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Where were you in '72?
- Thread starter Dieterly
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TEXAN AVIATOR
Bewbies
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Chunk
SkyFuzz
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So let me get this straight...
Bush is Hitler. The US military members in the film are, by direct relationship in your metaphor, members of the Marineskrieg? And what's all this crap about AWOL. He never was, you can't prove it and most of you wankers who are waiving this non-issue around never served yourselves, yet you think you have the moral right to disparage someone else's service to their country? How many of those film makers over there at that website are veterans that are pissed off @ Bush? I might hazard a guess at 5%! That's being generous, I imagine.
Let's get all the public service records of everyone calling President Bush a chickenhawk out in the open, then we'll see who really has the moral highground here.
Chunk
Bush is Hitler. The US military members in the film are, by direct relationship in your metaphor, members of the Marineskrieg? And what's all this crap about AWOL. He never was, you can't prove it and most of you wankers who are waiving this non-issue around never served yourselves, yet you think you have the moral right to disparage someone else's service to their country? How many of those film makers over there at that website are veterans that are pissed off @ Bush? I might hazard a guess at 5%! That's being generous, I imagine.
Let's get all the public service records of everyone calling President Bush a chickenhawk out in the open, then we'll see who really has the moral highground here.
Chunk
Simon Says
New Airbus Regional Jet
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- Dec 19, 2001
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WrightAvia
Well-known member
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- Jul 15, 2002
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- 1,223
Truly amazing, these liberals are…
Now let me get this straight, during the 8 years of Bushes predecessor military service didn’t matter, the fact that he dodged the draft didn’t matter the fact that he left the country and protested the war on foreign soil didn’t matter but now, somehow, mysteriously over night military service now matters?
WTF is that, can you say double standard?
I guess if Bush lied under oath to a federal grand jury, even if it was “just about sex” you folks, the hypocrite liberals among us would string up the noose from the highest oak tree in DC?
Do you realize just who foolish you look now talking about military service, AWOL and using influence to escape the way, have just endured 8 years of a draft dodger?
Clinton ran like hell when his country called, Bush joined the Texas ANG to fly lawn darts.
I believe, if I’m not mistaken, but Bushes father at the time was a Senator high up on the Armed Services Committee or Intelligence Committee or he may have even made it to head of CIA. Given one of those positions don’t you think that even if W had had it to Vietnam he most likely would have been excluded from combat anyhow?
Knowing how someone with his family would make a wonder POW a nice little bargaining chip?
You folks are pathetic the difference between Clinton and Bush is night and day.
Now let me get this straight, during the 8 years of Bushes predecessor military service didn’t matter, the fact that he dodged the draft didn’t matter the fact that he left the country and protested the war on foreign soil didn’t matter but now, somehow, mysteriously over night military service now matters?
WTF is that, can you say double standard?
I guess if Bush lied under oath to a federal grand jury, even if it was “just about sex” you folks, the hypocrite liberals among us would string up the noose from the highest oak tree in DC?
Do you realize just who foolish you look now talking about military service, AWOL and using influence to escape the way, have just endured 8 years of a draft dodger?
Clinton ran like hell when his country called, Bush joined the Texas ANG to fly lawn darts.
I believe, if I’m not mistaken, but Bushes father at the time was a Senator high up on the Armed Services Committee or Intelligence Committee or he may have even made it to head of CIA. Given one of those positions don’t you think that even if W had had it to Vietnam he most likely would have been excluded from combat anyhow?
Knowing how someone with his family would make a wonder POW a nice little bargaining chip?
You folks are pathetic the difference between Clinton and Bush is night and day.
Here's a simple pop-quiz. Who said the following: "What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
Full marks if you guessed Bill Clinton. It was 1998. But I wonder how many of you did. The political amnesia of so many in Europe with regard to the Iraq crisis is one of the most striking aspects of the whole current trans-Atlantic divide. To read the papers, to watch the "anti-war" protestors, to listen to the BBC, you'd easily imagine that out of the blue a belligerent and brand new American administration had just torn up the old rule book and started a new foreign policy utterly unconnected to the old one.
The truth, however, is that the current Bush policy toward Iraq is indistinguishable from Bill Clinton's. After the U.N. inspectors found that they could no longer do their job effectively in 1998, the U.S. shifted its policy in Iraq toward regime change in Baghdad - exactly the policy now being pursued. The difference between Bush and Clinton, of course, lies in the sense of urgency and importance applied to the same policy. September 11 made the White House acutely aware of the ruthlessness of the new Islamist terror-masters: suddenly, the American homeland was also in play. The possibility of a chemical or biological 9/11 made Washington realize that its continued Iraq policy needed actual enforcement. It made Washington realize that regime change needed to mean what it said.
Are there deeper differences between Bush and Clinton on this? There is, of course, the matter of style. Clinton was a master of the European dialogue. He meant very few things he said but he said them very well. He was a great schmoozer. When he compared the Serbian genocide to the Jewish Holocaust, it sounded earnest but no-one, least of all the massacred Bosnians, actually believed he meant it. And he didn't. If he had meant it, he wouldn't have allowed a quarter of a million to be murdered in Europe, while he delegated American foreign policy to the morally feckless and militarily useless European Union. Ditto with Iraq and al Qaeda. A few missiles here and there; some sanctions that starved millions of Iraqis but kept Saddam in power; and a big rhetorical game kept the pretense of seriousness up. But there was no actual attempt to match words with actions. In this, the French were completely - preternaturally - comfortable. No wonder Clinton was popular.
Bush's style couldn't be more different. He's blunt, straightforward, folksy, direct. Although his formal speeches have been as eloquent as any president's in modern times, his informal discourse is of the kind to make a European wince. And his early distancing from many of Clinton's policies, his assertion of American sovereignty in critical matters, undoubtedly ruffled some Euro-lapels. In retrospect, he could have been more politic.
But the point is: the foreign policy of Bush is not so drastically different from Clinton. On Iraq, in particular, there isn't a smidgen of principled difference between this administration and the last one. In fact, Bush came into office far less interventionist than Clinton and far more modest than Gore. His campaign platform budgeted less for defense than Al Gore's did. And his instincts were more firmly multilateral. That, of course, changed a year and a half ago. 9/11 made him realize that American withdrawal from the world was no longer an option. But even then, the notion of Bush's unilateralism is greatly exaggerated. To be sure, last spring, the Bush White House argued that taking out Saddam's weapons was non-negotiable, implying that it would be done with or without U.N. support (a position, by the way, that Bush had announced in the 2000 primaries). But by last September, as the world knows, Bush decided to pursue the policy of disarmament through the United Nations, despite the risk of falling into the inspections trap that has proved so intractable. And now, even after a unanimous resolution supporting serious consequences if Saddam refused to disarm immediately and completely, he's still going back to the U.N. for further permission to enforce the resolution by military means. His reward for this multilateralism? Contempt and derision.
Now compare that policy to Clinton's similar dilemma with how to deal with the Balkan crisis throughout the 1990s, culminating in the Kosovo intervention. Did Clinton go through the United Nations to justify his eventual NATO bombardment of Serbia? No he didn't. He didn't go through the U.N. because the Russians pledged to veto such a military engagement. So where were the peace protestors back then? In terms of international law, those American bombs in Belgrade - even hitting the Chinese embassy - were far less defensible than any that will rain down on Baghdad. Serbia had never attacked the U.S. No U.N. mandate provided cover. But Clinton ordered bombing anyway. And the same people who now viciously attack Bush as the president of a rogue state - Susan Sontag anyone? - actually cheered Clinton on.
Or take Kyoto, the emblem of what Europe finds so distasteful about president Bush. What no one seems to remember is that president Clinton had done absolutely nothing to ensure the implementation of the Kyoto Accord in his term of office. Besides, the president is not the person who is required to ratify such a treaty. Under the American constitution, such a treaty has to be ratified by the Senate. And what happened when the U.S. Senate considered the Kyoto treaty? It was voted down 95 - 0, under president Clinton. So how on earth can Bush be held responsible for a treaty his predecessor had ignored and the Senate had overwhelmingly rejected? Bush's fault was not killing Kyoto. It was announcing its already determined demise.
Some have argued that president Bush hasn't spent enough time schmoozing the various foreign leaders or reaching out to the broader global public in order to sell his policy. That's what Bill Clinton did, after all. But Bill Clinton never had to face the kind of tough decisions Bush has been presented with - largely because he kicked many of these issues down the road for his successors to pick up. It's easy to enjoy sweet relations with allies when no tough issues actually emerge.
But again, this schmooze comparison is also overblown. Bush has spent many hours cultivating world leaders. How do you explain, for example, his remarkable relationship with Tony Blair - an ideological and personal opposite? Or the hours and hours Bush spent bringing Vladimir Putin around on NATO expansion and the end of the ABM Treaty? Or the equally impressive relationship with Pakistan's Musharraf - a relationship that last week delivered the biggest victory against al Qaeda since the liberation of Afghanistan? As for diplomacy, few would argue that Madeleine Albright is a more credible figure than Colin Powell. And last December's 15 - 0 U.N. Resolution against Saddam was a huge diplomatic coup for the White House. It is hardly the Americans' fault if the French and Russians simply refuse to enforce the plain meaning of the resolution they previously signed.
The truth is: Bush's diplomatic headaches have much less to do with his own poor diplomatic skills than with the simple fact that he is trying ambitious things. Rather than simply forestall crises, postpone them, avoid them or fob them off onto others, Bush is actually doing the hard thing. He's calling for real democracy in the Middle East. He's aiming to make the long-standing U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq a reality. He actually wants to defeat Islamist terrorism, rather than make excuses for tolerating its cancerous growth. And when this amount of power is fueled by this amount of conviction, of course the world is aroused and upset.
What the world, after all, is afraid of is not the deposing of the monster, Saddam. What the world is afraid of is American hyper-power wielded by a man of very American faith and conviction and honesty. Bush's manner grates. His style - like Reagan's - offends. But, like Reagan, he is not an anomaly in American foreign policy - merely a vivid and determined representative of a deep and idealistic strain within it. And history shows that the world has far more to gain from the deployment of that power than by its withdrawal. If the poor people of Iraq know that lesson, what's stopping the Europeans?
Full marks if you guessed Bill Clinton. It was 1998. But I wonder how many of you did. The political amnesia of so many in Europe with regard to the Iraq crisis is one of the most striking aspects of the whole current trans-Atlantic divide. To read the papers, to watch the "anti-war" protestors, to listen to the BBC, you'd easily imagine that out of the blue a belligerent and brand new American administration had just torn up the old rule book and started a new foreign policy utterly unconnected to the old one.
The truth, however, is that the current Bush policy toward Iraq is indistinguishable from Bill Clinton's. After the U.N. inspectors found that they could no longer do their job effectively in 1998, the U.S. shifted its policy in Iraq toward regime change in Baghdad - exactly the policy now being pursued. The difference between Bush and Clinton, of course, lies in the sense of urgency and importance applied to the same policy. September 11 made the White House acutely aware of the ruthlessness of the new Islamist terror-masters: suddenly, the American homeland was also in play. The possibility of a chemical or biological 9/11 made Washington realize that its continued Iraq policy needed actual enforcement. It made Washington realize that regime change needed to mean what it said.
Are there deeper differences between Bush and Clinton on this? There is, of course, the matter of style. Clinton was a master of the European dialogue. He meant very few things he said but he said them very well. He was a great schmoozer. When he compared the Serbian genocide to the Jewish Holocaust, it sounded earnest but no-one, least of all the massacred Bosnians, actually believed he meant it. And he didn't. If he had meant it, he wouldn't have allowed a quarter of a million to be murdered in Europe, while he delegated American foreign policy to the morally feckless and militarily useless European Union. Ditto with Iraq and al Qaeda. A few missiles here and there; some sanctions that starved millions of Iraqis but kept Saddam in power; and a big rhetorical game kept the pretense of seriousness up. But there was no actual attempt to match words with actions. In this, the French were completely - preternaturally - comfortable. No wonder Clinton was popular.
Bush's style couldn't be more different. He's blunt, straightforward, folksy, direct. Although his formal speeches have been as eloquent as any president's in modern times, his informal discourse is of the kind to make a European wince. And his early distancing from many of Clinton's policies, his assertion of American sovereignty in critical matters, undoubtedly ruffled some Euro-lapels. In retrospect, he could have been more politic.
But the point is: the foreign policy of Bush is not so drastically different from Clinton. On Iraq, in particular, there isn't a smidgen of principled difference between this administration and the last one. In fact, Bush came into office far less interventionist than Clinton and far more modest than Gore. His campaign platform budgeted less for defense than Al Gore's did. And his instincts were more firmly multilateral. That, of course, changed a year and a half ago. 9/11 made him realize that American withdrawal from the world was no longer an option. But even then, the notion of Bush's unilateralism is greatly exaggerated. To be sure, last spring, the Bush White House argued that taking out Saddam's weapons was non-negotiable, implying that it would be done with or without U.N. support (a position, by the way, that Bush had announced in the 2000 primaries). But by last September, as the world knows, Bush decided to pursue the policy of disarmament through the United Nations, despite the risk of falling into the inspections trap that has proved so intractable. And now, even after a unanimous resolution supporting serious consequences if Saddam refused to disarm immediately and completely, he's still going back to the U.N. for further permission to enforce the resolution by military means. His reward for this multilateralism? Contempt and derision.
Now compare that policy to Clinton's similar dilemma with how to deal with the Balkan crisis throughout the 1990s, culminating in the Kosovo intervention. Did Clinton go through the United Nations to justify his eventual NATO bombardment of Serbia? No he didn't. He didn't go through the U.N. because the Russians pledged to veto such a military engagement. So where were the peace protestors back then? In terms of international law, those American bombs in Belgrade - even hitting the Chinese embassy - were far less defensible than any that will rain down on Baghdad. Serbia had never attacked the U.S. No U.N. mandate provided cover. But Clinton ordered bombing anyway. And the same people who now viciously attack Bush as the president of a rogue state - Susan Sontag anyone? - actually cheered Clinton on.
Or take Kyoto, the emblem of what Europe finds so distasteful about president Bush. What no one seems to remember is that president Clinton had done absolutely nothing to ensure the implementation of the Kyoto Accord in his term of office. Besides, the president is not the person who is required to ratify such a treaty. Under the American constitution, such a treaty has to be ratified by the Senate. And what happened when the U.S. Senate considered the Kyoto treaty? It was voted down 95 - 0, under president Clinton. So how on earth can Bush be held responsible for a treaty his predecessor had ignored and the Senate had overwhelmingly rejected? Bush's fault was not killing Kyoto. It was announcing its already determined demise.
Some have argued that president Bush hasn't spent enough time schmoozing the various foreign leaders or reaching out to the broader global public in order to sell his policy. That's what Bill Clinton did, after all. But Bill Clinton never had to face the kind of tough decisions Bush has been presented with - largely because he kicked many of these issues down the road for his successors to pick up. It's easy to enjoy sweet relations with allies when no tough issues actually emerge.
But again, this schmooze comparison is also overblown. Bush has spent many hours cultivating world leaders. How do you explain, for example, his remarkable relationship with Tony Blair - an ideological and personal opposite? Or the hours and hours Bush spent bringing Vladimir Putin around on NATO expansion and the end of the ABM Treaty? Or the equally impressive relationship with Pakistan's Musharraf - a relationship that last week delivered the biggest victory against al Qaeda since the liberation of Afghanistan? As for diplomacy, few would argue that Madeleine Albright is a more credible figure than Colin Powell. And last December's 15 - 0 U.N. Resolution against Saddam was a huge diplomatic coup for the White House. It is hardly the Americans' fault if the French and Russians simply refuse to enforce the plain meaning of the resolution they previously signed.
The truth is: Bush's diplomatic headaches have much less to do with his own poor diplomatic skills than with the simple fact that he is trying ambitious things. Rather than simply forestall crises, postpone them, avoid them or fob them off onto others, Bush is actually doing the hard thing. He's calling for real democracy in the Middle East. He's aiming to make the long-standing U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq a reality. He actually wants to defeat Islamist terrorism, rather than make excuses for tolerating its cancerous growth. And when this amount of power is fueled by this amount of conviction, of course the world is aroused and upset.
What the world, after all, is afraid of is not the deposing of the monster, Saddam. What the world is afraid of is American hyper-power wielded by a man of very American faith and conviction and honesty. Bush's manner grates. His style - like Reagan's - offends. But, like Reagan, he is not an anomaly in American foreign policy - merely a vivid and determined representative of a deep and idealistic strain within it. And history shows that the world has far more to gain from the deployment of that power than by its withdrawal. If the poor people of Iraq know that lesson, what's stopping the Europeans?
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