I’m not the most politically minded. Sure, I listen to NPR and read straight dope, but I don’t actively follow politics.
However, when channel flipping I stopped on the 60 Minutes interview with the President tonight. I’ve never watched an entire one of his speeches, but this somehow captured my attention.
I believed him.
I can’t stand his administration. I’m fairly democratic when it comes down to it. But somehow tonight, I actually felt he was 100% honest. He claimed he didn’t watch the entire Sadam execution video because he didn’t want to see Sadam die. He admitted to being wrong on the WMD thing, as well as how that made him feel. He just struck me, for the first time ever, as being… “human”, the one quality I admire in leaders.
I have more, but this should be enough to get the ball rolling.
Feel free to have a mod change it. I looked at GD, and figured that since it was on TV it belonged in CS.
The pit though? I didn’t include nearly enough curse words for that.
And don’t the Iraqi people owe us? Of course they owe us. We desposed of their dictator who murdered thousands of their ethnic minorities I’m generally against the whole war because their situation was none of our business, but since we made it our business we did do some good.
It was none of our business, but they owe us anyway for our intervention? That don’ make no sense, man.
If you interfere in something that you do not have a right to interfere in, then no matter what the consequences of your interference, you can not create a debt thereby.
I didn’t watch the interview, but this tidbit struck me. Am I the only one who finds this a bit disconcerting? Part of me feels like the President has a duty to see things like this, as a matter of record at least. I realize our involvement in the trial and execution is technically minimal, but in a way I compare it to him refusing to watch footage of soldiers dying. The guy sending people to war shouldn’t be allowed to turn away from the ugly aspects.
Re: the OP… It has often been said by people in the press, even by those who most ardently disagree with his policies, that in one-on-one conversations, he is personable and a good listener. In fact, that’s what Alexandra Pelosi (daughter of Democratic House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi) said when she travelled with Bush for about a year during his first primary campaign.
I didn’t see the interview, but I have to chime in on this. The Iraqis do not owe us anything. We have taken a nation that was suffering mightily and made it suffer some more. Our hubris and incompetence has caused the death of thousands more people than would have died under Saddam. Under Hussein, at least they had functioning hospitals, schools and electricty. At least you could go to work in the morning and come home to a family that hadn’t been murdered in your absence. If you were an average schmo who kept his head down and didn’t get involved in politics, you could have a predictable life, now, all bets are off.
Don’t believe me? I am in Baghdad. I’ve been working here since the summer of 2003 and I have witnessed first hand the misery the US has caused. This weekend one Iraqi colleague lost two friends to violence, another had her cousin murdered, a sniper killed a guy a block from my office, and shot up our complex and this is just one weekend for a handful of people on one block of the city.
Iraqis owe us? Please. We owe the Iraqis a heartfelt apology. Every Iraqi who wants to immigrate to the US should be given a visa and a plane ticket. We have completely screwed over a nation of 26 million people and now we are going to just wander off like a fat retarded child who has stomped on an ant hill.
I’m sure this is the entire reason he did the interview–to build public support. He’s got a low approval rating right now and he is facing a lot of resistance (from both the Congress and the public) to his plan to “surge” 21,000 more troops to Iraq. I think he (or his staff) has realized that he can’t hide away on his ranch this time. He’s got to try to earn enough trust and respect back so that he can get some popular support for his plan. It’s a total PR move.
Yeah, they owe use BIG for plunging their country into chaos and civil war. Iraqi women especially owe us for allowing religious fanatics to take away their rights.
I think you mean ‘we disposed of the dictator we imposed on them, and who murdered thousands of them using weapons we sold him.’
As for ‘doing some good’, do you mean the thousands of Iraqis who have died since the US invaded? Or the virtual collapse of the cities into sectarian areas, where straying into another religious area is pretty much a death sentence?
This is probably the most lethal dose of invective I’ve ever seen on the SDMB outside of the Pit. Wow, my contact lenses just smoked, shriveled up and stuck to my eyeballs. :eek:
This is what should be read over and over right now.
The United States of America needs to stop talking about how to get out of Iraq, they need to start talking about what the fuck made them think they belonged there in the first place. All this talk of getting out of Iraq; the United States of America destroyed it, you fix it. I would propose either you fix Iraq or you hand over Bush to be tried for war crimes in Brussels. You held the Nazi party responsible for WWII, the world should hold the Republican party responsible for Iraq.
I, too, was struck dumb by the shit brained arrogance of the “gratitude” remark. Point of fact, I Pitted the stinking thing. Especially in the coy context of blaming American disaffection with this turd-infested fever swamp on that ingratitude, as if somehow the rising tide of disgust were based even in part on Iraqi “ingratitude”. Perhaps he is still waiting for that statue in his honor to be erected and garlanded with flowers? As always with The Leader, you cannot be certain if he is cynical and callous enough to offer what he knows to be deep-dish batshit pizza, or if he simply stupid enough to believe it. And, once again, it points out the woeful lack of a “puking yer guts out!” smilie.
(Aside: I heartily endorse previous kudos directed at our Senior Baghdad Correspondent, Madmonk. Keep your head down, stay well, and be not a hero, you have a more important task: you are a Witness. For whatever the value, the prayers of an agnostic are with you.)
