<p>"I don’t think he has been a very good judge of people. "</p>
<p>I have come to agree with that as well.</p>
<p>“All three were EXTREMELY homogenous populations, with industrialized economies. In other words, all three had the pre-conditions for democratic nation bulding.”</p>
<p>Right. We also made wise decisions about ways to allow these countries to save face. For example, we let Japan keep their Emperor even though we’d held out for an unconditional surrender. This was a critical part of winning over the population and </p>
<p>Did you notice, a few pages back, that in the neocon worldview, the bad publicity surrounding Abu Ghraib and the ensuing damage to the image of the US is the fault of the New York Times for printing the pictures of torture, not of the military leadership for, you know, COMMITTING the torture? If the press is reporting ugly truths, the solution is to clean up the underlying ugliness, not to blame the press for refusing to help hide it.</p>
<p>“I don’t think he has been a very good judge of people.”</p>
<p>What kills me about this is that a tenet of the 2000 campaign was: sure, he’s inexperienced, but he’ll surround himself with wise and knowledgeable people! If only we’d known then what we know now.</p>
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<p>Interesting post. Just a point of historical information: the Chinese and the Soviets had fallen out well before we had the Nixon rapprochement; it’s just that Nixon (and Kissinger) were smart enough to seize on it. And who benefited as much as anyone from this were the Chinese who liked to play the two off one another. Of course, it’s always easy to fall into the mode where we conceive everything that happens in the world, as Kurth does here.</p>
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<p>I have wondered about this myself. On balance, I think the instability added into the region by this would add an element on insecurity to our major strategic interests in the region, oil and Israel.</p>
<p>However, I don’t see much evidence that our presence is doing anything but denying a little oxygen to the conflagration of civil war in Iraq (which will erupt into flames when we leave whether it now or ten years from now) and meanwhile is a spur to Al Qaeda and the recruitment of anti-US jihadists.</p>
<p>If you believe this:</p>
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<p>Then I think the prudent thing to do is stop wasting our money in Iraq, pull back from a place where we are growing rather than subduing Islamic jihadist terrorists, and focus our efforts on the kinds of things that will genuinely make us safer, namely</p>
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<p>and by firming up our borders, increasing our police-type surveillance worldwide, and pursuing diplomacy aggressively in areas where that would help.</p>
<p>Post above continued:</p>
<p>Among many things the world should have learned from 9/11 and similar events since in Europe and Turkey and even Bali is that it is a diffuse, sometimes networked, set of jihadists that are undertaking these various actions. The attackers come from all over the world. Attacking one country, as we have done, is like closing a window in a house without walls to try to keep out mosquitoes – and meanwhile filling up tubs of water around the house where the critters can multiply. We need to seal off our house to the best of our abilities (as much as a large country with relatively open borders can) and stop filling up ponds where they can multiply. And the tragic thing is, in the case of Iraq, there weren’t mosquitoes coming through that window (except to attack Israel through Saddam’s rewards to suicide bombers’ families). We need to act through surveillance, and undercover, to deny them suitcase nukes that they can somehow get here. </p>
<p>In fact, there are lot of good things to do with the money we are wasting in Iraq. These may be hard notions to communicate – I have really smart friends who see Iraq as a way to keep the “enemy” busy and who don’t pay attention to, or can’t even really grasp, the reports of Al Qaeda alive and well and revitalizing itself outside of Iraq – but our leaders need to educate us that there are no “easy” solutions such as bombing a country into submission or out of existence. No, we will not be assimilated into some grand Islamofascist Borg-Bogeyman as some claim, but it is true that great damage can be done to us by rogue attackers who seek some kind of grand Caliphate where Islam is on top. Will attackers follow us back from Iraq if/when we leave? They won’t need to; others are at work trying to recreate 9/11 style events, and they are not in Iraq.</p>
<p>George Will, a conservative commentator in the true, not neocon, sense of the word conservative, pointed out the fact that war is an ineffective strategy in his Washington Post column called The Triumph of Unrealism:</p>
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<p>Full article:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401163.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401163.html</a></p>
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<p>This “rationale” is a typical administration red herring. Whether we are mired down in Iraq or not, al Qaeda is intent on causing another major blow to the American economy via another attack on American soil.</p>
<p>Plus, the side-effect of the fighting in Iraq is that Muslim extremists from all over the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, North Africa and Europe are returning home even more radicalized and trained in the latest insurgent tactics (some of whom, no doubt, will eventually find their way to the US).</p>
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<p>Plus, let’s not forget these populations endured years of war, were willing to follow the different paths taken by their post-war govts. and had a prior history with democratic institutions.</p>
<p>The Japanese govt. was also very wary of an invasion by the Red Army (considering the number of rapes Soviet troops are reputed to have — on German women, these fears were well …)</p>
<p>The Bush administration and neocons really have a poor/warped view of world history.</p>
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<p>Ironically, the countries which have originated the largest numbers of al Qaeda terrorists are from US “allies” - Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan (prior to the invasion, Iraqis had other things to worry about - not to mention the fact that Saddam would have skewered anyone he caught propagating al Qaeda ideology on Iraq).</p>
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<p>Interesting how Bush is late to the energy independence stand (uhh, shouldn’t this have been addressed like 4-5 years ago?) and his stand is more words than substance (big surprise).</p>
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<p>The shortage of troops was a problem. Everyone with in-depth knowledge of past history with occupation knew that the American forces were well below the ratio of what historically has been necessary for occupation in a hostile country.</p>
<p>We didn’t even have enough troops to guard the weapons stockpiles or (ironically enough) the Iraqi facilities which stored nuclear waste and other by-products of Saddam’s previous attempts of manufacturing WMDs (looters would take drums filled with nuclear waste in order to use them for storing water to or sell as scrap metal). Of course, there were enough troops to secure the oil/petro facilities.</p>
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<p>Same reaction to the conditions at Walter Reed; same reaction to the exposure of Foley’s predation; same reaction to news that the administrations’s decision to leave the munitions dumps in Iraq unsecured has been linked by the GAO to MOST of the US casualties. </p>
<p>It’s a very familiar pattern of behavior to those who have worked with compulsive gamblers and other addicts. The problem is never the damage the addiction does–the real villian is always the despairing friend or family member who can’t keep the secret anymore.</p>
<p>The “hear no evil” management style continues as well. The administration found a “yes-man” in Adm. Fallon to head up Centcom. </p>
<p>According to Martha Raddatz who travelled with Fallon to Iraq this week, he “repeatedly cut officers off at the knees” while they were reporting to him, saying that he didn’t want to hear about their plans unless they produced “immediate” results. Raddatz reported that there was considerable eye-rolling among the veteran Iraq commanders at Fallon’s demands for immediate results.</p>
<p>I can’t help thinking that the billions spent in Iraq could do a lot to make our borders considerably less porous.</p>
<p>“I can’t help thinking that the billions spent in Iraq could do a lot to make our borders considerably less porous.”</p>
<p>This is the issue about which I feel most passion and is part of the reason why I stay out of most of the Iraq discussions (my personal conflict). But we could have more secure borders if there were first a commitment to same!!!</p>
<p>I’m late to this thread so forgive me for answering some questions asked a few pages back.
What makes me think Dubya is smart? I start with an article written by Lanny Davis, bakc during the Bush-Gore race. Davis was obviously a Gore supporter, as he is a Democratic operative, but he bristled at the liberal media attacking Bush as stupid and mean-spirited. Davis went to college with Bush, and was in his fraternity. And he believed Bush was very bright, and very sensitive to other peope and their feeling - he recounted several stories about this. Since then, my brother has met Bush several times, and also concluded based on conversations they have had - not scripted - that this is a bright man.
Is that to say he has not made some horrendous decisions? No. But he is handicapped in some ways by an apparent belief in happy endings - he is an optimist in a world that tends to crush optimists.
Has he been a great president?- I’d have to say no. But absent 9/11, in a kinder, gentler world, perhaps he would have been. I believe firmly that Clinton, or Gore, or Kerry, faced with 9/11, would have reacted passively, would not have gone into Afghanistan, and while we would have avoided the Iraq disater, I think we would have paid dearly for that passive stance. So despite Bush’s mistakes, if I had to vote all over again between Bush and Gore, or Bush and Kerry, I’m still voting for Bush.
Think back to 9/12, or 9/13 - what would you have bet that we would suffer another attack on these shores, and soon? What would you have bet that we would avoid another attack for almost six years and counting? I give credit to that to the Bush administration. Other’s don’t, but would surely have blamed them if there were more attacks.
I lost good friends on 9/11. So now, on the single issue most important to me and my family, our safety as we walk down the street or go to the office, I give Bush an A. (And please don’t recite studies to me telling me we are less safe - the proof is in the pudding.)</p>
<p>“Think back to 9/12, or 9/13 - what would you have bet that we would suffer another attack on these shores, and soon? What would you have bet that we would avoid another attack for almost six years and counting?”</p>
<p>Since it was more than 6 years between the first WTC attack and second, I would have bet that the pattern would continue. Whom do you credit for al Qaeda’s lack of attacks on American soil between 1993 and 2001?</p>
<p>I’m also mystified by the idea that al Qaeda attacks on our dearest allies, or on our embassies and ships overseas, somehow don’t count as attacks against our society and our economy and our way of life. If I live in Kansas City, why should I be so much more threatened when al Qaeda is killing commuters in New York on a particular day instead of Madrid or London? No matter which of those cities they happen to target at the moment, I’m not in physical danger, but my society is.</p>
<p>Hanna - fair point on the 1993-2001 gap (see, we can disagree reasonably). But the trauma of 1993 didn’t instill the daily fear in me that the coordinated 2001 attack did. I live in NY, and we stepped very gingerly for a long time after 9/11. And yes, I give crddit to Bush for the fact that we have been safe since.
As to your other point - again, I live in NYC. I expect the New York police to protect me. When people are murdered in Philadelphia, I grieve, but I don’t blame the NYC police, and don’t fault them for not protecting the folks in Philly. So I expect the administration to protect Amercian soil. And while I grieve for Spaniards and Brits killed by terrorists, that does not fall on Bush’s head.</p>
<p>“. I live in NY, and we stepped very gingerly for a long time after 9/11. And yes, I give crddit to Bush for the fact that we have been safe since.
As to your other point - again, I live in NYC”</p>
<p>I live in NYC too and I think we still step a bit more gingerly than before. How could we not? Safety is the most important issue for me as well, which is why I’m a “Security Mom for Bush.” The border is a major cause of concern, as is what I consider denial of many Americans.</p>
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<p>The London subway bombings might have been prevented if the boobs in the Bush Administration had bothered to pass along information about the ringleader to the British government.</p>
<p>To get around constitutional issues, our allies data mined US citizens and we data mined theirs. We uncovered major terrorist links for the seeminly quiet British citizen. In fact, we put him on a do not fly list hours before he tried to board a flight to the US (after a long debate about allowing him to come and putting a major FBI tail on him). The British first learned of him after he had organized the bombing of the London subway.</p>
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<p>The irony of this statement baffles me. The fact is Clinton was derided by many and especially right-wing critics for taking an overly aggressive stance, following the Africa embassy bombings, with respect to for instance bombings in Sudan where it was thought weapons were being produced. He tried to take out Bin Laden. And he left dire warnings with the Bush Administration about them. I am not saying you can blame the Bush Administration for 9/11 – we just weren’t prepared as a society though people in the Clinton Administration made efforts to see that we were – but you certainly can’t paint one party as passive and another as active. It’s frankly ridiculous to do so.</p>
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<p>That is a devastatingly large allowance given that more soldiers have died in Iraq than in the WTC attacks. And the war has been a rallying cry and recruiting tool for those who will enact the next attacks on us. </p>
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<p>Just as you can’t blame Bush or Clinton or any one Administration for 9/11 in my view (though the Bush Adminstration can clearly be faulted for its passivity), you also need to take the long, and broad, view about what makes us safer. [Putting aside the fact of attacks on our allies that someone justifiably pointed out.] Iraq is a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. We didn’t finish Afghanistan and it is reverting back to the conditions that gave rise to the Taliban. And the Bush Administration castigated Clinton’s approach to N. Korea for several years before getting to a policy that is not far different – after that country built several bombs for export.</p>
<p>If you’re living in a building where piles of newspapers are being hoarded by its occupants, people cook with open flame, and there are no fire alarm systems, you don’t conclude because you made it through another day without a fire that you are safer. You observe basic realities. It is simplistic to say the proof is in the pudding.</p>
<p>It’s tough to even know where to start in replying to Bedhead’s post. How do you answer revisionist history - Clinton tried to take out Bin Laden?? He passed up every opportunity to do that. How much did his failure to act decisively embolden Islamo-fascists? But I don’t blame Clinton for 9/11 - I blame the animals who perpetrated it.
How do you respond to someone who says in one sentence that it is ridiculous to paint one side as passive and one as aggressive and then blames 9/11 on Bush’s passivity? The Iraq was is a disaster, and I don’t defend it. But the notion that the fact that more soldiers have died there than people who died on 9/11 is relevant in and of itself is nonsense. More soldiers died the first day at Iwo Jima than died at pearl Harbor.
Anyway, when you have to resort to “boobs in the Bush administration”, there really isn’t much point in looking for an rational a dialogue with you. So further sayeth I naught.</p>
<p>And how’s Bush doing on “taking out Bin Laden” these days?</p>
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<p>Actually the record indicates your view is the revisionist one.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/shifa.htm[/url]”>http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/shifa.htm</a></p>
<p>Calling Bush passive is different from blaming him for 9/11. The Bush Administration did not pay attention to warnings that were clear and decisive. But it’s true that most of America lived in a different world then. It can be also argued with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that Clinton was too passive too, EVEN THOUGH HE DID TRY TO TAKE OUT BIN-LADEN.</p>
<p>Here are some examples of Clinton’s timidity pre-9/11. It’s interesting to see how George “Slam Dunk” Tenet is implicated here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62725-2001Dec18¬Found=true[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62725-2001Dec18¬Found=true</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/47655/911_panel_us_lacked_info_on_bin_laden/index.html[/url]”>http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/47655/911_panel_us_lacked_info_on_bin_laden/index.html</a></p>
<p>But whereas the Clinton Administration can be seen to be timid, the Bush Administration pre-9/11 was downright asleep at the wheel vis-a-vis Bin Laden.</p>
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I agree that it’s irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether ipso facto it was worth fighting (there are plenty of other damning pieces of evidence in that regard), but given your rather flip dismissal about such a major foreign policy blunder that has cost so much treasure as well as lives and left us less safe, it was a reasonable rhetorical riposte in my view. </p>
<p>Since the question at hand is whether Bush was smart, which presumably also encompasses judgement as a consideration, giving him such a pass on a discretionary war that has killed dozens of thousands of Iraqis as well as more Americans than were killed in the WTC event, seemed rather facile is all.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, in my post awhile back, I never claimed that Bush didn’t have some native intelligence. I just said he didn’t have enough, and he didn’t have what it takes to be a good president. As a result, he’ll be viewed, in my estimation, as one of the worst. Especially given his grand blunder in Iraq.</p>
<p>And by the way, from your original post, 9/11 greatly aided the view of Bush as president. People rallied around him and his steadily declining poll numbers shot way up at that point. Yes, it may have emboldened him to make his grevious Iraq mistake, but he sure had a lot of goodwill to work with after 9/11. It’s downright amazing he has come so far down in the view of most Americans. Such has been his failure; it’s not the failure of a leader whose vision is too bold and far-reaching as he likes to portray, but of someone just not up to the task.</p>
<p>The irony of this statement:
How to describe such a logical malaprop as this… “can’t paint one party as passive and another as active” while actively doing just that…hmmmm…
very well said, sir. </p>
<p>You have met the enemy and defeated him; though such self-inflicted and psycho-dramatic battle-wounds cannot be good for your self esteem; I’d have that looked at; you may have internal thought-bleeding.</p>
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Certainly, we can all agree with the wisdom of your underlying premise:
In the boffo annals of liberal heroism, George Bush is no Ho Chi Min.</p>
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<p><a href=“though%20the%20Bush%20Adminstration%20can%20clearly%20be%20faulted%20for%20its%20passivity”>quote</a>
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<p>Let me explain my clumsy distinctions and apologize for my apparently nonsensical statement.</p>
<p>In FBTP’s original post, Clinton, Kerry, and Gore were grouped together, all democrats. And their responses were assumed to be the same – i.e., of total passivity. And if you are going to make this kind of generalization, I was saying, at least get your facts straight about the one president whose record is manifest. </p>
<p>And I honestly believe that regarding pre-9/11 after which the fears were ratcheted way up and our vigilance was too, it is pointless to spend a lot of energy painting one part or the other as at fault in the face of the threat.</p>
<p>If you go down that road, you know what my views are. Chris Wallace’s attack on Clinton painted that president’s efforts in a wildy unfair light. Especially given that in its early days, the Bush Administration specifically sat back in response to clear warnings from the departing Administration.</p>
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<p>I like your witticisms through these threads, DPX. I guess you’re trying for something Dorothy Parker-esque, Dorothy_ParkerX.</p>
<p>I laugh at them, but learn nothing. Laughing is sometimes enough.</p>