http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060924/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
Terrorism has grown since the invasion of Iraq. Who didn’t that coming?
Wait, wait, people are mad at us for invading their country or the country of their allies? This is historically unheard of!
Neo-cons?
Yeah, we played into what bin Laden wanted, which was a massive showdown between the West and Islam.
Howeve,r this wasn’t really Bush’s fault, it was the fault of the American people. Two-thrids supported this war - they would have wanted war even if Gore was president. Ah well, c’est l’evie, learn from your mistakes, etc.
Did at least the freedom fries make it? I remember this was more important than why the rest of the world disagreed with US and Blair on the matter.
Yeah, that was embarassing.
As for the war, what foreigners usually don’t understand is that people wanted to get back in a big way, not look weak. The reasons for the war were basically emotional, and if people say its Bush’s fault its because they bought into the whole thing and are trying to save face, since most Americans did support it.
Americans supported the invasion of Afghanistan, since large parts of that country were directly under the control of terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. That war probably would have happened even if Gore had won the election.
Americans were more ambivalent towards Iraq, and the Bush administration pushed opinion towards supporting the invasion as part of the plan to invade since they had already decided the war was going to happen. I don’t think there would have been a second Iraq war had Gore been president.
Maybe so. But keep in mind that Bush alone did not sway the country. It was an entire environment of news media that did so. And I honestly think that had Gore been president and decided not to invade Iraq, the warmongers would have created the same environment, swayed American opinion, and Gore would have been run out of office if he failed to invade Iraq.
What Curtis is saying is that blaming Bush for all the problems that happened is hypocritical because it makes it so the people that supported the war and the people who didn’t think about the validity of the information being presented to them by the establishment, it makes it sound like it absolves them of the responsibility of their allowing this to happen, which in reality, it should not.
Exactly. Blaming Bush is really pretty stupid, since, although he isn’t a very good leader, at all, in my view, he is only one man. he was (probably) voted into office by a significant chunk (if not a majority) of the population, and supported by a cabinet and legislators. That’s a whole lot of people to take the blame.
?
What I mean is that the collective American people will learn from this mistake, and think twice before sending our armed forces to foreign lands in the name of heroic missions.
Silhouette2, that just made up for any stupid thing you’ve ever said, and then some! Holy shit, hahahaha. It’s not really funny that he made the mistake, but that exact one, and someone noticing that it was that exact mistake. Hahaha, that’s fucking epic.
((It’s “c’est la vie,” just to avoid pokemon mishaps in the future.))
Noone only blamed Bush in this thread. “Neo cons” and “The administration” are arguably more people than Bush. Not that the weight of his choices doesn’t fall upon his shoulders of course.
Silhouette: This is not the first time I’ve misspelled that 
Rigmarole: What I’m saying is that the Iraq War would have happened with Bush or not.
If that were true, it would have already happened after the Vietnam War.
Well, a lot of the support for the war was due to the neoconservative lies about weapons of mass destruction. It’s true that the neoconservatives would have still wanted a war even if Bush wasn’t president (after all, they had wanted such a war for at least 10 years before it happened), and they would have still lied about it, but they wouldn’t necessarily have been invited inside the administration and allowed to bypass legitimate intelligence agencies. Of course, it’s possible that they would have been, since after all Lieberman is just as much of a warmonger as Cheney, and the Clinton administration was just as fond of unprovoked, aggressive war as the Bush administration. But if they hadn’t been, it would have at least been harder for them to force their war down the public’s collective throat. Of course, that doesn’t excuse the public, at least the part of it that favours wars of aggression.
Didn’t See That Coming…
Well, a lot of the support for the war was due to the neoconservative lies about weapons of mass destruction. It’s true that the neoconservatives would have still wanted a war even if Bush wasn’t president (after all, they had wanted such a war for at least 10 years before it happened), and they would have still lied about it, but they wouldn’t necessarily have been invited inside the administration and allowed to bypass legitimate intelligence agencies. Of course, it’s possible that they would have been, since after all Lieberman is just as much of a warmonger as Cheney, and the Clinton administration was just as fond of unprovoked, aggressive war as the Bush administration. But if they hadn’t been, it would have at least been harder for them to force their war down the public’s collective throat. Of course, that doesn’t excuse the public, at least the part of it that favours wars of aggression.
What I want to focus on is what you say about Clinton. You yourself have pointed out on this forum before that Bush’s foreign policy isn’t really different than Clinton’s. And really, both Clinton, Bush I and Bush II are really not much different than Reagan and before him. The truth is that Bush’s foreign policy is not an aberration, but the logical progression of U.S. foreign policy since the end of WWII.
That being said, can you see why the Iraq War probably would have happened without Bush? Two-thirds of Americans supported the war, and they were not ambivalent. Surely you remember the pep rally like environment that America was in the build-up, the excitement everywhere. People wanted this war.It was not the Neocons alone who did this - it was the entire news media, the businesses of this nation, etc. who all came together to hype the war.
Furthermore, what makes you think Gore wouldn’t have invaded also? As stated in the last paragraph, its been general U.S. policy to expand our mlitary power against even the least threat to us - and sometimes, as in Kosovo, just for the sake of projecting our power, when there is no threat. But even if Gore hadn’t, I think the same pep rally environment would have been worked up by the warmongers and he would have lost reelection, losing to a hawk.
If that were true, it would have already happened after the Vietnam War.
Which goes along with my bigger point that the American people haven’t changed much. We supported an aggresive war with little reason then, we did now.
Rig: Eh, I didn’t really read the entire post, so I suppose I deserve that. I’m just pointing out that the entire thign cannot be blamed on him. It couldn’t really have happened without all the parts, so they’re about equally to blame. Whiel the parts in positions of power are a little more to blame for misleading the people, the people are nearly as bad for not questioning it for the most part.
I’m not saying that he’s not heavily and largely to blame, or even not an abomination to the already low class of human worm that crawl from genetic cesspools to become leaders, just that he’s not solely to blame, which is what I got from reading one of Curtis’ posts, which is mostly what I was responding to. I wasn’t really accusing anyone here of doing it, just saying that I agreed with Curtis on the point that one individual cannot be entirely blamed for such large events.