Thread: G BUSH or G WASHINTON our president thinks ???

Bush is a pretender as in he has always flown by the seat of his pants in playing the roll of President. We all know he lacks the cailber that being President requires.

CrocketsGhost wrote

...All of that has stopped since we got tough in the wake of 9/11. I find it difficult to imagine that other Americans can't see that cause and effect.

This war was under fought and was fought under false pretences. There were no WMDs and if there were, it wouldn't have made a difference in the way this administration would fightt the war. We should have gone into Iraq with 300,000 troops and with the foresight of knowing what we would be up against. That's why we have Generals and a pentagon. They are supposed to know what they're doing when they GO TO WAR!! Face it, they botched the war and now its time to either flood Iraq with 300,000 troops or get out, even if it means starting up the draft. Even the Afganistan campain is being under fought.

So in my opinion this President has done a worse job that the military moves Clinton made. Bush is absolutely the worse President of any of them..absolutely on EVERYTHING.

Originally Posted by Rockfish

Bush is a pretender as in he has always flown by the seat of his pants in playing the roll of President. We all know he lacks the cailber that being President requires.

CrocketsGhost wrote

...All of that has stopped since we got tough in the wake of 9/11. I find it difficult to imagine that other Americans can't see that cause and effect.

This war was under fought and was fought under false pretences. There were no WMDs and if there were, it wouldn't have made a difference in the way this administration would fightt the war. We should have gone into Iraq with 300,000 troops and with the foresight of knowing what we would be up against. That's why we have Generals and a pentagon. They are supposed to know what they're doing when they GO TO WAR!! Face it, they botched the war and now its time to either flood Iraq with 300,000 troops or get out, even if it means starting up the draft. Even the Afganistan campain is being under fought.

So in my opinion this President has done a worse job that the military moves Clinton made. Bush is absolutely the worse President of any of them..absolutely on EVERYTHING.

Well, I think that the jury is still out on who screwed the pooch. Shock and awe, which was Rummy's plan, got nixed before it ever got started. We still don't know who scaled that back. Had it been allowed to proceed as originally planned, all we would have needed is a few tens of thousands of troops.

When I was researching and opining on the prosecution of the war in Iraq, I uncovered some little-discussed facts. Please give them due consideration. For starters, all appearances are that the administration was not properly apprised of available materiel. Specifically, the Clinton administration had so seriously depleted stocks of cruise missiles which, along with JDAMs and other smart munitions, it had failed to replace at a satisfactory rate, that full implementation of Shock and Awe would have left us unacceptably short on these critical munitions. Had another conflict opened up, such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, we would have been totally flatfooted. Speaking of which...

The other issue was manpower shortages arising from the Clinton drawdowns and resignations over bad Clintonian policies like "don't ask, don't tell." Had the US committed the level of troops strencth that you recommend, other interests would have been left unacceptably vulnerable. I believe that the reason that the determination to use minimal troops numbers in Iraq was based on a calculated margin for error in case there was a specific plan to lure the US into overcommitting in that theater of operation. Regardless of the actual situation as regards WMDs (I believe that there is credible evidence that materiel was moved through Syria to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley thanks to betrayal of US satellite flyover schedules by the French), I believe that this administration thought that there was a very real chance that substantial quantities of WMDs may have existed in Iraq. Remember that Clinton also cited evidence of WMDs in Iraq and that he actually agreed that the assessment presented to Bush was accurate. That being the case, I believe that there was a very real fear that there may have been a plan to draw large numbers of US troops into Iraq and to then attempt to decimate them with chemical or biological weapons. Beyond the scenarios to which I happen to subscribe, there are endless other possibilities for the decisions as to troop strength and the belief that the mission could be accomplished with a smaller force. Contrary to the crap being parroted by the opponents of the war, the majority of the top military brass supported the plan as it existed.

And again, regardless of your opinion of the war, the endless stream of bombings of US assets that had occurred under Clinton has completely ceased since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which were supplying training, financing and bases of operation for terrorists.

Rockfish wrote:

Bush is absolutely the worse President of any of them..absolutely on EVERYTHING.

I agree, he has total disregard for what the American people want and has no desire to enforce laws that will keep our nation safe. He is disgraceful

CG wrote

...I believe that this administration thought that there was a very real chance that substantial quantities of WMDs may have existed in Iraq. Remember that Clinton also cited evidence of WMDs in Iraq and that he actually agreed that the assessment presented to Bush was accurate. That being the case, I believe that there was a very real fear that there may have been a plan to draw large numbers of US troops into Iraq and to then attempt to decimate them with chemical or biological weapons.

I remember this concern before we went in. But somewhere along the line, the troop levels proved to be not enough to handle the insurgency that followed. Once WMDs could not be found, we really should have stepped up the war with all of the troops we could muster.

The problem however is that we took the war against terrorism to Afganistan and we have our homefront to worry about (although it still lacks). Why didn't we put all of our efforts into getting Osama first and then go into Iraq? Even if Hussien had WMDs, did he have the capability to deliver them to the US? Was Iraq an iminent threat to the US? I don't think so, not by missle anyway. This is where our security of our ports should have been clamped down on.

Specifically, the Clinton administration had so seriously depleted stocks of cruise missiles which, along with JDAMs and other smart munitions, it had failed to replace at a satisfactory rate, that full implementation of Shock and Awe would have left us unacceptably short on these critical munitions.

I could go on and on about this war but I just don't think the execution of the war was considered in a rightly way. If we were so short of manpower and weapons due to the Clinton years, we should have taken more of that into consideration, especially with what we were up against with trying to take over Iraq and considering the fact that we were already engaged in Afganistan. If Bush had heeded what Clinton was saying about Hussien using the WMDs, the FIRST thing he might have considered when he came into office was strengthening our military instead of taking that money and dishing it out to his rich friends in the form of tax cuts. That's where he definately went wrong.

Thanks for the info CG, it has helped!

Originally Posted by Rockfish

CG wrote

...I believe that this administration thought that there was a very real chance that substantial quantities of WMDs may have existed in Iraq. Remember that Clinton also cited evidence of WMDs in Iraq and that he actually agreed that the assessment presented to Bush was accurate. That being the case, I believe that there was a very real fear that there may have been a plan to draw large numbers of US troops into Iraq and to then attempt to decimate them with chemical or biological weapons.

I remember this concern before we went in. But somewhere along the line, the troop levels proved to be not enough to handle the insurgency that followed. Once WMDs could not be found, we really should have stepped up the war with all of the troops we could muster.

The problem however is that we took the war against terrorism to Afganistan and we have our homefront to worry about (although it still lacks). Why didn't we put all of our efforts into getting Osama first and then go into Iraq? Even if Hussien had WMDs, did he have the capability to deliver them to the US? Was Iraq an iminent threat to the US? I don't think so, not by missle anyway. This is where our security of our ports should have been clamped down on.

[quote:1hk1fi43]Specifically, the Clinton administration had so seriously depleted stocks of cruise missiles which, along with JDAMs and other smart munitions, it had failed to replace at a satisfactory rate, that full implementation of Shock and Awe would have left us unacceptably short on these critical munitions.

I could go on and on about this war but I just don't think the execution of the war was considered in a rightly way. If we were so short of manpower and weapons due to the Clinton years, we should have taken more of that into consideration, especially with what we were up against with trying to take over Iraq and considering the fact that we were already engaged in Afganistan. If Bush had heeded what Clinton was saying about Hussien using the WMDs, the FIRST thing he might have considered when he came into office was strengthening our military instead of taking that money and dishing it out to his rich friends in the form of tax cuts. That's where he definately went wrong.

Thanks for the info CG, it has helped! [/quote:1hk1fi43]
Well, we may agree to disagree, but there are at least two comments above with which I need to take specific issue. I'll take them in reverse order.

Tax cuts were ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL and were the right move. I have explained the economics of the recession that came about at the end of Clinton's second term previously, so I won't waste a lot of space with it here, but the fact is that the most pressing concern for the Bush administration was the collapsing economy that it inherited. Basically, the stock market run-up under Clinton was the result of a masked inflationary cycle. Inflation was not reflected in the price of most consumer goods because NAFTA and other trade agreements were already driving manufacturing costs down precipitously. But all the earmarks of inflation were there with sharply escalating petroleum, metals and other commodity prices. Rather than understanding the dollar-value run-up of the markets (as a result if inflationary dollar devaluation) for what it was, people were unrealistically exuberant and assumed that what they were seeing was a stock value increase. Once the reality that the sun-up was a monetary phenomenon (just as was the case in the Roaring Twenties) set in, the market took a nosedive. Had we tried to tax our way out of it as we did before the Great Depression, the effects would have been devastating. Cutting taxes saved us from a serious economic downturn and was absolutely the right move at the time.

Now, as for the situation with depleted munitions, if you will recall, Rumsfeld indicated at least a couple of times that he was "dissatisfied" with the delivery times and stockpile quantities on some materiel. I read that at the time to mean that the administration had been misled about stockpiles and about realistic delivery schedules for restock. This would not be without precedent. But restocking and correcting some of the cutbacks of the Clinton administration was cited as a priority during the campaign and was followed through as much as possible. This should be an enduring lesson for the future. We can't predicate our military preparedness on the events of the moment, but rather on the possible developments. Lead time ramping up production and getting troop strength back to needed levels can cost lives and compromise strategic readiness. That's why it is so important to resist the desires of the Dems to again scale back military spending. Given a choice between a cruise missile and funds to La Raza, I'll take the cruise missile every time.