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I've got to remember this quote the next time that I hear people still blaming Bush for everything!

I seriously think that future history books will relfect back Bush's time in office in a positive light.

You might like this:

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/81628/The_American_Liberal_Dictionary

And these entries:

"Nazi"
noun
A person who sides with Israel against the dictatorships that surround it, with ethnic minorities against the dictatorships that rule them, and with small countries against dictatorships that attack them.

"Hitler"
noun
Any individual involved in a conflict between America and Arab nationalists except the dictator with the moustache who gases people.

The record will never be straight while the intolerant left controls the bulk of the media, including publishing, and a vast amount of places of higher education. Many of our first time voters believe Bush was the epitome of evil, even though they are too young to know or care about anything different. I do believe they are going to be schooled on what is bad for the future my our current administration. 

Okay, I'm sorry, but one of the best presidents the US has ever had? You must be joking.

Most of the rhetoric aimed at him is undeserved, but he was an ignoramus, MBA or no, or at least he did a terrific job of projecting that impression consistently. Regardless of the causes for starting the Iraq war (which I agreed with at the time, based on the CIAs intelligence) the invasion was seriously botched... at least as far as I've heard from military personel. Waltz in, win the war without breaking a sweat, declare "mission accomplished" (durrrrr) and proceed to act surprised when you find yourself in a 6 year quagmire of ethnic violence and insurgency when you've got no exit plan and can't even be bothered to stop people from looting the Iraqi army armouries in the initial days of the occupation.

So far as I can tell, the war was waged on a whim with little forethought as to the consequences, such as the sudden loss of American military personel in Afghanistan. Yes, the "death to america" crowd migrated down to Iraq, but it was still a damned risky move and we're paying the consequences now. And if he absolutely had to topple a dictator in his axis of evil, why not Iran? Or fucking North Korea before they got the fucking bomb? Yes, Saddam was a shithead, but he was small potatoes by comparison.

Throw that in with widespread alienation of the rest of the world (spin it however you like, but driving up anti-americanism to the frankly ridiculous levels we see now is bad for the USA), the rapidly expanding partisan bullshit he helped foster, and shit like the Patriot Act (how's that for dishonesty in naming) I can't see any possible basis for giving him accolades like "one of the best presidents the US has ever had". He may not be nearly as bad as people have made him out to be (what presidential candidate hasn't been needlessly smeared?) but he is NOT an exemplar for other presidents to follow.

I'll be honest, though, the endless smearing got really tiresome. He was an idiot, but he wasn't Satan incarnate.

@ Nitro:

Don't start talking about the "intolerant left" when the same kind of ridiculous partisan bullshit is coming out of the American right day be day.

Quite frankly, American politics are somewhere between "gong show" and "terrifying". I've seen my fair share of ridiculous politics, partisanship, and downright stupidity in my short life, but the American politics really take the cake. 

GOD I hate partisan politics.

Nope, I really believe it.

I often judge people by their enemies. And George Bush was demonised by most self-proclaimed politically superior Europeans, white supremacists, Islamists, and the entire "death to the Jews" crowd. That alone, at the time, sent those groups a strong message that not everyone yet submits to their crazy demands.

And I don't think you realise the seriousness of the Iraq war. There is a reason Tony Blair joined the effort. Saddam was not small potatoes.

Saddam was insignificant in a military sense, but he was a symbol for Arab nationalism. Arabs (and many others) _thought_ he was successfully fighting the west, and that had to stop.

(North Korea actually IS successfully fighting the west, but the country doesn't have a huge fan community that builds bombs and tries to take over the world.)

Taking out Saddam proved to the Arab world that they cannot dictate everything to the west, that we still do what we want, when we want it, and against their will about which we don't have to care.

The invasion was a gigantic blow to Arab nationalism which is now thoroughly discredited in the middle east. That's why groups like Hamas are now becoming more popular. They are offering the next alternative. The correct strategy would not be to discredit those movements too, to prove that they too are powerless. But Obama's policies tend to support the idea that they actually have power.

Afghanistan doesn't matter in this equation. For the core of the terrorist supporters, only Arab states and Iran count. They don't look at Pakistan or Afghanistan. (And Obama's presence in Afghanistan in 2001 was a coincidence anyway. He was thrown out of Sudan just a few years earlier.) The Pashtuns and the Taliban couldn't care less about the rest of the world and never had an interest in starting a war with America.

George Bush understood where terrorism came from, as did Tony Blair. And most of the rest of the world didn't. They still don't.

You see, that's the point. He understood why, or at least guessed correctly.

Iran is a special case. Toppling the Iranian regime would have proved nothing to the majority of terror supporters. It had to be an Arab state, and it had to be one of the pan-Arabist regimes.

The Iranians, the people, are very pro-American (heck, they burn Russian flags on the streets when their regime told them to burn American and Israeli flags). Their regime knows that. Ahmaninejad's rhetoric is for Arab consumption, not for locals.

If Bush had attacked Iran (which would have been much more difficult because there would have been no reason to do so other than enmity between the countries), Iranians would likely have rallied around the regime just as they did when Saddam tries the same. This is not exactly what we want.

In Iraq it was different. Removing Saddam from power did not make Iraqis support him more (although it did make western lefties support him more). And part of the exercise was to show to the rest of the Arab world that the west is RIGHT and their pan-Arabist leaders are WRONG.

That part failed, but not because of George Bush. It failed because the western media didn't play along. When their favourite dictator was toppled they kept reporting from Iraq as if it was the greatest disaster humanity has ever lived through. The media also happily lied not just about Bush's time in the National Guard but also about developments in Iraq.

Yes, elements of the war were handled wrongly, but they were mostly those that depended on the media reaction. I doubt anybody could have foreseen the extreme hostility the western media had towards George Bush and his ideology. The "insurgency" couldn't win, and they knew it. But they could convince American opinion that the war was futile (or even morally wrong). And for that they needed the help of the media and it surprised me that they had such support.

I assume it surprised the administration too. They were not qualified to handle it. That's where the ignoramus part comes in.

That's an interesting analysis. I'm not sure that judging someone by their enemies is valid, but I won't argue against it.

I'd argue that Afghanistan is a very valid concern. No, the Taliban aren't going to go wage a global Jihad, they're quite content to sit in their caves. But leaving aside what I consider our responsibility to restabilize and rebuild that country after toppling their government, do remember that the Taliban don't really recognize the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that Pakistan is an already unstable country with a considerable nuclear arsenal. If the Taliban are left free to operate, it's not inconcievable that they could utterly destabilize Pakistan and potentially cause a bomb or two to go missing.

North Korea is a bigger risk in that regard, especially since Kim Jong Il is a friggin' nut. If he decides to do something rash before he croaks, like, say, smuggle a couple nukes out to a group like Hezbollah, he could start WW3. Yeah, I get that smuggling nuclear weapons out of a country surrounded by people who would really prefer they didn't isn't a likely scenario. Bottom line, though, is that I'm a lot more concerned about people with access to atomics than a bunch of illiterate shits hiding in caves and fantasizing about killing the Jews and Americans at the same time.

However, if there's anything your post shows, it's that I'm not qualified to debate you on the topic of Bush's foreign policy. Perhaps he actually had a stroke of genius there, maybe he got lucky, or maybe the people advising him had the right idea (last I heard, Bush wasn't exactly the brains of the operation). I'm clearly not qualified to comment.

His legacy doesn't just extend to his foreign policy, though, however much his presidency seems to be defined by the events following 9/11. I'm hard pressed to see how the knee jerk anti-americanism and partisan bickering he inspired could be seen as a good thing in the long run, and from what I can tell the Patriot act was the single most un-American piece of legislation I've ever seen come out of America.

And again, I'm unqualified to actually judge him on this, but him presiding over a massive breakdown of the American economy without doing a damned thing about it, the whole disaster with Katrina, and all that other stuff doesn't reflect well on him, even if his administration wasn't at fault somehow.

All in all, it seems like a mixed bag. That doesn't say "one of the best American Presidents" to me.

I'm well aware there is an intolerant right as well as left, however they are very far from having the media clout that the far-left has, and therefore the public ear. My comment stands.

President Bush could have been dumb as a rock. If his advisers were good, and he listened to them, he'd still be a great president because the job of the president is to be a good leader, not a brilliant thinker.

Apparently, you don't know anything about those 'illiterate shits hiding in caves'.  They didn't just fly planes into building because it'll make a big boom. Big Boom batta bing batta boom! Most people in the States don't know anything about Usama Bin Ladens background or education.  They also don't know the background/what they were trained in or education of his upper echelon.   Yes, those factors are important to know about those 'illiterate shits hiding in caves'.

The conspiracist (I'm not saying anyone here is one) that try to say that the U.S government helped bring the Towers down because no jet plane could have done that on its own.  Doesn't know physics/chemistry/explosivess nor engineering which you if you knew Osama Bin Dummy's (as I guess you view him) background you could see that he used the knowledge that he had.

I'm not saying that UBL was Einstein because he's not (yes there's a pun in that that was intend). From people that have interacted with him have all said that he's a very quiet soft spoken individual who has average to maybe just a little under average intelligence BUT he used what he knew to his advantage.

You state that Kim Jong is a threat because he has the bomb. I won't disagree that he's not antagonistic.  Going after him would just be a band-aid solution. In my mind I think 'how did this crazy old nut get that bomb'? It didn't just appear out of thin air or just happen accidently.  What country helped him get it.  If you know that country that supplied him with it; they're the true threat because if we take out him GUESS WHAT? That country well just make sure that someone else gets it.  If you don't believe me have you ever notice how Kim Jong only disses certain countries and total ignores other major world powers?

P.S. Leauki, (whose not even from the U.S. but from the U.S's poodle HAHAHAHHAHA Leauki will get that Yep Tony Blair another fine thought provoking article.

P.P.S. Leauki I hope we do meet some day (there's actually quite a few JUs who I would like to meet).  I remember you saying that you think you met me (I can't remember where this was posted at) I'm not sure if we did.  I don't think we did but I have talked/met a lot of people.  I hope you read what that person gave you (you don't do magic tricks do you?).  I think you've said you have read what that person gave you.  That's a sincere heart that you would.

Anyways blessings!

I think it is important to differentiate between the Taliban, a religious fundamentalist and Pashtun nationalist group in Afghanistan and the tribal areas in Pakistan with no designs on the rest of the world and Al-Qaeda an Arab terrorist group from Saudi-Arabia and Sudan who temporarily found refuge among the Taliban when Sudan threw them out.

The Afghanis, Pashtun or not, have little sympathy for Arab Al-Qaeda. They view them just as yet another invading foreigner. But the Taliban are highly popular in some Pashtun territory. For the sake of Afghanistan's women and non-Pashtun peoples the war is worth it (and the people from northern Afghanistan want NATO to stay), but for the sake of winning against Al-Qaeda it is not. All we need to win against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is provide air support for the local anti-Taliban (and anti-Pashtun) militants.

The actual home of Al-Qaeda is the Arab world. That's where they recruit their terrorists and that's where we should strike, like George Bush did.

I was half joking... if if was that. I met some guy in the train to Haifa. I had indeed read what he gave me, but not the copy I got from him. I read an earlier translation into another language.

I do hope that we will meet. And like you there are a few other JU users I'd like to meet. (I have met one and I know another one from before JU, although only from Usenet.) I won't be in the US for another long time, but I'll be in Israel again next April, I am sure.

@ the_peoples_party:

I am fully aware of Bin Laden's background. The statement was an exaggeration... I'd hoped for comic effect. My thought though is that however dangerous Islamic terrorism might be, the goddamned bomb is still the biggest threat to human existence we've got. Islamic terrorism might be the vehicle (say, someone manages to nuke Tel Aviv...) but I'm willing to bet that the recent proliferation of nuclear technology among hostile powers (Iran and North Korea) are far, far more important. Especially since North Korea and (to a lesser extent) Iran are not rational regimes, which is key to the MAD doctrine being a useful nuclear deterrent.

As for Kim Jong Il's selective antagonism, I really doubt that has much to do with recieving nuclear secrets from elsewhere. Aside from China being basically his only ally (and the only reason his regime hasn't fallen apart), he's only ever belligerent towards countries that attempt to interact with him (swell guy), which doesn't include all major powers. China has no interest in having nuclear bombs in the hands of the dangerously unstable lunatic puppet regime next door.

True.

The MAD doctrine worked because the Soviet Union, after Stalin, was not technically "evil" in the strictest sense. Soviet governments care about their people and the rest of the world and did not see any good whatsoever in killing everyone.

The same is not true for the current regime in Iran, who would gladly murder all free Jews and have no qualms about torturing their own people either, and for North Korea, which is plain nuts.

Not to mention that Iran is run by folks who wouldn't be completely opposed to ushering in the apocalypse a bit ahead of schedule.

I think it benefits China majorally. Here's why.  China only agreed to the UN Resolution 1718 (this is the resoluation after the 2006 nuke testing) after revisions were made so that the requirements for tough sanctions beyond those that targeted luxury goods were removed.  Now, after the May 2009 Nuke test, the UN Resolution 1874 appears to not likely be all that great unless China coorperates extensively and goes (which China won't) above and beyond the requirements of the solution. You can get this information from this site: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40684.pdf  

The World Bank estimates that China supplies almost 90% of  NK's energy imports.  NK imports close to 2 billion worth of goods from China.  No other country can or will come close to matching that.  The sanctions only forced NK to be more dependent on China, which is what China wants.

I don't think China is totally afraid of the said pyscho. I think they are afraid of the said pyscho being snuffed out.  For the United States this would be a great thing because China (as you stated) does share a border with NK, that is an 800 mile border.  Could you imagine if that nut job fall what would happen.  China would receive more then just a boat load of refugees.  Also with a change this could lead to a possibility that the change could bring in a government who doesn't like China and China does not want that because they're getting very very cheap iron ore, coal, and several other items from NK.

Finally, NK brings a buffer between South Korea and China.  This allows China to focus to on other democratic threats. Kim knows not to bite the only hand that is feeding you.