Our president is delusional. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157853,00.html Bush Hails Naval Academy Graduates Saturday, May 28, 2005 ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The U.S. military is on the offensive in the War on Terror to prevent terrorists from reaching America's shores, President Bush said Friday, adding that 20 years from now, historians will look back on the Iraq war as "America's golden moment." ...
Independent investigation of detainee abuse unnecessary, Rice says By Warren P. Strobel, Knight Ridder Newspapers Fri May 27, 7:45 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brushed off growing calls for an independent investigation of conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and in an interview labeled as "absurd" a new Amnesty International report equating the facility with Soviet-era gulags. ... I am glad Rice cleared up the difference between Soviet commie atheists and god-fearing capitalists.
He may very well be right......even if you disagree with what he is doing if we have a more stable world and less terrorism and a much more stable Middle East in 20 years, he and Blair will be hailed as visionaries. History will decide whether or not it was the right move.... Personally, I am not sure.....I am on the fence. DD
Actually I don't think Watergate is too big of a deal. Probably every politician is out to destroy his/her opponents. Nixon just overdid it and was caught. He really didn't need to do it - as shown in a most landslide presidential election in US history. (Take that mandate, Cheney!) What George W Bush allegedly did in the presidential debate - by wiring himself - was probably more deplorable and pathetic. At least Nixon was trying to earn an A+ on an exam when he was assured of an A, while Bush was struggling mightily to get a passing grade.
Well Dakota has been consistent. He has always maintained that we will accomplish something sufficiently worthwhile in our war on Iraq in a twenty to thirty year time period. Hayes maintains that "inevitably" some day Iraq or Sadam would have become a threat. It is sort of hard to say for sure that they will be proven wrong twenty or thirty years from now. Even so, it seems like a hell of a reason to go to war and isn't what Bush told us to sell his war.
This reminds me of Bill Hicks skit about Great Big-O-Balls. Rumsfeld Defends Treatment of Prisoners Jun 1, 3:20 PM (ET) By ROBERT BURNS WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended the military's handling of detained terror suspects Wednesday while acknowledging that some have been mistreated, "sometimes grievously." ...
The detainees should follow GWB's example of truthfulness (and accountability ftm) ... He lashes out at report on detainee treatment By Finlay Lewis COPLEY NEWS SERVICE June 1, 2005 WASHINGTON – President Bush said yesterday that it is "absurd" to compare the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay to the gulags run by the former Soviet Union. ... The Amnesty International report accused the U.S. government of thumbing its nose "at the rule of law and human rights" by its treatment of detainees. It spotlighted what many foreign policy experts say is a major problem in the administration's efforts to repair America's tattered image in Muslim countries. In addition to castigating the administration for its treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, the report also focused on conditions at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and the "renditions" of suspects to countries that routinely use torture. Referring to the report, Bush said, "It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on . . . allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to . . . not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report." ...
Glynch, To be clear, I have said we will not KNOW if it worked for 20 or 30 years.....personally, I have my doubts, but am hopeful. DD
I predict nothing short of a complete and total disaster will be declared a victory for and by GWB. If GWB can claim his tax cuts worked, Saddam and OBL are buddies, Iraq is overflowing with WMD, Iraq threat was "growing", WMD had been found, rebuilding Iraq will pay for itself, our troups will only be in Iraq for six months, our troups would be greated with flowers, social security really needs private account despite not fixing any of the problems, etc., what is to stop him from claiming success in Iraq outside a long entreched bloody civil war (in which he will probably some lame spin already to go).
On a worldwide scale, there are so many other factors I think you are correct. We'll see how long it takes for this administration's expensive policies to hit the wall. Sooner or later we won't be able to afford to continue, then we'll be left watching the national and world economy dictate what happens. Best case scenario, Bush is replaced with a more wordly leader who smoothes things over. Bush could be viewed as the guy who made some ugly decisions to kickstart a beneficial movement. If that is the case, he'll end up getting credit for a lot of stuff that just happened to occur while he was in office, like the Israeli Palestinian situation. Worst case scenario, our reputation isn't repaired and Bush is the guy who started a downhill slide into whatever situation we find ourselves in. On a regional basis, we already know what is happening. We are simulataneously getting rid of extemists, who could have potentially become enemies in the future, while we are generating ill will to produce more. It is just a matter which is working faster. Basically, the question is if we are going to choke on the aspirin before we can chew enough up to get rid of the headache. The kids who are growing up watching this on Arab TV networks will be terrorist age in as little as 5-12 years.
Oh... by the way... the "America's Golden Moment" is pretty freakin' arrogant. We are in the middle of a war, and he is proclaiming this a golden moment?
Anything is possible. Aside from Bush saying so, there is little reason to think that this will turn out well. He has united the Arab World and most of the rest of the world in hatred or various levels of dislike for us. We see in in even Canada. If he succeeds in creating a united Iraq it will because they Sunnis and the Shia are forged together in the fire of driving the US out. Most likely is a civil war. IMHO Bush would rather see a civil war rather than accept a quick defeat for his plans for permanent bases in which to dominate the new "democratic" Iraq. On two related fronts. We are beginning to see top internatinal talent going to other countries rather than come to the US to study. They say that we are losing billions in international tourism due to the unwillingness of folks to visit here. Tom Friedman, a cheer leader for the War who likes to cover himself by having it both ways, commented on the talent not coming here, just today. ******** I worry that 20 years from now some eighth grader will be doing her National History Day project on how America's reaction to 9/11 unintentionally led to an erosion of core elements of American identity. What sparks such dark thoughts on a trip from London to New Delhi? In part it is the awful barriers that now surround the U.S. Embassy in London on Grosvenor Square. "They have these cages all around the embassy now, and these huge concrete blocks, and the whole message is: 'Go away!' " said Kate Jones, a British literary agent who often walks by there. "That is how people think of America now, and it's a really sad thing because that is not your country." In part it was a conversation with friends in London, one a professor at Oxford, another an investment banker, both of whom spoke about the hassles, fingerprinting, paperwork and costs that they, pro-American professionals, now must go through to get a visa to the U.S. In part it was a recent chat with the folks at Intel about the obstacles they met trying to get visas for Muslim youths from Pakistan and South Africa who were finalists for this year's Intel science contest. And in part it was a conversation with M.I.T. scientists about the new restrictions on Pentagon research contracts ..... Bottom line: We urgently need a national commission to look at all the little changes we have made in response to 9/11 - from visa policies to research funding, to the way we've sealed off our federal buildings, to legal rulings around prisoners of war - and ask this question: While no single change is decisive, could it all add up in a way so that 20 years from now we will discover that some of America's cultural and legal essence - our DNA as a nation - has become badly deformed or mutated? This would be a tragedy for us and for the world. Because, as I've argued, where birds don't fly, people don't mix, ideas don't get sparked, friendships don't get forged, stereotypes don't get broken, and freedom doesn't ring. link
Bold words from The Dick ... Iraq insurgency in 'last throes,' Cheney says WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes," Vice President Dick Cheney says, and he predicts that the fighting will end before the Bush administration leaves office. In a wide-ranging interview Monday on CNN's "Larry King Live," Cheney cited the recent push by Iraqi forces to crack down on insurgent activity in Baghdad and reports that the most-wanted terrorist leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded. The vice president said he expected the war would end during President Bush's second term, which ends in 2009. "I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." Cheney was among the Bush administration's most forceful advocates of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Bush, Cheney and other top officials said war was necessary because Iraq was maintaining illicit stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and concealing a nuclear weapons program from U.N. weapons inspectors and could have provided those weapons to terrorists. No banned weapons were found after U.S. troops deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government, though U.S. inspectors said Iraq was concealing some weapons-related research from the United Nations. Nevertheless, Cheney said he was "absolutely convinced we did the right thing in Iraq." He said the United States was making "major progress" in Iraq, where a transitional government took power in April and was working on drafting a new constitution. "America will be safer in the long run when Iraq, and Afghanistan as well, are no longer safe havens for terrorists or places where people can gather and plan and organize attacks against the United States," he said. Saddam's government collapsed in just three weeks, but a persistent guerrilla campaign against U.S. troops and the fledgling Iraqi government has lasted more than two years. The number of U.S. troops killed in the conflict now tops 1,650, and estimates of the number of Iraqi deaths range into the tens of thousands. Since the conflict, the Jordanian-born Islamic militant al-Zarqawi has been blamed for dozens of bombings that have left hundreds of people dead. Reports emerged last week that he had been wounded in combat -- but in an audiotaped statement released Monday on militant Islamic Web sites, a man claiming to be al-Zarqawi said the injury was minor.
