Missing Bush (Oppressed people around wish Bush was still in office!)

The Weekly Standard ^ | 12-19-11 | Daniel Halper

[dragnet2]

Hmmm...

[Venturer]

The last wars we have had have all been limited engagements with rules to be followed that impair our ability to win and only get our peope killed. If we go to war we must go to win. In order to win you have to make the enemy want to quit. They will not want to quit when you allow them to hide among civilians,run to a place we cannot get at them ordress as civilians one day and come out and kill us the next.

We lost in Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm and now Iraq.

Limited engagements with limited rules of war.

[RipSawyer]

Back during the primary season in ‘07 and ‘08 a lot of the people I worked with then liked to say that we could “not do worse” than George Bush. I couldn’t stand to hear such stupidity, I literally cringed when I heard it. I probably made a few enemies because on more than one occasion I told them to mark on the calender what I was saying. I told them that regardless of which candidate from either party we elected that within a couple of years they would be wishing they could go back to the days of Bush. They thought I was nuts but I was just looking at reality with open eyes and they were not.

[Does so]

Is this for real? The photo kind of screams “Photoshop.”

My first thought.

However, assuming it is real, they have better English punctuation skills than most college students. (Note the correct usage of the semicolon!)

Shouldn't that be a colon? A semi-colon would have a word or two—with a comma following it.

It should be a colon; however, I could be wrong!

;)

[NFHale]

“...How many people honestly expect that Iraq won’t be in the midst of a civil war 5 years from now? ...”

Brother, I don’t even give them five years. We’ll probably seem them offing each other inside of next year.

The Yugoslavia analogy is a good one.

“Multiple groups of people who hate each other....” We’re actually kind of going through now ourselves, if you think about it...thanks to the Dems.

Personally, with the exception of Israel, I think the whole frigging Middle East is clinically insane...

[NFHale]

“...I am proud of what we did there, and I am proud of our military and the way they conducted themselves...”

Absolutely, spot-on.

In spite of what libs and other home-grown morons think, our folks ARE the people who oppressed folks want to see coming over the hill.

“...With this POS in the White House, I am glad to have them out, because he would only stab more of our own people in the back. He didn’t support our military, he never did, and he never will....”

He can’t support them, because he doesn’t know how. His whole life was spent around radical communist/socialist/liberal freaks and he’s been educated to believe that we’re the source of bad in the world - or, more specifically, white America is the source. It’s hard to shake off that kind of conditioning.

I’ve never seen an American president BOW to anyone, until this clown came along. Hope I never have to see it again. That action speaks volumes to how he sees himself, and the country.

So yes, your point about bringing our folks out is a good one indeed.

[rlmorel]

I understand your viewpoint, but I disagree that we lost in Korea, Desert Storm and Iraq.

In Korea, sure, we have had a divided Korea for 60 years, but we didn’t have a completely Communist Korea for 60 years. We COULD have completely taken North Korea and had a unified free Korea for sixty years, but that was a political failure, in much the same way Vietnam was, in the end, a political failure.

Desert Storm was not a failure. We did not end up with Iraq and Saddam Hussein standing astride the major oil fields in the Middle East, scheming and preparing to go into Saudi Arabia. We freed Kuwait and handcuffed Hussein. There was an interesting graphic a while back that showed American presence in the Middle East, and Iran was nearly completely surrounded by countries that had at least some American basing.

In my opinion, as long as oil powers our economy and way of life, and we have a vested interest in that supply, we do not have the luxury of taking a hands-off approach and “just let them kill each other”. I would infinitely prefer to use our own sources of oil, coal and nuclear technology, but we are prisoners of liberals and environmentalists in that respect.

I don’t believe we should or should have had troops in the former Yugoslav areas. I don’t think we should have troops in places like the Congo or Sri Lanka. We don’t have interests there and shouldn’t be there.

In that, I agree completely with you. We should not send troops to fight on the ground in places like the Congo and Sri Lanka.

I don’t have a problem with limited engagements and limited rules of war, but I do have a problem with some specific limited engagements and specific limited rules of war, such as the catch and release policy for certain known terrorists and insurgents, just to name one. Or the blanket restrictions on returning fire, to name another. Those decisions should be left up the people in the field.

But I just cannot believe we can’t achieve our goals by anything other than doing nothing or completely flattening a country from 40,000 feet. There has to be a middle ground, in my opinon.

[rlmorel]

af_vet_rr, I disagree.

I do believe there ARE valid economic reasons to go to war, and history shows that there are. If a country were to dam and dry up a river that another country downstream depends on for water supply, that would be an economic reason to go to war. Sure, that country could purchase pipelines or truck in water at an extreme cost, but that makes it economic.

If a country is shipping us badly needed oil, and another country attacks their tankers in international water and sinks them, they are not committing an act directly against us, because oil is fungible and theoretically could be purchased and shipped from many places. But what if they decided to sink every tanker leaving a middle eastern port with oil?

I would say there ARE economic reasons to go to war. Where reasonable people disagree, and therein lies the rub, is where does one draw that line along a scale of gray.

As for my reference to Germany and Japan, I don’t believe I am mixing apples and oranges. Actually, there were a huge number of people (and many influential and powerful ones) who thought that we could never get Japan to change and democratize after WWII. They said it was impossible, and would never happen. That was a mainstream view by many, and wasn’t discounted.

If you haven’t read it, I would recommend the book “The Case For Democracy: The Power Of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny And Terror” by Natan Sharansky. I thought he addressed that very subject well in the book.

Will democracy survive after we have left? Perhaps not. Perhaps it may not even survive in this country much longer. There are no guarantees. But as I said before, the difference between a country like the USA and a country like the Soviet Union is clearly evident in our approaches in Afghanistan alone. The fact that we have been there a bit longer than the Soviets, accomplished more of our goals than them but have suffered only suffered less than a fifth of the combat KIA the Soviets suffered did says something. It speaks volumes to the reasons we are there, and most of the people there know it. Even the ones who hate us the most know we aren’t there to colonize the country and take it over, even though they say otherwise for their public consumption.

I wish we did many things better in the conflict, managed it better, but all in all, it has been the right way to approach it.

And by the way, thank you for the rational and polite discourse on this. This is a very polarizing subject, and I have found it difficult engage in on occasion.

[rlmorel]

"...I’ve never seen an American president BOW to anyone, until this clown came along..."

Just amazing. It floored me. I never thought I would see that in my lifetime, and the significance of a President of the United States doing that is NOT lost on ANY other country. They all know EXACTLY what that gesture conveys.

Unbelievable. I still cannot stomach even the thought.

[rlmorel]

Hahah...it is kind of interesting to have a grammar discussion on FR that isn’t directed at a poster who irritated someone else!

[NFHale]

“...significance of a President of the United States doing that is NOT lost on ANY other country...”

Brother, it is totally in keeping with his worldview and his view of this country - the ONLY country, by the way, where someone with zero experience and cred could become President. He’s proof - “you can fool some of the people all the time...” etc., etc.

He pretty much is proof that ANYONE could get elected...not necessarily have the brains and wherewithal to be a GOOD President, but get elected, sure....

Victor Davis Hanson had a brilliant article on the Myth of Obama the other day. It was a masterful dissection of the fraud that this clown really is.

See: “When the Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend”

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/when-the-legend-becomes-fact-print-the-legend/?singlepage=true

This is an amazing article and I’m surprised no one posted it out here yet.

[rlmorel]

Thank you. I will check out this link when I get home. VDH is quality reading.

[af_vet_rr]

I do believe there ARE valid economic reasons to go to war, and history shows that there are. If a country were to dam and dry up a river that another country downstream depends on for water supply, that would be an economic reason to go to war. Sure, that country could purchase pipelines or truck in water at an extreme cost, but that makes it economic.

Let me narrow the focus then: there is no reason for the United States to go to war at this point in time based solely on economic factors. Using your water example, we should have went to war with Mexico in the 1990s when they started screwing over Texas farmers along the Rio Grande, but we didn't. We should be threatening China with war for all of the intellectual property theft and piracy, industrial espionage, and possible market manipulation, but we don't.

You're next example of a country attacking the oil tankers of one of our oil suppliers starts falling into the national security category, especially when we have defense treaties in place. This is no different than when we began guarding convoys of supplies to England during World War II.

There can be economic reasons to go to war for other countries, but at this point in time, economic reasons cannot be the sole reason for the US to go to war, otherwise we're opening ourselves up to starting several wars a year and we become hypocrites. We also set the stage for even more nation building than we already engage in.

As for my reference to Germany and Japan, I don’t believe I am mixing apples and oranges. Actually, there were a huge number of people (and many influential and powerful ones) who thought that we could never get Japan to change and democratize after WWII. They said it was impossible, and would never happen. That was a mainstream view by many, and wasn’t discounted.

We can try and impose a government on Iraq, but Iraq is just a Middle Eastern version of Yugoslavia, and just like Yugoslavia, it's going to fall apart without strong-arm rulers. It's not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when.

[rlmorel]

I think you are being absolute. So we agree that oil falls into a national security category? Why is that only national security and not economic? I think the two are inseparable.

You are implying that I (and others who agree that there can be economic reasons to go to war) advocate starting several wars a year with different countries over the price of shoes or automobiles? Do you really think that, or are you being rhetorical?

I don’t see anyone advocating going to war with China over something like intellectual property, and most people including me would think it would be silly to do so, so I don’t think it applies, as do not local issues along a narrow corridor along the Rio Grande where both countries have legitimate rights to their side. Those kind of things can be handled with tarriffs and such.

But if you are a desert country, and your main and perhaps only source of water happens to be a river that flows to you through a hostile country, that wouldn’t be an act of war?

If someone like Saddam Hussein, with the fourth largest military in the world at the time had kept Kuwait and gone into Saudi Arabia (which I have no doubt they would had squashed like a bug, Saudi F-15s not withstanding) and decided to cut off oil shipments, that sure seems like an economic and national security issue right there.

If you don’t think oil is as vital to our lives as food and water, I think you aren’t paying attention. Without oil, we don’t have jobs, money food or even potable water.

Because we had a vested, selfish interest in this situation does not diminish the fact that we didn’t approach it with a total war and destruction objective.

Iraq is not the same as Germany and Japan, and I never said that it was with respect to the environment. But I do maintain, and history has recorded that there were many who thought that the occupation of Japan was doomed to failure, that they were a feudal society that would not change. And I also maintain that we have not yet proven that it cannot be done, since there has never been an effort like that in Iraq, and to say it cannot be done is baseless.

Many people advocate the use of nuclear weapons, none of this silly screwing around with the lives or our men. The life of one American soldier is not an even trade for 200 million of those Arabs. Just turn it all into glass, they say.

Well, I disagree.

There are many of us who think it is right to back up our principles with our blood and our treasure (even if our overriding concern is self-interest) and our principles don’t include simply loading up a fleet of B-52’s with MK84s and carpet bombing the country from one end to the other unless we are forced to.

I think advocating that approach or none at all is hypocrital.

[af_vet_rr]

I think you are being absolute. So we agree that oil falls into a national security category? Why is that only national security and not economic? I think the two are inseparable.

As long as we can provide for our own energy needs, which we can if we chose to do so as you pointed out, oil should not be a national security issue. Have we made oil a national security issue that we are willing to invade other countries just over oil? Not yet, although the environmental nuts opposed to more drilling and more nuclear energy are hell-bent on sending us down that road.

Ironically, your example, Iraq, did go to war with Kuwait solely over economic reasons, and that didn't go to well for them.

You are implying that I (and others who agree that there can be economic reasons to go to war) advocate starting several wars a year with different countries over the price of shoes or automobiles? Do you really think that, or are you being rhetorical?

I'm saying that there is no reason for the United States to go to war with anybody based solely on economic reasons. If the United States right now goes to war with somebody over economic issues, it's going to be just another case of nation building.

But if you are a desert country, and your main and perhaps only source of water happens to be a river that flows to you through a hostile country, that wouldn’t be an act of war?

But we're not a desert country and we can provide for all of our critical needs if we chose to do so.

I don’t see anyone advocating going to war with China over something like intellectual property, and most people including me would think it would be silly to do so

And it seems silly to me to go to war over resources that we already have.

And I also maintain that we have not yet proven that it cannot be done, since there has never been an effort like that in Iraq, and to say it cannot be done is baseless.

Take a wild guess at what's going on as we discuss this.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2823481/posts

They are on the path to a civil war as we speak.

[rlmorel]

"...Ironically, your example, Iraq, did go to war with Kuwait solely over economic reasons, and that didn't go to well for them...:

You do know it was about territory and conquest, not economics, right?

It is clear to me we disagree, and when I read hyperbolic statements like "...but at this point in time, economic reasons cannot be the sole reason for the US to go to war, otherwise we're opening ourselves up to starting several wars a year and we become hypocrites..." I realize there isn't much point in discussing the issue. Thanks.

[af_vet_rr]

You do know it was about territory and conquest, not economics, right?

I see, so it wasn't about Kuwaiti oil, and Iraq's massive debt from the Iran-Iraq war that they couldn't pay off with the oil market being flooded, which they blamed Kuwait for. It was about 80 year old border disputes instead.

[rlmorel]

Wow. Remarkable article. Victor Davis Hanson does not disappoint. You are right, how did that one get such little exposure. It is almost seminal in nature.

[rdb3]

I see a lot of hate for GWB on this site, but as wrong as he was on things like immigration and the size of government, he was right on the handling of much of the foreign policy, with some mistakes.

25 years ago, we had Ronald Reagan, Johnny Cash, and Bob Hope.
Today we have Obama, no cash, and no hope!

If you can't appreciate the pure beauty of the violin after hearing this, something's wrong with your ears.

Or you can get raw with these strings.

How about this gamechanger from America's Got Talent (which they SHOULD have won).

Either way, the violin is sweet yet lethal.

Do it!

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Interesting. I was taught that the difference between a colon and a semicolon in a sentence was that a colon inferred the thought of “therefore,” or that the second thing necessarily followed the first. A colon is also used to preface a list (which is sort of the same idea). A semicolon, however, is more of a replacement for the word “and.” Many people mistakenly use a comma splice (a comma used instead of the word “and”) when what they really need is a semicolon.