Weapons of Mass Deception....

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Yeah... forget all that war stuff. They're being forcefed elections, so it's working.

 

 

...wow.

[Guest MikeSC]

Yeah... forget all that war stuff. They're being forcefed elections, so it's working.

 

 

...wow.

They're risking death to vote. They are voting in spite of the knowledge that there might be bombings or sub-human monkeys who, as always, will target civilians for death.

 

That doesn't exactly seem like a "forcefed" election to me. Seems like they finally got the chance to vote and are taking advantage.

-=Mike

[Justice 0]

Get back to the question at hand, then. When did the Bush administration admit that their Middle East policies haven't worked?

Well, I don't honestly believe their policies are the worst. Actively fixing the Middle East is something that has been a long time coming.

 

Question: Should each administration appoligize for every mistake and wrong that administrations past have made? Perhaps we should get a "State of Apologies" address.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

No, however, when one writes a post commending a country for the fact that they apologize for their blunders, it would be prudent to have ample footing on which to stand.

[Guest MikeSC]

No, however, when one writes a post commending a country for the fact that they apologize for their blunders, it would be prudent to have ample footing on which to stand.

And we do apologize and obsess over them.

 

Constantly.

 

Again, have you never taken a political science or contemporary history course?

 

It's a little hard to miss the criticisms of our policies.

-=Mike

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

It's a little hard to miss the criticisms of our policies.

 

There sure are criticisms of them, but there are hardly apologies for most of them.

[EricMM 0]

And MAYBE, Mike (I don't know) in French and other European PoliSci courses and History courses there is shown apology for these actions. Again, I don't know, I haven't taken them.

 

I doubt you have either. But I know that most Europeans haven't taken American courses, and all they see is a president who goes gung-ho into the Middle East, for better or worse, without acknowledging the U.S.'s absolute fuck-ups that occured there in the past.

 

Bush would make a lot of liberals happy if he gave a half hour speech in which he described why his family and our country supported Bin Ladin, Saddam, et al in the past. We want there to be an acknowledgement of fault. We feel that there is blame.

 

Personally, I don't care what Bush does, inasmuch as practically nothing he will do will make me like him or his. Certainly there is a long list of things that he could do starting w/ his new term that would turn me into a full fledged Republican. If Bush does everything right, no one will criticize him. No one.

 

But he will not. He has chosen (CHOSEN) to do so many things wrong. If the past four years are any indication, he will continue to do so.

[Guest MikeSC]

And MAYBE, Mike (I don't know) in French and other European PoliSci courses and History courses there is shown apology for these actions.  Again, I don't know, I haven't taken them.

I can say that Americans do openly discuss their problems than I've heard foreigners discuss their problems. When Europeans discuss the bad things we've done, we admit to them.

 

But, going by the recent poll in Germany, they are now "tired" of hearing about the Holocaust --- and that's a real problem.

 

But, yes, they might discuss them a lot. But I really don't think they do. I could be wrong.

I doubt you have either.  But I know that most Europeans haven't taken American courses, and all they see is a president who goes gung-ho into the Middle East, for better or worse, without acknowledging the U.S.'s absolute fuck-ups that occured there in the past.

True, I have not. But, in my defense, I've not heard American politicians criticize Europeans for what they have done over the years. When France was criticizing the US for Gitmo and Abu Gharib, nobody in the Bush administration criticized them for their actions in the Ivory Coast.

 

Bush explicitly approached them and asked them for help. He didn't WANT to do this "alone" --- he just wasn't given a lot of support. And, IMO, the lack of support was for extremely poor reasons.

 

France, Germany, and Russia were bought by Saddam. And Bush has shown considerable class in not mentioning that when they criticize him.

Bush would make a lot of liberals happy if he gave a half hour speech in which he described why his family and our country supported Bin Ladin, Saddam, et al in the past.  We want there to be an acknowledgement of fault.  We feel that there is blame.

Thing is, honestly, we never supported bin Laden.

 

When we funded the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, we did not give a dime towards the side bin Laden was on (in a nutshell, there was a group of Muslim fighters who were Afghan natives AND a seperate group of Muslims from abroad --- we supported the Afghan natives. Bin Laden was one of the int'l Muslims, who the Saudis supported bin Laden himself states he wouldn't have accepted our aid and nobody can find a dime sent to him.

 

To use an example, think of the Native Americans who aided us in the Revolution. They fought alongside us, but we were not close to being one unified group.

 

Besides, OBL really was not a big deal in the mujaheddin --- he was little more than a Quartermaster based in a corner of Afghanistan, from what I understand of the conflict.

 

And, I agree, Bush should discuss why we supported Saddam --- but I'm not sure there is a nice way to say "We wanted to see equally evil groups wipe one another out". And that is why we did it. We wanted to see both groups wipe one another out. We didn't give Saddam money because we liked him.

Personally, I don't care what Bush does, inasmuch as practically nothing he will do will make me like him or his.  Certainly there is a long list of things that he could do starting w/ his new term that would turn me into a full fledged Republican.  If Bush does everything right, no one will criticize him.  No one.

Thing is, I actually doubt that. There is an undercurrent of the psychotic left that has growing power in the Democratic Party (Dean's (who has openly stated that he hates Republicans) entire bid to be head of DNC is based on them) who have openly stated that they cannot support the Iraqi elections because it'll give Bush credit.

 

And the Dems play to that base a lot. Barbara Boxer's actions so far this year are clearly playing towards the far left base of the party. Evan Bayh, who should know better, voted against Rice largely to make some inroads on the far-leftists who control the primary process of the DNC (as arch-conservatives tend to dominate the RNC primary process). Democrats gave tickets to some of the protestors at the inauguration. One of the protestors we know, for a fact, was a staff member of a Democrat in Congress.

 

I do think that there will always be an undercurrent of people who will gripe no matter what Bush did. Even Clinton didn't have that (conservatives applauded his handling of NAFTA) If Bush personally found a cure for AIDS, there will be a definite undercurrent that will say that he had it all along and hid it until an opportune time to release it.

But he will not.  He has chosen (CHOSEN) to do so many things wrong.  If the past four years are any indication, he will continue to do so.

He chose to bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. And it's working.

 

Is it possible to argue that he has made the situation worse in both countries?

-=Mike

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Besides, OBL really was not a big deal in the mujaheddin --- he was little more than a Quartermaster based in a corner of Afghanistan, from what I understand of the conflict.

 

That's not exactly true.

 

Bin Laden funded the mujaheddin and recruited abroad for the cause. That's got a lot more significance than you're willing to admit.

[Justice 0]

Besides, OBL really was not a big deal in the mujaheddin --- he was little more than a Quartermaster based in a corner of Afghanistan, from what I understand of the conflict.

 

That's not exactly true.

 

Bin Laden funded the mujaheddin and recruited abroad for the cause. That's got a lot more significance than you're willing to admit.

I think what Mike's trying to say is that Bin Laden wasn't a big player. Yes, he did both of those, but he wasn't in command of as much as you are trying to let on. He was one of the smaller cogs in the organization.

[Guest MikeSC]

Besides, OBL really was not a big deal in the mujaheddin --- he was little more than a Quartermaster based in a corner of Afghanistan, from what I understand of the conflict.

 

That's not exactly true.

 

Bin Laden funded the mujaheddin and recruited abroad for the cause. That's got a lot more significance than you're willing to admit.

I didn't say OBL played no role. I am stating he was not a big enough deal for the US to even be aware of his name. He provided money and did some small recruiting --- but he has stated in interviews he took no money from us and nobody can really point to anything that shows that he received a dime from us.

 

He was primarily focused in one corner of Afghanistan, which made him less than useful to the US.

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week 0]

I got to say that I like how in DelusionLand, "doesn't like Bush" = "far left." The moderates, lower-case libertarians, and fiscal conservatives don't exist. And neither do the Republicans who are fed up with the administration's ham-handed wartime leadership. They're all gone. Or are far-left.

 

It's like this funny mental picture of a world where this whiny little 2% of protestors, hippies, Michael Moore, and liberal elite whine about Bush while 98% of the population goes on with their lives. Shyeah, right.

 

Some candidates suffer from an ideological gap between their detractors and attractors, leaving only a few who can jump the gap and satisfy people on both sides of the divide. With Bush, the divide is the fucking Grand Canyon.