# Rethinking LBJ...Was He That Bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429 "2010-02-18T02:49:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/101 "2010-02-22T20:13:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*The Second Stone \*\* wrote > > [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=112167023](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=112167023) > > A tirade mostly unrelated to our annual budget mess. Ewww. $13 billion isn’t related to your budget mess? > [@](#): > > In California today, illegal immigrants’ cost to the taxpayer is estimated to be $13 billion half the state’s budget deficit. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/102 "2010-02-23T03:46:01Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > [http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/2292-chinese-civil-war-1945-1949/](http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/2292-chinese-civil-war-1945-1949/) > > The above link seems to indicate that your assertion is a propagandist version of history. After the Long March the Kuomintang was finished. And your statement about George Marshall is completely inaccurate and again, propaganda and libelous to Marshall. If Chiang was actually “on the brink of crushing the Communists” there was nothing that the US or George Marshall could have done to stop him. The statement is so absurd as to be laughable: if General Chiang was so foolish as to “negotiate” his defeat on the brink of a victory over his enemy, then he was no general to begin with. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George\_Marshall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Marshall) > [@](#): > > In December 1945, President Harry Truman sent Marshall to China to broker a coalition government between the Nationalist allies under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Communists under Mao Zedong. Marshall had no leverage over the Communists, but threatened to withdraw American aid essential to the Nationalists. Both sides rejected his proposals and the Chinese Civil War escalated, with the Communists winning in 1949. His mission a failure, he returned to the United States in January 1947.[23][24] As Secretary of State in 1947-48, Marshall seems to have disagreed with strong opinions in The Pentagon and State department that Chiang’s success was vital to American interests, insisting that U.S. troops not become involved. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/103 "2010-02-23T04:36:17Z")
Curtis - do you have any kind of cite to back up your assertation that “Chiang Kei-Sheik was on the brink of crushing the Communists in Manchuria when George Marshall forced them to negotiate instead.” Anything that the KMT were anywhere near victory in the civil war anytime in the \*decade \*before 1949? Marshall failed to puppet master the KMT to come out on top. That part is true. Aid to Generallissimo Cash My Check was not cut by the way only threatened. The only way that the KMT would have won is if the US shipped entire armies to China and took on the communists ourselves. You might want to read Stillwell and the American Experience in China and then you’d have a little context on how well a US led effort would have helped. The KMT lost when a) they let the Long March survive and thrive in Yan’an and b) proactively pursued the civil war instead of taking on the Japanese. Again, you made a bald faced assertation that CKS and the KMT were on the brink of winning. Please provide some real cites to back up that claim. And then some cites to back up the claim that Marshall forced the KMT to negotiate instead of fight to victory. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/104 "2010-02-23T07:41:34Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > $13 billion isn’t related to your budget mess? That is not true, it is a right wing talking point. Here is the Sacramento Bee on the budget mess. [http://www.sacbee.com/qna/forum/election/index.html](http://www.sacbee.com/qna/forum/election/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/105 "2010-02-23T20:44:52Z")
This is the rebuttal you’re relying on? > [@](#): > > A: By all accounts, a relatively tiny portion of the budget pertains to illegal immigrants - imprisonment and health care, primarily - and research conducted by the Wilson administration in early 1990s basically concluded that those costs are fairly well offset by taxes paid by illegal immigrants. > Answered at 7:36 AM on May 13, 2009, by Dan Walters ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/106 "2010-02-23T20:55:59Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > This is the rebuttal you’re relying on? Yep. A reliable source, unlike the right wing blogs which are all repeating the same talking point. Just because a bunch of people tell the same lie, that doesn’t make it true. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/107 "2010-02-23T22:14:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Yep. A reliable source, unlike the right wing blogs which are all repeating the same talking point. Just because a bunch of people tell the same lie, that doesn’t make it true. Its hosted on the National Public Radio site. Did you even read Alexiev’s article? There is far more to it than a claim about the exact figure of the debt. The broader point is the level of welfare dependence and low level of academic achievement amongst those who will make up the majority of the population in the future. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/108 "2010-02-23T23:49:31Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Its hosted on the National Public Radio site. Did you even read Alexiev’s article? There is far more to it than a claim about the exact figure of the debt. The broader point is the level of welfare dependence and low level of academic achievement amongst those who will make up the majority of the population in the future. Yeah, I read it, did you read it? It is garbage, wherever it is hosted. The NPR site hosts a National Review article. It is a bald faced lie that $13 billion goes to immigrants in California. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/109 "2010-02-24T02:35:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Chen019 > Its hosted on the National Public Radio site. Did you even read Alexiev’s article? There is far more to it than a claim about the exact figure of the debt. The broader point is the level of welfare dependence and low level of academic achievement amongst those who will make up the majority of the population in the future. > > Yeah, I read it, did you read it? It is garbage, wherever it is hosted. The NPR site hosts a National Review article. It is a bald faced lie that $13 billion goes to immigrants in California. You seem to be missing the wood for the trees. You disagree with the education stats too? That is the long term problem. The $13 billion claim appears to originate here (up from estimated 10 billion in 2005). [http://www.fairus.org/site/PageNavigator/facts/state\_data\_CA](http://www.fairus.org/site/PageNavigator/facts/state_data_CA) > [@](#): > > The more than $10.1 billion in costs incurred by California taxpayers is composed of outlays in the following areas: > > Education. Based on estimates of the illegal immigrant population in California and documented costs of K-12 schooling, Californians spend approximately $7.7 billion annually on education for illegal immigrant children and for their U.S.-born siblings. Nearly 15 percent of the K-12 public school students in California are children of illegal aliens. > Health care. Uncompensated medical outlays for health care provided to the state’s illegal alien population amount to about $1.4 billion a year. > > Incarceration. The cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in California’s prisons and jails amounts to about $1.4 billion a year (not including related law enforcement and judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to their incarceration). > State and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go toward offsetting these costs, but they do not come near to matching the expenses. The total of such payments can generously be estimated at about $1.6 billion per year. > > The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state’s taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, school feeding programs, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were added into the equation. [http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic\_immigrationissuecentersffec](http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersffec) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/110 "2010-02-24T03:23:10Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Curtis - do you have any kind of cite to back up your assertation that “Chiang Kei-Sheik was on the brink of crushing the Communists in Manchuria when George Marshall forced them to negotiate instead.” > > Anything that the KMT were anywhere near victory in the civil war anytime in the \*decade \*before 1949? > > Marshall failed to puppet master the KMT to come out on top. That part is true. Aid to Generallissimo Cash My Check was not cut by the way only threatened. The only way that the KMT would have won is if the US shipped entire armies to China and took on the communists ourselves. You might want to read Stillwell and the American Experience in China and then you’d have a little context on how well a US led effort would have helped. The KMT lost when a) they let the Long March survive and thrive in Yan’an and b) proactively pursued the civil war instead of taking on the Japanese. > > Again, you made a bald faced assertation that CKS and the KMT were on the brink of winning. Please provide some real cites to back up that claim. And then some cites to back up the claim that Marshall forced the KMT to negotiate instead of fight to victory. I own a book entitled _What If?_ a collection of historical essays and according to one of them, “China Without Tears”: > [@](#): > > "What followed next is rather like Hitler’s famous ‘Halt Order’ which stopped the Wehrmact as it closed in on the defeated British at Dunkirk-turning what should have been a decisive German victory into a strategic defeat. > > General Marshall was at this point attempting the impossible task of brokering a coalition government between Mao’s Communists and Chiang’s Nationalists. Nowhere had it been agreed that Chiang would not invade Manchuria. But the Communists at the talks objected vociferiously, maintaining that by his surprise attack Chiang had undermined the trust and cooperation necessary for a peaceful resolution. Marshall secured one truce in January but it broke down quickly; now the Communists pressed him to act, for they realized that he-and not their own army-was the only force left that would stop Chiang. > > Marshall listened. With all the power of a sole ally, rich and overwhelmingly strong in a ruined world (and in his own mind, some unrealistic ideas), Marshall pressured Chiang to halt his advance-and Chiang did. > > When his incredulous commanders begged him to reconsider, telling him that Harbin in Nationalists hands ensured a total victory over Communist military forces in Manchuria, Chiang became very angry. To his supreme commander he said, ‘You say that taking this city will be easy, but if you knew the reasons why we can’t take it, then you would understand the reasons why not taking it is not easy at all.’ Later Chiang would calls this the worst mistake he ever made in dealing with the Communists. > > Had the Chinese leader refused Marshall’s request, one can imagine him actually succeeding in his attempt to deliver a knock-out blow to the Communists and presenting the world with a fait accompli that would have won not only Washington, but Moscow as well, to his side. Or one can imagine his initial triumph going bad, as the Communists reorganized and attacked his extended supply lines. One thing is certain, though: The decision to halt would remove the one chance Chiang had of actually winning the war militarily." ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/111 "2010-02-24T16:28:56Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Yeah, I read it, did you read it? It is garbage, wherever it is hosted. The NPR site hosts a National Review article. It is a bald faced lie that $13 billion goes to immigrants in California. How many millions/ billions go to immigrants in California? I have no clue but this may be part of the problem CA is having? Why are we not addressing the problem? How many immigrants can a state support and stay solvent? We keep increasing the number of immigrants we allow into the US every year. New Zealand and other countries have tough restrictions on immigration. I would think the economy alone would be reason enough to shut down immigration until our economy rebounds. We could also deport all illegals back to their countries and save a ton of money. Why doe we want to bring so many immigrants in at a time like this? Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/112 "2010-02-24T16:53:22Z")
Look, let’s not get hijacked: We’re debating about President Johnson and his performance in office and his legacy. Now, can anyone **seriously** contend LBJ did the wrong thing, in signing the [Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_Amendments_of_1965) which abolished the openly racist (effectively limiting immigration not only to Europeans but to **Northwestern** Europeans, and intentionally freezing out Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans, and practically all European Jews) national-origins quota system of the [Immigration Act of 1924](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924)? **Even knowing what we know now** about the social and economic effects of post-1965 immigration to America, is there any of you who, in LBJ’s shoes, would have hesitated for a moment to sign that bill?! If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/113 "2010-02-24T17:32:50Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > According to the same article: > > And President Thieu: So, after the U.S.’ propping up South Vietnam for 20 years and training its military all that time, South Vietnam was still such a basket case that it was dependent on a substantial flow of U.S. cash for its moment-to-moment existence as a nation. I’d honestly never realized that that was the argument you guys were making about the cutting of funds. Holy cow. That’s quite the own goal, isn’t it? > [@](#): > > Our goals were to stabilize and democratize Iraq, we have acheived that quite well, and the casualties have been in my opinion reasonable. I could have sworn there was something about WMDs, but maybe my memory’s playing tricks on me. 🙂 Iraq’s certainly less stable than it was in 2002, but we have semi-democratized it. Of course, this has come at a cost of a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives, but hey, we didn’t have to pay that cost; the people who we were supposedly helping did. :rolleyes: I don’t think we’re exactly the proper judges of the reasonableness of those casualties. OTOH, imagine what we could have done with the roughly $700 billion we’ve already spent over there, and the hundreds of billions yet to come in VA expenses and the like. You think many people would have supported this war at the time if it had been known we were going to be there for the rest of the decade, and the bill would run well over a trillion dollars? Not a chance. Hell, the Bushies fired one guy who estimated, during the run-up, that the war might cost us a couple hundred billion. > [@](#): > > Had we not invaded Iraq and Saddam had died or been overthrown there would have been civil war anyways. And it might not have happened for decades, either: Saddam was a 65 year old in pretty good health when we invaded. > [@](#): > > Which does not make what I said any less true. Your problem is, it doesn’t make it any more true either. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/114 "2010-02-24T17:48:21Z")
Considering that containment of Communism was pretty much universally accepted as a necessity by both parties, I don’t think he should take all the blame for Vietnam. More than any other individual, perhaps. I think passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, despite the knowledge that it would cost the Democratic Party the South for decades, was a stunning triumph, and frankly what he should first be remembered for. He knew that no President in the near future would have the sort of political capital he gained from JFK’s assassination, and he did what he knew was right despite the cost. Considering how fractured and ineffective the leadership of the civil rights movement became after MLK’s death, it might _never_ have passed otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/115 "2010-02-24T17:48:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Look, let’s not get hijacked: We’re debating about President Johnson and his performance in office and his legacy. Now, can anyone **seriously** contend LBJ did the wrong thing, in signing the [Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_Amendments_of_1965) which abolished the openly racist (effectively limiting immigration not only to Europeans but to **Northwestern** Europeans, and intentionally freezing out Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans, and practically all European Jews) national-origins quota system of the [Immigration Act of 1924](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924)? **Even knowing what we know now** about the social and economic effects of post-1965 immigration to America, is there any of you who, in LBJ’s shoes, would have hesitated for a moment to sign that bill?! If so, why? Sorry for going off topic. Thanks for the cites. Interesting that from LBJ on we went from 120,000 immigrants a year till today over a million a year. It was to be more free to all countries. After LBJ several more immigration bills also affected todays numbers by increasing the numbers of immigrants. I would not have been hesitant to sign a bill making it more equal to other countries but I would not want to increase the overall number to what it is now. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/116 "2010-02-24T18:03:09Z")
[QUOTE=Perciful] How many millions/ billions go to immigrants in California? I have no clue but this may be part of the problem CA is having? Why are we not addressing the problem? How many immigrants can a state support and stay solvent? We keep increasing the number of immigrants we allow into the US every year. New Zealand and other countries have tough restrictions on immigration. I would think the economy alone would be reason enough to shut down immigration until our economy rebounds. We could also deport all illegals back to their countries and save a ton of money. Why doe we want to bring so many immigrants in at a time like this? Any ideas? [/QUOTE] We aren’t letting in more immigrants every year; the number of immigrants, including those on temporary visas, stays pretty stable at a little under 1 million a year. New Zealand and other countries’ restrictions on immigration are pretty meaningless, because we are not another country. In any event, New Zealand does _not_ have tough immigration restrictions; the 2005 census showed that [20% of the population was foreign born](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_New_Zealand#Recent_years). By contrast, [12.5% of the US population is foreign born](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103251.html), and that figure actually went _down_ last year. “The economy” would be a terrific reason to shut down immigration if you were somehow upset that the economy was doing too well and trying to destroy it. Quite apart from the illegals who pick our tomatoes and oranges (because nobody else will), there are any number of industries which rely on skilled, graduate and postgraduate immigrant labor to remain competitive. However, if you want to spend $8 on a potato or $2,500 on an annual physical - before lab screening - you’re on the right track. Deporting illegals wouldn’t save us any money at all. We already do that. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/117 "2010-02-24T23:38:00Z")
> [@](#): > > “The economy” would be a terrific reason to shut down immigration if you were somehow upset that the economy was doing too well and trying to destroy it. Quite apart from the illegals who pick our tomatoes and oranges (because nobody else will), there are any number of industries which rely on skilled, graduate and postgraduate immigrant labor to remain competitive. However, if you want to spend $8 on a potato or $2,500 on an annual physical - before lab screening - you’re on the right track. > > Deporting illegals wouldn’t save us any money at all. We already do that. You need to distinguish between skilled and unskilled immigration. As noted above in the Alexiev article, the overall burden of low skill immigration is massive as the subsequent generations are doing worse academically. > [@](#): > > Households headed by persons without a high school diploma are roughly 15 percent of all U.S. households. Overall, these households impose a significant fiscal burden on other taxpayers: The cost of the government benefits they consume greatly exceeds the taxes they pay to government. Before government undertakes to transfer even more economic resources to these households, it should have a very clear account of the magnitude of the economic transfers that already occur. > > The substantial net tax burden imposed by low-skill U.S. households also suggests lessons for immigration policy. Recently proposed immigration legislation would greatly increase the number of poorly educated immigrants entering and living in the United States.[12] Before this policy is adopted, Congress should examine carefully the potential negative fiscal effects of low-skill immigrant households receiving services. [http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr12.cfm](http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr12.cfm) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/118 "2010-02-25T00:58:42Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > So, after the U.S.’ propping up South Vietnam for 20 years and training its military all that time, South Vietnam was still such a basket case that it was dependent on a substantial flow of U.S. cash for its moment-to-moment existence as a nation. > > I’d honestly never realized that that was the argument you guys were making about the cutting of funds. Holy cow. We support Israel similarly-until Israel got it’s nukes had we not supported them like that it’s quite likely they would have been crushed by the Arabs. Plus the cuts were massive-hundreds of millions of dollars. > [@](#): > > That’s quite the own goal, isn’t it? > > I could have sworn there was something about WMDs, but maybe my memory’s playing tricks on me. 🙂 > > Iraq’s certainly less stable than it was in 2002, but we have semi-democratized it. Of course, this has come at a cost of a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives, but hey, we didn’t have to pay that cost; the people who we were supposedly helping did. :rolleyes: I don’t think we’re exactly the proper judges of the reasonableness of those casualties. > > OTOH, imagine what we could have done with the roughly $700 billion we’ve already spent over there, and the hundreds of billions yet to come in VA expenses and the like. You think many people would have supported this war at the time if it had been known we were going to be there for the rest of the decade, and the bill would run well over a trillion dollars? Not a chance. Hell, the Bushies fired one guy who estimated, during the run-up, that the war might cost us a couple hundred billion. And what the Democrats suggested, that we withdraw from Iraq, would have made it worse-a lot of more Iraqis dead. > [@](#): > > And it might not have happened for decades, either: Saddam was a 65 year old in pretty good health when we invaded. Which just puts Iran in a stronger position. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/119 "2010-02-25T04:55:58Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > We support Israel similarly-until Israel got it’s nukes had we not supported them like that it’s quite likely they would have been crushed by the Arabs. We only started supporting them in the manner we do now after the Camp David accords; we basically bribed Israel and Egypt over the finish line on that deal. Israel already had nukes at that point. At any rate, you’re saying South Vietnam was a basket case that would fall apart pretty much the moment we ceased sending them big bucks, even after we’d been propping them up for a generation. > [@](#): > > And what the Democrats suggested, that we withdraw from Iraq, would have made it worse-a lot of more Iraqis dead. Whatever. When your guys got us into a gigantic fuckup, griping that the other guys’ way out of the cesspool doesn’t meet your standards is pretty silly. > [@](#): > > Which just puts Iran in a stronger position. There’s a theory in some quarters that Iran was the real string-puller in making the war happen. No doubt they were trying - and apparently your guy Chalabi was an Iranian agent the whole time - but I think the war was a done deal once the neocons managed to become the inner circle of advisors to a very dumb, very hawkish President. However, it’s been clear since 2003 that Iran is the big winner of the Iraq War, speaking of own goals. The ups and downs of the occupation period haven’t affected that one whit. Which means, of course, that we lost. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/120 "2010-02-26T01:46:37Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > We only started supporting them in the manner we do now after the Camp David accords; we basically bribed Israel and Egypt over the finish line on that deal. Israel already had nukes at that point. > > At any rate, you’re saying South Vietnam was a basket case that would fall apart pretty much the moment we ceased sending them big bucks, even after we’d been propping them up for a generation. If we had waited only a decade or so South Vietnam could have been greatly strengthned. Already the Vietnamese army was growing more competent and defeat the North Vietnamese. Think of it as a Marshall Plan for Asia. > [@](#): > > Whatever. When your guys got us into a gigantic fuckup, griping that the other guys’ way out of the cesspool doesn’t meet your standards is pretty silly. Which would be defeat. > [@](#): > > There’s a theory in some quarters that Iran was the real string-puller in making the war happen. No doubt they were trying - and apparently your guy Chalabi was an Iranian agent the whole time - but I think the war was a done deal once the neocons managed to become the inner circle of advisors to a very dumb, very hawkish President. > > However, it’s been clear since 2003 that Iran is the big winner of the Iraq War, speaking of own goals. The ups and downs of the occupation period haven’t affected that one whit. > > Which means, of course, that we lost. No. For instance in World War II both the Soviets and the US could be considered to “win”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429.md?page=7)