full correct intelligence when any other country is an enemy. Nazi Germany had many shocks once we defeated them. Same with Japan. Even today North Korea has a lot of secrets.

Point being, you go to war with what you have and know. You will learn mistakes are made once you win the war.

If you review the actual Bush plan (General Franks plan) you will note the USA never aimed to do nation building. Franks ordered troops to damage as little as they could while rolling over Iraq. The aim was to damage Saddam's military and his buildings. Franks preserved as much as he could.

Despite the resistance of the Iraqis, Franks troops took the country very fast. It is rare to defeat such an enemy in so few days. Franks was so pleased he retired from the Army, content he defeated Saddam.

I don't call Iraq democracy nor the USA democracy. That term is tossed all over as if it is true. Iraq selected the system more common to England. More countries have a parliament than have our form of government.

A mistake commonly made by Americans is the claim WE set up their government. Had we set it up, it would be a lot different. The Iraqis with help from Europe, decided what they would get. Bremer was frustrated at the lack of progress by Iraqis. Look at the way they are doing it now where it takes them months of arguing just to get a government. We are not at fault for that sort of system.

The Bush plan was get it won, and then remove our troops. Bush did not want the Iraqis to be ruled by our troops. This is why our troops won and then were based for a year before the fighting started again.

We had almost a year of peace after the war when the enemy of iraq started fighting again.

As far as your reports on Mosques and after that, i defer to your first hand knowing what took place.

I do not agree on Halliburton though based on when Halliburton won a contract to do the tasks they did in Iraq. They won the contract when Clinton was president. Cheney had no say so once the contract was in force prior to Bush being president.

The claim Cheney is why Halliburton was there is only because the company bid on the contract when Clinton was president.

Cheney did not profit since he had sold off his holdings in order to become Vice President.
There is no reason why Halliburton could not do the job nor any other large American company. Wars cause a lot of overcharging due to the risks civilian companies put up with. Halliburton's contract called for 2 percent profit above their true cost of materials and labor costs. They did things to relieve troops of things like the mess halls and stuff troops really hate to do anyway.

I refer you to LOGCAP to find out i know what i am talking about.

There in my mind is no excuse at all for allowing civilians to have open access to ammo. That was a huge mistake. I am not clear which commander did that.

What General was in charge?

Tell me why you wanted troops to do work easily done by civilians?

[Bob]

I too was in the Army but in Germany.
My report on enormous expenses to the people of the USA is a bit different.

We had mechanized infantry in 1962 as they have today. We could not help destroying German property.

We used German speaking troops to talk to Germans about "maneuver damage." It was their task to deal with Germans who were to prove they lost property due to our military moves.

A simple chicken cost the USA $50. A small tree cost $200 and more. This was in 1962-4 dollars. We did a Million dollars per week or maybe it was per day, damage. It was stunning to see what the Germans made off our damage. I never got all the numbers but I got numbers from the trooper in my unit responsible for this.

For us to learn that Halliburton got more pay despite a contract providing them a flat 2 percent profit on audited paperwork is not really a shock. But the USA never has been smart about war costs.

[Ransom]

Rembrandt, paint me an answer on this one. If you will.....please and thank you. Why did OBL attack us almost to the day, 2001? And please be specific.

[Bob]

In his own way, Bush was a weakling like Obama. In his case, the real hawk was Cheney and his obsolete and dangerous cold war viewpoint on the world. Bush was also given a lot of bad intelligence by a badly decimated CIA headed by George Tenet, a Clinton appointee.

I tend to believe that the Israelis really knew the score but saw this as an opportunity to get one of their big opponents knocked off. They also failed to grasp the consequences of removing the only kind of government that could hold an artificial construct of a country like Iraq together.

i do not agree with your picture of Bush v Cheney. Cheney gets the blame for what Bush did. Bush was in charge. There were times that he and Cheney did not agree. It was done the Bush way in such times. Bush hired Cheney for his experience and it is natural he paid attention to Cheney.

There was no way possible to get decent intelligence in Iraq. We were not welcome there. They would not be able to get inside the Saddam circle of influence. We had to deal with the intelligence provided by Tenet.

I can't think of any war that this country had very good intelligence on. That is normal in fact for us to have poor intelligence.

Did Israel have good intelligence? It is not possible for me to know. But they share. If they had good intelligence, no doubt it was turned over to the USA.

[Common Sense]

i do not agree with your picture of Bush v Cheney. Cheney gets the blame for what Bush did. Bush was in charge. There were times that he and Cheney did not agree. It was done the Bush way in such times. Bush hired Cheney for his experience and it is natural he paid attention to Cheney.

There was no way possible to get decent intelligence in Iraq. We were not welcome there. They would not be able to get inside the Saddam circle of influence. We had to deal with the intelligence provided by Tenet.

I can't think of any war that this country had very good intelligence on. That is normal in fact for us to have poor intelligence.

Did Israel have good intelligence? It is not possible for me to know. But they share. If they had good intelligence, no doubt it was turned over to the USA.

Yes, that's true, but it's clear now that the only intelligence they paid attention to was intel that fit the narrative they were building. They disregarded contradictions and didn't vet the intel that made their case.

[Mac-7]

Bush...went in on false pretense. I actually was okay with dumping Saddam who was a time bomb..had nasty ambitions..and I felt at the time..the EXCUSE was a sham but it let the USA act on a basis that we could say they violated the prioer cease fire..so..we did not need a new okay from the UN or our congress. We blew it.. not seeing how the Fedayeen were a prepared terrorist/geurilla force that's more problem than Iraq's regular Army. We bungled the Nation building. Iraq is in reality 3 nations wioth a bitter history held togather by a rubber band. We wanted Democracy..a good ideal.. but that meant Shiites rule. Sunnis who HAD ruled..were out and the Kurds as usual.. were left out but DID get some autonomy. Had we SEEN the resalities.. we set up a systenm where Shiite and Sunni and Kurd regions were in large part..self governing. Our long war.. was a byproduct of that mistake. Both Sunni and Shiite saw us as both Outsider Infidels and tools of their historic enemy.

Another major factor we never understood....each Mosque is almost it's own version of Islam. Some are moderate and harmless..some are rabid Jihadist..and ... our poliocy was to ignore that. We seemed unable to see how a militant mosque was the CENTER of politics/terrorism..the so called insurgents in any locale. We had no intel..we let Mosques be off limits.

A moment as we were moving on Bagdad,was when we captured a huge ammo dump...warehouses full of all sorts of weapons. A few days later.. a news crew shows Iraqi's in pickup trucks hauling off all that stuff. We moved on..left it open and unguarded. I watched "civillians" hauling out 152 mm artillery shells. What use do civillians have for that if they do not have a howitzer? UH..how about 10 years worth if IEDs... that's what killed many of our people. It was on TV.. and the Bush people... must have tuned into Cartoon Network instead. How do you screw that up?

Cheney.. had ties to Halliburton who got to be General Contractor for EVERYTHIng...so...we'd pay Halliburton 5...10 times more to do what a soldier usually did. It cost us a hundred BILLION or more. Cheney got a piece of the action.

Halliburton used a chain of sham subcontractors, often subsidiaries or run by Halliburton Execs.. to inflate the charges and hide the numbers. Halliburton's deal hd a loophole where they diod NOT need to fully account for subcontractors.. so.. if they pay a guy $100 hr.. by the time they bill the Pentagon...it's over $200 hr....and that's for a job usually done by a soldier at $20 an hour or less.

its great to bash bush for the initial invasion of Iraq but that is a past event.


do you any thoughts about today and the fact that after the surge succeeded bush was right and Obama was and is wrong?

[donttread]

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/09/14/obama-just-proved-bush-was-right-all-along

By Tammy Bruce, Washington Times
It may come as a surprise to President Obama, but he has actually proved that when it comes to foreign policy and the war on terrorism, President George W. Bush and America have been right all along. After years of an Obama foreign policy that existed simply to be the opposite of whatever Mr. Bush did or would do, Islamist terrorism and Middle East turmoil have exploded. As Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has noted, the Islamic State is “a force and a dimension that the world has never seen before.”
The left, led by Mr. Obama and his sycophantic supporters, truly believed all the world’s ills were the result of America’s arrogance and intrusion. The left’s juvenile solution was to remove America from the scene and cut her down to size. Their theory presumed that if the world saw how Mr. Obama, the messianic Anti-Bush, was punishing America and removing her caustic influence, all balance would be restored, love and peace would prevail, and unicorns would once again fly over the rainbow.
Oh, yes, and Islamist terrorism would stop and the Middle East would prosper — so long as America was on her knees.

So surprise there