Huh. I coulda sworn (and actually did in fact swear, frequently) that Bush ran on a platform of (paraphrased) “Just say ‘NO’ to Nation building”.
So what? 9/11 changed a lot of people’s minds about that.
gosh. that was what everyone told me when I asked “why invade now, what’s different now?”
9/11 was an attack by terrorists and had fuck to do with SH, Iraq or nation building.
Because that one hasn’t worked? Either not enough people know who Wolfowitz is, or they just don’t care. Official minutes from Blair’s top people is as close as you can get to Oval Office tapes.
Enjoy,
Steven
Seems to me there were a lot of people, who dismissed that at the time. Most don’t remember it today, but the question of why the fuck we got involved in this damn fool war does seem to be weighing more heavily on the mind of America now that the terrorists are getting desperate enough to kill our children in big lots.
The memos serve as a convenient refresher for those who were too shell shocked, frightened or dull witted to pay attention back in 2002.
This cow will never give milk, so stop milking.
Most people knew long ago that Bush wanted to remove Saddam. To get people outraged about it requires to convince them that Saddam was decent. Do you really want to go that way?
The most deranged even hope that those memos will start another Watergate. Think it over, people! Breaking into DNC headquarters was a wrong thing to do. Removing Saddam was a right thing to do.
Do you really want to perpetuate equivalency between US DNC and Saddam’s Baath?
Wow, ascribing a strawman to your opponents before debate even begins. Ballsy.
One can believe both that Sadaam was an asshole and that we went about the war, and the buildup to war, incorrectly.
See, if Bush was commited to attacking, then he lied when he said he was still open to diplomacy. If he decided to take Sadaam out anyways, then it was dishonest to pin the war on claims of WMD’s even while Bushco was having to cherry pick intel in order to make a case.
Hmmm… Bush/Cheney et all removed from government? Okay, I’ve thought it over, good idea.
Ahem.
Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.
It was right to remove Sadaam, but we went about it in the wrong way. Grok?
:rolleyes: Yes.
That’s not a bad argument, I have to admit. 
I’ve said all along that the majority of Americans will back Bush and the war in Iraq as long as it’s going reasonably well. The current situtation can’t be described as “reasonably well”, and support is eroding. Maybe these types of memos will actually be a catalyst for outrage, but the real source of problems for Bush are the facts on the ground at any given time.
There’s just a bit more to it than that. We (and that’s a very charitable use of that pronoun) went about it in such a wrong way that the Iraqis would seem to be even worse off than before. In such a wrong way that there are more people being killed now than before. In such a wrong way that there is no realistic hope of fixing it now. In such a wrong way that thousands of our own people are dead, tens of thousands maimed, in what appears to be a waste of their gifts of their lives. In such a wrong way that we have little moral credibility or leadership ability left that we can use for other purposes, no matter what they are. In such a wrong way that our economy has suffered for it, and will continue to suffer for many years. In such a wrong way that we’ve greatly increased the number of people in the world who hate us and want to kill us. In such a wrong way that still no realistic and achievable plan exists even for bailing out.
None of which means “Saddam was decent”. New Iskander, it is doubtful that you’ll ever get it.
Thanks very much for a classic illustration. I couldn’t do it better. Just replace Iraqis with Vietnamese and re-read your own paragraph: it sounds lifted straight from the late 60-s. Now, ask yourself, did Kennedy and Johnson suffered much for starting and escalating Vietnam war? Did Nixon get much credit for ending it? External war is nothing. But Watergate is still a Real Big Deal. You want damage Bush, concentrate on internal politics, all I’m saying.
But if you still believe that Memos Cow has any milk in it, go ahead, keep milking.
Not about us “damaging” Bush. About how Bush has damaged us!
Yep. That’s one more way in which it was done in such a wrong way - the historical parallels were ignored, perhaps because the decisionmakers had never faced them when it was their time to do so.
Hell, yes (except that the first US “advisers” were sent in by Eisenhower, not Kennedy). Johnson was forced out of office and died in disgrace just a couple of years later.
No, because it took him five years to execute his “secret plan”, and he killed a hell of a lot of people unnecessarily along the way (look into Operation Rolling Thunder sometime), including expanding the war outside Vietnam without any public oversight.
How batshit does one have to be to say that, much less believe it? Just so you know, you’re trying to talk about Vietnam to a lot of people on this board who, unlike you apparently, were either alive and aware at the time or were even actually there.
There’s plenty of that to go around too. Your insistence on separating domestic from international politics is, shall we say, a quaint reference to bygone generations, at best.
It’s too late to expect Bush to get Johnson treatment. Bush ran second time (and won).
If I say things you can’t agree with doesn’t mean I have no respect for your life experiences. What do you want, silent adulation?
It’s only been 3 years for Bush. Johnson was still pretty popular in 1966, and the Vietnam War still actually seemed “winnable” at that point. Things are happening on a comparatively compressed time scale now.
BTW, I mixed up Operation Rolling Thunder with Linebacker I and II. RT was an LBJ operation, springing from the same unfounded machismo Nixon had (both were REMF’s during WW2, in large measure that war’s version of chickenhawks).
Either way, though, the suggestion that only domestic politics matters is absurd. No President other than Lincoln did more to advance civil rights, for instance, but the protesters outside the White House every day, yelling “Fuck you, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”, weren’t objecting to his Great Society policies.
No, you need to be more aware of the possibility of your own ignorance before showing it to the world the way you have here. It isn’t about agreeing, it’s about basic command of the facts - which you ain’t got.
New Iskander, you certainly have a right to your opinions, but your opinion that Watergate somehow had a bigger impact on the American consciousness than the Vietnam War does seem kind of nutty. “External war is nothing”? Oh really? How ya figure?
Don’t bother. New Iskander has Kool-Aid for blood.
On the basis of historical record. JFK is God, LBJ is an embarrasment better forgotten, Nixon is a villain. That’s how they went down in History.
My conclusion is it’s a lot more dangerous for a politician to commit offences within US than without.
NI: * JFK is God, LBJ is an embarrasment better forgotten, Nixon is a villain. That’s how they went down in History.
My conclusion is it’s a lot more dangerous for a politician to commit offences within US than without.*
I think your analysis is skewed by leaving out the fact that JFK was tragically and publicly murdered by an assassin less than three years into his first term . Thus, the traumatic and ultimately extremely unpopular Vietnam War was primarily associated with his successors who continued it (and that definitely includes Nixon, who was definitely not hated only for the Watergate scandal).
I agree that if Bush were to be assassinated in office, it would probably boost his popularity ratings quite a bit.* (In fact, I think the attempted Reagan assassination is one of the things that attached many voters to him so strongly.) But I certainly wouldn’t argue from that that starting a war has a negligible impact on public opinion.
*Would any representatives of the Secret Service or the FBI and all other security-conscious readers please note that I am absolutely not advocating or supporting in any way whatsoever the assassination of the President? I think it would be an Extremely Bad Thing in every respect and I am completely opposed to the idea.
Gotta spell this stuff out these days; can’t be too careful.
I didn’t say negligible. I said that looking at History, whatever public reaction might have been to external war, US public never punished a President for starting a war but did come down very hard on the President who abused his powers inside the US. That’s why I think that expecting revelations about Iraq invasion to develop into Watergate is simply kooky. Most Americans of any political persuasion will never agree with that.
Besides, if we allow just for a moment that removal of vicious dictator is equal to Watergate, what kind of bizarro world that brings into existence?
Comedy Gold over at the white house this afternoon:
Plus a heaping helping of Insurgency:
And Faux Durban Reprehension: