Thread: Watching Bush Free-Fall

Our boys and girls are in a shooting war. They are locked in mortal combat with terrorists. I could care less about politics right now, or the price of gas, or what Europe thinks, and most of all John "flakey" Kerry. Having soldiers die in combat is much,much preferable to having civilians dieing on American streets.

Any American who's playing petty political games with the blood of those kids ought to be ashamed of themselves. This war had to be fought and Iraq is just the beginning....................................take care.............Rich

^ Brilliant analysis.

The terrorists are in Iraq BECAUSE Hussein was REMOVED.

The person playing politics with the blood of American soldiers is Baby Bush.

The Political Science 101 chat room is down the hall and to the left. Check it out.

I don't see it as Bush free falling so much as peeps in his cabinet letting him down. Couple that with his inability to admit wrongdoing and he is not all that appealing to the voting public. IMO, he needs to assert himself more and perhaps getting rid of Rumsfeld may just do that. It is apparent that what we have been doing is not working over there so maybe switching it up is the thing to do. People do not follow leaders that they love, they follow ones they fear. Nevertheless, there is a long time before November so anything can happen. It surprises me that Kerry has alead now considering he has yet to choose a running mate.

Make no mistake about it, the terrorits are over in Iraq because that area breeds terrorism, or at least what we see as terrorsim. I imagine to a few of the folks over there that we are the terrorists.

"""""""The terrorists are in Iraq BECAUSE Hussein was REMOVED"""""""

Gee a regular Einstein. what do you suppose Hussein was? a boyscout? How many cash suitcases did HE give familys who sent their kids toddleing out with bombs strapped onto their bodies? How much terror did he inflict on the Iraqi people? On Israel? On Kuwait? How about dropping sarin on the Kurds? Or attempting to assasinate a former US president? You gotta be from europe Snafu.

What do you know about military service or sacrafice? Even worse you sound like a big enough nit-wit to believe all these media reports like they were gold. As long, of course, as they fit your personal politics.

Some people are so far behind in the race they think their winning..............take care............Rich

i agree with everything rich46 has said

Originally posted by Rich46yo
"""""""The terrorists are in Iraq BECAUSE Hussein was REMOVED"""""""

Gee a regular Einstein. what do you suppose Hussein was? a boyscout? How many cash suitcases did HE give familys who sent their kids toddleing out with bombs strapped onto their bodies? How much terror did he inflict on the Iraqi people? On Israel? On Kuwait? How about dropping sarin on the Kurds? You gotta be from europe Snafu.

What do you know about military service or sacrafice? Even worse you sound like a big enough nit-wit to believe all these media reports like they were gold. As long, of course, as they fit your personal politics.

Some people are so far behind in the race they think their winning..............take care............Rich

Interesting. I don't think that anyone with disagree that Iraq is a better place with Hussein gone or that he was a monster, but I do believe the point that Mr_Snafu is trying to make is that the terrorists *that Bush was talking about going after* were not in Iraq before the war. There has not been any shred of prove of a link between Hussein and Al Qaeda.

There is no question Hussein hated America, but he wouldn't have funded attacks on US soil because he knew that we would come into Iraq (such as for Kuwait - except more thoroughly) and crush him. He was a monster, but not a completely stupid one.

Personally, that is one of my problems with Bush. The heartstrings of Americans were played with to attack Iraq. Yes, he never said that Hussein was responsible for 9/11, but in every speech Hussein's name was not far behind Bush saying 9/11. After so many speeches, it is natural to associate the two together when they are always included together. Round two of Pavlov's dogs........

Did Iraq have to be attacked to address the terrorist issue? One point is the dramatic increase of independent "terrorist cells" that have sprung up around the world, completely unrelated to Al Qaeda. (Just read your world news.) The war in Iraq has also served as a rallying cry for news members and new groups - especially in the wake of prison abuse scandal, etc. As in the "war on terror", I think that the war in Iraq has only hurt our cause.

Don't take this as in me being one of those people who are dead-set against the war. There is, unfortunately, a trend which I have been noticing that people refuse to discuss points of an issue. Things aren't about issues anymore. If I question anything about the Bush administration's way of handling things, I seem to be labeled as one of those idiots who run around with "Impeach Bush" stickers on everything they own. I disagreed with going to war, but now we are in Iraq. Now is the time for debate, BUT at the same time, full support. In-house bickering will get us nowhere. Stop with the blame game. Fu** that, we have men and women over there fighting for their lives. We need fix this thing as quick as possible (but stable) and get our boy and girls out of there. We can not force democracy on Iraq while we are there. We can set the stage, but now we have starting taking the role of invaders in the minds of an increasing amount of Iraqis.

Noting the reference to military service; I have been over to Iraq and the Persian Gulf several times while I was active duty in the military.

I am a wee bit concerned over a thing I heard this weekend at a private one-on-one dinner party I attended with a colleague fairly high up and “connected” to inside cabinet level info. He is one of those guys that “tells it like it is” and lets the policy makers decide what to do without holding punches or the facts. In fact that reputation had earned him the honor of being personally chewed out by Colin Powell and scolded and ignored by Condoleezza Rice on separate occasions about some developing “OGA” issues he was trying to advise them about. Any way, he is a highly reliable source and tells me that there are some unsettling personal issues among certain of the cabinet staff. Seems that there is some internal dissention and lack of team work due to a very tight inner circle (wont name precisely who is involved) that won’t let the other members “in” to participate on some important decisions. At any rate, the cabinet at large is all super qualified and unfortunately with this caliber of personnel there are some big ego’s in there that can not tolerate being second fiddle to the others. Bottom line, Secretary of State Powell will apparently quite likely resign "for personal reasons" at the end of the term. There are also other factors about his ability to support certain presidential policies (which shall remain unmentioned) too. This could have a very significant impact on the elections – especially among the emerging and highly respected conservative black voting populace that have been coming into the Republic Party in large numbers. I am personally counting on Colin to be his normal ultra professional self if this scenario in fact does come down. He is doing the honorable thing in resigning if he has become marginalized among his peers and can not support the president’s policies in the important capacity he is in. But if he makes a scene and lets out the inside details it could cost the President at least 3-5%. It also might open the door for some exciting new possibilities. We will just have to wait and see.

OD

If Colin Powell goes will he take his son with him?

I watched Colin Powell in an interview the other day and from the way he was talking he is very upset with GWB and others on how they have handled this situation. He said that we were not prepared and didn't have a follow through plan.

This was my concern when they appointed a military guy to the position of Secretary of State. He can't get out of the military analysis role and look at things from the perspective of diplomacy and statesmanship. It requires a different mind set and a different kind of neuron mappings. The one thing a good Secretary of State must be able to do is to completely stand behind the policy decisions of the President and put on the best public face as possible.


Right now Colin reminds me of Dr. Strangelove and the conflict he had with his self willed gloved hand trying to strangle himself from time to time with an involuntary reflexive action. When Colin speaks about matters relating to the office of Secretary of State he seems to have this Dr. Strangelove like “twich” that attempts to want to take over and strangle himself and make him remember that he is really a soldier not a statesman. Watch him sometime – it’s really there.

-OD

Originally posted by Rich46yo
"""""""The terrorists are in Iraq BECAUSE Hussein was REMOVED"""""""

Gee a regular Einstein. what do you suppose Hussein was? a boyscout? How many cash suitcases did HE give familys who sent their kids toddleing out with bombs strapped onto their bodies?

I assume you are referring to the suicide bombers in Israel. That is Israel's problem, not America's. What has Israel done for the U.S.? Nothing. Israel is at war, let them fight their apartheid battle.

How much terror did he inflict on the Iraqi people? On Israel? On Kuwait? How about dropping sarin on the Kurds? Or attempting to assasinate a former US president? You gotta be from europe Snafu.

Saddam was an evil, terrible man. So was the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. North Korea is as bad or worse than Hussein. North Korea is a direct threat to the mainland United States.

If the U.S. is going to depose an evil person, they should pick the ones that directly or indirectly affect the U.S.

Originally posted by OceanDude
This was my concern when they appointed a military guy to the position of Secretary of State. He can't get out of the military analysis role and look at things from the perspective of diplomacy and statesmanship.

-OD

I would think that the way we went into this war was prolly the most un-diplomatic way possible, going against the UN and such.

As a more or less appalled, and not-nearly-far-enough-outside-observer-thank-you-very-much, I found this here link very interesting.
http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbuti...rhimanyway.com

Originally posted by Dale Mabry
I would think that the way we went into this war was prolly the most un-diplomatic way possible, going against the UN and such.

Dale, this may be true but it also became vividly clear to me that much of the world that had been previously calling us friends in reality our most covert enemies who were working at direct odds to our national interests. France in particular was an eye opener for me as well as certain elements of Germany and even Russia. This conflict forced everyone to show their poker hands and it was obvious to me that France Germany and Russia were secretly working behind the scenes (for quiet some time apparently) to build an alliance against us long before we even actively took up this conflict. As it turns out the reason they did not support us was because they are up to their necks in dirty kick back money and so is a serious part of the UN. We were absolutely right in not permitting the rest of the world to decide on issues that related to our own sovereign rights. I am actually amazed that the UN is still in existence and I think in future months as the words get out how corrupt they were and when the money leads straight to France and elsewhere it is going to be a very dangerous world to be in. Important people will be throwing a lot of money at our enemies to distract us and to prevent us from exposing them. This is the stuff that makes and breaks societies and nations. We have not seen anything yet - trust me. We live in very evil and dangerous times and I really don’t think the majority over here quite comprehend just how corrupt and dangerous it is right now.

OD

Everybody should read the 9/11 timeline. Just search for it in google. You will find many interesting things out about the Bush administration. Everything is backed up by written sources so I think that it is credible.

I thought it be easier if I just posted the link. There is a ton links so it will take a long time to look through. I had to write a paper for school so I was able to scan through a lot of them.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/p...ct=911_project

"""""""'I assume you are referring to the suicide bombers in Israel. That is Israel's problem, not America's. What has Israel done for the U.S.? Nothing. Israel is at war, let them fight their apartheid battle."""""""

No its not just Israel's problem. Saddam has destabalized the MidEast ever since he murdered his way into office and been a big factor is the derailing of every peace initiative ever started between the Israelis and Palistinians. Some of you young people seem to think this war only started on 9/11/2001. I got news for you, this war has been going on for over 30 years. These Islamic fundementalist groups were killing Americans even before I served in the MidEast. We were always under terrorist alerts back then. I had a few friends killed by them.
The evil cabal of Arab nations has always funded terrorism but of them all Saddam was the most dangerous.
""""I would think that the way we went into this war was prolly the most un-diplomatic way possible, going against the UN and such."""

This benign veiw of the UN, by Americans , is very dangerous. The UN has worked against our interests almost exclusively. Its given a voice to all kinds of tyrants,dictators,strongmen,presidents for life thru its history. Its also a very corrupt institution, concerned only in accumulating more of its own power. Investigate the oil for food fiasco if you want to find the real truth about the UN. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/I..._040420-1.html The world, and to many people here, have fallen under this misinformation camapign that the UN is some "higher" organization, kinda like "The United Federation Of Planets", that holds the future of mankind to a higher standard. The reality is its a secret,corrupt,veiled organization consumed with accumulating its own power and answerable to no-one but itself.

The UN has been incapable of resolving any conflict without the involvement of both the American taxpayer and the American military. We cut down what were donateing to the UN,"yes its charter only calls for donations and not members fees", and currently fund 22% of its operating costs and 28% of its peacekeeping costs. Now you would think that a nation of 270 million, in a world of 7 billion, that gives that much of its wealth to this whore of an organization would at least get a fair shake in it. Wouldnt you?

What dude has also said is very true and I wont repeat it. The world of terrorism is so shadowy,interconnected, and full of secret alliances that we cant afford to only think Al Qaeda is our enemy. We know who supports terrorism, weve always known. All these Islamic terrorist groups have always hated America, The various Arab dictatorships have always supported them . Those filthy Saudis even secretly supported Al Qaeda with the understanding they wouldnt attack the filthy house of Saud, or attack the Saudi mainland. Saudi Arabia itself heavily fiananced Saddams nuclear weapons infrustructure in the 70s,and 80s. They only stopped fiananceing it when the Gulf War broke out in '91.http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...udi/index.html

And of all these robe wearing fucking cocksuckers Saddam was the worst. He was always the most dangerous. And weve always know he has ran secret terrorist training programshttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/analyses/ishe.html. Even now foreign terrorists are meshing with the terrorists from Saddams fedyadeen with practiced military precision. As to his WMDs? We gave him years and years to conceal these weapons. The Iraqis themselves admit they had tons of stocks and chemical precursors that they still cannot account for. And there is growing evidence that Saddam sent what he had left to Syria prior to the American attack. Saddam himself spent years obstructing the UN inspectors in their search for WMDs. He violated every accord,every cease fire clause, every UN mandate, every spoken agreement. What were we supposed to do? Tell him he'd better stop cause this time we really,really,really,really mean it?

But the world isnt interested in facts. The stupid gullable unwashed masses have been flimflammed by the unholy alliance of France,Russia,Germany, the liberal/anti-Bush-America media, and the UN. All of whom made the most money from Saddam. Just look at the biased reporting in Iraq for evidence of filthy worldwide media complicity.

My own years under arms gives me insight into this conflict that many others dont have. I was a few hundred air miles from Tehran when thos hostages were taken in '79. We were on high alert for weeks after, sure we were going in after them. Instead we sat there day after day, in our dorms, cradleing our M-16s, chomping at the bit to go in and kill all these no good motherfuckers!

We had a President named Jimmy Carter at the time. A good man but a weakling. He decided 50 some hostages were more important then American resolve and world standing. He was wrong, and it was a mistake. I knew at the time it was a mistake and we would end up paying for it. The culmanation of that show of weakness was 9/11/2001. Who knows? Maybe we'll end up with a region made inhabitable by a terrorist dirty bomb. Who knows how it will end?

In my mind this war started in Nov of 1979, not Sept. of 2001. Bill Klinton was much like Jimmy Carter, "well take away the good man part". Thruout his entire two terms,despite numerous terrorist attacks, he avoided taking decisive action. He was to busy pandering to that filthy UN. As he did in Somalia, when he removed the heavy firepower from the Somalia contingent. Thats right! While Bush sr was the one to first send troops to Somalia he at least sent in a large US Marine force with enough firepower to accomplish the mission. Klinton, the great military expert, under UN pressure to make the deployment "low key" drasticaly reduced the force structure both in manpower and firepower. He even denied the force commanders request for armor and spectre gunships prior to the Mogadishu fiasco, which BTW was orchestrated and fiananced by Al Quada.

Bet many of you didnt know a lot of this stuff. Compared to "naked prisoners on a leash" they never get much air time do they? Ever wonder why?.................take care.........Rich

Good post, Rich!

I notice that some only look for something that makes Bush look bad, when the fact is that Clinton SEVERELY cut what our intelligence folks would be capable of. Why? The intel world is dirty and messy. People don't like to talk about what our country and every other country in the world actually does in regards to intelligence gathering.

If you want to play the blame game, fine. Just put due credit on the blame where it actually belongs.

I agree that it is dirty and messy. There is one major reason for this. The USA PATRIOTIC ACT!
Which was passed within a matter of days!
Seriously, read the 9/11 timeline!

I did. What did I see? Alot of stuff that is credited to reporters and MISQUOTES (do the research) about what was what.

Ever heard of mis-information?

If you are basing your view on the "timeline", consider other objective sources and get the full picture. To base your opinion on ONE source means you have to trust that source. I don't.

Originally posted by Rich46yo

Bet many of you didnt know a lot of this stuff. Compared to "naked prisoners on a leash" they never get much air time do they? Ever wonder why?.................take care.........Rich

First, it really isn't a UN thing. Many of our allies thought thhis was a bad idea and we did not even take their thoughts into consideration. That to me is undiplomatic regradless of whether we were right or wrong. The diplomatic thing would have been to round up enough evidence before hand so that there is no doubt in anyone's mind that this was necessary. If there was enough intelligence to tell us for a FACT that Sadaam had WMDs, you would figure that same intelligence would tell where they are. Again, not saying the war wasn't necessary, just saying that it's planning and drumming up support for it were obviously not taken care of.

Now, to the quote above...So you are saying that the naked prisoners of war thing was fine? This is obviously not liberal media spin, unless the naked prisoner pyramids were photoshopped in and the pic of the guy beaten to death was a good make-up job.

To end, here is a quote from you..."The reality is its a secret,corrupt,veiled organization consumed with accumulating its own power and answerable to no-one but itself." Are you talking about the UN, or the US Government? Regardless of which Party runs it, our government is not all roses and daisies either.

Originally posted by Stickboy

If you want to play the blame game, fine. Just put due credit on the blame where it actually belongs.

They both deserve credit...

What are you talking about stick?!?! It is a source that is backed up by tons of others. You can't just look at it in one hour and absorb it all. I guarantee it, there is way too much information. I think that I am done with this thread now. There wrongs on both sides. War in Iraq was a big mistake. Probably won't be solved anyways. Back to the start of this thread. This war will probably cost him the election. He was the one that mislead the everybody into going into this war. Kerry's not much better but at least he went to war and saw what it was like.

Originally posted by Mr_Snafu
Like I said before, the Iraq charade is proving to be his undoing as Americans step off of the "Shock and Awe" bandwagon.

This is little but wishful thinking Mr. Snafu. Fact of the matter is, Iraq has been every bit as difficult as Mr. Bush said it would be. The question is, will the mission be deemed a success by the American people. We will see. We will see how this transition to an interim government goes.

Those who hate Bush hope it fails. Those who love America want it to succeed. I am sure that it will be a success because we will settle for nothing less. To do so would be to dishonor those who have died in Iraq.

Kerry is standing in the wings waiting for Bush to succeed or fail. He has nothing really to offer except an alternative for those who hate Bush. I don't think that is enough to get him elected.

An indicator of Kerry's insecurity and desperation is the fact that he keeps asking John McCain to run as VP although McCain has turned it down over and over. I guess Kerry feels he needs more credibility on the ticket than he can himself provide.

Bush will be re-elected for sure.

The situation over in Iraq is turning into a quagmire. Although this is not Vietnam, some similarities are striking.....the occupied wish we would leave; the costs are rising; our manpower demands suggest the need for a draft,; and our leader would rather sacrifice more lives than to admit mistake. Our real reason for invasion was dreamed up by a group of politicians and intellectuals who have never served a day in combat in their miserable elitist lives. However, with that said, although I was against our entry into the war, I think we have to show the world we can finish what we started. As OD stated, if anything, this war demonstrated the impotence of the UN, not just its innate corruption. Unfortunately, our near record national surplus is now a near record national deficit, and despite living in a credit card culture, the bill will be due and I'm afraid my daughter and the rest of us will pay the price.

"""""""Now, to the quote above...So you are saying that the naked prisoners of war thing was fine? This is obviously not liberal media spin, unless the naked prisoner pyramids were photoshopped in and the pic of the guy beaten to death was a good make-up job.""""""""

To me this is a question of military mis-conduct and break down of discipline. Im not surprised it was a National Guard unit involved. Nothing against the guard but they were meant to augment the active military not the other way around. when I was in the active military was large enough to handle such a mess without calling out the guard. In todays military the guard is a much larger componant of out forces. Guard units are not up to snuff to active units. When I hit stateside again we had the Cuban boatlift people and refugee centers to deal with. The active units easily handled it.

We cant allow what happened there for the same reasons we cant allow our soldiers to commit rape. If we did the entire military structure would break down. But IT IS NOT front page news worthy for weeks on end!!!!! And the only reason it is is because the anti-Bush factors are sicking their media mutts on it, along with the anti-American Govt.,s and their medias. I got news for some of you. "Torture" ,by definition, in that part of the world, doesnt start until you get 220 volts to the testicles.

Why is Bush apologizeing to the ENTIRE Arab nation over this when each and every one of those shitholes tortures its citizens in a much more severe manner? Not that there is an "Arab Nation" anyway, even in their wars against the Jews they spent more time backstabbing each other then fighting Israel. So it was sort of like Bush apologizeing to Uganda for dragging naked Nigerians around. We didnt owe them two-faced-terr supporting, sons of bitches any apologies!

""""Kerry's not much better but at least he went to war and saw what it was like."""

And what did he do? He came home, got on the anti-Vietnam pulpit, and called his comrades in arms a bunch of drunk,drugged,rapists and babykillers. He kept at it too. That is until it became "fashionable" to talk better about Vietnam vets. Kerry is not popular amongst vets. And its going to hurt him.

I personaly am starting to really fear that we wont win this war on terror. First off most of our allies are a bunch of soft,two faced,uncooperative pieces of shit. But most of all because my fellow Americans are soft and dont have the will to make the kind of personal sacrafices needed to win. Includeing re-instituting the draft and most of all backing our boys and girls in the field who are in combat. Instead they whine about the price of gas and their petty,personal, partisan, politics!

Personaly I believe serving in the US military is the finest honor a young American can ever have. "War" is an atrocity, so dont be to surprised by any atrocity you hear coming out of it. The atrocitys performed by Saddam and his rat pack are some of the most horrendous in human history. But what picture is shown on the front pages? Some shitkicker boy-girl leading a naked terrorist around by a leash. 4 Americans get cooked and dismembered in a car, and another gets his head cut off by these greasy cocksuckers. And what pictures, what stories, get the air time?

Your all pretty smart. You can figure out whats going on without me telling you............take care.............Rich

Originally posted by austinite
This is little but wishful thinking Mr. Snafu. Fact of the matter is, Iraq has been every bit as difficult as Mr. Bush said it would be. The question is, will the mission be deemed a success by the American people. We will see. We will see how this transition to an interim government goes.

Interim governmet of who? Think internecine: Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and some regional clans. The vie for power will begin, and it won't be over quickly.

Those who hate Bush hope it fails. Those who love America want it to succeed.

Oxymoronic statement, if I've ever heard one.

I am sure that it will be a success because we will settle for nothing less. To do so would be to dishonor those who have died in Iraq.

The U.S. and U.K. have been planning to get out and dump this on the UN....it may or may not happen. The political capital for Iraq is eroding too quickly, and the costs and casualties will cause the Bush administration to settle for a lot, lot, less--polls and approval ratings.

What happens in Iraq has nothing to do with the "honour" of those Iraqis, Americans, and coalition members who have died in Iraq.

Bush will be re-elected for sure.

Nothing is "for sure" in federal electoral politics a little less than 6 months before election. Bush approval rating was 82% in 1992.

The statistics, historically (which cannot predict the future) have been tilting things very sifnificantly lately.

Anyone who says they know, or even think they know, who will win, is not versed in Presidential politics. (And, that's OK.)

[
The U.S. and U.K. have been planning to get out and dump this on the UN....it may or may not happen.

[/QUOTE]

Well this should make you happy since that is what Kerry has been calling for. Unfortunately the UN is not all that dependable. They fled Iraq after being attacked once, and now they are trying to figure out what happened to all that oil-for-food money.