One Last Bush Debacle to Digest

[nhboy]

Michael Hogan: One Last Bush Debacle to Digest

"I’m as anxious as anybody to see what happens tomorrow in Texas and Ohio, but there’s no point wasting the day reading silly preview stories. (That’s what tomorrow’s papers are for!) Instead, let’s take this moment to absorb some new revelations about the current administration and the cascading crisis it has helped engender in the Middle East.

David Rose’s “The Gaza Bombshell” will be my last story as an editor at Vanity Fair the magazine, at least for the foreseeable future. (I have since migrated over to vanityfair.com.) As you’ll hear in a podcast scheduled to appear on VF.com later this week, this explosive piece is the result of many months’ work by David, during which I have had the privilege of being his confidant and collaborator.

In a nutshell, the story shows how an administration that professed a commitment to democracy in the Middle East reverted to the worst old habits of American foreign policy after the “wrong side” won an election. I am no fan of Hamas, but there are important reasons why it defeated the corrupt Fatah party in the Palestinian legislative elections last January. And while Hamas as a whole is virulently anti-Israel, many serious analysts argued that its moderate wing could be nurtured into a credible negotiating partner."

VF Daily: Michael Hogan: One Last Bush Debacle to Digest: Online Only: vanityfair.com

The Gaza Bombshell: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

 

[nhboy]

Add Loon named Dork.

One Last Bush Debacle... 03-03-2008 10:11 AM fool

One Last Bush Debacle... 03-04-2008 06:40 AM Dork

 

[PsyOps]

One Last Bush Debacle to Digest

Last? I bet!

 

[trailtoy]

Seriously? You want to pin the forever-and-a-day problems of the Middle-East on Bush? Lord knows you can pick on Bush for a lot of things, but this is not one of them. YOU CANNOT FOSTER/GIVE/BUY/SELL OR MAKE PEACE WITH PEOPLE THAT DON'T WANT PEACE.

 

[aps45819]

the current administration and the cascading crisis it has helped engender in the Middle East.

The middle east has been screwed up since Cain killed Abel.
Don't think GW was responsible for that.

 

[Larry Gude]

But...

Seriously? You want to pin the forever-and-a-day problems of the Middle-East on Bush? Lord knows you can pick on Bush for a lot of things, but this is not one of them. YOU CANNOT FOSTER/GIVE/BUY/SELL OR MAKE PEACE WITH PEOPLE THAT DON'T WANT PEACE.

...you, we can accept that fact and let the people directly involved settle it.

 

[This_person]

...you, we can accept that fact and let the people directly involved settle it.

If you, as an adult, saw a group of big mean kids surrounding a smaller kid telling him they were going to kick his ass and/or kill him, would you feel obligated to get involved?

 

[Larry Gude]

If saw...

If you, as an adult, saw a group of big mean kids surrounding a smaller kid telling him they were going to kick his ass and/or kill him, would you feel obligated to get involved?

...a bunch of big, mean kids surrounding a smaller kid and telling him they were going to kick his ass or kill him and he constantly beat the crap out of all of them, I'd quit pulling the little kid off of them and let the morons figure it out on their own instead of constantly trying to argue they somehow had a point.

 

[This_person]

...a bunch of big, mean kids surrounding a smaller kid and telling him they were going to kick his ass or kill him and he constantly beat the crap out of all of them, I'd quit pulling the little kid off of them and let the morons figure it out on their own instead of constantly trying to argue they somehow had a point.

Maybe, but I wouldn't walk away assuming the little one would keep winning. I'd watch the others (especially when they started making bigger and bigger sticks to hit the little one with), and try and break it up.

 

[Larry Gude]

The little...

Maybe, but I wouldn't walk away assuming the little one would keep winning. I'd watch the others (especially when they started making bigger and bigger sticks to hit the little one with), and try and break it up.

...guy has been FORCED to give up his advantage every single time he settled his difference with the gang. We have made him a dependent. We perpetuate his problems. We have made him vulnerable by constantly helping his opponents and not letting them, ever, be responsible for their own actions. We encourage them to attack him again.

We are the problem just the same as an adult would be who constantly interfered with a little guy asserting himself over his opponents. It is criminal when something gets fixed to go in an break again in some sort of vague hope that 'fairness' will appear out of thin air.

 

[Baja28]

...a bunch of big, mean kids surrounding a smaller kid and telling him they were going to kick his ass or kill him and he constantly beat the crap out of all of them, I'd quit pulling the little kid off of them and let the morons figure it out on their own instead of constantly trying to argue they somehow had a point.

Maybe, but I wouldn't walk away assuming the little one would keep winning. I'd watch the others (especially when they started making bigger and bigger sticks to hit the little one with), and try and break it up.

I like this you two..... carry on.

 

[Larry Gude]

Tennis...

I like this you two..... carry on.

...fan?

 

[SamSpade]

I thought Jimmy Carter fixed the Middle East, and then Bill Clinton patched everything else up.

Have there been any other problems?

 

[This_person]

...guy has been FORCED to give up his advantage every single time he settled his difference with the gang. We have made him a dependent. We perpetuate his problems. We have made him vulnerable by constantly helping his opponents and not letting them, ever, be responsible for their own actions. We encourage them to attack him again.

I don't claim to be the smartest in foreign policy, but I don't understand what you're saying here. What I get out of it is that we try and hold peace (and follow the original plan to have two countries, not one, in that land they claim), thereby stopping Isreal from nuking everybody around them. Your contention is that by doing this we make Isreal dependent upon our security?

By saying that "we perpetuate (their) problems", what are you suggesting? They'd suddenly be able to recognize each other's religions and rights to exist where they're at if we just stopped protecting them from each other?

We are the problem just the same as an adult would be who constantly interfered with a little guy asserting himself over his opponents. It is criminal when something gets fixed to go in an break again in some sort of vague hope that 'fairness' will appear out of thin air.

If something ever got "fixed", I would follow what you're saying. The closest it came to being fixed was when Isreal declared themselves the sovereign nation that the League of Nations and (later) the UN had already said they were, and then pushed back the idiots trying to stop that from occuring. Everything since then has been a series of failures on EVERYbody's parts; and I think we're just trying to keep a nuclear war from breaking out in the area (we like to breath the air, and all that)

 

[This_person]

I thought Jimmy Carter fixed the Middle East, and then Bill Clinton patched everything else up.

Have there been any other problems?

He did. He made the Middle East safe for everyone (well, except Christians and Jews, and any other religion but Muslims).

 

[PsyOps]

I thought Jimmy Carter fixed the Middle East, and then Bill Clinton patched everything else up.

Have there been any other problems?

And let’s not forget Bush’s bandaid on the problem. And to think Carter won the Nobel for his brokered “peace”. It’s just like trailtoy wrote:

YOU CANNOT FOSTER/GIVE/BUY/SELL OR MAKE PEACE WITH PEOPLE THAT DON'T WANT PEACE.

 

[Lenny]

One Last Bush Debacle... 03-03-2008 10:11 AM fool

I take it you prefer to be called a doofus.

 

[Larry Gude]

If...

I don't claim to be the smartest in foreign policy, but I don't understand what you're saying here. What I get out of it is that we try and hold peace (and follow the original plan to have two countries, not one, in that land they claim), thereby stopping Isreal from nuking everybody around them. Your contention is that by doing this we make Isreal dependent upon our security?

...you look at Israels battlefield success and the following international pressure, including us, to more or less give back what they win, you see, or, at least I see, a perpetual conflict instead of a settled one. In the meantime, nations that basically have as national, declared policy, the destruction of Israel, get stronger. We become the buffer; fear of us becomes part of the dynamic.

 

[Lenny]

...you look at Israels battlefield success and the following international pressure, including us, to more or less give back what they win, you see, or, at least I see, a perpetual conflict instead of a settled one. In the meantime, nations that basically have as national, declared policy, the destruction of Israel, get stronger. We become the buffer; fear of us becomes part of the dynamic.

As I read the Vanity Fair article, I am outraged. Outraged that a bitter author who has been demoted to the .com division can impugn the administration with this tripe without being subjected to "show me your math" questioning from the publisher.