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Disturbing thought I had about Bush's foreign policy

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Hippo_Tron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 06:51 PM
Original message
Disturbing thought I had about Bush's foreign policy
Up until now I've pretty much agreed with Bush on one issue and that's foreign policy. However, today I was having a discussion with a friend and it dawned on me.

1998 - 2001 Clinton attempts to capture Osama Binladen and puts pressure on Saadam.

January 2001 - 9/11 Bush doesn't do jack shit. Also, The lack of communication between the intelligence agencies probably had something to do with the people he appointed.

9/11 - You know the rest

It just makes no sense if Bush were really serious on stopping terrorism he would've been continuing what Clinton did. It's so funny when people like Rush Limbaugh say bullshit like "Clinton took significant funding out of our military budget and that's why we're having these problems."
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ComerPerro Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 06:54 PM
Response to Original message
1. Also consider
Bush's annual monthlong vacation in August.
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arcane1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 06:56 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. added with Andy Card's "roll-out products after August"
welcome to our nightmare
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Hippo_Tron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 07:08 PM
Response to Reply #1
12. Well...
It's said that Bush gets more done on his "working" vacations than he does in the white house. I imagine his cabinet meetings as well as other meetings are something like this.

Collen Powell: I think we need to better relations with Saudi Arabia

Bush: Good do it

Donald Rumsfeld: I think we need more troops in Iraq

Bush: Good do it

John Snow: I think we need to cut taxes more

Bush: Good do it

etc...

I think an August vacation and August recess for the president every year is a bit excessive. Maybe every election year would be better. I think that they really have a lot more to do before congress adjourns in october (I believe).
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wuushew Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 06:58 PM
Response to Original message
3. Shrub's foreign policy has been a disaster since day one
Edited on Tue Aug-26-03 06:59 PM by wuushew
Surely you admit that he fucked up our relations with China and made the North Korea situation much much worse.
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MissMarple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 06:59 PM
Response to Original message
4. Who controlled the budget from '94 on? REPUBLICANS!
They sneered on the senate floor about allocating money to fight terrorism. I think in one instance it was Orrin Hatch.

I wish I had a handy link for that last part, perhaps someone more technologically apt than I am can help us out.
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Malikshah Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 07:47 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. In addition
That SOB Phil Gramm in his committee work made damn sure that the Clinton Administration would be unable to freeze the assets of the terrorist groups.

The list is long of those who need to be behind bars for crimes against our nation....

Why must it be the Historian's task to bring the truth out 25+ years later...

I'm sick to death of this

Scarborough-Klausutis?
Bush et al 9/11
Gramm et al 9/11
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 07:36 PM
Response to Original message
5. Welcome to DU, Hippo
I imagine you've gotten a crash course in current affairs here, eh?
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baldguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 08:00 PM
Response to Original message
7. You forget. The reason Bush didn't follow
Clinton's lead in foreign policy is because IT WAS CLINTON'S FOREIGN POLICY.

Everything Clinton did = BAD, so that means Bush MUST DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE!
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vixengrl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 08:10 PM
Response to Original message
8. It's because the (ahem) "grown-ups" were now in charge.
It was explained to Condoleeza Rice,et als that they would be spending most of their time on terrorism and specifically Al Quaeda. They said, basically, "Yeah, sure." Somehow, I think they still have a Cold War mentality--in that I hear weird stuff about missile defense and tactical nukes and other Reagan-era "Mutually Assured Destruction" type things, but no 21st century "Here's how we gather and interpret intelligence". What good is defense spending if the materiel isn't used in a proper way? (Or rather, why spend so much on things and cut so much spending on the real resource, people?)
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Jacobin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 08:21 PM
Response to Original message
9. Do me a favor
google "PNAC" and read for a while.

Then come back and let us know what you think about Bush's foreign policy.

It's a real eye opener.
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never cry wolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 08:31 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. Exactly
I did exactly that after I saw PNAC in a passing mention in a mainstream newspaper last autumn. After reading what they wrote and Ggoogling a few related articles it brought me progressive sites like buzzflash and truthout. Damn, it took me til a month ago to discover DU but I researched all the crap on my own, it's an eye opener!!
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RainDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 08:52 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. a belated welome!
yeah, it's amazing how much information is out there, and yet how little of it is discussed in the mass media.

yet even there, information is available. but Congress doesn't pursue too many things, and there is no equivalent to the right wing screedheads on tv to balance their b.s.

...and as far as Bush's foreign policy goes... I think he sucks.

he's alienated our long-standing allies.

he ignored the advice of generals, ambassadors, and intelligence agents AND lied to the American people to attack Iraq.

He went to this war on a doctrine of "pre-emption" -- it makes my blood boil that Congress failed to perform their duty and gave this power to this idiot and his fascist advisors.

Bush's foreign policy, like his domestic policy, is predicated on overturning the balance of powers, which is our democracy's protection from tyranny, as the founders of this nation saw it.

Bush abused this power and he MUST be held accountable and punished for this. I would prefer that he be tried for conspiracy to defraud the American people and conspiracy to defraud an agency of the Federal Govt.

The Bush administration has acted as though it has no responsibility to the American people, not only via it's failure to be honest about foreign policy issues, but also in economic policy, environmental policy, energy policy...there is NOTHING he has done which works for the benefit of anyone but the Ken Lay criminals who are his buddies.

Bush seemingly allowed bin Laden to escape when he was surrounded on three sides in the Tora Bora region...either to pacify Pakistan's dictator and protect him from the fundamentalists there, or, more likely for Bush, to keep the "war on terror" open so that he and his cronies could lie us into a quagmire in Iraq.

Of course, this invasion has created the very situation that they were supposedly hoping to avoid in Pakistan.

This administration is so ideologically blind that they refuse to believe anything which does not support their pre-existing belief.

If that does not make you want to get rid of these dangerous men IMMEDIATELY, then I wonder if you realize what they are doing to America and the world.

and you, you cannot declare a "war on terror." I mean, you can declare it, because Bush did, but "terror" is not a nation, and so you cannot be at war with it.

but bush's war on terror has been just the replacement the paranoid right needs since communism is not the easily available whipping boy to get the masses drooling.

there are far, far better ways to deal with the threat of terrorism than the way Bush has done...ever since the day he sat in that classroom for thirty minutes while our nation was under attack and did not give the order to scramble fighter planes while hijacked airliners were still in the air.

America will be lucky to survive these assholes without devastating economic and foreign policy problems.

if there is a god, the Bush administration would have been so smote they would look like charcoal bricketts.
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