Please help truth-check this (Bush v Clinton)

Great Debates
81

ManiacMan seems pretty determined to keep attention on the past, perhaps to avoid the present.

Bill Clinton holds Rwanda as his greatest regret. He recognizes the price of his inaction, and he’s expressed remorse many, many times. Aside from building a time machine, there’s not much else to do.

George W Bush has expressed no regret, about anything. He won’t even acknowledge mistakes. His approach to government and diplomacy–and war–has been disastrous. All but a tiny percentage of the people in this country know this to be true.

ManiacMan is providing a good example of why it’s important to engage the stubborn in argument. Sure, he will never change his position, or his mind. But many others reading this thread will see the irrationality of his arguments laid bare, and their opinions will be influenced.

Unfortunately, this is also true for Der Tris. :smack:

82

So if we aren’t supposed to believe the intel that preceded the invasion into Iraq…why is it all of a sudden OK to start believing in that intel? If Bush based his invasion on Iraq on bad intel…then which jail do the providers of such bad intel currently take their dinners?

83

Sorry, some guy hyping his own autobiography who had been out of power, out of favor, and out of Iraq for twelve years making a claim that some unidentified number of pilots “told him” that they had flown WMD to Syria is not evidence. It is clearly not evidence when it is contradicted by the findings of the UN search teams prior to our immoral invasion, the findings of the Congressional and military teams delegated to find what happened to the purported WMD, and contradicted by the actions of the administration that ran the war as if there were no WMD (once they had manufactured their excuse and actually launched the war).

If Sada was such a friend to freedom (or even to the U.S.), why did he not immediately turn over his information regarding the alleged transfer rather than waiting to spice up a single chapter in his autobiography, years later, with his unsubstantiated tale that flies in the face of all the real evidence?

Up until September, 2002, one could make a case that Hussein used to have WMD and might still have some. Once the UN inspection teams went back in and began discovering that there were no active programs to create or maintain WMD with a fair amount of evidendce that the old programs had been shut down, added to the lies of the administration regarding “yellow cake” (that never existed) and “nuclear centrifuge tubes” (that were prt of a never-assembled "space gun), then the only reasonable conclusion is that Iraq had no WMD and no WMD program, and that the administration was willing to tell any lie to get us into a foolish and unnecessary war (that they exacerbated by micromanaging ineffectively).

84

As much as I wouldn’t take time to piss on GWB if he was on fire, I think one has to be open to the idea that he thought that Iraq did possess WMD. (I did, too. Not in quantities or types to constitute a casus belli, let alone a threat, but still.)

Obviously, someone competent would have made sure before going to war, but as far as I can tell, the plan was as follows: Find a stash of chemical shells, have Fox blow the risk out of proportion (“This shell contains enough nerve gas to kill every orphan in four states”), pose in NBC gear looking concerned, put Chalabi in power and be home in time for tea, medals and letters from those nice Exxon board members.

85

Actually…

Please tell me how my arguments have been “irrational”…

86

If real lies were told how come people aren’t in jail?

87

Have you ever worn green?

Weapons - particularly high-powered weapons - do not exist in a vacuum. If we’re talking WMD, there will be crack units practicing how to fire them, staff officers arguing about how best to deploy them, secure communications, code books, some very loyal guards making sure they’re not suddenly used in a military coup etc. etc.

It’s one thing to whisk away the warheads. It’s an entirely different story to remove every sign of them ever having existed.

88

Welll…I don’t know but did anyone ever say that the WMDs were attached to warheads?

89

They should be.

90

Politics precludes taking action against the dishonest manipulation of flawed and erroneous information to punish its purveyors.

Once the Republicans had turned the impeachment process into a purely political doomsday weapon, any effort by the Democrats to use it to address the actions of Preident Bush were doomed to be regarded as nothing more than political vengeance, so there is no way that the current administration will be held accountable for their actions.

91

Maniac Man: Do you realize that the Rwandan genocide occurred half a world away over a period of only three months in 1994? Just what would you have had President Clinton do that could have prevented this, besides wave his magic wand? I’ll hang up and wait for my answer.

92

You really need to get out of your cocoon and see what some of the intelligence analysts and former intelligence analysts were thinking when they watched Colin Powell whore himself before the U.N. back in February '03.

Besides which, if the Bush Administration was so worried about the possibility that there were significant stocks of WMD that would be dangerous in the hands of terrorists then why did they take them out of the hands of Saddam, who CIA analysts said was very unlikely to give them to terrorists for obvious reasons (he would be surrendering all control, not something dictators are generally fond of doing…and to people who he very much despised and despised him), and then basically leave the places where they might be unguarded so that anyone could take them!!!

93

And of course it’s sheer coincidence that when Bush takes over that the surplus vanishes, the gap between rich and poor grows more, net job growth vanishes, etc.

We had fewer enemies then. And more sympathy. And Clinton’s people caught the WTC bombers. Because unlike Bush, they actually cared about stopping terrorism, and were capable of something other than failure. Bush has spent years stuffing the government with utter incompetents, and driving away anyone with any principles, competency or brains; including in the emergency services and military. He’s crippled the military for years to come.

None. Bush likes to reward failure.

Because the liars are in power. :rolleyes:

94

It’s simply not true that we have enemies in the Middle East that “have always hated us.”

Iran hates the UK for previous UK imperialist efforts, & sees the USA (being English-speaking) as the UK’s dumber cousins & stooges. There’s a specific reason for USA-Iran animosity, going back to 1953.

The governments of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, & Bahrain mostly get along with us. Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yemen, & Afghanistan have various problems which get them labeled “problem areas,” & sometimes well-meaning Westerners annoy people by trying to stick their noses in to “problem areas,” but they have too much going on at home for hatred of the USA to be both seminal & driving as a political force.

Saddam had no reason to hate us until we kicked him out of Kuwait.

So who hates us, other than Iran? And now Iraq, since we bombed them, invaded them, & sparked a bloody civil war?

Well, there are elements of the populace in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, & Iraq that want to overthrow the governments there. Because we have strong diplomatic ties to those governments & have supplied them with arms they can’t manufacture locally, some people hate the USA for “propping up” local enemies. But that’s not really about us, it’s about local rivalries & revolutionaries.

So why are we invading Iraq again?

There is a sort of visceral appeal in the idea of rolling back Arabic culture to the Arabian peninsula. But we’re about a thousand years too late to really pull it off well.

95

Uh… What do you think a warhead is?

96

It is the conventional way of delivering them, no? If they can’t be delivered, they’re not really weapons.

But OK, so call them “containers”, I don’t much care, the point stands: Even if one could conceivably whisk away the - ehm - decidedly non-warhead vessels containing the WMD - there would have been procedure and doctrine and documentation and fucking signs of them ever having been there. Nations with powerful weapons at their disposal think about how to use them. Make plans, as it were.

Unless, of course, you’re saying that no-one thought the compounds were weaponized. Which brings us neatly back to the subject of lying.

97

So you’re applauding Bush for enacting sanctions that, three and a half years after Colin Powell called it genocide, still haven’t stopped the atrocious situation there. Got it.

Let’s insert some facts here. The Rwandan genocide started around April 1994. UN Security Council Resolution 918 imposed sanctions on Rwanda in May (note you’re not giving Clinton “credit” for that). The killings basically ended in July, at which time Clinton sent US troops to provide relief supplies. Clinton apologized in Kigali in 1998 for not having done more. When ethnic cleansing came to light in Kosovo, Clinton took NATO to war for the first time every to stop it. You don’t seem to acknowledge that as an accomplishment for Clinton. Why?

WRT Sudan, the violence came to light in May 2004. Colin Powell called the situation genocide in September 2004. Bush signed a Sudan sanctions bill in December 2004. Wow, he must have been busy for three months there! Two and a half years later, Bush is still trying to figure out what sanctions are going to stop the killing. Let me quote how on the ball Bush is about applying sanctions: From May 2007, quoting Bush:

Isn’t this the criticism that is always leveled at Clinton – defer to the UN instead of taking action, do too little too late to respond to genocide, while hundreds of thousands of poor people die and suffer while the world’s most powerful country sits on its hands? Jesus Christ, man, this has been going on for three years, and you’re saying Bush deserves credit for DOING something? When do you think Bush will go to Sudan and apologize for not having done more sooner?

If Clinton lied about Lewinsky, by your logic, he would have been impeached. He wasn’t impeached, therefore, according to your reasoning, it must be that he didn’t lie. Do you see any flaws in your logic?

98

Actually, he was impeached. (Not that I disagree with you. Just trying to be fair.)

99

“Leadership would have been displayed had Clinton actually displayed some. All of those dead bodies are being supplied by whom? Transitional times are always the worst. Worse according to whom? You? Pfft give me a break. Clinton will always have the poop smear of failed foreign policy smeared on his face…It demonstrates what kind of cards certain houses are built from…Everyone has some wink-wink nudge-nudge comment about one or more negative aspects about Clinton but fail to see the whole picture…There is NO reason NOT to believe that so what’s your point? No we are the good people trying to stop the suicide bombers last I heard. Not to mention many other good things that I am proud to say are happening because of our presence over there. So if he lies about something as trivial as an affair what other kinds of lies must he have told during his presidency? No we are a benevolent nation who decides to take action when others refuse. Maybe if Clinton had actually done something about Rwanda he would be worth more than mouse farts… If your house has a tiny residence of termites it doesn’t matter how ‘tiny’ the population is…Wow you sure hate America…and I am not apologizing for anything America did or didn’t do…In fact I hope we triple the troop deployment and crush our enemies into a fine dust. Unlike you who sympathize with and wants to take a shower with our enemies. Tell that to all the dead people…if that was true why hasn’t Bush been impeached? Clinton has no positive accomplishments except positively dropping the ball during the Rwandan genocide…I think its because the whole ‘bush lied’ is a lie that won’t stand up anywhere. Clinton just happened to be around when the gettin’ was good during the dot-com boom…and nothing more. He totally lucked out…and thats about it…I don’t want to be the one to crush your matrix. Ask Georges Sada…if we aren’t supposed to believe the intel that preceded the invasion into Iraq…why is it all of a sudden OK to start believing in that intel? If Bush based his invasion on Iraq on bad intel…then which jail do the providers of such bad intel currently take their dinners? …Please tell me how my arguments have been ‘irrational’…”

100

Besides having a surplus, and preventing several financial meltdowns, and reducing poverty in the US, Clinton helped stop The Millennium Plot, or more specifically the LAX plot. When they had evidence of something going on, he showed leadership in driving law enforcement to find the other plotters. When Bush was told of an impending attack, by airplane, he went off to cut brush, and acted as if it wasn’t urgent. Your hero could have maybe stopped 9/11, but he didn’t care enough to interrupt his vacation, and you’re okay with that?