Worst president in history?

xusnret

New Member
Worst president in history?

(The following appeared in the Durham, NC local paper as a letter to the editor).


Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war
They complain about his prosecution of it.

One liberal recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history..





Let's clear up one point: President Bush didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.
Let's look at the worst president and mismanagement claims.






FDR led us into World War II.
Germany never attacked us: Japan did.
From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
North Korea never attacked us.
From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.
Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us.
He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing.
Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
Over 2,900 lives lost on 9/11.








In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, rushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida,
put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year.
Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

Worst president in history? Come on!





The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...

It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound.
That was a 51 day operation.



We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!
 

Warron

Member
Originally posted by xusnret
Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

I don't personally believe that Bush is the worst president ever but considering that terrorist attacks in the US have only been averaging one every 5 to 10 years (if that), its a bit of a stretch to claim anything Bush has done has prevented anything.

If we can go the next 15 to 30 years without another terrorist attack then maybe we can claim that someone has accomplished something.
 

valentino

Member
interesting, but not new facts

My question is have "we" really accomplished anything other than having the people who really hate us, begin to hate us more and find more ways to hurt us that cannot be stopped by military operations?

Iraq had no connections to Osama, Al Qaida, or the Taliban, only now is there insurgents because of course they want to kill Americans, and it is easier for them to travel over there than to come here and do it.

The US has always seemed to think that it was necessary to put their power into situations where it did not belong, that is what started terrorism. In no way do I think that terrorism is in any way helpful to their cause, aren't we doing the same thing by going in and overtaking a country that while may have been a potential threat, had nothing to do with 9/11 and may have gone on to become a better place on their own. Now we will be paying for this war for the rest of our lives, and we will still live in fear of someones anger toward us manifesting itself in another 9/11 type attack or worse.

If it makes you feel good to post facts about past presidents, and other "funny" comparisons, so be it, but anyone can copy and paste supposed facts, how about you post some real discussion information because most of this is old or unimportant news.

All we ever see when another country does something we do not like is killing or some other sort of violence, and then we wonder why our children act out so often...that is all they know and see. So remember kids, violence begets violence...
 

nomoney

....
Re: Re: Worst president in history?

Originally posted by Toxick
Don't have anything to add, except that's the coolest avatar I've seen in a while.


that be Kwillia's and I's family pic. I posted it like forever ago.
 

Shakezula

Insert Lame Innuendo Here
Re: interesting, but not new facts

Originally posted by valentino

If it makes you feel good to post facts about past presidents, and other "funny" comparisons, so be it, but anyone can copy and paste supposed facts, how about you post some real discussion information because most of this is old or unimportant news.


Especially when those facts are taken waaaaaaaaaaaay out of context. Makes it look like the USA went to war for no reason at all, whatsoever. But this time was different than all those other times we went to war.

How come George Bush/Desert Storm wasn't mentioned in that letter?
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Re: Re: Worst president in history?

Originally posted by Warron
If we can go the next 15 to 30 years without another terrorist attack then maybe we can claim that someone has accomplished something.

You mean, like the old joke of

"I'm here to keep the lions out"
"There aren't any lions around here!"
"See how good a job I'm doing!"

The way to measure is to demonstrate how many have actually been foiled, how many plots have been stopped, and how many of the terrorists have been captured or killed. THAT would be the best way.

And Bush's War on Terror has been outstanding in this regard. Most of al-Qaeda's top leadership is gone. Over 2000, possibly 3000 terrorists worldwide captured. It may be more *newsworthy* to mention the latest bomb blowing up, but the fact is, they're getting these guys all over the world.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
Couple of thoughts...

If we can go the next 15 to 30 years without another terrorist attack then maybe we can claim that someone has accomplished something

Pure fantasy and I don't care who the President is.

Clinton tried a benign strategy. Call it the Rodney King method; Can't we all just get along? Lead straight to 9/11.

Bush is trying the 'if we aren't get along, we'll kill you first' strategy. Obviously hurting them and hindering operations, but not eradicating them.

The fundamental nature of the reasoning of those who consider themselves our enemy dictates that we will, at least on occaision, be attacked over the years unless certain sects of Islam die out which is HIGHLY unlikely after, what, 1300 years or so? Our enemies see us as a mortal threat to their way of life. Us or them.

We are the great satan and whenever they hurt us, no matter how small, they maintain legitimacy with a portion of a huge, global population.

9/11 if anything, shows how incredibly weak their position actually is in terms of achieving global theocracy domination, the stated goal. We, in a lot of ways, very easily shrugged off the attack.

Fortunately for them, they are seen as a bunch of stone age leftovers. Box cutters? Crashing planes? In part, we don't take them very seriously.

If and when they do something truly capable, say a nuke, then we might see the end of them because they could not survive the vaporization of Mecca or Medinah. That's probably what it would take before our left considers the threat real and we stop asking questions like 'does defending ourselves make them like us less?'

That's the saddest part because, like Clinton, dissmissing things like the first tower attack leads directly to worse attacks. Of course, that will never be accepted here by half our population, so, we'll wait for worse.

As for the question of whether they will REALLY hate us now, the only people who might think so are the ones who didn't get the message the first four times.

First Tower attack.
USS Cole
Two Embassies
Kobar Towers

I assume most people who attack others take some offense when their victim fights back. To care at all about their feelings being hurt is the most illogical, dangerous thing I've heard in some time.

"Well, if you're going to be raped, might as well enjoy it?"

Reading Osama's own words is helpful along with a little history thrown in.

Blaming the US is, however, MUCH easier.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Re: interesting, but not new facts

Originally posted by valentino

Iraq had no connections to Osama, Al Qaida, or the Taliban,

Completely, totally and utterly false. Even the more liberal outlets who mistakenly reported that as part of the 9/11 commission report have printed retractions. The commission totally and rather emphatically agrees that there WERE connections between them.

What it DID say, was there's no proof or evidence of collaboration specifically regarding the attacks of 9/11. And only that there is lack of proof, not that it did not exist.

One of Saddam's top Fedayeen was a member of al-Qaeda.

Moreover, there's a LOT more -

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Miniter20040618.shtml

A piece of this article ----

"Those who try to whitewash Saddam's record don't dispute this evidence; they just ignore it. So let's review the evidence, all of it on the public record for months or years:

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

Some skeptics dismiss the emerging evidence of a longstanding link between Iraq and al Qaeda by contending that Saddam ran a secular dictatorship hated by Islamists like bin Laden.

In fact, there are plenty of "Stalin-Roosevelt" partnerships between international terrorists and Muslim dictators. Saddam and bin Laden had common enemies, common purposes and interlocking needs. They shared a powerful hate for America and the Saudi royal family. They both saw the Gulf War as a turning point. Saddam suffered a crushing defeat which he had repeatedly vowed to avenge. Bin Laden regards the U.S. as guilty of war crimes against Iraqis and believes that non-Muslims shouldn't have military bases on the holy sands of Arabia. Al Qaeda's avowed goal for the past ten years has been the removal of American forces from Saudi Arabia, where they stood in harm's way solely to contain Saddam."

It's a good read. Check it out.
 

valentino

Member
I am sorry, I thought this was the 9/11 commision, which is what I was referring to, I misspoke, you are correct. My point was more that there has not been a direct link between Sadaam and 9/11, so why were we so eager to make it seem like there was???
 

Steve

Enjoying life!
Re: interesting, but not new facts

Originally posted by valentino
...have "we" really accomplished anything other than having the people who really hate us, begin to hate us more...

Does this mean that the terrorists have stopped saying "I'm going to bomb you." and switched to "I'm really going to bomb you!"?

:biggrin:
 

valentino

Member
Seems like there is more of a worry in a lot peoples minds that we are worse off than in the past in that area, so yes, I guess that is what that means. Some threats are not substantiated, but I guess there are plenty that are...
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by valentino
I am sorry, I thought this was the 9/11 commision, which is what I was referring to, I misspoke, you are correct. My point was more that there has not been a direct link between Sadaam and 9/11, so why were we so eager to make it seem like there was???

What difference does it make? Saddam was a terrorist, who consorted with terrorists, financed terrorists and aided terrorists. Unlike terrorists, he had access to weapons labs, billions of oil money, materials for advanced weapons and so on.

It's like ignoring the alligator in the water, because you know it's not a shark. Doesn't matter - he'll STILL *kill* you.

If person A wants to blow you up, and person B wants to blow you up, does it matter if A and B are friends, and are in collaboration? Isn't it enough that they both intend to kill you, before you do something about it?
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
Well...

so why were we so eager to make it seem like there was???

"We" never were. The adminstration lead us to invade Iraq based on umpteen UN resolutions and our own Iraq War Resolution authorizing the use of force to get Iraq to come clean about their weapons stockpiles and programs and to address the potential terror threat.


"Whereas members of al-Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;"

http://www.detnews.com/2002/nation/0210/11/nation-609425.htm

This is what out Congress passed, reasonably so, by a large margin.

This is why I do NOT understand the modern left in our country.

How in the name of Tom Daschle do you argue for a position that ignores and leaves Saddam Hussein in power???

The ONLY reason the EXACT wording if this or that is of any note at all is because some serious face saving is needed by a great many Democrats.

The left is acting like we invaded Greenwhich Village.
 

valentino

Member
Originally posted by SamSpade
What difference does it make? Saddam was a terrorist, who consorted with terrorists, financed terrorists and aided terrorists. Unlike terrorists, he had access to weapons labs, billions of oil money, materials for advanced weapons and so on.

It's like ignoring the alligator in the water, because you know it's not a shark. Doesn't matter - he'll STILL *kill* you.

If person A wants to blow you up, and person B wants to blow you up, does it matter if A and B are friends, and are in collaboration? Isn't it enough that they both intend to kill you, before you do something about it?

Simple, the difference is we were lead to believe one thing, and then told that the war was for another reason when that one did not pan out, it seems like there is a constant push to show emphasis on another aspect of this conflict since the past one is not working anymore. If it really is about a threat to the US then deal with that and do not make it sound like something else, but I still have not seen evidence that there was a credible threat in Iraq. Yes Sadaam is an evil man, but there are many other coutries where much worse is happening, and we are not even attempting to "liberate".

This is probably not pertinent in this thread, but where do we get off telling everyone else what they can and cannot have. We are allowed to have whatever weapons we want, kill whoever we want, and others just have to deal with it. I am all for protecting our security, but we have worried about what we are going to do overseas while at the same time ignoring problems right here in the US, and ignoring our peoples needs. I think that everyone should at least try to work and make a living for themselves. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to go to school and get a good job, but not everyone can afford schooling or has the time for it because of their need to support their family. We are the most advanced country in the world, yet we seem to also be the most inept at handling problems.

Imagine some rich punk with a C average running the country...scares me that people think that is okay...and even funny at times. I am in no way claiming that Kerry or even myself are the smartest people and or perfect in any way...it is the lesser of two evils at its best here.
 

Steve

Enjoying life!
Originally posted by valentino
Could ya hep me pewl it up deer Bubba...???

Another thoughtful post by Southern Marylands elite.

Not as good as the posts on DU? :confused:
 
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