How can people say this based on media reports??? The reports from the troops in the field say they are kicking the insurgent (should be changed to terrorist - insurgent is a favorable word) butt all over the place and call for increased troop levels!!! As always, a war should be fought and controlled by the military, not by the politicians. Bush made the right move diplomaticlaly, but made the wrong move after the fact in trying to control the war and discounting his generals calls for increased troop levels.

Crap, it has got to be tough at the top! Everything you do is scrutinized, even by me!

-S

PS. maybe the answer to future conflict is to turn all control over to the generals to fight the war. A lot of that has already happened, but still, the numbers of troops were not called by the generals, but by Rumsfield. Problem - the genereal who called for more troops was dismissed. Solution - re-instate him!

Strange. As far as I stumbled over them, comments by troops in the field, or veterans that had returned, and that were questoned on their evaluation anonymously and not in front of a camera, said exactly the opposite. Since over a year. And in the last 18 months I must have linked to 1 or 2 anonymous polls amonst troops in Iraq with results indicating that their morale and understanding why they should stay is slowly but constantly decreasing. And lastly: operation swarmer, a wonderful effort to polish George's image again - but so far a strike into empty space only. Some weapon supplies, some arrest, that'S all. A little bit too minor for an operation of this scale. must have something to do with this thing they call asymmetrical warfare. Next time they better hold a maneuver inside the Oval Office, it's easier to organioze and serves the same purpose.

But let's hunker down with familiar illusions some longer, makes us feel warm and comfortable. :up:

What more can you expect when the guy doesn’t go out and defend his views, and the far left goes after him with a baseball bat every day?

Yeah its not like he doesn't give the left ammo or anything... you know, like spending 1/3rd of his presidency either on vacation or at one of his vacation retreats (Camp David, "the ranch", etc) while the country he's supposedly running has been at war with two countries... or the massive tax cuts while again, spending hundreds of billions waging war on two countries (because as everyone knows its only the troops who have to make sacrifices during a time of war while everyone else should support them by... shopping)... or the dismissing of anyone in his administration or the military who dares to voice an opinion different from his own (like the General who insisted at least 300,000 troops would be needed for a war with Iraq) as well as public opinion (mere "polls")... and I could go and on but what's the point? The American people are already only too aware of how inept this President is. The consolation is he only has less than two years to go in office so there shouldn't be too many more things for him to screw up.

I wonder if his wealthy family will be sentenced to pay compensation for the mess this guy has created, and will have to give up their wealth for that, hand it to the state and the national community, at least his family's wealth is George's wealth as well, right? Every normal citizen would be held responsible in a comparable way - to compensate for incompetence and damage done by paying for the repair of the mess one has created.

But that is only a dream. There is no justice, on their level, and no compensation and of course no penalty.

A. I somehow suspect that those are working vacations. I.E. if the center of government was in a ranch outside of a small town, he would likely be quite content there.
B. Well, if it wasn’t for said tax cuts, the recession that the US was in, would have been a lot worse. But I do agree, he is a big spender, but we are at war, so what can one expect?
C. I would rather have a guy in office who is aggressive and pigheaded, than someone who is overly cautious. It is best to error on the side of aggression, instead of doing so on the side of caution when in a time of war. Anyway it is a war, mistakes happen. It is best to learn from them and move on.

A. Interesting point, I wonder why no country has ever located the seat of its government in a ranch outside of a small town. But its certainly preferable to suspect he spends 1/3rd of his presidency on working vacations rather than actually at work, working. Isn't working vacation" a bit of an oxymoron?

But hey, being President is hard work. And the guy's only paid a salary of $400,000 a year, so if he needs to earn it by spending 4 months of the year "working" at his ranch (clearing brush and stuff, falling off mountain bikes, or whatever else he does there), Camp David, or another retreat while the rest of the country makes do with the occassional long weekend (and a couple weeks a year vacation, if they're lucky) then who can complain? Its not like his position's so important it demands at least as much time on the job as that of the poor guy who has to punch his 40 hour week, every week, serving hamburgers and fries or mopping floors for minimum wage.

B. Ah good old fashioned, and discredited, Reaganomics and the trickle down theory (quick what's that tinklink sound? why its the sound of the rich taking a whizz on your face). Having taken a couple economics courses I rather believe the fact that the recession isn't any more severe is in spite of the tax cuts, and not because of them.

The problem with giving tax cuts to the rich is that it doesn't affect their spending one bit. When times are lean they don't have to postpone that vacation to disneyland, cutback on meals out or hold off on upgrading their PC or replacing their 5 year old car. Its the working people that have to do those things, and its the resultant loss of spending (the fuel of the economy) that leads to, and worsens, recessions. You give a taxcut to the rich and the only thing you affect is the money they invest, and investments aren't what drives the economy. All this does is create deficits (less revenue for the government, thanks to the taxcuts, and a smaller taxable base to regain it from later since the taxcuts aren't growing the economy). And if there's one thing Bush has excelled at, its creating deficits and increasing the size of the foreign held mortgage on the good 'ole USA.

C. Apparently you're not the only one. While many polls, on the one hand, rake Bush over the coals on any one of a number of issues, the same polls also show strong percentages of people citing Bush's insistence on remaining steadfast 'no matter what' as his best leadership quality. I find this behaviour really puzzling, but probably because I much prefer a leader who is willing to realize his mistakes, analyze them to see where he went wrong, accept the input from others who disagree with him and factor it into his thinking, and then have the courage to announce he was wrong and what his plans are to make things right.

Others seem to see it as more courageous and honourable to fire anyone who publicly disagrees with you, dismiss the opinions of the people you govern, and cling to the same course of action without reflection and no matter the consequences. Its a good thing he's not in charge of anything really important, like the federal government or the military... oh wait.

Thank goodness it's George Bushs last "kick at the cat" term, seeing that his popularity is falling...........but how much damage did he do to the american economy and national debt???????

With Georges popularity this low and falling, I doubt they'll be going to invade Iran........likely the Iranians are smart enough to figure that one out.

INVADE...??? :huh:

Even me never thought George could be so braindead that he would want to invade Iran.

Yes he has done his bit time to hand over to who ever.

There was a lot of speculation back in the run up to the Iraq war, and the immediate aftermath following the fall of Baghdad, that Bush wouldn't be content with one "domino" down but would simply use it as a spring board to attack other countries he listed in his famous "Axis of Evil" speech.

If I recall correctly only Iraq, North Korea and Iran were named in it but NK presented a problem: unlike the other "Axis" members (which interestingly had no formal relations and in the case of Iraq/Iran were bitter enemies from long ago), NK actually had nuclear weapons and it was, and still is, thought probable that if invaded they would use them (after all what good is such a deterrent if you have no intention of using it?).

Thus it evolved that Syria was substituted for NK by virtue of its proxy to Iraq, and small size and military. So, many thought that having "successfully" toppled Baghdad so quickly that it would only be a matter of time before Bush used it as a springboard to move first against Syria, and once the two were pacified and consolidated with puppet governments and sufficient military bases, Iran.

However things didn't quite work out that way with the uprising in Iraq and the result that that the US military has been bogged down by that insurgency ever since. Now, in hindsight, having seen how difficult it can be to pacify even a small, starved country, but one that's determined to resist foreign occupation, notions of further foreign adventures in even bigger countries (Iran) do seem rather laughable. But had things gone smoother in Iraq, who knows? There has, ever since the routing of the Taliban from Afghanistan, certainly been much of the same kind of swagger and accusations leveled toward both Syria and Iran that were pointed at Iraq during the runup to the invasion.

In any case, if this president's personal documents are ever unsealed and as currently classified info becomes declassified, historians will learn exactly what his intentions toward Iran and Syria were. All we can do 'til then is speculate. Personally I think if Iraq had gone as smoothly as Afghanistan, Syria would already be an occupied state as well and the US would already be fighting in Iran.

But not the way things turned out now. Iraq is a disaster and Bush is a lame duck while the country seems to have lost its appetite for war.

Trust me. No part of the american military seriously prepares for a ground invasion of Iran. Air strikes yes, special commands for recce and targetting: yes, invasion like Iraq: no. The terrain is not for that, the country's size is not for that, the population's attitude is not for that. Even Bush knows that. They will attacl Iran sooner or later, but not by means of an invasion.

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopi...650&highlight=

The US Marines ("Teufelshunds" to you Germans) might, they probably train to invade Hell its self! Semper Fi, Marine Corps way is do or die! :rock:

The Marines train to invade hell, whilst the SAS train to infiltrate Hell and assassinate Satan.

Looks like an interesting thread (just skimmed the first part of it so far) but I agree with what you're saying here. But at the time I thought Bush at least a little crazy to follow up on Afghanistan so quickly (and with Bin Laden still on the run) with an invasion of Iraq.

I didn't forsee it putting up the resistance it since has, but I didn't believe any of the pretexts offered for the invasion, nor did I see the point of committing so many troops and treasure to toppling a contained, pacified regime. And having embarked on his little Iraqi adventure I, at the time, didn't really think there was much he was incapable of, no matter how stupid or irrational, being that he is something of a feeble minded dolt surrounded by ditto heads (he is, in my mind, the worst American president ever).