ten years ago

[del]

Slow news day huh?

truth hurts, huh?

Ten years ago my business was BOOMING

Today its a struggle to stay above board.

Truth indeed

can't buy toilets and pay for tanks in iraq



sorry

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

truth hurts, huh?

Ten years ago my business was BOOMING

Today its a struggle to stay above board.

Truth indeed

can't buy toilets and pay for tanks in iraq



sorry

You just claimed the Iraq war wasn't paid for so why would it matter. Can't have it both ways

 

[del]

Ten years ago my business was BOOMING

Today its a struggle to stay above board.

Truth indeed

can't buy toilets and pay for tanks in iraq



sorry

You just claimed the Iraq war wasn't paid for so why would it matter. Can't have it both ways

there's only so much money to borrow, zippy, and when the govt borrows more, there's less for everybody else.

 

[Lumpy 1]

Well lets see now, Harry & Nancy controlled Congress the last 2 years of the Bush Presidency, they controlled the purse strings also, the wars weren't paid for???...


...mmm interesting, I can't wait for the Democrat contortions on this one...

 

[Locke11_21]

4 years ago, trillion became the new billion...

How is that working for us? Well, it sure is working for the Fed isn't it.

that's why starting a war

,


"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18,1998.

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.



I have mixed opinons on what we did in Iraq, however, while Democrats were all talk and no action about Iraq, Bush to his credit acted on word of the UN and Democrats about WMDs.

lowering taxes

“Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government.”


– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

and putting the war on visa was such a stellar idea.

Putting massive debt on the Visas, MasterCards and American Expresses of people who are not even born yet, which have been going on at the highest rate these last 4 years isn't exactly a stellar idea either. Bottom line is, while Bush certainly did not help the situation, just remember, in 6 years under Bush, with Republican control, he added $3.4 trillion in debt. When Democrats and Obama gained control of all 3 branches, it only took them ONE year to add $3 trillion in debt. Wow....in 1 year they came up $400 billion short of adding the same debt it took Bush and Republicans do in 6 years. Brilliant economists those Democrats are!!!

In closing, neither Democrat nor Republican seem interested in what is best for America, but what is best for their own party.

 

[yidnar]

http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/iraq_un.pdf

 

[auditor0007]

george w bush sold us the bill of goods euphemistically known as operation iraqi freedom.

President Delivers "State of the Union"

how's that working out for us?

Well pretty good I'd say. It divided a unified country. We lost how many US service members and contractors to death and disability...we lost much credibility and good will all over the world...

I am sorry to say I supported that war for reasons other than laid out by the Administration and was horrified to see them take my support for their nation and region building silliness.

I will never again be so easily fooled

I too supported the Iraq invasion. As usual though, we didn't go in well prepared. Yes, we overran the Iraqi Army, but beyond that we had no game plan. In the end, the cost was not worth it, plain and simple. Anyone thinking otherwise is fooling themselves. I really don't have any problem with those who supported the war, since I did also. It just bugs me that there are so many out there who cannot admit that while hindsight is 20/20, it was a mistake.

 

[The Rabbi]

george w bush sold us the bill of goods euphemistically known as operation iraqi freedom.

President Delivers "State of the Union"

how's that working out for us?

Maybe you should see a shrink about your Bush Derangement Syndrome?

 

[there4eyeM]

It must be realized to have been either a gross error or diabolical manipulation.

It must also be admitted that the Democratic party went along generally. The congress people who folded up in the face of what was made to look like patriotism, yet knew like many of the rest of us that the invasion was illegal and based on lies, are almost worse than the gang that did the job.

 

[Sunni Man]

Nothing says "freedom" to the GOP like starting false wars, having thousands of american troops killed, and spending ourselves into oblivion.

And yet it was a Democrat named Kennedy that got us involved in Vietnam and the death of 58,000 American soldiers........

AND under Nixon there was a secret peace plan and over half the deaths in nam happened under his few years in office

you get an F in American Hstory

Nope, you get the "F" Poindexter

By the time Nixon was elected president; Vietnam was a already a full out ground war..........

 

[bayoubill]

george w bush sold us the bill of goods euphemistically known as operation iraqi freedom.

President Delivers "State of the Union"

how's that working out for us?

Bush was a dumbfuck... I'm still pissed off about the whole Iraq misadventure...

 

[Ravi]

Slow news day huh?

truth hurts, huh?

Ten years ago my business was BOOMING

Today its a struggle to stay above board.

Truth indeed

That's on you gramps. Mine has not waivered through Dubya or Obama.

Interesting to see that your own butt hurt is bothering you more than the debacle of the Iraq invasion and resulting loss of life.

 

[Bfgrn]

Nothing says "freedom" to the GOP like starting false wars, having thousands of american troops killed, and spending ourselves into oblivion.

And yet it was a Democrat named Kennedy that got us involved in Vietnam and the death of 58,000 American soldiers........

Wrong. One of the last executive orders Kennedy signed was to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 and all personnel by the end of calendar year 1965. JFK plans to withdraw all troops was not made public because Kennedy didn't want to give GOP hawks any ammo in the upcoming election. He confided to trusted advisers like McNamara and White House aide O'Donnell, he intended to withdraw completely from Vietnam after he was safely re-elected in 1964. "So we had better make damned sure that I am re-elected," he told O'Donnell.

Read more: Warrior For Peace - The Lessons of J.F.K. - TIME

Actually it was Eisenhower who was responsible for the first big turning point in our commitment.

Turning Points in the Vietnam War

By 1954 the war in Vietnam had become increasingly unpopular in France. The defeat of French troops by Communist forces at Dienbienphu left France exhausted, exasperated and keen to withdraw. At the international conference convened to discuss French Indochina at Geneva in May 1954, the French exit was formalised. Vietnam was temporarily divided, with Ho Chi Minh in control of the north and the Emperor Bao Dai in control of the south. The Geneva Accords declared that there were to be nationwide elections leading to reunification of Vietnam in 1956. However, US intervention ensured that this ‘temporary division’ was to last for more than 20 years.

The United States refused to sign the Geneva Accords and moved to defy them within weeks. Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, organised allies such as Britain in the South-east Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO). The SEATO signatories agreed to protect South Vietnam, in defiance of the Geneva Accords, which had forbidden the Vietnamese from entering into foreign alliances or to allow foreign troops in Vietnam.

The Eisenhower administration encouraged Bao Dai to appoint Ngo Dinh Diem as his prime minister, and then proceeded to engage in ‘nation building’. Eisenhower and Dulles created a new state, in defiance (yet again) of the Geneva Accords and of what was known to be the will of the Vietnamese people. Eisenhower recorded in his memoirs that he knew that if there had been genuine democratic elections in Vietnam in 1956, Ho Chi Minh would have won around 80 per cent of the vote. In order to avoid a wholly Communist Vietnam, the US had sponsored an artificial political creation, the state of South Vietnam.

Within weeks of Geneva, Eisenhower arranged to help Diem set up South Vietnam. He sent General ‘Lightning Joe’ Collins and created MAAG (the Military Assistance Advisory Group) to assist in the process. The US also helped and encouraged Diem to squeeze out Bao Dai.

The French exit meant that Eisenhower could have dropped Truman's commitment in Vietnam. Truman had aided the French, and the French had got out. American credibility was not at stake, for it was the French who had lost the struggle. However, the French withdrawal from Vietnam was seen by Dulles as a great opportunity for greater US involvement. ‘We have a clean base there now, without the faint taint of colonialism,’ said Dulles, calling Dienbienphu ‘a blessing in disguise’. When the Eisenhower administration created South Vietnam, Truman's commitment had not been renewed but recreated, with a far greater degree of American responsibility.

American observers and the Eisenhower administration had great doubts about Diem's regime. Vice President Richard Nixon was convinced the South Vietnamese lacked the ability to govern themselves. Even Dulles admitted that the US supported Diem ‘because we knew of no one better’.

‘Magnificently ignorant of Vietnamese history and culture,’ according to his biographer Townsend Hoopes, Dulles proceeded to ignore the popularity of Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese desires, in favour of the unpopular Diem, a member of the Christian minority in a predominantly Buddhist country. Back in 1941, Dulles had said that ‘the great trouble with the world today is that there are too few Christians’. In the East Asian despots (Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, Syngman Rhee in South Korea, and Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam), all of whom were Christian, the US had found men with whom it felt it could work. After all, as Dulles said, the US had Jesus Christ on its side, and needed allies who believed likewise.

The Eisenhower administration was well aware of Ho Chi Minh's popularity. However, it was not Vietnam itself that mattered, but Vietnam's position as a potential domino in the Cold War. In the 1954 speech in which he had introduced his famous ‘domino theory’, Eisenhower had said that if Vietnam fell to Communism, other nations might follow.

Given that the US came very close to dumping Diem in 1955-6, it is interesting to note the important role played by relatively minor and/or ignorant American figures in Diem's survival and in this great turning point in US involvement in Vietnam.

 

[Sunni Man]

Spin it all you want......

But it was a Kennedy (democrat) that sent the first troops into Vietnam.

And it was his successor Johnson (democrat) who expanded the war to the point of no return.

 

[Cowman]

People want to talk about Clinton, Carter, FDR, and other people in the past, but W.?

Yeah no shit, Carter is mentioned on a daily basis here, but for some reason they keep saying BOOOOOOOOOOSH as if past presidents shouldn't be mentioned and blamed for anything.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Slow news day huh?

truth hurts, huh?

Ten years ago my business was BOOMING

Today its a struggle to stay above board.

Truth indeed

If a businessman's goal is to stay "above board" and he cannot do so, I think he may have discovered the reason for his failing.

Or...maybe said businessman needs to relearn his own language?

 

[uscitizen]

"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'"

But bush said he was against nation building and the USA being the police force for the world....

It had to be those minority demoncrats in congress that made him do it.

 

[Bfgrn]

Spin it all you want......

But it was a Kennedy (democrat) that sent the first troops into Vietnam.

And it was his successor Johnson (democrat) who expanded the war to the point of no return.

It is not 'spin', it is history. Eisenhower is the one who raised our commitment when he refused to sign the Geneva Accords. Thus creating a new country. Kennedy never sent troops to Vietnam, he signed an order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 and withdraw all personnel by the end of 1965. That is not 'spin', it is a documented FACT. Maybe if you had an adult chaperone they could help you read the links I posted.

LBJ did send in troops and Americanized the war. Democrats ran him out of office.

Nixon ran for president in 1968 promising to end the war. Instead he expanded the war, especially bombings.

 

[Sallow]

Spin it all you want......

But it was a Kennedy (democrat) that sent the first troops into Vietnam.

And it was his successor Johnson (democrat) who expanded the war to the point of no return.

You're wrong about Kennedy and right about Johnson.

 

[Sallow]

Spin it all you want......

But it was a Kennedy (democrat) that sent the first troops into Vietnam.

And it was his successor Johnson (democrat) who expanded the war to the point of no return.

It is not 'spin', it is history. Eisenhower is the one who raised our commitment when he refused to sign the Geneva Accords. Thus creating a new country. Kennedy never sent troops to Vietnam, he signed an order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 and withdraw all personnel by the end of 1965. That is not 'spin', it is a documented FACT. Maybe if you had an adult chaperone they could help you read the links I posted.

LBJ did send in troops and Americanized the war. Democrats ran him out of office.

Nixon ran for president in 1968 promising to end the war. Instead he expanded the war, especially bombings.

No they didn't.

Johnson had a "What have I done" moment after Cronkite basically damned him for the war.

He decided not to run, because of that.