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After 6 Months, More View Obama's Presidency as a 'Failure' Than Bush's

Huh? I never PM'ed you. I only asked for some supporting docs. Doesn't make ignorant, unless the information actually exists, which isn't looking highly likely at this point.

I was not refering to you at all, I should make myself clear now. It is another moron that has PM'd me about this, why I have no idea.

But back to the point, the group of what we call "Neo-Cons" lobbying for years about taking out Saddam is not a secret, nor is it even a little reported story. It has been covered extensively on TV, newspapers, written about in numerous books, told and re-told in numerous documentaries (mainstream ones). Go watch some of the PBS Frontline episodes, you can view them online.
 
I was not refering to you at all, I should make myself clear now. It is another moron that has PM'd me about this, why I have no idea.

But back to the point, the group of what we call "Neo-Cons" lobbying for years about taking out Saddam is not a secret, nor is it even a little reported story. It has been covered extensively on TV, newspapers, written about in numerous books, told and re-told in numerous documentaries (mainstream ones). Go watch some of the PBS Frontline episodes, you can view them online.

Care to post some info on that group of Neo-Cons? Tell ya what, you post your list of Neo-Cons and I'll post a list of Dems that swore up-n-down that Saddam had WMD's. You game?
 
I might agree with you except for one HUGE thing. GWB surrounded himself with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield, both of which had tried (unsuccessfully) to convince at least 3 prior Presidents of the advantages of invading Iraq.

Dude...NO! This is completely wrong. First off, can we both agree that Rumsfeld was a complete douche? That being said, we have to remain in reality with partisan shots shelved if we are to learn and analyze our past and how we got where we are today. It matters because we have a future to detemrine out of it. Now....

One of the reasons I can't stand Rumsfeld is that he is a fickle dumbass. Rumsfeld was one of the morons lobbying to spare the dictator because he was still embracing that good old Cold War prescription of "stability" first, thereby turning his back on any "NeoCon" perspective. He was wrong. Ironically, another goal for Clinton on the campaign trail was to bring the "NeoCon" back to the Democratic fold where they began. In Clinton's second term, Rumsfeld began to recognize that containing the dictator was more trouble than it was worth and this is where some Republicans began to criticize Clinton for continuing the status quo, thereby assuming to be "NeoCons." Clinton agreed, but did not have the benefit of a 9/11 type scenario to kick down doors. Instread he could merely squeek on the dangers of Bin Laden while the Republican Party wanted Monika Lewinski to take all focus from government and the Democratic Party criticizing Clinton's ideas of a terrorist being any where near a threat as what the Cold War defined. However, it didn't matter. By this time, our allies had dropped one by one from the containment mission leaving America and Britian to deal with the burden alone.

According to President Clinton, the two greatest problems in the Middle East he passed off to President Bush was Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. One had nothing to do with the other, but both were problems that would have to be dealt with sooner or later.

Here are two very good books that speak on this period between the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers. There's no partisan garbage in them. I have gained a certain respect for President Clinton for what he was trying to do and for what he had to go through due to partisan BS.....

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/America-Between-Wars-11/dp/1586484966"]America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Peace-Frontline-Americas-Purpose/dp/1403971749"]The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose [/ame]
 
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But back to the point, the group of what we call "Neo-Cons" lobbying for years about taking out Saddam is not a secret, nor is it even a little reported story. It has been covered extensively on TV, newspapers, written about in numerous books, told and re-told in numerous documentaries (mainstream ones). Go watch some of the PBS Frontline episodes, you can view them online.

A lot of what people read from commentators are slaves to their parties and have passed on BS in regards to the NeoCon. Rumsfeld was and is no NeoCon. Legitimate NeoCon's criticized Bush (Dad) for leaving the dictator large and in charge in Iraq, criticized Clinton for criticizing Bush for leaving the dictator but doing nothing about it, and were going to criticize Bush (son) for the very same thing.

From what I have learned, the NeoCon encompasses the liberal idea of democracy and freedom for all. Funny how liberals are always so quick to drag the NeoCon's ideals through the mud because they couldn't understand what Iraq was really about. And tragic that all supporters of Iraq were labeled "NeoCons" by those who criticized it.
 
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Its been documented historically. Here's a good basic rundown dating back to Nixon. This is a good place to start your research:


frontline: rumsfeld's war: paths to power: nixon administration | PBS

WOW!!! :shock: Rumsfeld, Chenney and Wolferwitz...what a trio. The genesis of an Iraqi invasion started with Wolferwitz back in 1978, but it was Chenney and Rumsfeld who orchestrated plans to eventually invade Iraq some 15 years later. They schemed, plotted and manipulated whomever or whatever "false" evidence they could in order to get their war. What a hot mess they put this country in. Yet so many support these guys and their "war-mongering" idealism.

WOW!!! :shock:
 
No links, boys? Should I be surprised?
 
I really wanted to vote for Ron Paul, the two things that stopped me was his Iraq view of immediate pullout, since I don't want a middle east power vacuum in the region, and the fact that he couldn't win, McCain sucked as a candidate, but I think he would have been slightly better than Obama, the only thing that got him my vote, that isn't saying much though. Next election, I'm voting my conscience.
 
Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld the connections have been playing out since Cheney and Rumsfeld marginalized the entire Ford administration in their own coup. They were able to singlehandedly change our policies and convince presidents that the russian threat was bigger than it was. The CIA had concluded as far back as Nixon that the soviet union was on the verge of collapse in the next decade under the stress of their own weight. It was Rummy and Cheney who helped form Team B which was a counterintelligence operation that was against the CIA. They were able to convince the president that the soviet union had secret weapons that they didn't have. In the end this would play out again as the same players worked within the Bush Jr administration to go against what the CIA had originally determined.

They had wanted to invade Iraq for years its all in their manifesto, the Project for the New American Century. They wrote a letter to Clinton even trying to get him to invade during the 90s.

Letter to President Clinton on Iraq
January 26, 1998

The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.

The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.

Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

Sincerely,

Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett

Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky

Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad

William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman

Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber

Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick

Look at the list of characters several of them should look pretty familiar to you.

The following document calls for total global military dominance
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

They also called for invasions of multiple countries in the middle east.
 
They wrote a letter to Clinton even trying to get him to invade during the 90s.

"1997 ~ 1998" to be exact. "During the 90s" suggests a falsehood. For the majority of the 90's, Rumsfeld supported containment to taking the dictator out. He was not a NeoCon until it was politically convenient to be one. The true NeoCon never supported containment after the Gulf War (for which Clinton criticized as well on the campaign trail) and continually criticized Clinton for keeping to the UN status quo.

Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States of America, and which supports using American economic and military power to bring liberalism, democracy, and human rights to other countries

Such a definition should hardly invoke hatred amongst liberals unless they honestly don't care beyond their BS.
 
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"1997 ~ 1998" to be exact. "During the 90s" suggests a falsehood. For the majority of the 90's, Rumsfeld supported containment to taking the dictator out. He was not a NeoCon until it was politically convenient to be one. The true NeoCon never supported containment after the Gulf War (for which Clinton criticized as well on the campaign trail) and continually criticized Clinton for keeping to the UN status quo.

There's no falsehood about it 97-98 is in the decade of the 90s so what I said was a true statement. So Dick Cheney also felt the same way and suddenly reversed course. The question is why what was the motivation for the change?
 
There's no falsehood about it 97-98 is in the decade of the 90s so what I said was a true statement. So Dick Cheney also felt the same way and suddenly reversed course. The question is why what was the motivation for the change?

Yes...but when you state the "90's" it suggests that Rumsfeld was all about toppling the dictator throughout the "90's." He did not. He whole heartedly supported Cold War prescription in 1991.

The motivation for the change was that they recognized that containment only ensured a long and never ending mission for America. The question of WMD was also legitimate. Also, Rumsfeld was a Republican and this was a way to play politics for the ignorant masses.
 
Yes...but when you state the "90's" it suggests that Rumsfeld was all about toppling the dictator throughout the "90's." He did not. He whole heartedly supported Cold War prescription in 1991.

The motivation for the change was that they recognized that containment only ensured a long and never ending mission for America. The question of WMD was also legitimate. Also, Rumsfeld was a Republican and this was a way to play politics for the ignorant masses.

No when I said 90s it suggests that it took place in the 90s. There is no inference of anything else.

The question was not legitimate as even Colin Powell and Condi Rice stated in 2001 before the push for war in Iraq that containment of Saddam was working and that he had no WMDs.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0wbpKCdkkQ"]YouTube - Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice Tell The Truth About Iraq[/ame]

9/11 gave them the excuse they wanted to invade contrary to their original position.
 
This is not breaking news. It is a partisan opinion piece. Find the stats that fit your view and put them out there.

Lies, damn lies, and partisan hackery.
 
This is not breaking news. It is a partisan opinion piece. Find the stats that fit your view and put them out there.

Lies, damn lies, and partisan hackery.

Partisan as the video may be, it does not change the fact that both Condi and Powell stated in 2001 Saddam was contained and did not have wmds
 
9/11 gave them the excuse they wanted to invade contrary to their original position.

Yes...because "WMD" was not the factor involved. General Zinni was skeptical about WMD when all the targets in Iraq given to him in 1998 were non WMD sites. No intel proved that he got rid of them. No intel proved that he had them. I keep telling people this. 12 years of containing and maintaining the dictator, which was exactly what we were criticized for during the Cold War. With Bin Laden using the escallating troops and the "starving children of Iraq" as an excuse for 9/11, something had to be done to correct our solutions to the Middle East's disfunctions. Leaving him alone to disrupt the region was not going to happen. Continuing the UN mission, no matter how much of a burden it was to us, wasn't going to happen forever. And ignoring the very real grievances these terrorists have was only going to exponentially create more violence upon Americans.

It was time.
 
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Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld the connections have been playing out since Cheney and Rumsfeld marginalized the entire Ford administration in their own coup. They were able to singlehandedly change our policies and convince presidents that the russian threat was bigger than it was. The CIA had concluded as far back as Nixon that the soviet union was on the verge of collapse in the next decade under the stress of their own weight. It was Rummy and Cheney who helped form Team B which was a counterintelligence operation that was against the CIA. They were able to convince the president that the soviet union had secret weapons that they didn't have. In the end this would play out again as the same players worked within the Bush Jr administration to go against what the CIA had originally determined.

They had wanted to invade Iraq for years its all in their manifesto, the Project for the New American Century. They wrote a letter to Clinton even trying to get him to invade during the 90s.

Letter to President Clinton on Iraq


Look at the list of characters several of them should look pretty familiar to you.

The following document calls for total global military dominance
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

They also called for invasions of multiple countries in the middle east.

So, in other words, despite the fact that as far as I am aware, the conclusions reached by Team B are seen as uncertain as to the level of their accuracy (I don't necessarily defend their conclusions, just that it seems awfully difficult to argue one way or another), and that there were several non-neoconservatives in the Project for the New American Century, a grand conspiracy exists? I find it funny that you highlight Powell's right hand man in the administration for proof of a unified front. The CIA is not the end-all-be-all of policy decision-making.

Let me guess, either Adam Curtis or Anne Cahn.
 
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9/11 gave them the excuse they wanted to invade contrary to their original position.

....and our containiment mission, which saw millions of "starving children in Iraq" gave Bin Laden his excuse for 9/11.

Doctor it up all you want, but Hussein had to go down once and for all in order for us to move on from the mess that is the Middle East.
 
*Yanks back on subject*

Says something about the voters *cough*

You do not judge after 6 months. Give it a reasonable amount of time

Try to get real about something, I know it doesn't have to be this issue but at least acknowledge to some small part of your brain that Obama literally said that his first "100 Days" (you can gasp, feint, bow down in awe right about now - I'll let you, it's a natural reaction most pseudoliberals have) would be the crowning achievement of his Presidency.

He repeated it like mantra, every news station had their own "100 Days" section, a few others happily compared it too FDR, his YouTube channel is filled with the nonsense, everyone who stood in his path was clearly a Limbaugh Automaton or Fascist Neanderthal "Evil-Monger" (to quote Senator Reid).

Now you turn around and say voters should ignore, forget, not only those "100 Days," but the next 100 as well? Heh, let's get real about this: voters not only can but should have an opinion on the president 6 months into his Presidency. Anything else is just delusional, self destructive, denial MSNBC spouts off. It is possible that the majority of America could somehow fathom that Obama is only mortal.
 
This is not breaking news. It is a partisan opinion piece. Find the stats that fit your view and put them out there.

Lies, damn lies, and partisan hackery.

That's all they know my friend.
 
President Barack Oblamea....Bush screws up the country hands it over to Oblamea then the Bush/Cheney sheeples convienently forgets about the Bush legacy as they did our country while Bush and Cheney were robbing us blind.

Thank Goodness Oblamea became president.
 
*Yanks back on subject*



Try to get real about something, I know it doesn't have to be this issue but at least acknowledge to some small part of your brain that Obama literally said that his first "100 Days" (you can gasp, feint, bow down in awe right about now - I'll let you, it's a natural reaction most pseudoliberals have) would be the crowning achievement of his Presidency.

He repeated it like mantra, every news station had their own "100 Days" section, a few others happily compared it too FDR, his YouTube channel is filled with the nonsense, everyone who stood in his path was clearly a Limbaugh Automaton or Fascist Neanderthal "Evil-Monger" (to quote Senator Reid).

Now you turn around and say voters should ignore, forget, not only those "100 Days," but the next 100 as well? Heh, let's get real about this: voters not only can but should have an opinion on the president 6 months into his Presidency. Anything else is just delusional, self destructive, denial MSNBC spouts off. It is possible that the majority of America could somehow fathom that Obama is only mortal.

To a certain extent, you are correct-people should have an opinion on the current state of the administration. However, just because millions of delusional and ignorant people thought that American politics would experience a complete cleansing from one administration to the next, in days, does not really mean we need to swing the complete opposite direction and call it a failure when the reality is less than the hype. Your post for the most part escapes that way of thinking, but I sense a tad bit of bias as a result of the idealistic rhetoric of Obama. The last administration is a perfect example of just how much can change from one year to the next.
 
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What is funny about the OP is they think the circumstances are the same. No sense of context whatsoever. :rofl
 
President Barack Oblamea....Bush screws up the country hands it over to Oblamea then the Bush/Cheney sheeples convienently forgets about the Bush legacy as they did our country while Bush and Cheney were robbing us blind.

Thank Goodness Oblamea became president.





If someone has another on "ignore" how could the engage in a thread started by the ignoree?


By default he can not see a topic, and therefore can not contribute in a substantial way.... hmmmmm....
 
What is funny about the OP is they think the circumstances are the same. No sense of context whatsoever. :rofl

Conditions are a bit different, but that doesn't stop Obama from being a promise breaking protector of the status quo. He and Bush are peas in a pod, doing the same exact things pretty much. I don't know if you can say one is a greater failure than the other; they're both pretty much rock bottom.
 
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