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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (281168)	6/23/2014 11:46:54 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Sun Tzu; Re: " Bush invaded Afghanistan, where nobody in its long history has ever, and I mean ever, been able to control...not even those who were so bloodthirsty and ruthless that make the meanest marine look like a boy scout."; Actually Bush didn't quite "invade" Afghanistan. He gave assistance to one of the local groups. Reagan did this previously and it worked then too. As to the future, well if the Taliban comes back they can be put out of power the same way again. The point here is that the Taliban are also idiots who invaded Afghanistan. That Saudi accent sticks out in a place that doesn't speak arabic. Re: "He also believed he could nation build Iraq into a modern democracy that will become a shinning beacon of hope for the rest of the middle east. Now seriously, how stupid was that?!"; Pretty stupid. But on the other hand, when Obama pulled the last US troops out he declared that it was a victory and Iraq had been pacified, LOL, How stupid was that? Well I think pulling the troops out was the right thing to do but declaring victory was just silly. Re: "Even on the financial front Bush was dumber than dumb. If you tally up the total bill that Bush ran up during his tenure, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who got so little for so much."; There's a lot to the word "financial". As far as government spending goes, I'd say that Obama has been particularly bad. The whole healthcare thing was ill advised and expensive for the government. As far as raising taxes, Obama has supposedly raised them. Not sure what Bush would have done, but probably not raised them. As far as government spending like unemployment, I think Obama's approach has been correct. I'm just glad my right wing buddies didn't get their way. As far as Fed policy and quantitative easing, I don't think that this is presidential policy. As far as prosecuting the financial industry for its criminal behavior, Obama seems to be taking their campaign contributions and giving them a "too big to fail" pass. 2008 was a serious financial banking panic. These are very rare but happen every 30 to 60 years in every capitalist country in the world for hundreds of years. I can't blame the most recent one on Bush any more than I can blame the simultaneous and related collapse of Iceland real estate on Bush, LOL. Someone always has to be president when financial system collapse and because Republicans are elected in good (i.e. pre collapse) economic times, those presidents will tend to be Republicans. The ability of the President to control the economy is highly exaggerated. When they tell you that they're going to "put America back to work" they are lying because they do not have that ability. For example, see Japan for the last 20 years. On the other hand, I believe that putting the tea party into power 4 years ago would have been a complete disaster. And since financial / banking panics are caused by a lack of confidence among wealthy people, Obama's constant campaign against the 1% has undoubtedly delayed the recovery somewhat. So no, I don't think Bush is less competent than Obama on economic things. And as far as "the total bill", this will eventually be paid back with devalued dollars (just as has been done so many times in the past). -- Carl

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (281168)	5/15/2016 9:58:59 AM
From: Sun Tzu	1 Recommendation Recommended By Katelew Respond to of 281500

When I first brought this up, Ilaine (Cobalt Blue) said confederacy would lead to breakup of Iraq, without providing a good reason why we should enforce an artificial bad border. My reasoning was exactly the same as Mr. khedery below. 10 Years later, the expert opinion agrees :-/ Is Iraq ever going to have a functioning state at peace with itself? “ I generally believe it is ungovernable under the current construct,” said Ali Khedery, an American former official in Iraq who served as an aide to several ambassadors and generals.Mr. Khedery said that a confederacy or a partition of Iraq might be the only remedy for the country’s troubles. He called it “an imperfect solution for an imperfect world.” Mr. Khedery is now a sharp critic of American policy in Iraq, saying it has consistently ignored the realities of the country’s underlying political problems. Iraq, he said, “is a violent, dysfunctional marriage, and we keep pouring American lives and dollars into it, hoping for a miracle. We should instead seek to broker an amicable separation or divorce that results in self-determination for Iraq’s fractious communities.” nytimes.com