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Originally Posted by August
You're missing the point. Congress were the ones who appropriated the money in the first place so blaming Bush for spending money congress gave him to spend is like blaming the rooster for the dawn.
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Did Bush ask for the money before starting the war? If he did then it's really not his fault alone.
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Besides, taking out Saddam was still a good thing in my mind although
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Agreed, but the costs (no, not the money, I mean the loss of lives) were/are too high (in my opinion).
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Somehow i think that nations did whatever was in their own best interests, regardless of what Bush said or didn't say.
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If your president had not used lies to gain allies but had clearly said what he was after, and had not pissed those who refused to follow him, maybe he had found more nations in the coalition of the willing/less leaving it after the war (I don't think Germany would have been among them, but anyway). Or at least he might have gotten more foreign support to rebuild the country after the war.
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That's cool. Perhaps i phrased that wrong. Would you base your vote (for or against) for Merkel on a foreigners opinion, or is that decision something for you and your fellow countrymen to work out?
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No, you are right here, I wouldn't.
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He is the person the nation chose to be our president, that alone deserves our backing, at least until Feb of next year when we toss him out on his ear and vote in a new one.
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We once had a guy here too who was (more or less) chosen by the people. And then he started WWII. So I think loyalty is nothing that is deserved with a certain position one achieves. Otherwise you would make yourself prone for the same mistake that we once made. Blind loyalty is never a good thing.
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Before you start listing his faults, which we have heard many times over, especially on this board, ask yourself this: Have any more terrorists come into this country, hijacked airliners and flown them into our buildings since 9-11? Give credit where credit is due my friend...
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Have any other terrorists tried it? (I actually don't know...)
Were it his plans that stopped them?
How many people were killed on 9/11? I think something around 3000 or so.
How many people have been killed in the name of fighting terror? Not to mention all those civilians that were killed in Iraq. Not only those that were "collateral damage" but also those who fell prey to the terror you want to fight. I think it's several 10,000s by now.:hmm:
I don't call this a successful strategy. Maybe you stopped terror in your own country, but you brought a lot of death and destruction to other people.
Maybe some more "European thoughts" for a better understanding of our relationship with Bush:
What bothers us Europeans most is simply the way he treated us. Like we had to follow him. Another thing is that he disrespected human rights. That's something that ticks us Germans really off (probably still the bad conscience
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We didn't expect Saddam or any third world country to play by the (human rights) rules but we thought you would because you are better than that (at least I hope so).
That's actually what made us really dislike him.
