Saturday, June 14, 2014
On the "Who is Worse; Bush or Obama?", Sweepstakes
I honestly don't have a dog in this crap-fest but if I had to say which of the two was more culpable when it comes to the current sorrowful state in Iraq, I would probably have to go with Mr. Bush. I mean, it was W (against the advice of Colin Powell and Dick Armitage) who initially opened up this hornet's nest and I cannot tell you how many times that I've heard it stated that, if in fact Mr. Bush's goal was simply to get rid of Saddam (which, in retrospect, was a noble thing in that the fellow was probably worse than Gaddafi, Mubarak, the Saudi royal family, and the Assads combined), he could have done so relatively easily and in a way that in no way, shape, or form would have strengthened either al Qaeda or Iran (this, in that the army would not have been disbanded and the Ba'ath party would have still retained power)......................................................................................Now, this isn't to say that Mr. Obama has handled things (in Iraq and throughout the Middle-East) all that swimmingly, either, but the fact of the matter here is that Mr. Bush (much like Presidents McKinley, Wilson, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon prior to him) significantly overestimated the reach of American military and moral power and the results, quite frankly, have been disastrous.
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Does either come out smelling like a rose, if, on Iraq. Bush is 66% to blame, say, and Obama is 34% to blame?
That sounds about right with Obama's blunders being more with Libya and Afghanistan.
I'd say it's tied...taking both Iraq and Afghanistan into consideration. Bush owns Iraq, but Obama usurps AFG well after knowing that we're spinning our wheels supporting an illegitimate petty warlord against a rural insurgency.
I think that Obama kind of backed himself into a corner on Afghanistan. He tried to differentiate himself from Bush back in 2008 and one of the ways that he did that was to try and tell the voters that Afghanistan was the good war. Unfortunately he ultimately had to put up or shut up and the rest is history.
Will: To Obama, "good war" must have meant "not necessary to do anything, business as usual". Which is rather irresponsible.
Obama, who tends toward the lazy and indolent (relative to what the job needs) basically let the situation slide on there until well into his administration. Quite a while before he acted as if there was a war on there. Time he wasted on intense efforts such as the failed one to eliminate democratic (small-D) voting in union elections.
"Unfortunately he ultimately had to put up or shut up and the rest is history."
That's not much excuse for his mealy-mouthed lack of leadership. The Afghanistan effort has been rather unpopular. He would spend very little political capital at all moving entirely away from the "good war" idea. But it would take a lot of effort from a man who is not given to much of it.
Doing absolutely nothing in Syria except to draw a meaningless red line has lead to the current situation in Iraq.
ISIS looted 430 million dollars from a bank in Mosul and took control of American tanks,Humvees and 30,000 tons of ammunition.
It's going to take more then a couple drone strikes to stop these crazy bastards.
I don't agree with Daniel Pipes on everything but when the dude said that when are enemies are slaughtering each other (in Syria, especially) we should probably "let them" is pretty darn close in my opinion.
Will: Another Battle of Stalingrad, then? No good guys.
I wonder if the Syrian rebels realize that allying themselves with the Al Qaeda types there completely doomed the chances of western aid.
Will, would you agree that while it is ridiculous to say that Bush isn't responsible for much, perhaps most of the situation in Iraq today.... that it is also ridiculous to say that Obama, who has been entirely in charge of US policy there for 5 years now... doesn't also have a lot of responsibility?
His responsibility IMO was to find a way to reasonably extract our nation from the cluster f**k created by the Bush/Cheney administration. A difficult task for even the most accomplished and effective politician/leader.
What is unfolding in Iraq today was inevitable and the corrupt assh**e Maliki is by far more responsible than Obama.
Bush/Obama responsibility breakdown... 85%-15%. Maliki, 100% currently.
15% is a far cry from Octo's claim that Obama has "nothing" to do with it, RN. Surely that is indeed partisan stoogery on his part?
He's had 5 years to do so, Less. Instead, as often, he puts in a minimal effort. Can the Bush policy even still be seen under successive years of Obama rubber-stamping his approval on it?
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