Nothing wrong with a touch of the melodramatic, just try harder next time 
and just remember us furriners sometimes see things differently as is expected due to our foreigness 
Then you are allowed to keep thinking that (just as I do). I never had to ask permission to think “my” way. I thought he was a damned idiot or worse, and I’m happy as a pig in shit now that he’s finally gone.
Blair knew there weren’t any WMDs. See Robin Cook’s resignation speech on the eve of the war.
In particular, note that Cook (who had access to the ‘information’) said:
“Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.
It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories.
Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?
Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam’s ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors?”
Blair also knew Bush was going in regardless, so desperately tried to get UN support for the US.
This should emphasise just how stupid and dangerous Bush was - even his closest allies knew he was a lying incompetent puppet.
I appreciate you explaining yourself.
Perhaps you didn’t realise that there were plenty of people who did have that attititude of ‘if you criticise Bush or the War you are cowardly scum who don’t deserve our protection’.
On message boards, a smiley goes a long way to make it clear which way we should take your typing…
That makes it worse, not better. Instead of an innocent dupe, he was a knowing accomplice.
Martini Enfield, I just need a clarification. You realize that the ‘opinion’ you’re claiming needs no cite is “Obama is a lying scumbag,” right?
As long as you acknowledge that that’s the ‘opinion’ that Crafter_Man got asked for evidence on, I don’t care. I disagree like crazy, but I can go on with my life.
“Obama is a lying scumbag.”
Opinion, or falsifiable assertion?
And it’s a relief not to be humiliated by such a doofus leader. Obama so far maintains very high ratings in the States too. It was great that our First Lady was also well-received when the Obamas went abroad recently. Cool.
/pounce
I do object in a way to the Calm Kiwi’s statement cited in the OP, not because of the underlying sentiment, but because of the implicit notion that I have to live this down, or that America has to live it down. That’s not to say that I don’t feel that my country’s reputation and image has been badly damaged by the Bush era, and that we don’t need to inquire into the things that were done and the people who did them, and that we can’t just wash our hands of them and move on.
The popularity of Bush in the “heartland”, not to mention his success in 2004, was dismaying to us in the Hip-lands. Even so, by overall popular vote his victory was a squeaker, and not the landslide you might imagine if your only input was Europeans or Canadians who railed against the country as a whole for re-electing him. It didn’t take long for it to become clear to me, having locked horns over it with one or two German correspondents, that many outsiders prejudged each and every one of us for the results of 2004’s election. It’s as if each and every American was a microcosm of the entire electorate, and was therefore personally responsible for the outcome. As a white male, this helps me to understand what women and people of color have had to contend with throughout their lives. It’ the formation of unjust opinions about my beliefs and values because of the country I was born in. It’s prejudice, pure and simple.
Calm Kiwi I am not singling you out by any means, or accusing you of having insulted any country. From what I’ve seen of your posts over the years, I have no reason to think you meant anything other than to disparage one President’s conduct in office, and that should be anybody’s right no matter where they live. I just used your statement as a talking point.
There was a character in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy who tried to insult the entire Universe–in alphabetical order!
You have died of dysentery.
Well, much as I think Bush was a walking disaster, Laura Bush was pretty well respected, too, no? She’s pretty low profile but I’ve always thought she was a really classy lady. Maybe because she’s so low prof.