I wont put any cites (now) and everyone can just ignore this as useless prattling but consider these
*France, as stated by the US, was the leader in creating the biggest obstacle to legitimizing the Iraq war thru the UN, now it is the leader in helping the US have the Iraqi sanctions removed.
*Syria was the supposed “next” target. It allowed outside forces thru their borders to help the Iraqi Regime fight the US forces and was alleged to have provided hi-tech equiptment. It was a friend and ally to Sadddam. Now, a little trip from Powell and they shut down all headquarters designated by the US as terrorists.
*Libya is paying Billions of dollars to victims of a crash that it had claimed wasnt even a terrorist act, let alone their responsibility.
*China is busy.
*Pakistan is really cracking down on Al Qaeda operatives within heir borders. Werent the tribal lords in Pakistan going to overthrow their “US Puppet” a long time ago?
*A road map to an Israeli-Palestinian peace is proposed and the new prime minister of Palestine is receptive to it as is Israel. well, neither rejected it outright anyways.
All these significant events started after War in Iraq was engaged. Co-inkky-dink?
You forgot that North Korea aquiesed to multilateral talks. Before the war, they were only willing to have bilateral talks.
Pakistan & india are resuming diplomatic ties. I don’t know if that is good or bad on our part, or if it is even related. I know that India allowed the idea of a ‘preemptive’ strike on Pakistan after the US did that to Iraq. and that now India & Pakistan are working on their problems and trying to reestablish diplomatic ties. I still don’t know if thats good or bad on our part.
*France is backing the lifting of sanctions because the Iraqi government is in US hands. I don’t get why they would have considered this prior to the US invasion.
*Syria backed down becuse of diplomacy by the US government. See how diplomacy works?
*The Libyan law suit has been in the court system for years. They got tired of fighting it, so they’ve settled- big deal.
*China has gotten involved in NK talks because NK has started to reprocess nuclear rods. This was being done as a direct result of the “Axis of Evil” speech.
*Pakistan was going after terrorists well before the war started. Has been a US ally since 9/11. The war has had little effect on this relationship.
*Palestinians got a Prime Minister, perhaps this was because the Bush administration refused to work with Arafat. However, this “road map” is no different than the peace plans suggested by other presidents from Carter forward, and it too will fail (although I certainly hope it doesn’t). I don’t see how this is related to the war.
The question you are not asking is: How many of problems are the direct result of Bush’s inept foreign policy? Moreover, if one fucks something up, do they get kudos for fixing it?
Finally, proof that the end justifies the means. Oh wait.
And Russia and China, among other nations, are still opposed to that move. Although I think it’s position on the sanctions is a bit less clear than you do, France considers its alliance with the US important. Your post indicates the reverse may not be true.
It probably still is.
Ah, so they’re no longer doing something they were alleged, and not proven, to have done. Phew.
That’s untrue. Both countries have Ba’athist governments, which led to some rather intense rivalry.
That’s the result of a process that began a LONG time ago, not Bush’s war.
Bullshit. Or at least only a half-truth. It’s provided aid to the US, but the fundamentalist movement is still very strong in that country, their intelligence service (ISI) is involved in terrorism against India, and they’re still the most likely source for Al Qaeda to get nuclear weapons. Hatred of America is rampant, which could cause problems in any number of ways.
Doing what?
How is this related? The only connection I see is that Bush said the war on terror would help it. The terrorism in Palestine has never been connected to Al Qaeda. And in fact Israel does already have stated problems with the roadmap.
Meanwhile, North Korea now has a few nukes and may have more soon, and Iran continues to work on getting its own.
I remember reading excerpts of declassified transcripts from the former Soviet Union’s official assessment of Ronald Reagan, which in part said “He says what he means and means what he says”; which had the senior leadership there in an apoplectic frame of mind. This is the thinly veiled criticism when foreign pundits call the president a “cowboy”. In reality it’s a compliment, whether they realize it or not. Lots of world leaders talk tough but fail to follow through. James Earl Carter comes to mind - great man, but lousy at foreign policy overall. I suspect many countries now have no illusions about George II. Like him or not, he’s going to go down in history as a great president.
Indeed. Like when he says he’s going to have that second Security Council vote, come what may, no matter what the “whip count”, so he can see “everybody’s cards on the table” he means he’s going to cut and run, go to war anyway, and blame it all on France.
Really, its just a matter of emphasis.
And when he says he’s got absolute proof positive that Iraq has “massive stockpiles” of Evil Nasty, he means that he believes it, but there’s no good reason you should.
And when he says he hasn’t made up his mind about going to war as he moves masses of men into assault position.
Yeppers, nothing like some straightforward, right from the shoulder, no holds barred candor, Nixon style.
Yes, they think he’s a crazy religious fanatic. To which many would add “bent on world domination.” Woot.
He’s been running the show for two years, and wars (against very weak opponents) are pretty much all he’s accomplished. It’s a bit soon to be figuring out history’s judgment of him, yes?
How many terrorist attacks happened on his watch after he decided enough was enough? And how many terrorist attacks happened against the US before the “warmongering, fanatical” president decided to ruffle thier feathers?
My assertion after 9/11 was that our protectors failed in their ultimate task, to protect the American people. And the current administrations only way to redeem itslef would be to take action to assure, the best they can, that it will happen only in spite of their efforts.
I see the lack of American dying, whle others only see chance in the future by not appeasing the terrorists and fanatical dictators. Appeasement didn’t work before GW. Force seems to be. Only the those that write history and study it in the future will be able to tell who was wrong or not, and I can’t see a student accepting a teachers assertion that Bush had only made it worse whan the attacks have dropped significantly.
Look, I never liked the guy and I think he and his family (GHWB, Bert Walker, Prescott Bush, Samuel Bush and others) are all a bunch of theives and liars, okay.
BUT I’ll give the SOB credit for standing up for the US and I’m damned glad to see someone who does. Apparently most of the US thinks so too, since he’s got a 75% approval rating right now.
It wouldn’t matter if it started raining diamonds because of something he did. Some folks are always going to take the opposing view, that’s the way it should be.
and regarding the OP…it’s about time, but for how long? Because when GW’s gone then what. It’ll be back to being everybody’s favorite doormat.
Spite, how many terrorist acts toward Americans were committed by the Iraqis before this idiotic war?
I also have another thought. Clinton can’t take credit for an economy that was fantastic through the entire eight years of his presidency, but Bush gets to take credit for Libya settling the Pan Am flight 103 settlement. How does that work?
Then Bush failed, too, as far as protecting goes. And while I imagine he’s doing what he thinks is right, I’m not of the opinion that military force along will solve this problem. International help founded on cooperation, not fear of force, would go a long way. We had that for a while, but it’s been essentially squandered by the insistence on attacking Iraq.
What? I don’t know where stuff like this comes from. Nobody stands up to the international community like America does. It’s been the lone veto on way more security council resolutions than anybody else, and it’s refused to sign a number of broadly backed international treaties, i.e. Kyoto, convention on landmines, etc., plus withdrawal from the IBM treaty and the test ban treaty…
Unknown, but when was it ever asserted that the actions of bush was against the Iraqi’s? I think that if we thaught iraqi’s where responsible for terrorism against the US , then things would have trned out much different than the way we see them today. How many terrorist supporting nations today think they have the safety of “peace by any means” that the “unwilling” part of the world preaches, to support acts of terrorism?
Marley23
People all over this message board are lamenting the"in’l cooperation that Bush has somehow squandered. If your assertion is correct, the decrease in that cooperation should have incurred more attacks, not less.
Um… at the risk of totally misconstruing what you’re trying to say here, I think I would say there’s a little matter of a war that could conceivably be considered as an “action of Bush against the Iraqis”.
So if someone, say Canada, decided to take out the Bush administration because they believe he’s a witch (as valid as the WMD claim so far) justifying this by claiming that he’s not really our president anyway because he got less than a plurality of the vote, killing thousands of Americans in the process, and shooting at protesters, you would find this not against Americans?
Remember, Iraqis didn’t request that the Americans come in. They didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms, and they don’t seem particularly thrilled that we’re sticking around. The Ba’ath party members are indeed Iraqis, Iraqi civilians are Iraqis, and the Republican guard are (dead) Iraqis. Despite what you are spoon-fed from the right-wing press, this was as against Iraqis.
Certainly Bush never hinted that this war was against the Iraqis (only the bad ones), he also never hinted about The Project for the New American Century, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. What bush did hint at was vast amounts of WMD, but once again that doesn’t mean they exist.
Are you really that uninformed about the election process or is this still sour grapes because your guy lost. Plurality of votes don’t mean jack. All that matters is electoral votes. And before you try to claim that those were “stolen” in Florida please remember that in all the independant recounts, including the one by the left-winf New Yourk Times, GWB still won the state.
Conflict of Interest, I think your knee jerked and you missed the point which is that if another country invaded the USA to install Gore, even Gore supporters would be against the invasion. I do not think the example was meant to open the discussion you propose which would be for another thread.
