"Whether you like it or not, Bush will go down history as the President who lead the free world to victory in its war against terrorism. That is how history will remember men like Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the Americans who bleed and die in this global war."
Biohazard, he IS the terrorist. He is the instigator. He is a fundamentalist who attacked Iraq because "God told him to." He is mediochrity personified.
If he wasn't so recklessly dangerous and contemptuous of democratic process he would hardly rate a collective yawn in the context of world history.
Ah, now I get this debate. Bush policy against terrorism. Time to dive in.
Off the bat I'm opposed to Bush and this war on ideological and practical grounds. Ideological opposition is easy, practical opposition isn't quite as easy. Much as I hate Bush he could still quite possibly be remembered as one of our greatest presidents by future generations. Since ideology is too easy, lets go with practicality.
On a practical level Bush may be on to something with democratizing the middle east. It's likely to be a long and hard process with mixed results. If it succedes the middle east will likely fall into the same mediocrity of behavior as other democratic systems. On a practical level that would be more desirable than what we have now, even if the women have to wear veils.
On a practical level we are at war. We're at war with a decentralized force whose competence and overall capacity probably have been quite hyped up. There have been a lot of terrorist attacks by AQ over the years, only two on American soil that I know of, and the people in AQ have hated us for a long time so their record as a direct and present threat isn't all that impressive. The problem is when they do manage to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to accomplish something, their desired end result is to kill as many of
us as they can, combatants and noncombatants alike.
That's not good, and maybe the hype is worth it for the little extra attention they get. It's like protecting ourselves from a comet impact. It's not likely to be a threat anytime soon, but if and when it does happen, we're fucked. We're fucked
and stupid if we could have done something to prevent it.
On a practical level this wire tapping will likely not go anywhere issue-wise. Where will the power grab end? Who knows? If it is helping disrupt terrorist activities, who cares? The civil liberties that could possibly be threatened by this action of Bush's have already been thrown into the shitter far more effectively by the War on Drugs. The WoD is a far more effective means with which to destroy civil liberties than the WoT. And, given the nature of the enemy and their preferred method of planning and attack, Bush is probably within his constitutional powers with this move on a practical level, and also on a practical level, it's not a bad idea.
As for Bush being a terrorist, well one person's terrorist is another person's hero. Ideally all unnecessary killing is
bad bad bad. That said, Bush isn't planting bombs on our own interstate system on the off chance he might kill an arab. In practical reality to not see a difference between Bush and Bin Laden is cow twinkies.
Our government
has brought this upon us with its endless meddling in other country's affairs. But there is the matter of motives. Generally our government has meddled with the hope of making the world a bit safer for us and others if possible. That they haven't achieved this and don't realize their own complicity in this failure puts their intelligence in doubt, not their motives, which is crucial I believe for defining a terrorist. The guys we're fighting against want to hurt us and they don't care about who gets in the way. And were we to pull out and give them everything they wanted, they'd likely still hate use. These guys are still fighting wars amongst themselves that started over a thousand years ago. These are not people who are going to accept the live and let live, I'm sorry you're sorry, doctrines.
Comparing the civilian death toll of 9/11 with the civilian death toll in Iraq is ridiculous. They're two totally different operations on completely different scales and with different objectives. You can bet that if the US and AQ both had access to the exact same military means, all else being equal and the same there would be a lot more than 30,000 dead Americans right now, because we'd likely have been nuked a few times. 30,000 dead Iraqis? I call it land fill. Rights
are universal and their enforcement
should be local, but I don't doubt many more of them would be dead if they tried this themselves. That we're better off without Saddam doesn't answer the questions: did we have a right to do this?; was it worth it to do this?; worth aside, should we have done this?; etc. Lot's of questions could be asked still, but they're largely irrelevant now because we're
there, and we're not leaving until whatever the **** it is we're trying to accomplish is accomplished.
Bush changed the status quo. He doesn't give a **** what other people think once he's decided on the right course of action, and he seems to do what he thinks is right regardless of the cost. Looking at the middle east some people say Look how shitty it is, others say It wasn't always that shitty, others say it wasn't
always shitty. Bush asked What
might it be like? That's visionary. Foggy vision but visionary all the same. He's Forrest Gump with a little elan and I like that on some level.
And, like it or not, some serious prodemocracy changes took place in the middle east
after Saddam fell. In Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and other countries, post Saddam-is-fucked democratic reforms of varying degrees have either happened or gained momentum. Maybe some of them would have happened anyway. But, it's naive to think images of a defeated Saddam in his underwear didn't make some of the guys around the world who were seriously considering being the next guy-in-a-funny-hat-who-hates-America pursue a more moderate course of action.
All in all, I don't like Bush's policies. I don't like a lot of objections to his policies either though, because they seem off base to me. Bush fucks up one way, and all Democrats and critics in general seem to be able to say is, "he's fucking up the wrong way!
This is the way you **** up..."
I don't grant rights under the US Constitution to AQ members calling into the US. It's my constitution too, I say **** 'em. I'm not losing any rights I haven't effectively lost already, and it actually stands a chance of making me safer. Why fight against one of the few things Bush has done with his power that makes sense? A little positive reinforcement might go a long way. And it's possible that if he turns out to be right, and if democracy takes hold in the middle east, more or less liberal democracies, that
will lower the threat of terrorism. So would a stop to all our government's endless meddling, but being realistic that's not going to happen, certainly not any faster than Iraq would take to become a moderately tolerable democracy. Balance the reforms needed at home to make us safer against those needed abroad. Balances the costs.
If it works Bush goes down in history as a great president. He's just continuing the policies of Wilson, his own father and Clinton anyway. And yes, I said Clinton. It was during the years of Bush the Elder and Clinton that neoconservatives really got ahold of the Wilsonian baton of foreign policy and ran with it like a mother fucker. I think Clinton sent troops into foreign countries an average of once every few weeks, and into areas just to help people, to keep the peace,
to make the area better, but not even for
us just for the people who were
there! At least Bush the Dumber has troops in an area where some kind of case for getting involved could be made. All Democrats want to do is send troops into areas where we have no vital interests. According to them if no American interests are at stake,
that's when you send in troops to kill and die, as long as they're part of a nice diverse UN team with colorful helmets. Then when our soldiers are dragged dead through the streets by the people we went there to help, well it's not a **** up in the same way that Bush's war is a **** up.
Bottom line: everyone wants to make the world better with someone else's money and by spilling the blood of someone else's kid. Everyone except me, that is. I happily sit aside and watch you guys argue about how best to insert the barb wire wrapped dildo into your asses. Reminds me of my brother and his friends arguing about how best to fix an old VW Beetle. When they asked me the best way I said, "Buy Honda." You have to think outside the bug.