The Case Against George W Bush

[onejayhawk]

You mean other than being directly responsible for the deaths of well over 200,000 people in Iraq, most of them civilians, based on his campaign of lies and deceit? Not to mention being directly responsible for the torture and/or murder of hundreds of completely innocent people?

But I never called him an "extremist". Now did I?

But now that you mention it, the term certainly seems to apply to many of those who still try to rationalize his reprehensible and quite extreme acts.

I never said you called him extremist, but you have now.

I said that having 33% support him is because support is not an extremist position.

J

 

[onejayhawk]

Obama has proven that the Bush 23% can stay deranged 100% of the time.

Try again. That one flopped.

J

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Obama has proven that the Bush 23% can stay deranged 100% of the time.

Try again. That one flopped.

J

Don't worry, it was a clear winner. The 23% who approved of GWBush's performance in the depths of the fiasco of Iraq and with Bush himself saying that he had brought the world to the "brink of global economic meltdown" are clearly deranged and cast in the 'approve of any Republican no matter what they do' mold. It is unfortunate that such people are allowed to vote.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I never said you called him extremist, but you have now.

Nope. I stated he committed extreme acts, like lying to invade a sovereign country thereby killing over 200,000 people. That he was directly responsible for the torture and murder of hundreds of civilians.

These don't strike you as being extreme acts?

But I did provide a definition of extremist. Did you decide it could describe him?

And why did you even bring up the topic if you apparently don't want to discuss that many of those who continue to support these reprehensible acts are indeed "extremists"?

I said that having 33% support him is because support is not an extremist position.

That isn't what you asked at all.

Why is that staggering? Bush was never an extremist in any sense of the word.

It is staggering because nobody should support Bush given what reprehensible acts he committed, much less 33% of the country. Why would anybody possibly do so given what we now know?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It is staggering because nobody should support Bush given what reprehensible acts he committed, much less 33% of the country. Why would anybody possibly do so given what we now know?

DING! We have a winner! Again!

 

[Berzerker]

The CIA is executive branch. They don't work for congress. How do you think the administration and congress interact?

Congress has oversight, they're constantly hearing testimony from various agencies under the umbrella of the executive branch. Especially on matters of war... Are you actually suggesting Hillary wanted testimony from experts but was denied?

No, congress did not ask for confirmation testimony directly from randomly chosen members of the intelligence departments of the administration. Not that it would have done any good, since anyone in the intelligence community that didn't end every report they made with "and that's why we need to invade Iraq" had been shipped to BFE. That's where the whole "case for having mislead the country to war" issue comes from.

The heads of every department involved; defense, state, the directors of the CIA and NSA; every one of those guys and their deputies where forwarding reports that supported one conclusion, and quashing any investigation that might lead to a different conclusion. (probably including investigations of Saudis from some small time organization called al Queda that had no known ties to Iraq who were taking flying lessons, of all the weird things). Bottom line, there was no intel above the collection level that contradicted the administration's desired outcome, for congress or anyone else.

When low level operatives tried to end run the administration and blow the whistle we see what happened to them. Sure, we can say "why didn't they ask Joe Wilson?" The answer is that he was a bottom tier operative feeding information up the chain who at that point didn't even know that since his info didn't "fit" it was being glossed over or discarded outright. At that point congress had never heard of him in any context but "one of our many data collectors who's input contributed to this report." It took years afterwards to sort out the Joe Wilson business. Hindsight is a marvelous thing, but at the time no one recognized the extent of the "massaging" that the data was receiving, or had any reason to expect it.

and Hillary was part of the lie

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Congress has oversight, they're constantly hearing testimony from various agencies under the umbrella of the executive branch. Especially on matters of war... Are you actually suggesting Hillary wanted testimony from experts but was denied?

No, I'm more than suggesting that there was plenty of testimony offered...and all that was offered supported a particular conclusion. Short of picking names at random of a list of lower level operatives there really wasn't any simple way to come up with a different conclusion.

It's a pretty simple thing to catch a quick lie pasted over a lot of contradictory data. It's a whole different thing to overcome three years of collection of data to support one conclusion while discarding anything that doesn't fit.

 

[Formaldehyde]

All it really took was a quite standard closed door congressional committee that asked the briefer and analysts under oath whether or not they told GWB what he had claimed.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I almost miss all the old Iraq war hawks.

I just wondered since when this "hawk"-term is going on in America. I hear it fairly often in the context of American politics since a few years but never before. Is this a traditional American slogan or is it a relatively recent success of the right-wing-spectrum to call war-mongers "Hawks"? (sorry for the loaded question, always bad style, but I could not resist when my blood got pumping over this adorable nickname - such a brilliant and regrettable propaganda cou - hawk, what a fantastic name, it is basically an Eagle, America frell yeah! Hawks!)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I just wondered since when this "hawk"-term is going on in America. I hear it fairly often in the context of American politics since a few years but never before. Is this a traditional American slogan or is it a relatively recent success of the right-wing-spectrum to call war-mongers "Hawks"? (sorry for the loaded question, always bad style, but I could not resist when my blood got pumping over this adorable nickname - such a brilliant and regrettable propaganda cou - hawk, what a fantastic name, it is basically an Eagle, America frell yeah! Hawks!)

"Hawks" and "Doves" goes back to the cold war, at least.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Oh dear, doves... Forgot about the label of the other side.
Who wants to be a Dove?! Doves are cool as a symbol- but no one wants to be a dove, They are called the rats of the sky, after all...
Too bad that journalists have zero back-bone to avoid such terribly loaded terms and rather wet their pants when thinking of what a little loaded word it is they can play catch-phrase with,

 

[Goodfella]

I just wondered since when this "hawk"-term is going on in America. I hear it fairly often in the context of American politics since a few years but never before. Is this a traditional American slogan or is it a relatively recent success of the right-wing-spectrum to call war-mongers "Hawks"? (sorry for the loaded question, always bad style, but I could not resist when my blood got pumping over this adorable nickname - such a brilliant and regrettable propaganda cou - hawk, what a fantastic name, it is basically an Eagle, America frell yeah! Hawks!)

"Hawks" and "Doves" goes back to the cold war, at least.

Oh dear, doves... Forgot about the label of the other side.
Who wants to be a Dove?! Doves are cool as a symbol- but no one wants to be a dove, They are called the rats of the sky, after all...
Too bad that journalists have zero back-bone to avoid such terribly loaded terms and rather wet their pants when thinking of what a little loaded word it is they can play catch-phrase with,

It goes back to the War of 1812 at least to describe supporters of the war like Henry Clay. It was applied particularly to politicians from western states like Kentucky.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Rats of the sky? I thought that was pigeons...

 

[Terxpahseyton]

As I just discovered, that's the same thing in German, but as just became clear not in English. It seems that what a German simply calls a white pigeon if he cares to be specific is a dove in English.

And thanks

edit: and actually, things are more messy regarding the dove/pigeon differantiation:

In general, the terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably. Pigeon is a French word that derives from the Latin pipio, for a "peeping" chick,[1] while dove is a Germanic word that refers to the bird's diving flight.[2] In ornithological practice, "dove" tends to be used for smaller species and "pigeon" for larger ones, but this is in no way consistently applied, and historically, the common names for these birds involve a great deal of variation between the terms. The species most commonly referred to as "pigeon" is the feral rock pigeon, common in many cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbidae

 

[onejayhawk]

Nope. I stated he committed extreme acts, like lying to invade a sovereign country thereby killing over 200,000 people. That he was directly responsible for the torture and murder of hundreds of civilians.

These don't strike you as being extreme acts?

But I did provide a definition of extremist. Did you decide it could describe him?

And why did you even bring up the topic if you apparently don't want to discuss that many of those who continue to support these reprehensible acts are indeed "extremists"?

That isn't what you asked at all.

It is staggering because nobody should support Bush given what reprehensible acts he committed, much less 33% of the country. Why would anybody possibly do so given what we now know?

You split hairs. You accuse him of extremism, which implies he is extremist.

No. Those do not strike me as extremist acts or reprehensible. You seem pretty extreme yourself.

Generally extremism is less than 10% of a group. some times a 5% or 1% standard is used.

J

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You split hairs. You accuse him of extremism, which implies he is extremist.

No. Those do not strike me as extremist acts or reprehensible. You seem pretty extreme yourself.

Generally extremism is less than 10% of a group. some times a 5% or 1% standard is used.

J

Once again, using generalizations that apply to a normal distribution without first demonstrating that the data falls on a normal distribution is a really poor argument.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You split hairs. You accuse him of extremism, which implies he is extremist.

No. Those do not strike me as extremist acts or reprehensible. You seem pretty extreme yourself.

I stated they were extreme acts, not extremist acts.

I imagine the vast majority of rational adults in the world today consider going to war on the basis of intentional lies and deceit which resulted in the deaths of over 150,000 civilians, as well as the torture and murder of countless others to be extreme and reprehensible. Apparently you have no difficulty supporting such acts, much like 33% of the population of the US in 2007 long after they should have abandoned all support for this war based on the facts.

Yet you call me "extreme".

Generally extremism is less than 10% of a group. some times a 5% or 1% standard is used.

The Golden Dawn Party in Greece comprises over 10% of the population. 100% of that extremist group are extremists. So are the survivalists, skinheads, KKK, and any other white supremacist group.

 

[GenMarshall]

This is so 2005...

We've moved on to more pressing matters like the economy.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

This is so 2005...

We've moved on to more pressing matters like the economy.

You mean there will be no war any more? I am afraid economy and geopolitics are too connected for that...
And wait do you think people in ruined countries like Iraq think that its past for them? I am afraid its still an everyday reality...

 

[Formaldehyde]

This is so 2005...

We've moved on to more pressing matters like the economy.

War crimes, torture, and murder don't have a statute of limitations.