Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << He's presided over the most uninformed war of modern times and the current housing and mortgage crisis is only beginning to unravel. He's a disaster. >> But if you own stock in ExxonMobil or are a defense contractor, he's been a godsend.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 From ecdc's link in #19: "We're not thinking through the impact of abetting further corruption and perpetuating tribal power," said a senior US military adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity." The Bush Administration not thinking through the consequences of their actions in Iraq? Why start now, I guess.
Originally Posted By ecdc Here's a Times article I knewe I'd read at some point: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11 /29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=</a>%22Concerned+Local+Citizens%22&oref=slogin They're called the "Concerned Local Citizens". Yeah, it sounds like it's straight out of Baghdad, doesn't it? Not an American sounding name at all. Like these articles point out, the program is driving violence down, and it's hard in the short-term to find fault with that. The problem is, as the articles also mention, that at some point we're going to leave, or our troop levels will go down, and the people we've been paying will be left with lots of money. Will they use it to only escalate the Iraqi Civil War between Sunni and Shia? Ironically, this is the kind of problem we've found ourselves in before. We supplied the Afghani's with weapons and money against the Russians, and it came back and bit us. We supported Saddam in the 1980s during the Iraq/Iran conflict; again, it turned out badly in the end. While less violence is always good, we haven't learned our lesson when we side with very questionable "allies". The old axiom, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't always fly.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Then can I be the writer formerly known as prince of the typos? I've got my little squiggly logo all planned out.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn I can't imagine what Bush-haters would say about Lincoln if they lived during his age and time.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Neither can I, because the similarities end with the fact that they were both US presidents.
Originally Posted By Mr X They're both male, married, and presided over a war(s). Seriously, I love how Bush says his favorite president is Lincoln because "we're both wartime presidents" and all that. Bet if you asked him, he couldn't speak 5 minutes about Lincoln and what he'd accomplished (unless that means repeating "great wartime president" a hundred times).
Originally Posted By woody >>Bet if you asked him, he couldn't speak 5 minutes about Lincoln and what he'd accomplished (unless that means repeating "great wartime president" a hundred times).<< President Bush: February 2005 <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050211-9.html" target="_blank">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news /releases/2005/02/20050211-9.html</a> In his readings tonight, Sam noted that it was on this very day back in 1861 that Abraham Lincoln said good-bye to his home in Springfield, Illinois, never to return. Over the next four years, from this house, Lincoln would endure a bitter civil war that included terrible defeats, as well as ringing victories; he'd sign the Emancipation Proclamation -- right upstairs -- and he would live to see his hopes for peace and unity rewarded before his life was taken at Ford's Theater on Good Friday, 1865. The Civil War was decided on the battlefield; the larger fight for America's soul was waged with Lincoln's words. In his own day, Lincoln set himself squarely against a culture that held that some human beings were not intended by their Maker for freedom. And as President, he acted in the conviction that holding the Union together was the only way to hold America true to the founding promise of freedom and equality for all. And that is why, in my judgment, he was America's greatest President. We're familiar with the words of the Gettysburg Address, and the Second Inaugural, so eloquently read by Sam. And this performance reminds us that Lincoln wrote his words to be spoken aloud -- to persuade, to challenge, and to inspire. Abraham Lincoln was a master of the English language, but his true mother tongue was liberty. I hope that every American might have the experience we had here tonight, to hear Lincoln's words delivered with Lincoln's passion, and to leave with a greater appreciation for what these words of freedom mean in our own time. Thank you all again. Please join us at the reception. And may God continue to bless our great land. (Applause.) --------- What about freedom?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Abraham Lincoln was a master of the English language<< Something unlikely to be said of President "Nuke-U-Lur" Bush.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Well let's give woody a chance on this one ... Do you really see parallels between bush and lincoln?
Originally Posted By dshyates They are both Republican presidents who waged economic warfare on their own people. Lincoln freed the slaves, not out of humanitarian reasons, but to banqurupt the South by freeing their workforce. It was a brilliant move and probably saved the country. President Bush has flooded the country with illegal labor, given tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas, and unleashed the Mortgage debacle onto the country. Aside from that he started a "pre-epmtive war" to ratchet up the military industrial complex. And it has nothing to do with oil. It ONLY has to do with the no bid contracts to Haliburton and its subsideraries like Blackwater. Haliburton has made over $200 BILLION taxpayer dollars since the war started. Oh, and there is the collateral damage of 4000 American soldiers and over 600,000 iraqi civilians dead. The World court really has quite an investigation ahead of them. And this administration will be lucky not to be hung.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 Here's another fun little tidbit from our current Administration: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200 80116/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail</a> "The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever. The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide. Among the e-mails that could be lost are messages swapped by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking a CIA officer's identity to reporters" How convenient...
Originally Posted By Mr X Backup computer "tapes"? What the fudge does THAT mean? In this day and age, to copy over data? Totally criminal. Criminal, and nothing more. For THE WHITE HOUSE? Like they don't consider keeping those records important? Freakin criminals. (I use "freakin", obviously, to avoid any community violations...but ya'll know what I mean)
Originally Posted By DVC_dad <<<<Something unlikely to be said of President "Nuke-U-Lur" Bush.>>>> LOL !!! yeah no kidding!
Originally Posted By DVC_dad <<<"Obama can't win." Talk about a non sequitur. Who said anything here about Obama?>>> I was repsonding to : <<<I suspect that we're more likely to see honesty and integrity in an obama administration than we would in second clinton one. He represents a clean break with the past, and the entrenched and corrupted forces of power within the government. >>> I suppose I should have said, "Well it is pointless to speculate about Obama at all because he will not be the next POTUS." <<<non sequitur>>> Hummm where's my dictionary?
