NEWS: Hi, My NameÂ’s George And IÂ’m a Failure

POLITICS: Hi, My Name’s George And I’m a Failure

George Bush is nearly halfway through his second term as president of the United States, which makes it a great time to look at all of the foreign policy disasters during his time in office. From Iraq to North Korea it is a cornucopia of failure!

On 9/11 we were attacked and the man we held responsible, Osama Bin Laden still runs free. He releases the occasional audio or videotape to rally the troops. Bush allowed him to escape when he was cornered in the mountains of Afghanistan and last year the CIA broke up the office whose job it was to find Bin Laden.

The insurgency in Afghanistan is growing stronger everyday. From creating a centralized government in this tribal country, to giving women equal rights, to trying to crush the opium trade, nearly every major step the US has made caused anger amongst the population, and especially in those who control the countryside. They, in turn, lend their support to insurgents.

But the Afghanistan debacle is ignored because the situation in Iraq is so much worse. It turns out we were not greeted with flowers as liberators, but with bombs as occupiers. The idea that Iraqi oil would pay for the rebuilding costs was so ignorant it seems the hopeful rambling of a first grader. Going against the wishes of military experts, Bush decided to use to few troops and the results were predictable. And most sadly, the total lack of understanding of the potential for religious and ethnic fighting has led to the inevitable: civil war.

Two of the three countries in the Biblically named Axis of Evil are doing whatever they hell want. Bush’s rhetoric on Iran is pushing the country closer to trading their oil in Euros instead of dollars. Such action would be a financial disaster for the US. For all the blustering both Iran and North Korea have made progress in their nuclear ambitions during this president’s watch. The progress is largely due to the administrations refusal to engage in negotiations. North Korea is now testing long-range missiles, while Bush says he won’t meet with Kim because “Kim would just love that.” His reasoning is pathetic and should be reserved fratboy disagreements, not nuclear conflicts between countries.

Israel and Palestine are settling into a nice war, while our president does what? Anybody? Bush says nothing to his buddies the Saudis, as they continue financing Wahhabist terror. Anti-American leftist regimes are popping up all over South America, including one in oil rich Venezuela, who has threatened to stop sending itsÂ’ oil to the US. The leader of China was greeted with a plethora of insults on his first visit to the White House. Cheney took a moment during his visit to Lithuania to talk some hypocritical smack about Putin. Meanwhile, terrorist attacks have increased every year Bush has been in office, going up fourfold in 2005.

Watching this president work his foreign policy magic is like watching a midget attempt the high jump but the results are not as amusing.

FearTheReaper said:
Meanwhile, terrorist attacks have increased every year Bush has been in office, going up fourfold in 2005. QUOTE]

Number of terror attacks on Clinton's watch = 5
Number of attacks on Bush's watch = 1
Number of attacks on US since 9/11 = 0

Apparently the process of clicking links is beyond you? It's even conveniently in the quoted section.

Is "DanTheLesser" just a lump of drooling flesh?

Damn, Dan tried to be a smart ass, now he's getting his ass kicked!

Hmm. I missed the part in Dan's quote where it was suggested that terrorist attacks over the past 5 years were solely confined to the US. Luckily, I was able to find it in yours, Fear. Thanks for that.

Nice one wise ass, what does Bush have to do with terror attacks in OTHER countries? His job is to protect the USA.

The article was about foreign policy. Don't worry if you mised that fact, it was only presented in the first sentence.

American nonmilitary deaths (from terrorist attacks) totaled 56.

Masturbatory Cynicism (n.): the class of behavior where one derives sexual pleasure from bad news.

I kid. But seriously, this situation we're all in isn't the fault of just one man... it's the fault of those who seek to manipulate democratic government for their own base ends. Compared the grandiose machinations of big business and the ruling elite, Bush's ability to cause change is puny; he's really just a figurehead for the (mostly white, mostly christian, entirely xenophobic) upper class. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?

Foreign policy in the USA is fucked up and has been fucked up for a long time as you don't have a Foreign Minister - at one point you had Donny, Connie and Colin - The lines are so blured.

Other countries have more an "all in one" - AND a much much more coherent foreign policy.

G.W : The worst president in history ......

What are the five attacks on Clinton's watch? I count 4: WTC 1, Tanzania, Kenya, and USS Cole.

And since we are keeping score, because that is how you determine righteousness and justice when it comes to mortality, how many total people died in the attacks on Clinton's watch and how many died in the single attack during Bushies term. An attack Bush has been proven to have known about beforehand. An attack by the group which by the end of the Clinton administration was deemed the single greatest threat to national security.

Yet, when GWB took power, the only member of his administration that named Al-Qaeda as the premier threat was Colin Powell.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld all named China.

And what about John Mohammad, the DC sniper. Wasn't he a terrorist? What about Daniel Pearl, Bush didn't do a very good job protecting him, but thats ok, because it was more important to be able to show the overwhelming superiority of our military first-hand.

And one hell of a military it is, with troops being stopped-losed into their third, some fourth tours in Iraq, being paid a fraction of what we pay the mercenaries we employ to protect Halliburton's contractors, unable to recieve medical treatment for wounds recieved in battle from the VA after they are extracted from Iraq while their wives and children are denied the support compensation they are supposed to recieve from the DOD. Man, at least the intense emotional and pschological strain on soldiers was taken into account when we went into Iraq and the soldiers haven't started resorting to rape, torture, and murder. Whew! GLAD WE DODGED THAT FUCKING BULLET!

Dan, you are a dipshit.

I would love to see the links specifically stating "anti-american" sentiment. Chavez has spoken out against beurgois capitalism figure headed by Bush. More specifically the Bush administration et al. Even MORE explicit, Bush's foreign policy.

Evo Morales, Michelle Bachelet, Alejandro Manrique, etc, have all backed Chavez's sentiment both verbally and with actions, but they are all democratically elected officials. Although "regime" is still technically accurate, it is obvious that you threw in your own taint of pejorative hyperbole. These aren't rebel camps setting up shop with grand ambitions to destabalize the "american way" (no matter how hard Fox wishes us to believe this.) These are nations that are starting to embrace a more logical social structure to government, and right now the largest threat to them and their peoples is Bush.

If you're going to stick a throw-away sentance or two in your "article(s)" perhaps backing it up with solidified facts and logic might be a more appropriate attitude. Also editing is a big plus.

Oh yeah, here is a linky for ya'.

Double post because I suck at life.

But look how much he's accomplished in country. He's consolodated executive power to an unprecidented degree.Gutted social programs to help the poor and the elderly. Cut taxes for the wealthy DURING A WAR. Stacked our courts with insane rightwing judges. Ignored basically every piece of international law (Geneva convention, Kyoto,et.al), started 2 wars on shakey evidence. Funneled Billions of dollars to his friends in the energy and defense industries by way of those unwinable and open ended wars. And all without so much as censure from congress. He's been incredibly successful he's done more to promote the facistic short sighted neocon agenda in 6 years than his father and Reagan were able to do in 12. I think before we call him a failure we should evaluate what his goals were. If his goal was to run our nation responsibly then yes he's a failure. If his goal was to make money for energy concerns and the defense industry, cut taxes for the top 1% and eliminate the middle class then I'd say he's doing a damn fine job.
That said I hope the american people hang him and his whole cabinet for treason.

And only one of those occurred in the U.S., so by DanTheGreater's logic, they don't count.

Well first thing you can't just lay blame on a president for what other people do. If you were going to lay blame for 9/11, Clintons administation would be in for it's full share and then some. No one has proven Bush knew that they were planning on crashing planes on 9/11, that's just an absurd statment.

The premier threat? I don't know that they were the premeir threat after 9/11. I wouldn't tend to think of them in those terms. Saying that people were not worried would be wrong. There was a plan to deal with Al Qaeda, but it came to late. That there is difficulties and delay when the govt changes administrations is obvious, but the plot was already in motion before Bush's administration could have been expected to take major action.

John Mohammad is a nut case trying to blame Bush for that is a joke. What in the fuck does a journalist killed in Pakistan have to do with Bush?

The US govt does not hire military contractors. And were any of the accused on their "third or forth tour"? No? Then for your point about the military causing solders to "rape, torture, and murder" it doesn't work and is just babble with no real point. Just another rambling diatribe against Bush.

Well that's kind of what DanTheConfused was trying to do.

Wow. So that's what it's like when a conservative finally acknowledges the high war crimes of Guantanamo! Let's see, first you called the perpetrators of the detainee abuse "the accused", as if their charges haven't yet been proven, then you put the atrocities of rape, torture and murder in quotation marks as if to suggest that calling them by their proper names is somehow an exaggeration, and lastly you deny the antecedant by suggesting that just because Bush and Co. didn't actually cause the prisoner abuses means they 're not responsible in any way; not by creating the perfect conditions for it by purposely "waiving" the Geneva Conventions and just about every other law designed to protect th rights and humanity of the "suspects"; and not by looking the other way, allowing those responsible to go unpunished and even promote.

I honestly never thought I'd live to see the day, but now that its come I guess I have to give credit for ideological consistency.

I do not acknowledge high crimes at all, whatever the fuck you think that means. I do think that Gitmo is most likely like every prison on the fucking planet, and that there will of course be times when guards do mean, stupid, vicious, and illegal things. Stating that it is anything more than that is not something that I believe has been shown. I actually suspect less goes on there then most prisons because of the high profile and presence of third parties (reporters, aid organizations, UN, red cross) makes less likely the guards do anything.

I say accused because few have been convicted. You may decide that they shouldn't have a fair trial but I would prefer to adhere to the values that our country is based upon. What would you do?

I quoted "rape, torture, and murder" because it was a quote taken from your diatribe. My concern is not that such may have happened, because with the number of solders you will have some rate of crime, more that you want to lump ever incident, without naming any specifics, into one group and lay sweeping claims about the situations and cause.

You made a claim about the cause of the unnamed atrocities, when challenged instead of answering, researching, maybe proving your point, you somehow think my challenging you to back up your bullshit in indicative my position on a separate subject?

You couldn't care less about knowing what is going on. You claim no specifics, lay claim to no particular event, you're standing on your soapbox screaming you're ass off as people walk by.

What the fuck for?

Forget your politics, you argue for shit with little logic and no honesty. Scream your fucking head off if you want, god knows the only people who would bother listening are the ones to stupid to know better.

"Every prison on the fucking planet"? Are all prisons in the civilized world purposely built outside of their own nations' borders as an attempt to exhempt themselves from their respective country's legal procedures? Do all prisons hold people indefinitely for years, without ever charging them, much less giving them a fair trial?

The Guantanamo case is not one of just a few disgruntled guards occasionally smacking a minority of uncooperative inmates into submission. This is consistent, systematic abuse of hundereds of uncharged detainees, and has been repeatedly encouraged, denied, defended, ignored and otherwise illegally sanctioned by the executive powers of this country, all while bypassing the checks and balances of Congress and the Supreme Court.

If I actually have chuck a few darts at the worldwide blogosphere and link you to the stories (and photographs) that have saturated the news these past few years, I will have lost all faith in humanity. Again.

Yes, I do think the rapists, torturers and murderers at Guantanamo should all be formally charged and should stand fair trials, just like the police officers who beat up Rodney King. The only difference is that, unlike you, I'd also afford those same rights to the detainees.

Now I'll be honest. I don't know exactly how many guards have been charged or convicted. But I do know that the evidence against them is overwhelming, as evidence in the form of photographs and dead bodies tends to be. The solution to this caper? Easy: more soldiers have commited these crimes than have been charged (i.e. their crimes have been ignored, as stated previously), and more are guilty than have been found guilty in court.

Again I don't have a long, official list of names, mostly because I don't remember them, but since this is the internet, you know I could easily look them up. So it'll probably save us both a lot of time if you just accept the proven and widely known truth now, and not deny that any of it happened just because I haven't provided a plethora of details, yet.

I've already stated that mere fact of "some" rape, torture and murder is not the issue here. It is the exectutive branch's illegal seizure of power for the purpose of illegaly creating of the perfect conditions for it, the sheer number, consistency and systematic nature of the illegal acts themselves, and the Bush administration's lack of action in acknowledging, admiting to, punishing or stopping the illegal acts.

That, I assert, is more than enough to justify "lumping" this into one issue. I'm sorry if I didn't state any specifics, but I find it hardly neccessary, as we all know what this discussion is about, and playing the devil's advocate simply because nobody's provided a thesis that is already on everybody's mind is going to get you nowhere fast.

Ok, hold on a minute. I don't recall previously addressing you in this thread. Are you confusing me with someone else?

If not, I apologize if we've gone a little off topic, but honestly, I found your incensitivity towards the issue the prison abuses incredibly shocking, cold, inhumane, and stupid, and I felt like saying something. Isn't it ultimately the motivation of everyone but the orginal poster of a thread to state that they either agree or disagree with what's been said?

Oh, and I believe those "unnamed atroticies" were not only implicit from the beginning, but were since identified in no uncertain terms by a few people including yourself (rape, torture and murder).

Well let me pull on my boots and wade thru the great pile of rhetorical shit that seems to compose your reply

Now you want to equate Gitmo as abuse. That the fact that there is Gitmo is in itself abuse. Well argue that all you want. What Gitmo does not mean is rape, torture, murder that you complained about in your earlier post happened just because it's there. You want to change your argument because you can't back your bullshit up huh?

Then it should be easy to prove.................... Well I'm waiting for proof

Except that the court ruled on the trials for detainees at Gitmo so I guess it didn't quite bypass them did it?

Well here's an idea chuck a few darts and see if you can show that there is anything but what I said going on. Show some facts, make an argument, right now you're just blowing hot air.

And you know what I stand for how? You are the one prejudging US service men, but where on this thread have I made comments that would establish that I wish to deprive detainees of any rights? Oh wait just more BS rhetoric right? By the way show some info on those "rapists, torturers and murderers at Guantanamo". Somehow I'm not trusting your take on the situation. Do you even know of one rape at Gitmo?

How do you know? Show the evidence.


Again I don't have a long, official list of names, mostly because I don't remember them, but since this is the internet, you know I could easily look them up. So it'll probably save us both a lot of time if you just accept the proven and widely known truth now, and not deny that any of it happened just because I haven't provided a plethora of details, yet.


You mean you don't have shit but I should stop disagreeing with you so I don't reveal that you're full of shit? You've given no details at all!

OK the facts aren't the issue, I guess that means you can't show that what you've said is accurate.
So you no longer need evidence and we should stop wasting time looking for it? What the fuck is wrong with you?



Ok, hold on a minute. I don't recall previously addressing you in this thread. Are you confusing me with someone else?

If not, I apologize if we've gone a little off topic, but honestly, I found your incensitivity towards the issue the prison abuses incredibly shocking, cold, inhumane, and stupid, and I felt like saying something. Isn't it ultimately the motivation of everyone but the orginal poster of a thread to state that they either agree or disagree with what's been said?

Oh, and I believe those "unnamed atroticies" were not only implicit from the beginning, but were since identified in no uncertain terms by a few people including yourself (rape, torture and murder).


Because I quoted someone you think I identified a crime. Which time? Which crime? Yes bad shit has happened but you seem to want to talk generalities so you can make these bold declarations but try and stay away from any one event "because it's not the facts that count". Fuck that.

I'm in no way insensitive to the wrong doing our service men and woman may participate in. That however is entirely different than condemning all solders or the military for a small groups actions. I'm also a realist yes there were fuck ups and problems, but I've never seen anything that involves people work perfect.

Are you completely retarded or do you simply employ a selective memory out of convenience? Do you not remember all of the stories about "private contractors" being kidnapped popping up here and there in the news? Do you think the US government was hiring "private contractors" to paint fucking portraits of the Iraqi landscape? THEY ARE MERCENARIES, otherwise known as "military contractors" Of course, Fox News would never have mentioned that part of the story to their flock of babbling jingoistic sheep, so maybe you never knew.

No but you sure act like a fucking idiot. Show me one verifiable source where the US govt has directly hired or paid for mercenaries and I'll say I'm wrong, but you won't find any. Private contractors are and were not mercenaries. They are the fucking truck drivers mechanics, and contractors that the govt hired to take some of the load off the military and help rebuild Iraq. It's not the same thing dumb ass!