Is Re-Electing Bush a Mistake Given His Presidential Record?

[Elizabeth1405]

Okay, here goes:

That's better than attacking and not taking over two countries. Americans don't consider military victories a bad thing.

As an American, I consider needless deaths during war a "bad thing."--regardless of who comes out on top.

Bush is taking his hits for the economy, but no President is ever totally responsible

...unless he happens to be a Democrat, like Jimmy Carter

 

[Elizabeth1405]

By the way, the word "Americans" is capitalized.

Relax. The guy is from Canada, and he mispelled and failed to capitalize the word "Canadian" too.

 

[loseyourname]

As an American, I consider needless deaths during war a "bad thing."--regardless of who comes out on top.

And what's needless? Was the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo needless? Was the dropping of the A-bomb needless? Was General Sherman's total destruction of the cities of Atlanta and Savannah needless?

 

[adrenaline]

There is a more subtle but much more sinister reason not to vote for Bush.

Voting for Bush means voting for the status quo dismal intelligence that allows Al Queda to thrive.


What remains inexplicable to me is why the Bush administration would believe that the attacks did not prove the need for an urgent overhaul of U.S. intelligence, but that business as usual would suffice? Whatever one thinks of Bush on other subjects, this decision remains unexplained and undefended.

Bush, in his most inexplicable action as president, has made no substantial changes in either the structure of the intelligence community or in its personnel...yet the pro Bush advocates wants us to believe by voting for him, we are voting for a stronger antiterrorism defensive front.

Let me explain:


The CIA, the NSA and the vast apparatus of the U.S. intelligence community were created in the late 1940s with one purpose: to combat the Soviet Union.

The end of the Cold War should have led to a rethinking of both mission and organization. There has been some the former, but hardly any of the latter



Soviet intelligence, and thus ours, made certain fundamental assumptions about how intelligence operations should be carried out:

1. The primary purpose of soviet or american intelligence was to penetrate the decision-making layers of opponent states and to transmit information to a central authority. The primary means for achieving this was to plant agents inside the CIA of KGB; the secondary means was technical intelligence.


2. The secondary purpose of our countries' intelligence agencey was to use these agents to obscure intelligence activities . In other words, agents were also were also used to falsify intelligence.

We became much more heavily dependent on technical means of intelligence-gathering than did the Soviets. Where the Soviets would try to recruit well-placed Americans to extract information, we would try to tap into Soviet systems of communication to gather the same information. The Soviets were obsessed with protecting their assets, we with protecting our technical capabilities.


For the United States, the terrorist groups of the 1970s and 1980s were not seen as independent actors, but as entities designed or at least guided by the KGB toward psychological and political ends. On the whole, this was not a bad way to view the world. The KGB used these groups -- particularly Palestinian groups -- to create political environments that were conducive to Soviet ends. The Soviets maintained a program designed to seduce, manipulate and manage the leadership of these terrorist groups. The United States understood that the best way to defeat these groups was by disrupting their relations with the Soviets. Both sides were quite realistic for a while..

By the time of Desert Storm, the Soviets were no longer key enablers of terrorism. The problem is that our CIA has lost the prism through which it viewed organizations that were using terrorism as a weapon. To be more precise, where the United States previously had viewed the Arab world through the prism of the CIA-KGB competition, the end of the rivalry did not bring with it a new prism. The CIA knew that the Soviets were no longer managing the situation, but they did not develop a new way of thinking about that situation.



Al Qaeda has been designed to be different from predecessor groups that used terrorism.

First, there is no dependency on a single intelligence agency. Al Qaeda used relations with Pakistani and Saudi intelligence, among others, but did not depend on them. Second, the group understood how the Soviets and Americans had used intelligence during the Cold War, and created an organization that was not easily penetrated by either human or technical means. They don't run cables that submarines could tap into or chatter on car phones, so the NSA has limited opportunities to intercept.


The CIA, institutionally, does not seem to have the frame of reference for al Qaeda. This agency was organized for penetrating the upper circles and lines of communication of a nation-state or a state-sponsored group. It was built to deal with the KGB and its creations.

What had been built to be congruent with Soviet intelligence is now left standing alone, congruent with nothing.



He believes profoundly and completely that the same organizational structure and people that took down the KGB would eventually take down al Qaeda -- no wholesale changes required. It is understandable that people who had won once would think that they could win again using the same tools. It is inexplicable that the president and his advisers would believe them. Simple common sense should tell U.S. leaders that it is simply fantastic to believe that a force built to defeat the Soviet Union can serve to defeat al Qaeda.

However, I'm not sure Kerry is going to make this a priority agenda either. At least, not a voting agenda.

 

[Elizabeth1405]

And what's needless? Was the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo needless? Was the dropping of the A-bomb needless? Was General Sherman's total destruction of the cities of Atlanta and Savannah needless?

You may want to go back and read my original post. I'm saying the DEATHS of so many civilians is needless, not necessarily the acts that lead up to these deaths. There were "needless" deaths in all the situations your mention--civilians dying as a result of war is, in my opinion, needless. More appropriately, I consider the death of nearly 1,000 American soldiers in Iraq and the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians by foreign invaders to their country to be needless. And I think "needless" is a good way to describe all of the Vietnam war.

 

[loseyourname]

You may want to go back and read my original post. I'm saying the DEATHS of so many civilians is needless, not necessarily the acts that lead up to these deaths. There were "needless" deaths in all the situations your mention--civilians dying as a result of war is, in my opinion, needless. More appropriately, I consider the death of nearly 1,000 American soldiers in Iraq and the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians by foreign invaders to their country to be needless. And I think "needless" is a good way to describe all of the Vietnam war.

Well then, if you think civilians dying as a result of war is needless, and needless deaths is a valid reason for opposing a war, then you would have opposed every war the US has been involved in since the Civil War. Heck, in the other examples I used, we intentionally targeted and killed civilians. In a war like the one we're involved in today, and in Vietnam, civilians were killed because the enemy disguises itself as civilians and makes it difficult to tell who's a threat and who is not a threat. I would think the intentional targeting of civilians would be more objectionable. I'm guessing you nonetheless object to this current war more than you would to WWII or the Civil War, so for the sake of consistent reasoning, you must have another reason - not civilian deaths.

 

[Elizabeth1405]

In a war like the one we're involved in today, and in Vietnam, civilians were killed because the enemy disguises itself as civilians and makes it difficult to tell who's a threat and who is not a threat.

Did you ever hear of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam? None of those civilians were mistaken for anything than what they were--poor people in a small village.The soldiers killed them because they were easy targets, and they were eventually prosecuted for it. Vietnam was a lose-lose situation--the soldiers lost, and their victims lost. It was a mistake, and apparently nobody has learned anything from that. I oppose ALL war. I don't see how bombing other people to smithereens (whether "intentional" or not) is an acceptable solution to anything. I know a very sweet gentleman who is a WWII veteran. He is very conservative politically, yet is against the death penalty. Why? He admits to killing hundreds of Germans in WWII. He doesn't regret killing them, because that's what he had to do at the time for himself and his country. He is against the death penalty not because of what it does to the person being executed, but what it does to us. He knows what effect killing will have on the psyche of someone, regardless of whether it is justified. Nobody "wins" from war. That's why I don't understand the gung-ho attitude of people in this country to the war in Iraq. How did killing and bombing become something to cheer and brag about?

 

[Sting]

How did killing and bombing become something to cheer and brag about?

Elizabeth, if I may respond to this:

People may view a situation like Iraq where civilians are bombed and killed in a positive light because they feel that killing civilians is killing a potential terrorist. Killing a potential terrorist means less threat for the world.

Allow me to embellish that I don't necessarily agree with the logic. I'm only evaluating the perspective of why people view bombing and killing with a positive outlook.

 

[Elizabeth1405]

this:

People may view a situation like Iraq where civilians are bombed and killed in a positive light because they feel that killing civilians is killing a potential terrorist. Killing a potential terrorist means less threat for the world.

Gosh, I really hope people don't think that way! If they do, then I assume they'd want to just nuke all of the Middle East. Afterall, we never know if who's a terrorist and who's not over there, right?

 

[Prometheus]

In a war like the one we're involved in today, and in Vietnam, civilians were killed because the enemy disguises itself as civilians and makes it difficult to tell who's a threat and who is not a threat.

Your viewpoint is certainly one way to look at it. Another way that some people look at it is that the U.S. had no business in Vietname or in Iraq. Therefore, the reason that civilians were killed is that the U.S. invaded these 2 countries when it had no business doing so, and in the process used such excuses as yours to jusitify killing people that never should have been placed under attack in the first place.

 

[loseyourname]

Your viewpoint is certainly one way to look at it. Another way that some people look at it is that the U.S. had no business in Vietname or in Iraq. Therefore, the reason that civilians were killed is that the U.S. invaded these 2 countries when it had no business doing so, and in the process used such excuses as yours to jusitify killing people that never should have been placed under attack in the first place.

I agree that the war in Vietnam was foolish (because it was strategically unnecessary), but I find it very interesting that no one ever seems to argue that North Vietnam had no right to invade and forcibly take over South Vietnam.

I oppose ALL war. I don't see how bombing other people to smithereens (whether "intentional" or not) is an acceptable solution to anything.

I suspected that you felt this way. For my part, I'm damn glad we did what we did back in the 40's, and I think we should have done it a lot sooner.

 

[Prometheus]

I agree that the war in Vietnam was foolish (because it was strategically unnecessary), but I find it very interesting that no one ever seems to argue that North Vietnam had no right to invade and forcibly take over South Vietnam.

Come on, surely you have heard many people make this claim.

But not me. What possible justification can you make for forcibly excising part of Vietnam and setting up a puppet government, and then claiming that they have no right to fight it out in their attempt to keep it separate or to unify?

Are you saying that the North had no right to invade and forcibly take over the South in the American Civil War? In this case, at least the people involved chose the division, unlike in Vietnam where greedy imperialists made the decisions.

If you believe that North Vietnam had no right to go to war to reunify with the South, then I claim that you have no right to support any war that has ever happened in history, as there can be no better justification for a war.

You probably believe that China would be evil if they were to invade Taiwan. After all, the U.S. stole it fair and square.

 

[loseyourname]

So you equate the Confederacy's desire to secede due to the fact that they wanted to continue to enslave Africans to Taiwan's desire for basic human rights and self-determination? Is that really a good comparison to make? Are you a communist? I'm not saying your opinion is invalidated if you are, but I'm curious.

 

[JohnDubYa]

Voting for Bush means voting for the status quo dismal intelligence that allows Al Queda to thrive.


What remains inexplicable to me is why the Bush administration would believe that the attacks did not prove the need for an urgent overhaul of U.S. intelligence, but that business as usual would suffice? Whatever one thinks of Bush on other subjects, this decision remains unexplained and undefended.

Did Clinton find out about the first bombing of the WTC in time to prevent it? In his eight years as President, did he overhaul the CIA to fit with modern times?

 

[Prometheus]

So you equate the Confederacy's desire to secede due to the fact that they wanted to continue to enslave Africans to Taiwan's desire for basic human rights and self-determination? Is that really a good comparison to make? Are you a communist? I'm not saying your opinion is invalidated if you are, but I'm curious.

Are you a communist? I'm not saying your question is meaningless, but it is.

You speak of Taiwan's desire for basic human rights and self-determination. How old are you, under 25?

Taiwan did not secede from China for basic human rights or for self-determination. The United States supported its point man in China, Chiang Kai-Shek. He had zero concern for the inhabitants of the island that he invaded from China. The native Taiwanese despise him. They appreciate the position that they are in due to the assistance that the U.S. gave to Taiwan, and particularly the money. Ask a Taiwanese man, not a descendent of one of the soldiers in the invasion, if he thinks that Chiang Kai-Shek did anything for the basic human rights of his parents when he invaded.

The South in the U.S. wanted self-determination. Taiwan did not. Taiwan was invaded by a ruthless dictator who held power only thanks to help from the U.S. His invasion was brutal to the local inhabitants. Read a history book.

 

[JohnDubYa]

Interesting opinion on Taiwan:

http://www.npf.org.tw/English/Publication/NS/NS-C-090-261.htm

 

[Prometheus]

Interesting opinion on Taiwan:

http://www.npf.org.tw/English/Publication/NS/NS-C-090-261.htm

Gee whiz. Aren't we surprised that the Taiwan National Policy Foundation writes a completely unbiased account of how wonderful Chiang Kai-Shek was?
Surely, the Taiwanese that survived the initial slaughter should thank the heavens for his coming.

 

[Prometheus]

I agree that the war in Vietnam was foolish (because it was strategically unnecessary),

Are you a communist? I'm not saying your opinion is invalidated if you are, but I'm curious.

 

[Sting]

Afterall, we never know if who's a terrorist and who's not over there, right?

I agree. And remember that terrorists are not limited to Islamic Arabs which makes the question even more mentally-draining.

If they do, then I assume they'd want to just nuke all of the Middle East.

I know some people who would agree to that sentiment.

Gosh, I really hope people don't think that way!

I hope so too.

 

[russ_watters]

...unless he happens to be a Democrat, like Jimmy Carter

I've never seen Carter cited on this issue (maybe I'm too young). But no, I don't consider any President, even Carter, to have much of an impact. So now its up to you: do you think Carter was responsible for the economy of the 70s? Do you think Clinton was responsible for the economy of the 90s? Do you want to have it both ways?

I oppose ALL war. I don't see how bombing other people to smithereens (whether "intentional" or not) is an acceptable solution to anything.

That certainly is a comfortable - if not realistic - opinion. In what period of history would such a position have been actionable? I can't think of one.

I see bumper stickers and t-shirts all the time that say "War is not the answer." Never once have I seen one that says "the answer is..." Its a lot easier to condemn an action than to suggest an alternative.

For example, pick a world leader to replace (except for Hitler) and a year (sometime in the mid-'30s, probably). Put in that position, what would you have done to prevent WWII.

 

[Prometheus]

I was being serious, dickhead. Never mind.

My gosh. Did I upset you? How could that be, since I only asked you the same question that you asked me.

You pretend to be upset. Sure. You are serious. Sure. You attempt to insult me, and then you get vulgar in reaction to the same question that you hoped I would smile at? Sure.

I do confess that I did not realize that you are so eloquent. You are serious, aren't you? Never mind.

 

[loseyourname]

Ah, I'm sorry. I'm just really frustrated that no one on this forum ever answers a question. I honestly wanted to know if you are a communist.

 

[wasteofo2]

George Bush, sucker-punching someone while playing rugby:

http://www.gwpda.org/tomorrow/bushsuckerpunch.gif

Talk about moral character!

 

[JohnDubYa]

I was pissed off at him, but George W. has my vote after seeing the image, although I wish he had been playing real football. (I call him by his first name since we are such good friends.)

 

[kat]

I think putting that photo forth as indicative of character is more indicative of the character of the poster..

 

[wasteofo2]

I think putting that photo forth as indicative of character is more indicative of the character of the poster..

Oh come on, don't take everything so seriously. You really don't think seeing the president punching someone in the face is funny?

 

[JohnDubYa]

I remember the story about J.C. Watts decking someone at a YMCA. Someone pushed a kid down on the running track and J.C. whapped him. Knocked him out. J.C. later apologized, but I didn't think he needed to.

Must be a Republican thing.

 

[gravenewworld]

I've seen that list before-41 reasons why George Bush sucks. This one is even better, how bout 1000 reasons why you should hate george bush. And every reason has a citation how bout that! www.thousandreasons.org

 

[wasteofo2]

I remember the story about J.C. Watts decking someone at a YMCA. Someone pushed a kid down on the running track and J.C. whapped him. Knocked him out. J.C. later apologized, but I didn't think he needed to.

Must be a Republican thing.

Nah, it's just when Howard Dean flips out, he makes sure no one hears from the guy again

 

[JohnDubYa]

Does he threaten him with litigation?