Could have been worse.
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Could have been worse.
This is a benchmark to see how things change over time. Right now there are 25 answers to the poll.
Worst: 10
Bad: 7
OK: 2
Good: 5
Best: 1
So, 68% of people responded with an unfavorable rating of Bad or Worst. And 24% responded with a favorable rating of Good or Best. And 8% responded with a nuetral rating of OK.
I'm not exactly sure how polling agencies come up with their "approval ratings," but this 24% rate of favorable repsonses is pretty close to what they report these days, isn't it? I think Bush's approval rating has been around 30% lately, and this is not far off considering the small number of people responding.
You ARE aware, aren't you, that if the actual events of 9-11 had not unfolded quite as they did, the Bush-Cheney Cartel would still have managed to find a way to drag us into another war for oil... it's their gift. A veritable superhero skill. And all I got was the ability to procrastinate effectively... :(
stink this is one place where i disagree with you. sure i don't doubt that we would have gone to war in the short future, 9/11 or not. however, thats not any different that what we have constantly seen throughout history. In WWI the US was illegally supporting the allies w/ weapons and military supplies. we were shipping them on commercial ocean liners, the germans knew it, blew up the lusitania, its our excuse for war.
WWII, some people will argue the us knew about japans 'secret' attack on pearl harbor for days (and there is some good supportive evidence). either way the first american soil bombed on dec 7 was midway island a good several hours before pearl harbor started. yet somehow it was still a complete suprise. end result, secret attack, we go to war.
i guess this all comes to the fact that sometimes people have to fight wars. do you wait for a climatic event like 9/11 or pearl harbor so that your people will rally behind the leaders? or do you take initiative and not wait for a spark.
near as i can tell, people are most upset with 'the way we went to war', false pretenses and whatnot. would they feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane? lets face it nobody can think saddam was a good person. shit the guy would cut out peoples tongues, throw people into woodchippers, and carve X's on peoples foreheads. im glad he's gone.
i do wish things could have gone better, particularly in 2006 and 07. but we are there, and it tooks some big ass balls for the prez to make that decision. i respect him for that.
I think you are correct in this statement. It is, indeed, the way we got involved in the war to begin with that upsets me, personally, the most.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyGuyOU
The chain of events starting with the September 11 attacks on US soil, then going on what, ultimately, has been largely a wild-goose chase in Afghanistan, to our current presence in Iraq, to what appears to be a new push to bring this war into Iran... to me, there is a failure of logic connecting all these things.
I'm still not convinced fully that the 9-11 attacks were simply the Taliban getting into world affairs on an unprecedented scale. Thus, I look with some skepticism on the stated reasons for being in Afghanistan... the cynic in me reminds me that the Taliban was notorious for refusing to allow construction of an oil pipeline that would connect the rich oil fields of what was once Northwestern Russia to a seaport. With them removed, these pipelines are suddenly a possibility, and who better to construct them than the subsidiaries of companies wholly owned by the country that controls an occupying army?
As for Saddam Hussein and his so-called weapons of mass destruction... of COURSE they could find some unnamed 'intelligence' sources who claimed to have seen them! Think 'stool pigeon' (some of you may be too young to be familiar with that term). I don't argue for one minute that Hussein's regime was one of terror and massive human rights violations, but again, where ARE those pesky WMDs, and why are we suddenly involved now, now that Afghanistan is wrested from the control of a faction opposed to a US/Western presence in their very strategically located country, when here at home we have violence and poverty enough, as highlighted by the tragedy of Katrina?
I view with profound skepticism the timing of all this.
And on another note, I find it difficult to make a comparison between the World Wars, fought for 'Libenstraum' and other manifestations of plain empire-building and control of land masses, while modern US involvement in war seems to have shifted from that, through wars of idealism [Commie prevention], to farily obscene shows of ECONOMIC imperialism.
Just my two cents on the matter.
This is wrong on a lot of different levels.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyGuyOU
When you say, "i guess this all comes to the fact that sometimes people have to fight wars," do you mean that people are just warlike and HAVE to fight wars? Or do you mean that there are sometimes good reasons to fight wars? I think there are sometimes good reasons to fight wars. The war in Afghanistan was fought for a good reason. But if there is a good reason, then the good reason should be enough --- the government should not have to lie about the reasons, or bait the other side into attacking us as you suggest they sometimes do. If you have to lie about the reasons, then obviously the real reason is not good enough.
Clearly, no one would, "feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane." It's not about "feeling better" about it. It's about whether there are good reasons or not. If we had been attacked by Iraq, then there would have been good reasons. But they didn't attack us, so that reason is out. If they had been building the nukes, and nerve gas, and germs, then possibly that would have been a reason, but that turns out to be a lie. The fact that Saddam was a ruthless sadistic tyrant was not enough. If Bush had come to us and said, Saddam is a ruthless sadistic tyrant, and we have to get rid of him --- it''ll take a trillion dollars and cost 3000 American lives, and after 5 years we still won't really be sure how it will turn out, and it's going to turn Iraq into a terrorist haven for Al Qaeda, and it's going to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and create a couple million refugees, and alienate our allies, but believe me, it's gonna be worth it --- if he had done that in 2002, we could have had him locked up for insanity back then and avoided this whole mess.
I don't believe George Bush went after Saddam because he was a tyrant. And I don't think Bush just made an innocent mistake about the WMD either. The WMD were an excuse, and the tyrant thing is just a justification after the fact. He, or his "mentors' had reasons of their own that they have never admitted, and I'm pretty sure it had to do with money and/or oil, not the nation's best interests.
And about this, "it tooks some big ass balls for the prez to make that decision. i respect him for that," yes it took some big-ass balls to lie to the whole country and the world and get us into the biggest foreign-relations and humanitarian disaster we have ever caused, but I do not respect him for that. I despise him for that.
There is courage, and there is arrogance.Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
If Bush the Second had had any of the former, his own military service record would have been far more appropriate to the commanding officer of the most powerful Armed Forces on the planet...
Sadly, missing muster for unspecified reasons (I've always assumed hangovers were involved) is far from glorious, and would have gotten a less-connected man tossed into the brig to cool his heels.
So we see the early manifestations of the arrogance that our ruling class is taught at a young age- a big FUCK YOU to those of us who actually have to answer for our youthful mistakes.
My sense of Dubya as a person is that he is a sort of simple guy who has a strong sense of privilege and likes to be in with an exclusive club. But beyond that, he's not as sinister or as devious as he is sometimes given credit for. He's not smart enough for it. I have this sense of a puppet that doesn't know he is a puppet. Or maybe he does know it, but doesn't know what to do about it. Sometimes he even seems to have an instinct for the right thing, but not the brains or strength to make it happen. He doesn't have the power to go against his "advisers" who are a lot smarter and more determined than he is. He's been carried and coddled all his life, so he has never had to face a consequence, and he might not even know what a consequence is. He's been in way over his head ever since he entered politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by stinkyattic
I'm sure he can't wait to get out of the oval office and back to puttin' around the ranch on his tractor, makin' a whole mess o' barbeque, maybe sneakin' away from Laura and headin' off to the back forty for a couple o' beers with some of the frat buddies from Skull 'n' Bones, watchin 'em put together some coup down Venezuela way. Those guys sure are cool, and it's great to hang out with 'em, givin' 'em all nicknames! "Hey, pass me another rib there, Slim! So what you boys got cookin'? Can I get in on this deal? I got about 10 million I'd like to double in the next year or so, maybe help Jeb go up against Hillary in a few years."
Indeed. There's a big difference between courage and bravado.
In real life, "balls", have only one purpose.
Dragonrider, do you have a fan club? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
That's exactly the smell that I get comin' off him too.