Free Dating Site    

president bush is a 100% american. he likes a good laugh a good time
he's a backslapper and a glad hander just a typical good old american.

and thats why he was chosen.

does anyone truely believe that george w bush wanted to plunge america into war and economic upheaval? or is the war and the upheaval the price to be paid to maintain a nation of 300 million at the standard of living they have grown accustomed to?

those are the questions that must answered before president bush can be judged.

and before a new president is chosen

does anyone truely believe that george w bush wanted to plunge america into war and economic upheaval?

1) There was no reason or purpose to the Iraq War.

2) Afghanistan/Al Qaeda - There was a window of about a year when we could have defeated al-Qaeda and 'won" the war in Afghanistan. That was SIX years ago. We are now mired in struggle that has provided little tangible results and is now threatening to spread into Pakistan.If it hasn't done so already.

Since he was running the show...he should take the lion's share of the blame.

He was dating Nixon's daughter. Truly a "fortunate son".

I think he's the only Bush with a Texas accent, to my ear.

He spent most of his life unfocused, and essentially as a drunk, up until the age of forty.

Here'a a man that , when asked about his happiest moment as President by a German paper, states that it was catching a fish.

The night of the invasion , he was quoted as saying "There wouldn't be any casualities."

With TWO degrees, he has a hard time expressing a thought (with no script) clearly, and mangles the English language to a point not seen since Yogi Bearer.

The team he surrrounds himself with is typically weak, all too often yes men, with little real ability on the issues. One doesn't have to be a genius to be President, one only needs to assemble a good team of people - and not bump into the furniture while letting them do their job.

As far as the great list of Bush ****ups, is it really fair to include

Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld....experienced, smart men.

Don't make the mistake of linking the mans intelligence with the way he speaks.

"little tangible results"? A democratically elected government openly hostile to the Taliban is not an important, tangible change?

And I suppose the continued violence is completely George Bush's fault?

While Bush certainly has his goons, such as Gonzales, I think it's unfair to paint a picture of his being surrounded by people who agree with him for the sake of it.

“I want somebody who can be an outstanding president, should something happen to me. I want somebody who’s got integrity and I want somebody who has independence. I want somebody who will tell me when they disagree with me.

“I don’t like having a lot of ‘yes’ people around me who are just telling me what I want to hear all the time. That’s part of what happened with George Bush. He surrounded himself with people who were of the same mind.

“As a consequence, once he started making mistakes on things like Iraq, they just kept on saying it was going OK, when it wasn’t. That’s a huge problem. That’s something that’s going to have to change.”

- Obama Barack

In Bob Woodward's highly anticipated new book, State of Denial, President Bush emerges as a passive, impatient, sophomoric and intellectually incurious leader, presiding over a grossly dysfunctional war Cabinet and given to an almost religious certainty that makes him disinclined to rethink or re-evaluate decisions he has made about the war.

As this new book's title indicates, Woodward now sees Bush as a president who lives in a state of willful denial about the worsening situation in Iraq, a president who insists he won't withdraw troops, even "if Laura and Barney are the only ones who support me." (Barney is Bush's Scottish terrier.) Woodward draws an equally scathing portrait of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who comes off as a bully and control freak who is reluctant to assume responsibility for his department's failures and who has surrounded himself with yes-men. Rumsfeld remains wedded to his plan to conduct the war with a lighter, faster force, even as the situation continues to deteriorate.

Woodward reports that after the 2004 election Andrew Card, then White House chief of staff, pressed for Rumsfeld's ouster (he recommended former Secretary of State James Baker as a replacement), and that Laura Bush shared his concern, worrying that Rumsfeld was hurting her husband's reputation. Vice President****Cheney, however, persuaded Bush to stay the course with Cheney's old friend Rumsfeld, arguing that any change might be perceived as an expression of doubt and hesitation on the war. Other members of the administration also come off poorly. Gen. Richard Myers is depicted as a weak chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who routinely capitulated to the will of Rumsfeld and who rarely offered an independent opinion. Former CIA director George Tenet is described as believing that the war against Iraq was a terrible mistake, but never expressing his feelings to the president. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who appears in this volume primarily in her former role as national security adviser) is depicted as a presidential enabler, ineffectual at her job of coordinating interagency strategy and planning. (See excerpt, left)

As depicted by Woodward, this is an administration in which virtually no one will speak truth to power, an administration in which the traditional policymaking process involving methodical analysis and debate is routinely subverted. He notes that experts - who recommended higher troop levels in Iraq, warned about the consequences of disbanding the Iraqi army or worried about the lack of postwar planning- were continually ignored by the White House and Pentagon leadership, or themselves failed, out of cowardice or blind loyalty, to press insistently their case for an altered course.

Earlier in the volume, in a section describing the former Iraq administrator Jay Garner's reluctance to tell the president about the mistakes he saw the Pentagon making in Iraq, Woodward writes: "It was only one example of a visitor to the Oval Office not telling the president the whole story or the truth. Likewise, in these moments where Bush had someone from the field there in the chair beside him, he did not press, did not try to open the door himself and ask what the visitor had seen and thought. The whole atmosphere too often resembled a royal court, with Cheney and Rice in attendance, some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news and a good time had by all."

Many of the people in this book seem not only dismayed but also flummoxed by some of President Bush's decisions. Woodward quotes Laura Bush as telling Andrew Card that she doesn't understand why her husband isn't upset about Rumsfeld and the uproar over his handling of the war. And he quotes Armitage as telling former Secretary of State Colin Powell that he's baffled by President Bush's reluctance to make adjustments in his conduct of the war.

"Has he thought this through?" Armitage asks. "What the president says in effect is, We've got to press on in honor of the memory of those who have fallen. Another way to say that is we've got to have more men fall to honor the memories of those who have already fallen."

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/08/Books/An_incurious_presiden.shtml

Seeing them in a contextual way , and seeing how they are all symptomatic of the measure of the man ?

Well, in the case of all three I will give you their intelligence.

One man, Powell, left because he could no longer abide with the group of neocons he was facing and their actions.

Rumsfeld, certainly an intelligent man, was one of the main causes of the problems in Iraq. He lacked any military sense, and was more a CEO who didn't understand why CEO's don't typically lead armies. That's why he was replaced, far too late.

Cheney , this Cheney, was the same man who (right after Desert Storm) gave the Nostradamus like prophecy of why Iraq WASN'T invaded that PRECISELY gave the reasons it was bound to fail - as it did.

When coupled with his decisions, and his actions, and more importantly the end results of both, it becomes a valid observation.

Because he was the main person pushing for the war in Iraq, it's HIS decision (one that he was responsible for making) to go into Iraq before the job was finished in Afghanistan.

Actually the world DID know Saddam didn't have weapons. Remember the whole treasonous outing of a CIA agent was in retaliation for her husband's pointing out that one of the key pieces of evidence being used was phony.

I would refer you to 'The Utterly Clueless Joe Wilson' http://www.slate.com/id/2140058/

'From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country,'. And if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.' ''

- Robert McNeil,
member of the National Security Council circa 2001
'The Price of Loyalty, Ron Suskind
[

At a meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Bush at the White House on 31 January 2003, Mr Blair urged the President to try to obtain a second UN resolution giving specific backing for the war. Mr Bush gave qualified support for going down the UN route. But, according to The Mail on Sunday, President Bush was only going through the motions - and, the paper adds: "Mr Blair not only knew it, but went along with it."

Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, had claimed in his memoirs that Britain failed to use its influence to hold back the American march to war against Iraq. In his book, he describes that meeting between the President and Tony Blair.

"We are all milling around in the State dining room as Bush and Blair put the final touches to what they were going to say to the media," he wrote.

"Bush had a notepad on which he had written a form of words on the second resolution. He read it out ... There was silence. I waited for Blair to say he needed something as supportive as possible. He said nothing. I waited for somebody on the No 10 team to say something. Nothing was said.

"I cursed myself afterwards for not piping up. At the press conference, Bush gave only a perfunctory and luke-warm support for a second resolution.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/blair-and-bush-conspired-to-go-to-war-
regardless-of-united-nations-525024.html

There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

- "Downing Street Memo" detailing British government concerns about the impending war, and it's real reasons.

It doesn't mean there isn't justification for war.

and yet, the STATED reason for the invasion, and then occupation, of Iraq changed. First, it was that we were invading, not nation building. That Iraq could support itself. Then, it was that we were there weapons of mass destruction, except for every report saying there wasn't. Then it was to stop Saddam from being a threat to his neighbors. Then it was to build democracy--after we refused to allow voting, then deciding it was good for PR--here.

If the stated reason for invading Iraq had been real, it wouldn't have changed so much. You engage in policy with clear, stated goals...otherwise, you end up flopping around and spending money with no way to measure success and exit, as anyone who opposes social programs are quick to point out :)

Opium sales, from Afganistan, are at an all time high and filling the Taliban's pockets.

a democratically-elected government openly hostile to insurgents is about as important in Afganistan as it is in Iraq...which according to everyone, isn't doing anything to stablize the country.

Like I always say, replace GB's name with "Clinton". Would he escape the blame if the same things happened under his watch? Funny how no one can answer this question honestly

Could you please explain what the justification for the war were and not your personal opinion, but facts...