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A thought that came to me a short while ago. How will people in a few decades look back on the Bush administration? Will he, like Johnson, have any good he did eclipsed by the clusterfuck that is the War on Terror? Will people find some good to pull out of his years as president?

Idiot.

Bush's single most distinctive "achievement" was to take what was probably the greatest unity of purpose the world has seen since 1945, and destroy it within a year. That takes a pretty spectacular degree idiocy, far beyond the demonstration of how not to fight a war - most governments have done that.

No doubt, the war in Iraq was handled poorly from day one. Add to that granting PNTR (permanent normal trade relations) status with China, spying on our own citizens, tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens, and general disregard of public opinion, and it'll be tough to see the good parts through all the crap. It'd be like trying to find your car keys after you accidentally dropped them in the toilet at some crappy pub.

Well there is one good thing that came from him...a lot of jokes.

Meaning of "I support Bush" bumper sticker: I can't get this freakin bumper sticker off my car.

How was the war in Iraq handled poorly? and name one country that don't spy on there own people. How is the War on Terror a clusterfuck?

danman wrote:How was the war in Iraq handled poorly?

Well, for starters, we had a lot less manpower and equipment in the region than we needed to properly secure the country. The repeated changing of generals and support staff, poor intelligence, and a lack of understanding about the tribal system didn't help either.

We could've closed the borders with Syria and Iran as soon as we defeated the Iraqi military, had we the proper resources. Then, concentrated our efforts on tribal leaders to gain support against the extremist insurgents; focused our efforts on training the Iraqi forces to defend themselves against terrorist tactics, etc. The list continues, but those are my main gripes, and have been since about four months in.

danman wrote:How was the war in Iraq handled poorly? and name one country that don't spy on there own people. How is the War on Terror a clusterfuck?

Simple, we didn't focus the necessary resources on wiping out Al-Qaeda, and instead attacked Iraq, which had little if any connection to Al-Qaeda. Now Al-Qaeda has regained the strength we initially took. And Iraq wasn't a threat, it was all about the oil. Well, maybe not just the oil, but it was a major factor. We attacked Iraq against the suggestions of our allies, and the UN, while claiming they had WMD's. You know how many WMD's have been found? 12 empty rusted out chemical warheads. My mother's minivan is more of a threat then that.

And while countries do spy on their own people, Bush authorized spy operations that broke some of this nation's highest laws. We have laws regulating spy operations, but Bush just trampled them.

I think he'll be known for breaking a record number of laws while being president. I don't know exactly how many laws he's broken, I do know he's broken hundreds of them.

How was the war in Iraq handled poorly?

Eh, have you been living under a rock since the war started?

Asside from the various supposed reasons the US invaded Iraq (He had WMDs! Wait, he was going to build WMDs! We're spreading democracy, the people love us, really!), the whole thing was all about the oil they could get out of it. That alone ensured that the higher-ups were more interested in making a profit than actualy helping the locals, who quickly turned against the people who invaded their country.
Bush's "winning hearts and minds" tactic was a massive failure from the start. They failed to swing Iraqi public opinion on their side, and the civillian deaths and collatoral damage caused by the US army just made things worse.
Manpower and supply shortages (I think there was one point where they even had a lack of armour for their troops), and the fact that the generals seemed to have no idea how to fight a guerilla war meant that the insurgetns gained in strength during the years following the US invasion.
A failure to properly counter insurgent forces and extremist propaganda from the start led to them recruiting more and more followers.

It's now gotten to the point where the US is trying to occupy a country where the population hates them with a passion, and who engage in combat techniques that the US army is very poor at countering. All because of the oil.
How can you not call this a massive clusterfuck?

and name one country that don't spy on there own people.

That's a bit of black/white thinking there. All countries keep an eye on their citizens, but to different degrees. For example, I know for a fact that my government can't do half the crap Bush can.

How is the War on Terror a clusterfuck?

Considering the War on Terror was originaly a small scale operation against a single terrorist organisation, the fact that the US has invaded two countries and has taken thousands of casualties and the fact that support for the terrorists has been growing since the War on Terror started quite clearly shows how stupidly this whole thing was done.

You all aren't going to like this, but with who's running now, I'd prefer it if Bush could go for round three.

How could they possibly do worse?

How was the war in Iraq handled poorly? and name one country that don't spy on there own people. How is the War on Terror a clusterfuck?

That doesnt warrent a responce.

I wanted Ron Paul to win this election but now he's out McCain is the less of 3 evils.

The war on terror is absurd in its very foundation. Terrorism is a tactic, it's not an organisation or a country.

Put it this way. If Afghanistan had openly declared war on America and then successfully attacked on 9/11 with proper military forces... imagine if America had declared a "War on War" in response. That's how stupid the war on terror is.

The attack on Iraq I supported at the time, but I fell for the lies they peddled about WMDs. In retrospect the biggest mistake was invading at all when there was no reason to.

Having decided to invade Iraq, the Americans made several huge mistakes. Most importantly they disbanded the Iraqi army and security forces. They should have done what the British practically begged them to do, which was to keep those forces on and simply take over their management and reform them. The Americans wouldn't do that because they looked upon them as the "bad guys", so they created a huge power vacuum that they didn't have the manpower to fill. It was all downhill from there, really.

Uzume wrote:You all aren't going to like this, but with who's running now, I'd prefer it if Bush could go for round three.

You're going to have to explain this a bit more.

Bush has started the war in Iraq and the war on Terror and refuses to admit that the first one was wrong while the second one made zero progress. He's also sent any good relations with Iran and North Korea down the toilet. Then the whole, No Child Left Behind thing. And this is all off the top of my head at 5 in the morning. The only way it could be worse is if they started World War 3.

Whoever the next president is, could become very popular by fixing Bush's mistakes.

Hasn't he also cause a load of economic problems? And let's not forget he antagonised pretty much the entire Middle East with his actions.

Uzume wrote:You all aren't going to like this, but with who's running now, I'd prefer it if Bush could go for round three.

He'd be a definate improvement on Huckabee - anyone who can be described as "the candidate for those tired of George Bush's intellectuallism", and who makes Ian Paisley look like a religious moderate should be barred from political office.

Either Obama or McCain would be a huge improvement however. Obama may come across as somewhat naive and idealistic, and I disagree with his stance on Iraq, but he's got some good ideas - universal health care being one of them.

McCain is prepared to stay put in Iraq and clean up Bush's mess (which at least seems possible now), and also doesn't seem to have his head in the sand on the immigration issue.