The Case Against George W Bush

[kramerfan86]

I still think W was merely a useful idiot on the throne for the true evil/power behind him that got their chance in the light again that they had back in the 70s and 80s.

 

[ParkCungHee]

The point of this thread is to keep this fact in the forefront:

The people who were not prosecuted for this are not limited to "vice president and up," and if they were this would not be a big deal. But people who are among those who should have been prosecuted are nameless enough that without vigilance there are plenty of candidates who would gladly give them a chance to do it again, in the name of "putting together an experienced foreign policy team," and plenty of idiot voters who will vote for such a candidate. Since we aren't going to get them prosecuted every election needs to revolve around keeping them away from the power they misused before.

This. Exactly this. There should be no other issue in U.S. politics.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I still think W was merely a useful idiot on the throne for the true evil/power behind him that got their chance in the light again that they had back in the 70s and 80s.

Then they definitely don't want the Donald getting anywhere near the White House. He's a useless idiot who won't listen to anybody, much less be their willing puppet.

Jeb Bush would be the perfect replacement who presents a far better impression than his brother did. And he has already hired a lot of the same advisors his brother and father used.

Spoiler :

Meet the new puppet. Better than the old puppet.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Then they definitely don't want the Donald getting anywhere near the White House. He's a useless idiot who won't listen to anybody, much less be their willing puppet.

Jeb Bush would be the perfect replacement who presents a far better impression than his brother did. And he has already hired a lot of the same advisors his brother and father used.

Spoiler :

Meet the new puppet. Better than the old puppet.

There may be no other candidate in the GOP primaries with quite that much overlap, but I'm betting there is no one that has significantly less. I can't be bothered working it out for the vast population of the clown car, but once there is a nominee the GOP position will be easy enough to figure out.

 

[Berzerker]

I doubt Rand Paul would be hiring most of those people, maybe George Schultz but he's gotta be ancient by now

 

[Zkribbler]

Look, I kinda knew this already.

What I can't fathom is -- well -- why would Bush trick USA to invade Iraq? Oil? Are you guys profiting in any way from the current situation in Iraq and Syria? Did the administration really expect to do so?

It's perverse, but I think it was payback for Saddam's failed attempt on the life of George H.W. Bush.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That had a lot to do with it for George Bush personally. But the authoritarian conservative warmongers were calling for the second invasion of Iraq the day after the first invasion ended. They just needed another Republican president and any sort of excuse to sell it to the American people.

 

[Takhisis]

So basically they were idiots fooling idiots?

Nope, they were relatively smart people (far less so than they imagine themselves to be), who got in a lot of war profiteers behind them, who actually managed to convince a shell-shocked population into following the wild goose chase.
Of course, they only got away with doign what they did because the political system is utterly broken. But who cares? ‘I don't vote’.

Some people (e.g. military contractors, the arms industry, those who actuually got a hand in the Iraq oil business, etc.) profited directly, other people got indirect benefits such as passing any number of policies while everyone was looking the other way.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I doubt Rand Paul would be hiring most of those people, maybe George Schultz but he's gotta be ancient by now

Like Rand Paul has some sort of independent from the GOP foreign policy think tank to draw from...what makes you think that? He will hire the same guys that would bring the GOP establishment into line behind him that any other nominee would.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Like Rand Paul has some sort of independent from the GOP foreign policy think tank to draw from...what makes you think that? He will hire the same guys that would bring the GOP establishment into line behind him that any other nominee would.

The GOP doesn't like to admit it, but they actually have left a pretty substantial body of foreign policy critics behind. Their quest for ideological purity didn't actually end reasonable republican voices, it just silenced and expelled them.

 

[Commodore]

As soon as the facts started to emerge which directly contradicted their statements, Bush and his defenders have tried to spin this as a failure of intelligence, instead of a deliberate attempt on the part of Bush and some of his top advisers to lie to and deceive the American public. Somehow they even managed to get those who knew better to remain silent until recently, even though they were the ones who were blamed.?

As a former member of the intelligence community, I can say this is completely true. When Bush was making all these accusations and saying the intelligence community had incontrovertible evidence that Iraq had WMDs, there were many intelligence collectors and analysts at the time that were baffled by his comments and the accusations he was making since the intelligence reports that were made said nothing of the sort. It was the administration itself that deliberately altered and falsified those intelligence reports in order to make their case to the UN and the American public.

Just as you say Forma, once the jig was up and the lies were being uncovered, Bush and his ilk tried to sell out those same intelligence collectors and analysts that were saying those reports were inaccurate from the start.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The GOP doesn't like to admit it, but they actually have left a pretty substantial body of foreign policy critics behind. Their quest for ideological purity didn't actually end reasonable republican voices, it just silenced and expelled them.

Yeah. And no one who gets the nomination is going to unsilence and unexpel them. No matter who the nominee is, the GOP will saddle them with the same foreign policy team, the same economic policy team, the same domestic policy team. In short, the nominee is already chosen, the only question is what name and face they put on it.

 

[Berzerker]

Like Rand Paul has some sort of independent from the GOP foreign policy think tank to draw from...what makes you think that? He will hire the same guys that would bring the GOP establishment into line behind him that any other nominee would.

He's not gonna hire the same people trashing him as an isolationist, Schultz and the Hoover and Cato Institutes, the Reason Foundation, various libertarian think tanks will fill the void of neo-con warmongers

 

[Timsup2nothin]

He's not gonna hire the same people trashing him as an isolationist, Schultz and the Hoover and Cato Institutes, the Reason Foundation, various libertarian think tanks will fill the void of neo-con warmongers

And the Republican party leadership would cut him loose like a popped pimple. You think he would sacrifice the support of the party going into the election where he could possibly be elected president? I don't.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Paul has never had, and never will have, the support of the Republican Party establishment. You watch, if he gets within shooting distance of the nomination, they'll close ranks to keep him out. And if he actually GETS the nomination, that means the whole party has been shattered.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Just as you say Forma, once the jig was up and the lies were being uncovered, Bush and his ilk tried to sell out those same intelligence collectors and analysts that were saying those reports were inaccurate from the start.

This was the real failing of Congress. They should have initially asked the very same intelligence analysts to testify under oath to ascertain whether the statements of the Bush administration were true or not.

But they didn't even try to do so until much later when the evidence started appearing that directly contradicted the statements they had made. And even then the Republicans still managed to whitewash the closed door hearings, while Obama was telling the Democrats who belonged on the committees that they needed to forget what they were hearing in those sessions so the country could supposedly heal.

To me, this is what is frequently so infuriating about American politics. It simply lacks any true honesty much of the time. So it is left to those who were directly involved who write books long afterwards and historians to finally unravel the truth of what occurred. But then the history revisionists invariably appear to write their own whitewashed and intentionally slanted versions which are used to teach school children in much of the country what their parents want them to hear.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan

 

[Berzerker]

And the Republican party leadership would cut him loose like a popped pimple. You think he would sacrifice the support of the party going into the election where he could possibly be elected president? I don't.

whats he gonna do, campaign against reckless interventions and then turn around and become a neocon after getting the nomination and start pushing for more wars?

that makes no sense

 

[Timsup2nothin]

whats he gonna do, campaign against reckless interventions and then turn around and become a neocon after getting the nomination and start pushing for more wars?

that makes no sense

If he campaigns against reckless interventions he won't be nominated by the Republican party in the first place.

 

[Formaldehyde]

There is no way in hell that Ran Paul will forsake his criticism of American warmongering and toughen up his stances on the military to become more popular with many Republicans.

Spoiler :

 

[ParkCungHee]

If he campaigns against reckless interventions he won't be nominated by the Republican party in the first place.

Which is why, in the highly improbable chance he does win the nomination, it will represent a total shattering of the Republican party as we know it.