Bush's book

[WC_lun]

Part of the problem with the advice he was given by lawyers such as John U (sp?) is that the lawyers were asked repeatedly until the Bush administration got the answer they were looking for. The system failed in this case because of what apeared to be lawyers currying favor with the administration. The question and the answer got very complicated, when it really wasn't. Is waterboarding torture? Simple answer is according to our history, yes it is. The precedent was already there, but the administration and the lawyers of the administration chose to ignore the precedence.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Somewhere, IMO, this chain failed him, he got bad advice and ran with it. Now he, not some faceless clerk, gets the heat and hate.

Personally, if I were to invade another country, I'd double check before actually committing myself. And If I had so little to show for it that I didn't even dare show it to my allies for fear of getting laughed at (despite asking them to commit themselves too)... then maybe I'd reconsider.

 

[Master Dan]

I have very mixed emotions on this. First Bush started an illegal war and lied to the American public about the real threats to America. His father was smart enough to know yeh Sadam is bad but it is a tribal society they will not change if those people had enough they would kill him. Who are you going to replace him with democracy?
I have sat in our airport many times watching young men 19-21 kissing thier young wives and babies good by and I talk to them they say hey we gotta go over thier to keep the terrorist from comming here? no they don't we have buttons we can push not send our youngest and brightes peopel to be killed and maimed dialy for Oil, so Haliburton can steal billions in fraudulant contracts.

Our death toll would be over 50,000 troops if not for improvments in field medical and other advancements no now we have over 50,000 people with maimed bodies and minds and the highest suicide rate in military history not to mention who our government has misstreated them once home with improper care and training for new jobs.

At first I thought maybe the hiden agenda which some of my friends said in the military was by having a war in Iraq it would draw in all the terrorists in like a sponge and we can just kill them off but they don'g fight fair one on one they blend in who is the enemy they all look alike just like another war? so our guys loose it and start killing what ever they see. I hate it that people complain because war is ugly inocent people die on both sides its the cost of having war thats why it is last resort.

Bush now wants to rewrite history like he had no choice or he was missled give me a break he and Chennie knew what they were doing was illegal and thats why the last 24 months in office they protected evidence so it could not be examined and destroyed the rest all under the guise of NSA and executive privilage.

For all those right wing people that say yeh I support the war and all the other crap well you pay for it and you sign up and go over there not your kids but you go. Lets start a draft of 45 year olds and up why not because they are not going to just march down any hill with out having a pretty good reason? Young people believe they can't be killed thats why they make the best soldiers not just physical advantages.

GW book just his way of trying to deal with his guilt and get people to pay for it.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

I have very mixed emotions on this. First Bush started an illegal war and lied to the American public about the real threats to America.

Prove it. I've not ever seen such a thing in the law as "Illegal War Starting".

Congress gave Bush the authority, as have many past Congresses before have given past Presidents, to use military force in the absence of a formal declaration of war. Don't crap on this one if you ain't gonna crap on all the others, including those conducted by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, etc.

Prove he lied, rather than was given faulty intelligence. After all, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, many Congressmen (with Intelligence Oversite responsibility) believed that Saddam had WMDs. Lest we not forget in 2009 the Iraqi government declared that they had "two bunkers with filled and unfilled chemical weapons munitions, some precursors, as well as five former chemical weapons production facilities". Lets not forget that the Wikileaks document show that U.S. forces found chemical weapons in Iraq after the invasion.

So despite all the evidence to the contrary, its still "Bush lied, people died."


For all those right wing people that say yeh I support the war and all the other crap well you pay for it and you sign up and go over there not your kids but you go. Lets start a draft of 45 year olds and up why not because they are not going to just march down any hill with out having a pretty good reason? Young people believe they can't be killed thats why they make the best soldiers not just physical advantages.
[/quote]

I'll do that when all those left wing people pay for Medicare, Medicade, unemployment insurance, welfare, public education which my children don't attend, stimulous packages, and ObamaCare.

By the way, I would go, but my wife won't let me. Yeah, I'm :whip1:

But I do my part by protecting their children and other loved ones while they are over there. So don't give me this, "I have to go to Iraq or Afganistan if I support the war" bull.

 

[Blade96]

UN never gave the go ahead to invade iraq bush just done it without un approval.

and he did lie. Nobody over there found any weapons of mass destruction nor any links to 9/11, obama or al quaida.

I'm not surprised they found out about him authorizing torture and lying so quick. Info and the internet and such make it harder to hide stuff, just like a earlier american president (forget his name now) lied so that he could get america into the vietnam war. Just took longer for that stuff to come out.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Prove he lied, rather than was given faulty intelligence. After all, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, many Congressmen (with Intelligence Oversite responsibility) believed that Saddam had WMDs. Lest we not forget in 2009 the Iraqi government declared that they had "two bunkers with filled and unfilled chemical weapons munitions, some precursors, as well as five former chemical weapons production facilities". Lets not forget that the Wikileaks document show that U.S. forces found chemical weapons in Iraq after the invasion.

So despite all the evidence to the contrary, its still "Bush lied, people died."

Well, to quote another president: 'The buck stopped with him'.
I don't think he lied on purpose, as much as he wanted to believe what he was told.

I'll do that when all those left wing people pay for Medicare, Medicade, unemployment insurance, welfare, public education which my children don't attend, stimulous packages, and ObamaCare.

They already do. It's called taxes

By the way, I would go, but my wife won't let me. Yeah, I'm :whip1:

But I do my part by protecting their children and other loved ones while they are over there. So don't give me this, "I have to go to Iraq or Afganistan if I support the war" bull.

This is genuine, respectful curiosity and not a challenge: why would you go? I mean, Iraq is not, nor was ever a real threat to the US. Afghanistan I understand why people would sign up. But wanting to sign up to go to Iraq is something that I don't get.

 

[elder999]

This is genuine, respectful curiority and not a challenge: why would you go? I mean, Iraq is not, nor was ever a real threat to the US. Afghanistan I understand why people would sign up. But wanting to sign up to go to Iraq is something that I don't get.

To try to do some good, of course. At this point in time, Iraq is truly Colin Powell's Pottery Barn:

Before the war with Iraq, Powell bluntly told Bush that if he sent U.S. troops there "you're going to be owning this place." Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, used to refer to what they called "the Pottery Barn rule" on Iraq: "You break it, you own it,"

.....of course, we all own it now......

 

[billc]

Bruno@mt,
To answer your question, Why go? If the United States went to war with Russia or China, their governments are evil but their citizens are not. You would be fighting just regular people doing their patriotic duty to serve their country. The terrorist jihadis are not the same type of enemy. They are individuals who want to torture, maim and kill innocent men women and children. They are pure, un-adulterated evil. If you are an individual who wants to stand against evil on this planet, and you want to take part in the fight against true evil, these terrorists fit that bill and Iraq and Afghanistan is where they are concentrated right now. All deeper political, national, and economic issues aside, fighting terrorists and protecting innocent people is on reason you might want in.

 

[Tez3]

Bruno@mt,
To answer your question, Why go? If the United States went to war with Russia or China, their governments are evil but their citizens are not. You would be fighting just regular people doing their patriotic duty to serve their country. The terrorist jihadis are not the same type of enemy. They are individuals who want to torture, maim and kill innocent men women and children. They are pure, un-adulterated evil. If you are an individual who wants to stand against evil on this planet, and you want to take part in the fight against true evil, these terrorists fit that bill and Iraq and Afghanistan is where they are concentrated right now. All deeper political, national, and economic issues aside, fighting terrorists and protecting innocent people is on reason you might want in.

You have of course heard the expression 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'.

You know of course that the American's who fought in your War of Independance were described as terrrorists by the English? And we are Allies now.

How do you know the governments of China and Russia are evil? It's just your opinion.

Two wrongs never make a right.

 

[billc]

I have been waiting for someone to use that silly quote. The difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is what happens after they win. The founding fathers were not terrorists, they created a democracy that has eventually led to the most free country on the planet. There is a peaceful change of power every two years and for the most part the greatest level of equality that you are going to find anywhere. The terrorists want to impose shariah law on the world. This would subjugate women and all non-muslims. It would be a theocracy governed by the muslim religion. They would kill gays and jews, and atheists, and all religions not of the book, hindus, bhudists, wiccans etc. There would be no democracy, there would only be one religion enforced by religous police. Sooo, a terrorist is actually a terrorist, a freedom fighter fights for truth, justice, and the American way, freedom of religion, speech, pretty much the American bill of rights or something similar to it. And yes, the russian government is evil, as is the chinese government. Ask the people suppressed by Putin or the people run over by tanks at Tianeman square.

The terrorists, also, for example, hate the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. Not because they are a democracy, but because they do not live up to shariah themselves. The terrorists do not want to over throw the Saudi government to create a free democracy but to set up their theocratic dictatorship. So that is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. And yes, America has done bad things in the past as well, but in no way can be compared to the evils of the socialists in russia or china. The socialists in russia murdered 25 million people or more, and the Chinese count is about what, 70 million people murdered, not including all the babies murdered with their one child policy. So please, do not try to compare freedom loving America with russia and china.

 

[WC_lun]

Terrorist are actually people who use terror to influence politics. So for that definition, the original tea party in Boton harbor and the guerilla tactics used by the American colonials were terrorism. I'm not saying that a greater good didn't come of it, but quit pretending we are something we aren't.

To accept behaviour that is immoral from our government just because we think it is the best is ridiculous. How can we really critisize another country such as China for things such as human rights violations when we also abuse human rights? The whole I-did-wrong-because-they-did-worse arguement should have lost it power about first grade. Also, don't forget, America's hands in history aren't exactly blood free.

 

[elder999]

Terrorist are actually people who use terror to influence politics. So for that definition, the original tea party in Boton harbor and the guerilla tactics used by the American colonials were terrorism. I'm not saying that a greater good didn't come of it, but quit pretending we are something we aren't.

Not to mention the attempted kidnapping of the Earl of Selkirk....or the genocide of the rightful inhabitants of the continent.....the absolute intolerance of colonies founded for religious freedom towards other religions: the Puritans were terrible people.

Detractors to the faith like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were exiled from the colony. “Heretics” were physically beaten. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story Young Goodman Brown, the devil tells the young prospective initiate, “I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem…” Quakers were not welcome in Massachusetts and well into the 19th-century, and New Englanders annually burned an effigy of the pope. Colonial diversity was far less than inclusive.

I won't even get into the forcible kidnap, rape and transport of millions of Africans as cargo.

Oh, yes I WILL.:soapbox:


The British arrived in Jamestown in 1607. By 1610 the intentional extermination of the native population was well underway.America’s contribution to “the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world” continued unabated to 1890. In December of that year the vengeful soldiers of the United States Seventh Cavalry used gattling guns and rifles to slaughter Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

And how many millions of Africans died as a result of slavery? All of them, actually. If they died in slavery they died of slavery too. Their lives were stolen from them before they were born. The slave trade was “justified” by demented, inhuman racism, but it was motivated by material greed. It was a business, like everything else in America’s bloody, ruthless history.

A truly evil corporate plutocracy rules this country today , and America’s modern addiction to plundering the world has its historical roots in the theft of Indian land and the slavery of Africans. America’s wealth owes its origins in large measure to generations of African blood, sweat and tears, and to the land stolen from its original inhabitants.

 

[billc]

The comparison between this country and other countries is interesting. The socialists in Germany, Russia, and China killed millions of people in modern industrial times, not back in colonial days. Once and for all, we did not commit genocide against the Indians, diseases spread through contact with a new population is not genocide. And no, we did not give disease blankets to the indians, that is a myth. Fighting an oppressive government for human rights makes you a freedom fighter not a terrorist. The early colonists were freedom fighters and the proof of that comes from our early government, the constitution and the bill of rights. By the way, this country has been and so far is the last best hope for mankind. I am not sure how people can compare this country with any other. Usually, they have to go back to the more primitive time in human history where all humans were cruel and viscious to one another. The difference comes from the growth our nation has made in just over 200 years compared to countries that have been around since the beginning of recorded history. We have done bad things, the other countries have done much worse, more recently. I have never understood self-loathing Americans, or the attempt to put us on an equal footing with 20 million(?) murdered in then modern Germany, 25 to 50 million murdered in the soviet union, or the 70 million murdered in China.

 

[billc]

Slavery was brought to America by the same Europeans you try to compare us to. We eventually ended slavery at the cost of 500,000 dead Americans. And remember, slavery would have ended sooner if not for the democrats of that time. The democrats wanted to re-start the slave trade with Africa, allow slavery in the new states, and went to war on the fear that the first republican president was going to end slavery. Europe, africa, asia and all the countries of the world had slavery. And yes, the gentle native americans had slaves as well, and quite a few tribes were still practicing human sacrifice and cannabalism when the europeans arrived. Remember, they ate some of crew that Columbus left behind. Slavery still exists in Africa for heaven's sake. The real kind, with whips and chains. Still, in the Sudan and Mouritania. The muslim north of Sudan takes slaves from the southern animists and christians so please, try not to throw the slavery card at the United States. We dealt with our inherited from Europe slavery problem back in the 1860's. And massacres happened on both sides of the indian and U.S. government clashes.

 

[billc]

Remember, the Africans sold the slaves. They are still selling slaves in parts of Africa, so before you blame Europe and America, blame the slave owners in Africa. That is part of the history of slavery that is just beginning to be pondered over. Barak Obama's harvard friend, the one from the beer summit just wrote a book on the role of Africa in the perpetuation of the slave trade.

 

[elder999]

. I have never understood self-loathing Americans, or the attempt to put us on an equal footing with 20 million(?) murdered in then modern Germany, 25 to 50 million murdered in the soviet union, or the 70 million murdered in China.

I'm not a "self-loathing" American at all. :lol:

Well, if estimates of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas range from30 million to 100 million, and there are now 1.9 million natives, then the comparison is just about equal.

And, you're woefully ignorant. Letters exist between British soldiers at the siege of Fort Pitt, in 1763, advocating the use of smallpox infected blankets, and there was a subsequent outbreak of smallpox among the Delaware. That the two can't be completely correlated is only because of the 200+ years that have passed.In Carl Waldman's Atlas of the North American Indian [NY: Facts on File, 1985]. Waldman writes, in reference to a siege of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) by Chief Pontiac's forces during the summer of 1763: ... Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort—an early example of biological warfare—which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer.

So, however the Indians caught smallpox, this was done.

In 2000, our government apologized for the "systematic ethnic cleansing" of Native Americans.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

*Cough* Wounded Knee *Cough* Trail of Tears *Cough* Bear River *Cough* Washita

Not Uncle Sam's best days. Custer waged war against the Indians. Cost him his life. Others like Sheridan won medals for wholesale slaughter, rape and murder. He was on a mission of genocide, approved of by President US Grant.

If you'd like a list of them though, I can dig up a few hundred US atrocities, rapes, murders, etc, from day one, to oh, about 2 weeks ago. Probably best to do each one as a separate topic though.

If the rebels we refer to as Founding Fathers had lost the war, they would have been executed as traitors. The fact we celebrate the Boston Tea Party to me is a shame, considering it an act of vandalism, theft and destruction. The war was almost lost because half the people didn't want to leave British rule, and in fact after the war thousands left the new country or faced harassment and intimidation. It's not the 'shiny happy' revolution the average school text makes it out to be.

 

[Empty Hands]

The early colonists were freedom fighters and the proof of that comes from our early government, the constitution and the bill of rights.

You mean the very same Constitution that counted a slave as 3/5ths of a person? The very same that had to be amended to allow blacks and women to vote? The early colonists were only interested (with some exceptions) for freedom for themselves. They were humans, not sainted demigods.

That's one, but the rest of your post is just unsupported jingoism. I'm having trouble believing you even mean it, it's so over the top. Americans are human (like the Founding Fathers) just like everyone else, and prone to the same errors and stupidities. America has seen both shining moments of virtue and long periods of depravity, just like everywhere else. People are people, no matter where they happen to live. Pretending it could be otherwise is just stupid.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Slavery was brought to America by the same Europeans you try to compare us to. We eventually ended slavery at the cost of 500,000 dead Americans.

Hmm, the Brits ended slavery with the stroke of a pen, 30 years before the USA.

The war between the states was not fought over slavery, that’s a fallacy. I know that and I’m not even American.

I’m all for patriotism, (no matter what country you live in), pound the drums, beat your chest, but patriotism while being ignorant of your own history, is just arrogance.

 

[billc]

To mention another book, by Michael Medved, "The Ten Big Lies about America" he goes into the myth of intentional germ warfare against the indians, and he goes through each of the major massacres and dispels the myths about what happened. He specifically talks about the Fort Pitt incident, "...In fact, the only evidence of personnel at Fort Pitt actually passing infected garments to Indians ocurred before the infamous written exchanges between Amhurst and Bouquet. On or around June 24, two traders at the garrison gave blankets and a single handkerchief from the fort's quarantined hospital to two visiting Delaware Indians; one of the dealers made note of the exchange in his journal, declaring, "I hope it will have the desired effect." Whatever the intent of this interchange, there's no evidence that it led to contagion among the indians besieging the fort: they continued to menace the stronghold in fierce good health for more than six weeks after recieving the blankets." "...On my radio show I interviewed Elizabeth Fenn, the author of "Pox Americana: The Great Small Pox Epidemic of 1775-82" and the world's leading expert on the American impact of the dread disease, and I asked her directly whether her years of research had turned up any persuasive evidence that "germ warfare tactics" contributed significantly to Indian victimization. "Frankly, no," she declared. Remember too, he points out, the guys who wrote the letters were British, not Americans. He also points out that white traders and soldiers also tried at time to help "reduce rather than intensify its deadly impact."
He also points out that the outbreak among the Mandan and other indians came not from the U.S. army but "...had spread from a steamboat whose crew was infected." He recounts the letters between Bouquet and Amherst and the account of a Lord Jeffery who sited the "...monstrous cruelty he had observed from his adversaries(indians)(scalping alive for souvenirs, branding, cutting out and occasionally devouring hearts, torture through slow skinning, piercing bodies with as many as a hundred arrows)..." Medved also points out "...At no point did the British commander issue orders or make a policy declaration regarding extermination of the Indians.
Medved next discusses the various massacres, the Mystic Massacre,the sand creek massacre,the battle of the washita, what really happened at wounded knee. The wounded knee massacre is interesting because the mythology that apparently has grown up around it. Medved sites the book, "The last days of the sioux Nation" " ...As Utely observes, this dark episode would have been avoided "had not a few unthinking young men, incited by a fanatical medicine man, lost control of themselves and created an incident..." The soldiers "...they did not deliberately killl women and children, although in a few instances more caution might have been excercised..." Utely concludes, "...It is time that Wounded Knee be viewed for what it was-a regrettable, tragic act of war that neither side intended."
Medved sites "...most of the white newcomers to the west understood that the bloodthirsty habits that so frightened them unquestionably predated the arrival of the Europeans in North America...The various tribes never lived together in harmony and mutual respect, nor more than the Neolithic cultures of Europe, Asia or Africa coexisted without desperate and punishing conflict."
Another book to check out, Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, noble Savage.
Also sited by Medved, an article in the "Missouri Republican" describing the war of extermination waged by the tribes of the upper missouri river. So please, once again, two cultures collided and ended up killing each other.