George Bush - a strong leader...

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I thought this was cascade CLIMBERS.com not cascade politics.com, any body have any good CLIMBING stories to tell?

 

nobody here climbs

[sexual_chocolate]

 

 

[JayB]

My only comment on this thread is that people's perceptions of WWII seem to be overly rosy. There was plenty of dissension and strife in the months and years leading up to the war, and the war itself was pretty much a straight-up fight to the death. The pilots didn't think twice about unloading their payloads on population centers, the Marines fighting their way from island to island made sure that the Japanese soldiers weren't just "playing dead" when the fighting was through, they had no illusions about what would happen to them if they were taken alive, etc, etc, etc. The bottom line is that we won that war because we were able to destroy their armies and societies more effectively than they were able to destroy ours. The fact the free world prevailed over the totalitarian states was the best thing that ever happened to the world - IMO - but things could have just as easily gone the other way if, for example - the Germans had developed the bomb first, or the cream of the German Army had been deployed to repel the D-Day invasion, rather than fighting the Russians.

[DirtyHarry]

Or if Hitler and Stalin were not dellusional and paranoid and had made rational strategic decisions down the line.

[olyclimber]

I wonder how much George Bush can bench.

[foraker]

I love how our perceptions about WW2 are overly 'rosy' yet our perceptions about Iraq are overly 'pessimistic' and poisoned by the 'Agenda Media'.....

[archenemy]

I wonder how much George Bush can bench.

Well, he would probably surprise you. I hear he had been in training for his upcoming push-up contest. It is going to be a part of the Presidential Fisicale Fitness Award next year.

[chucK]

This comparison to WWII is completely absurd. Yes there was much more slaughter in WWII. However, in WWII as JayB says, we were fighting to the death. This was a serious, justified war with horrible consequences if we lost or did not involve ourselves. People were justifiably scared and scared people can do some pretty extreme things to defend themselves.

 

Declining to fight the Iraq War ("War" is probably a misnomer, more like "invasion and occupation") never had any such dire consequences. The only reason anybody was ever scared was because of exaggeration of the threat by our government.

 

It is certainly laudable that we are not totally destroying cities like in WWII (*cough* *cough* Fallujah *cough*). But the consequences of our voluntary invasion and occupation are still grievously harming hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Iraqis, and tens of thousands of coalition troops.

 

Because of the total lack of necessity for this incursion, the initiators must be held to a much higher standard than those who were fighting in a life or death conflict. Thus the justification that we aren't killing people at the same rate as in WWII is ludicrous.

 

Certainly for the soldier on the ground, stuck in a life or death situation, the comparions may be more appropriate. But the criminals sitting at home and plotting, going to war with Army we have, not necessarily the one we'd like, should be held accountable for every death, injury and dollar spent that could have been easily avoided by declining to aggressively invade another country without provocation.

[mattp]

As KJK pointed out, Chuck, Saddam certainly did provoke us. However, even before 911 and well before the run-up to the war, he knew he was on our "hit list" and his days were numbered anyway. Faced with that reality, his bellicose game of chicken may have seemed like his best play.

 

And remenber: I don't know if KJK has recently said this or not but BushCo says it a lot and I've definitely read the misstatement on this board about how Saddam threw the weapons inspectors out. It was NOT Saddam who threw them out; Bush told them to clear out because we were going to bomb.

 

Doing his dance, Saddam rattled his swords but also allowed the inspections full access. He tried the presidential palace thing as a dodge, but in the end he backed off on that ploy, if I remember correctly.

[DirtyHarry]

I think the biggest problem in Iraq is that a lot of the Iraqis don't like or trust us b/c we came into their country acting like imperialist assholes in pursuit of our own interests. You can hardly blame them. And this gets incredibly complicated by religion and the "clash of civilizations" if you will - the partly imagined and partly real christian west trying again to dominate and subvert the islamic east. Of course, the islamic ethic that promotes violence as an acceptable recourse exasurbates the existing friction. Add the Sunni and Shiite power struggle dynamic and you've got a super duper fucked up situation.

[chucK]

OK, perhaps I should have qualified the "without provocation", but I figured I already had too many adjectives in there.

 

World leaders have been "provoking" us as much or more than Saddam did all over the place. I think you will agree that it is far short of the provocations required to bring us into WWII (wholesale invasion and occupation of neighboring countries, actually bombing US forces in a US port!). Sheesh.

[JayB]

The only other point I'll make is that there was plenty of dissent and strife within the US - quite a bit of it much, much more intense than anything that we've seen since the advent of the Iraq War - and even though pretty much everyone knew what was at stake in Europe, there was hardly a mass-consensus behind going to war there. Even in England, Churchill was widely despised as an alarmist warmonger, until the facts on the ground proved him right. There's also a reason why Roosevelt had to sell assistance to England under the terms of a "lend-lease" deal, etc, etc, etc. If Roosevelt had decided to go to war as soon as the Germans invaded the Rhineland, or Sudetenland, or Poland - public opinion would have turned against him in a massive way. Pearl Harbor changed all of that, and some sort of attack by Germany or Japan was probably inevitable - but without such an attack it's hard to argue that the average American would have seen going to war in Europe or the Pacific as something that was justified, or that doing nothing would eventually bring about a much more grave and dangerous situation for them or the rest of the world. This wasn't too long after WWI, and there were quite a few people around who concluded that the conseqeuences of doing nothing couldn't be any worse than getting involved in something like that again.

[cj001f]

in WWII as JayB says, we were fighting to the

death.

 

we were? Then why did the US worry about wavering resolve, and devote such efforts to hero tours, etc. to prop up moral in 1944 & 1945?

[Punter]

"I think the biggest problem in Iraq is that a lot of the Iraqis don't like or trust us b/c we came into their country acting like imperialist assholes in pursuit of our own interests".

I think the biggest problem is that those people hate each other. The only reason that place didn't fall apart years ago is because Saddam had his boot on their throats.

[Johnny_Tuff]

The only other point I'll make is that [blah blah blah]

 

Oh, oh please don't go! This fascinating discussion just wouldn't be the same without your priceless contributions! Maybe you're just taking a break to consult a few reference texts before returning to drop another informational firebomb on this Dresden of a thread.

 

Oh, we can only wait and hope...what to do until JayB returns, what to do until JayB returns?! Oh, I can hardly stand it. I need a cup of Sensitivioso au lait to calm my shipwrecked nerves!

[chucK]

I'm not sure where the "hero tours" thing is going, but it just seems to me that the US involvement in WWII was much more justified than our invasion of Iraq. And well, say it wasn't? Does the supposition that we did a bad thing before, make it OK to do it now, even more frivolously? Is Vietname a reasonable justification for invading Iraq since we probably won't lose even close to 65K soldiers?

[JayB]

The only other point I'll make is that [blah blah blah]

 

Oh, oh please don't go! This fascinating discussion just wouldn't be the same without your priceless contributions! Maybe you're just taking a break to consult a few reference texts before returning to drop another informational firebomb on this Dresden of a thread.

 

Oh, we can only wait and hope...what to do until JayB returns, what to do until JayB returns?! Oh, I can hardly stand it. I need a cup of Sensitivioso au lait to calm my shipwrecked nerves!

 

 

Hahaha. You get that drafing certificate yet? The proceeds from that should keep you well stocked in the obscure comic books, "Mother Jones" articles, and bad punk music that constituted the foundation for your perspective on the world.

[HappyCamper]

Not to mention Edith Keeler nearly stalling our whole intervention in WWII from the get go. Such a misguided babe.

Edited April 20, 2006 by HappyCamper

[cj001f]

Hahaha. You get that drafing certificate yet? The proceeds from that should keep you well stocked in the obscure comic books, "Mother Jones" articles, and bad punk music that constituted the foundation for your perspective on the world.

Oh, how droll. He's emerged from the paneled room and Corinthian leather seats to treat us with another stellar stereotype stripped from the Wall Street Journal oped page. Jay, do tell us the joke about Ayn Rand, the Communist, Stalin and Roosevelt again!

[mattp]

Jay seems to think we have done little to be ashamed of in our treatment of prisoners, but at least some people disagree. Press Release

[Johnny_Tuff]

Hahaha. You get that drafing certificate yet? The proceeds from that should keep you well stocked in the obscure comic books, "Mother Jones" articles, and bad punk music that constituted the foundation for your perspective on the world.

 

Thank heavens! Our Christ-like sprayvior returns from a near-eternity of absence to lead us out of the desert of our own ignorance with a scathing-yet-refreshing bitch-slap of withering condescension.

 

Hit me, baby, one more time! Oh, it hurts so good, I can hardly stand it!

[ScottP]

Back to Bush:

"In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?' "

15 March 05

[archenemy]

Back to Bush:

"In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?' "

15 March 05

funny. do you have a link? i am curious what the discussion around this was.

[sexual_chocolate]

Hahaha. You get that drafing certificate yet? The proceeds from that should keep you well stocked in the obscure comic books, "Mother Jones" articles, and bad punk music that constituted the foundation for your perspective on the world.

 

Jeez, he is so condescending! I don't see how you could ask for another one. But he's also very sensitive, and it's often the sensitive who have the most to lose.

 

 

But tell me, what is this drafing certificate you've been working on? Is this a misprint?

[chucK]

Back to Bush:

"In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?' "

15 March 05

funny. do you have a link? i am curious what the discussion around this was.

 

Google is truly amazing and useful!

link for Archie, search the document for "wander"