Today we’ll be discussing what’s very much on George Bush’s mind at the moment… how he’ll be remembered. On his farewell trip to Europe, President George W Bush has been thinking about his legacy
At the weekend, in an interview with the Times, he expressed regret of his legacy as a man who wanted war. And wonders if his “gun-slinging rhetoric” didn’t help him be thought of a man of peace. Today Max Hastings in the Daily Mail says that Bush has been the most disastrous president of modern times.
What will his legacy be? Is he the most disastrous president of modern times? Or has President Bush made the world a better place?
The Times article re-posted on Free Republic, has responses that heartily defend President Bush. Including this one. “Did President Bush make this world safer? Indeed he did.”
We want to know what you think of President Bush. Is he an Idealist or optomist, a devout family man, committed to American’s safety, a strong and brave President battling liberalism? Or do you think he’s disasterous choice, a ruthless and opportunistic war-monger
During his time at the top, the US has suffered its worst terrorist attack, entered a war with Iraq, its economy has slumped and knocked out a poor response to a natural disaster. Leading to Sean Wilentz asking – is he the worst president in history?
The papers are full of commentators weighing in on the arguement. The man President George Bush beat to the White House in 2000, Al Gore, said yesterday “After eight years of incompetence, negligence and failure, we need change.” He’s clearly not a fan.
But Patrick Britton of The Daily Conservative is, “His entire presidency has been doing what he saw as right. Not what was easy, popular or most likely to succeed…we will all look back at the large steps he took to secure America abroad as the right and most necessary actions to take.”
RSS feed
BBC World Have Your Say 
No!He didn’t.President Bush has committed the biggest crime that an american president could have ever committed!Yes I am talking a bout IRAQ.Iraq was astable muslime country.He attacked and toppled sadam hussein for been in a possesion of weapons of mass distructions.Something later confirmed as an true.As aresult innocent school children,old people,pregnant women and disabled were killed by the American Soldiers.Bush Main objectives was to kill Muslims In Iraq.Bush can sit and watch Mugabe torments Zimbabweans but will to fast to attack Iran,Iraq,Somalia and Afghanistan
President Bush did not make the world a better place. However, he did what he believed was right and followed his own morals and beliefs. Many people will look at his administration as a diaster but he will not. He stands by his administration’s actions. I don’t believe he really cares what people think about him. He knows that his presidency will be remembered for his policies and not his personal actions.
@ Abdi
Wrong and wrong. It isn’t the US killing muslims in Iraq, it is other muslims killing muslims in Iraq. Remember, even for the most cynical people, the Iraq war is about oil, not about killing Muslims, so please don’t make this into something it is not. I’m curious, if the US is out to kill muslims, why did the US defend muslims in the former yugoslavia?
”His entire presidency has been doing what he saw as right.
Patrick, this means absolutely nothing. Just because he thought it was right, doesn’t make it right. Bush is an idiot, plain and simple. There is no Gold or Silver star for effort or as a consolation.
Has Bush made the world a better place? No no no no, and no. I agree with the statement that he has been one of the most disasterous presidents of modern times.
Europe should be throwing parties right now as he leaves its cities, knowing full well that they will never have to see or put up with him in a position of this sort of power ever again.
we will all look back at the large steps he took to secure America abroad
WRONG, his actions have not secured America abroad, rather compromised America’s security abroad. And at the expense of a great number of lives both domestically and internationally.
I think Angela is spot on. President Bush believes he is doing exactly what his God wants him to do. He probably won’t be around to see the true outcome of his legacy. The true evaluation will come many years after we are all gone.
it is like the Christians who tried to assimilate every race into Christianity. Those *God-fearing* people really believed they were doing God’s will. It is only now that we are starting to get an inkling of the damage this type of thinking has done to all people, including Christians.
And this is really the crux of what is happening now in the Muslim world. Does President Bush have the same regard for Muslims as he does Christians? I would be very surprised if he did. President Bush does not have the same regard for American Atheists as he does for Christians. And then there are the Bush Christians and the other Christians and so on…
Sadly, it is easy to accept collateral damage when it involves people outside one’s own group. The Iraqi War may be about oil but it is also about the idea that it doesn’t matter if we take oil, or anything else, from the underdogs.
No, Mr. Busch did not make the world a better place.
He started a war without backing of the UN and in spite of strong objections of friendly nations. The reasons for going to war were not at all solid and the outcome is not well and probably will not be well.
As leader of the most powerfull nation he undermined human rights by allowing torture and he undermined the rule of law by the way suspected terrorists were treated.
If even the US is, at least in words, not committed to human rights and the rule of law any more, the world is in danger of gliding away into dark ages in spite of all modern technology.
I think that he gave religious fundamentalism and religious inspired terrorism a big boost by the way he ruled.
Unbelievable how he spilled all that worldwide credit he had after the 9-11 attacks. Of course these attacks were unacceptable and of course the US was allowed to take action in a sensible way. But the American administration lost common sense and did not restrict to Afghanistan and isolated terrorist cells. The idea that the secular ruler Sadam Hussein and Islamic inspired terrorists might have worked together is so silly, that it made me doubt about the mental sanity of the Americans.
I cannot imagine one moment that a man like Mr. Obama would have behaved in such a way. Let us hope that the American people will use their head this time when voting for a new president. The US is potentially a great nation.
Ben from Holland
I will say again that President Bush did make Liberia a safe place by asking Charles Taylor, a brutal dictator, out of the country so that the Liberian people can know peace.
For the rest of the world, I don’t think he made it a safe place for anybody except for those ruthless and barbarous individuals called terrorists. Peace loving citizens of the world can no longer move about freely as before the Bush Presidency. His foreign policy and his war on terror creator more terrorism than before.
You’ve got to be joking. But then again, no, that isn’t very funny, so whatever could one make of the question?
I suppose if one were to accept that all addicts must hit bottom before finding their direction on the road to recovery, then in a very indirect way, the Dubby may have done the world a very great favor by acting in a way that would seem to indicate a programming designed to target this nation for that bottom point.
And whereas this nation, by design of history, has become essentially connected to every corner of this round-headed world, one might say that thanks to G Junior, the world is headed toward a better tommorow. But that’s only one remarkably optimistic scenario. Que sera, sera. But not necessarily in that order.
Bush is a vicious and evil war-criminal who has blackened the reputation of the United States permanently. The world will never forgive the yanks.
Worse still are the spineless lardballs like Gordon Brown who have slavishly followed this Naz pig’s orders.
Half a million innocent people killed??? ROT IN HELL, YOU STINKING YANKEE TYRANT!!
I firmly believe that the Bush Presidency will go down in history as a disaster for both the USA and the world.
-His “war on terrorism” turned into a “recruiting drive for terrorism” and we live in a world far more dangerous and divided than when he took office.
-His mismanagement of the US economy (couple with him being in the pocket of big business which he failed to regulate properly) led to the present “credit crunch” and a global recession.
-Thousands of young men and women died in his mis-guided invasion of Iraq, a war based on a lie. This was at the expense of “finishing the job” in Afghanistan, a war which COULD have made a real difference.
…the list could go on and on.
In my life, I have not seen a president squander the name of the US as quickly as I have seen this one. In less than a year he took the world’s compassion for us from an all time high to absolute despise.
This must be a joke…Apart form Reagan, this must be the worst president in American history. I do also blame the media though, who for advertising revenue (as an example, see the massive amount of books published about the war on terror, sept 11 and bush himself) rolled over instead of leading the movement for real democracy in this country.
Worst then Bush is the crew of wolves he is surrounded by, from Cheney, who must be laughing all his way to the bank , to Pearl and all the other crooks in the administration. Bush is a peon.
Nonetheless, I still think they should ALL be presented in The Hague and respond to the war crimes tribunal. Let’s prove that nobody is above scrutiny.
President Bush hasn’t improved anything except the profitibility of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and Big Oil. He’s a religious zealot and a knuckledragger who shouldn’t be running a convenience store, much less a powerful nation.
We can’t be rid of him fast enough, so the next person can try to undo the damage he has done to the world, to the United States and the Bill of Rights, and to our (former) good reputation in the world. People used to look at the US and see a nation that stood on noble principles and fostered peace and development around the world, now we are pretty much universally hated, all in 7 years.
Are their threats? Yes. Did something need to be done, yes. Did Bush do what needed to be done, no, he did exactly the opposite of what was needed, he even declared war on the wrong country for crying out loud. Al Qaeda is (was) in Afghanistan; the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.
Instead, Bush and his “loyal Bushies” immediately saw their opportunity to beat back the troublesome rights that stand in the way of total control, total manipulation, and total exploitation of this country’s citizens.
People point to how well he is liked in Africa, well Africa is welcome to him. Africa would do well to remember as it suffers from overpopulation and an HIV/AIDS epidemic, that Bush pushes abstinence-only/no condoms policy and hamstrings aid efforts that diverge from this. Bush and the Pope have done enormous disservice to Africa in the name of their religious views on medical and scientific topics.
Don’t get me started on Bush dragging his feet for 7 years then trying to take credit for concern over climate change at his last State of the Union speech. Not after editing and suppressing NASA scientists on the subject.
Yes, President George W. Bush made the world a better place, he is one of the greatest Presidents in the US history. History will be kind to him, people will ask for someone like him in 20 years. He kept American and the world safe from those terrorists.
“The sheer repetition of lies about Bush is wearing people down. There is not a liberal in this country and the world worthy of kissing Bush’s rear end, but the weakest members of the herd run from Bush. Compared to the lickspittles denying and attacking him, Bush is a moral giant — if that’s not damning with faint praise. John McCain should be so lucky as to be running for Bush’s third term. Then he might have a chance.”
I am very sad to see him leaving. I wish he can run again.
Salam to all,
No, as Abdi said, President Bush didn’t make the world a better place.
And if he did, what proves that? Is there no more terrorists, is there no more killing? is there no more hunger?…etc. What did he exactly do to make the world a better place??
We in Iraq were not knowing the word TERRORISTS before his war. We were living a normal life, (i will not say a peaceful life), but it was normal.
Where is the betterness that he brought to us?? Now, Our country is full of terrorist from all over the world. And our citizens are out of their home, is it what President Bush called ” better world.”
I agree with Mohammed Ali, “Bush’s foreign policy and his war on terror creator more terrorism than before.”
President Bush not only destroyed our lives, but of the Americans as well. He pushed the American soldiers into the war field and left them to die for no purpose, they got nothing more than notorious reputation.
In fact , i don’t know why there are people defending him, please it is easy, just admit it. He is a war criminal. Indeed according to the definition of the word “TERRORIST”: the one who brings terror to peaceful people, he is a terrorist.
I think history will put President Bush in the same place along with Saddam.
Yours truly,
Zainab from Iraq
“Is he… a strong and brave President battling liberalism?”
He’s a President who was elected as a conservative but who, on the international scene at any rate, has often acted like a dogmatic liberal.
Aren’t Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Muslims safer because of America’s continued involvement in those two countries? The President deserves some credit for maintaining that achievement, doesn’t he? Hasn’t he spent hundreds of millions of dollars giving aid to Africa, with food aid and help to combat AIDS amongst the priorities? Again, another one to his credit.
But the debit side is perhaps more significant. Iraq and Afghanistan are undoubtedly in worse shape than they were before he invaded. But in fairness to the President their plight is largely due to the bloodthirsty and suicidal lunacy of the local people that his removal of the stabilising influences of the Taliban and Saddam (!) unleashed. The tragedy for those two countries is that, like a good liberal, refusing to recognise differences, limitations and weaknesses in human beings, individually and nationally, President Bush gave Iraqis and Afghans the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they were on average just as aspirational, as decent, as capable as Americans or other Westerners in wanting what was best for themselves and their country and would make the most of a golden opportunity to make better lives for themselves. It was a judgement that was to his credit morally, but which has proven a disaster in practical terms, since what they really, really wanted was to kill their fellow countrymen in the name of Islam (which, as a good liberal, the President insisted on believing was a ‘religion of peace’ instead of a never-ending source of violence). His failure to withdraw US troops, which seems to stem from an unwillingness to admit, however indirectly, that his policy in the region has been a mistake, is very unstatesmanlike.
George Bush’s record is mixed. He’s not been a distinguished President, but he has managed to keep his country safe from further terrorist outrages. He has several things to his achievement across the world, but these are likely to be overshadowed by Iraq and Afghanistan, where the President’s mistake was in thinking that he had any right or ability to manage the internal affairs of other countries, and in supposing that the people of those countries were better than they were and were really just apprentice-Americans.
He’s certainly not been the worst President in American history, Jimmy Carter still being the undisputed champion in that respect. Katrina and New Orleans saw the Bush-haters doing what they do best: blaming him for other people’s failures (on that occasion Mayor Nagin’s and the Louisiana Governor’s, who both just happened to be Democrats).
‘A’ for effort; ‘C’ for performance.
I’m curious, for the people saying Bush is a war criminal, do you think that Osama bin Ladin or Hitler are war criminals as well? This should speak volumes depending on the answer.
For never heard of terrorists or terrorism in Iraq before the US invasion, Iraq sure housed terrorists:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/08/19/mideast.nidal/
@ Gretchen
“Africa would do well to remember as it suffers from overpopulation and an HIV/AIDS epidemic, that Bush pushes abstinence-only/no condoms policy and hamstrings aid efforts that diverge from this. Bush and the Pope have done enormous disservice to Africa in the name of their religious views on medical and scientific topics.”
Too bad if people actually followed his views, it would end the AIDS epidemic, but that would require people to behave responsibly, we can’t have that!
“People used to look at the US and see a nation that stood on noble principles and fostered peace and development around the world, now we are pretty much universally hated, all in 7 years.”
Actually if you look at history, people have always complained about the US for any and all reasons. Before this, it was because we took “too long” to enter WW1 and WW2. Stop looking at history with blinders on.
After squandering the goodwill the United States had after 9/11, for an unnecessary and stupid war in Iraq that is a recruiting poster for al-Qaida, and for economic policies that threaten to push the US to bankruptcy, Bush certainly hasn’t made the world safer.
@ Steve
Are you a Bush supporter?
Does bush deserve the kind of castigation being powered out here? no and categorically no.. If the world had experienced basically five September 11’s, I really do not think Bush would be attacked in the same manner. Some how he disrupted the comfort zone of terrorists and consequently, they are on the run.
Magoola Moses
Kampala, Uganda
@ selena
no
Hi WHYS!
I hope you all are fine.
Bush used prejudice of People to gain temporary popularity and tried to pinch resources of the world by force to become a great leader.
His policies based on hatred and superiority failed worldwide and all those who supported his policies for any reason also failed badly.
He has put peace of the world into danger. I’ll summarize that HE USED THE POWER OF USA for nothing better.
@ Muhammad Asim Munir
What “policies based on hatred” and superiority are you referring to?
well this is a loaded question if i’ve ever heard one!!
In my opinion : Absolutely NO!
However, we can use this administration to make the world better in the long-run if we (i.e. all people and governements everywhere) learn from these horrible mistakes (many examples listed above) and learn not to repeat them.
Unfortunately so far history seems doomed to repeat itself…. i’m not giving up hope though!
To Mr President Goerge W. Bush I as an Iraqi citizen and as a citizen of a planet called earth I say : Not even the best quality soaps in this world are able to wash away blood from your two hands… To me you’re one of the most evil personalities of our modern times, along with Saddam, Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Stalin, and Sharon… History will always remember you as an evil war criminal who should’ve been tried internationally for committing crimes against humanity… You are a man of no principles and with double standards, although you know very well of Saudi Arabia’s very poor record regarding human rights and the suspicious international role played by the Saudi Wahabi Royal family, inspite of knowing all that, you went and visited Saudi Arabia and danced the sword dance with the Saudi king Abdullah… You and Saddam are not that different to me… You’re partly responsible for ruining up my Iraq and my life… Your foolish and irrational aspirations and ideologies have turned my country into a giant cemetary and an almost impossible place to live in… Saddam was a well known horrific, brutal, and evil monster… If you stay away from the monster, then the monster won’t harm you… But now we do have one thousand and thousand hidden evil, brutal, and horrific monsters, from whom do we stay away ?! And can we avoid stepping into them all ?!
‘Has President Bush made the world a better place?’ On reflection, isn’t the question premature? We don’t yet have a world government and George Bush isn’t the President of the Earth. As the leader of the USA, surely it’s no business of his to make the world a better place, especially as he definitely doesn’t have the consent or support of most of the world’s population to act on their behalf and improve their lives.
His role is to protect and preserve the well-being of his country and to promote its interests in the world. That’s as much as can be expected of any responsible leader. The rest of the world should look after itself.
Our man Bush has done the exact opposite of making the world a more peaceful place, but its far more serious and deeper than this question. He is the quintessential 21st century Republican/ugly American. In other words he epitomizes the “tough mean bastard” cahracteristic that the center-right to far right repbulican party has become.
This aspect of republicanism is, in effect, proto fascism. Though the far left is capable of a socialized collapse into fascism, the right’s fascism is oriented more towards Social Darwinism and the supression of the world’s poor to feed the rich.
I am for the center in general. Though Bush is too simple a man to truly understand the effects of his leadership, his legacy has been to cripple the United States significantly in almost every respect save one- making his friends richer.
@ Lubna
Respectfully, to compare Sharon to Stalin and Hitler is insulting. Sharon hasn’t killed remotely as many people. I often wonder where there is so much more anger at Sharon for Sabra and shatilla than the actual arabs that carried it out? Remember, the Phalangists, christian lebanese hated Palestinians and the Palestinians hated them. They slaughtered each other. There were massacres on BOTH sides. Elie Hokeiba, the Phalangist in charge of the sabra masssacre not only didn’t get punished, but he also got elected to the Lebanese. i can only presume the difference is that Hokeiba is not a Jew and Sharon is a jew.
“If you stay away from the monster, then the monster won’t harm you”
Tell that to the kurds that were gassed.
Bush is an embarrassment to America. The only thing he accomplished is sinking our country into a horrible deficit, employing all of his friends and going to war so that he could line his pockets along with all of his friends at the expense of many lives.
He did provide entertainment when he gave speeches…
Yes of course he did!
He educated the kids, in so short a time, that politicians are not to be trusted and don’t believe anything you hear from corporate controlled media (long live the BBC). That the UN is a sham, that money is worthless (you just print it), that democracy means nothing because it can be bought.
He lifted the stone and revealed what was going on there underneath.
That anyone and everyone can and will be sacrificed for the sake of the ambitions of a few.
Yes, G.W.Bush really lifted the lid on the the corruption that rules our world and destroys our children’s future for the sake of their obscenely opulent present.
Does nobody “do” history anymore? Look at the Roman Empire!
And look what happened… I think it’s called the Mafia.
So, thank you Godfather, for exposing it to us plebeians.
Your grandfather must be spinning in his grave. They all knew you were an idiot, but no one dreamed how much of an idiot.
Malc Dow
Berlin.
Salam alycom
@Steve
hello steve how are you?
Yes Osama bin Ladin, Hitler, Bush, and Saddam …etc, are all war criminals.
I live in Iraq, and I don’t need to read an article or a report to know what’s going on around me. Actually I don’t believe in all what i hear or read in media.
Look, it is said that Iraq had WMD and there were many reports on that, now where are they, where are the WMD?
Please take it from me, we never knew what is terrorism before, and we never saw terrorists, before they came with the invasion.
Yours truly,
Zainab from Iraq
@ Julie P – 13:31
Your comments seem to make a common presupposition. Do you imply that because the world felt compassion for the US after 9/11, there were no preexisting grounds for the world to despise us then?
Americans tend to have a common misperception of the way people of other nations see us. I was a student for a summer in Guatemala in 1984, and a working (coffee picking) tourist in Nicaragua in January of ’88. And I can tell you that although in both places, I saw evidence of good reasons the people of those countries had to “despise” what the US has done to them, I was never judged, however publicly or privately, as being an accomplice to those actions.
I believe that is because these people have better vision to see the common boat we share, that of being people merely subject to courses of action carried out by governments over which we have no real control. Who is to judge in such a world? Only those with first hand experience of the content of the characters of the people whom they pass judgment against. A Dios.
On Air? get your censor button ready. I am sure it will be impossible to contain all of the explicits.
I believe no matter what Bush sympathizers like Steve think( their absolute right) President Bush has been the most unfortunate thing to happen to our world in this new millennium.
We thought needless war was something we wanted to confine to history but alas, Bush thought otherwise. In effect, every westerner has to look over his shoulder wherever he goes despite Bush’ s promise that his wars were to make the world a safer place for America.
It also amazes me how Steve rushes to defend Bush by quoting other people who did wrongs as a justification for Bush’s wrongs. Two wrongs never made a right bro, and also remember that in the long running Middle East crisis, the West actually aggravates the situation than it does help solve it.
Bush’s legacy, A WAR MONGER AND INSENSITIVE TO THE FEELINGS OF OTHER PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD.
The world is definitely a better place than it was 8 years ago – for those who hate us.
George W. Bush will be remembered as one of the worst, if not THE worst, president in U.S. history. No one has ever come close to doing the damage that he has done to our political process, our Constitution and to our credibility as a force for world peace. His mediocrity as a statesman and military leader, his actions as the front man for Big Oil, his lack of understanding of the environment, his disregard for American legal principles and his blatant exploitation of a national tragedy to advance the neo-con agenda for world economic domination is unmatched in it’s arrogance and in it’s disdain of American values.
Zainab:
Look, it is said that Iraq had WMD and there were many reports on that, now where are they, where are the WMD?
In the one or two trailers they found which may have contained facilities that may have had a part in manufacturing Whoppers of Mass Destruction, but were unable to come to any decisive conclusion with proof.
Is that not all the proof you need that Iraq difinitively had and was manufacturing WMD’s which posed a large scale threat to the US on the other side of the world?! I mean, trailers! if’s, what-if’s may’s, and maybe’s!!!
@VictorK
Whether or not Bush had
…it’s a fact that the policies and actions of America have a huge effect on the rest of the world.
However, even if the question was “has Bush made America a better place” my answer would still be identical. He’s put his citizens at much greater risk of terrorism, run his economy into the ground and involved his country in a pointless war based on a lie.
@John
Although there has been a level of dislike for the US for a while; the amount has increased expontentially since the drum was banged for war in Iraq. Since the Iraq invasion I have made more of an effort to travel outside of the US of things that I noticed at first, we have more in common than we know, and I was treated well. On subsequent visits out of the US the level of anger has increased. I certainly did not enjoy being singled out of crowd to listen their anger and smacking lips at the fall of America.
@ Muthee
(1) I am not a bush supporter. I voted for Gore and then Kerry.
(2) I have a problem with people comparing apples and oranges. Despite as bad of a President Bush is, he is NOT comparable to Hitler or Stalin, and it really deminishes what those monsters did when you compare Bush to them. Is that the point of comparing bush to Hitler? To diminish what Hitler did?
“Bush’s legacy, A WAR MONGER AND INSENSITIVE TO THE FEELINGS OF OTHER PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD.”
Is bin ladin one too? Are the people who burn american flags and shout “death to america!” sensitive to the feelings of other people across the world? Are the Chinese sensitive to the feelings of the people in Darfur?
I think it’s time to stop singling out the US, and no, don’t single out Israel for your next target..
Actually john, the worst assailant on the US constitutional rights was Abraham Lincoln. He suspended habeus corpus, took up arms to kill other Americans, and sent in the US army to prevent a vote at the Maryland Statehouse. FDR rounded up US citizens of Japanese, German, and Italian heritage and put them in concentration camps. But I’m sorry to get off topic of Bush bashing without thinking first.
Hi Steve,
I can’t believe you still go to CNN for information on Iraq, weren’t they the first in line to misinform the American people about the weapons of mass destruction and Saddam housing Al Quaeda in Iraq?
Anyway, to me Bush will always be the president with the little speaker in his ears, who repeats sentence after sentence that the little voice tells him. Just watch him closely. He also is the president with the worst and most deceitful advisors, foremost Donald Rumsfeld, and I’m sure he chose them precisely for that reason.
The world was not at its safest before George Bush, but a Westerner could still consider a vacation in a Muslim country without too much fear. Now half of the world can’t be visited anymore.
@ Julie P
That’s funny, I travel outside of the US all the time and people buy me drinks and I’ve never experienced that.
@ Katharina:
“The world was not at its safest before George Bush, but a Westerner could still consider a vacation in a Muslim country without too much fear. Now half of the world can’t be visited anymore.”
Who does that problem lay with then? Westerners or those who are hostile to westerners? In the US, we get tourists from all over the world, including many muslims, yet they are not harassed, let alone harmed. Perhaps you should state the problem and who the problem is with? Or perhaps people in the west should start harassing and kidnapping muslims visiting the west if we don’t agree with their countries’ policies??? See my point.
It reflects on the people on those countries, not on us what our governments do. I don’t like the policies of Iran, but I would be nothing but kind and respectful to any Iranian tourist in the US. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t do the same.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5841816.html
Will George Bush get the leagacy he wants?
@Steve,
Good for you.
To those who claim that George Bush is a war criminal in the class of Hitler and Stalin: if only!
If that were the case Iraq and Afghanistan would have been pacified long ago. Captured insurgents and Taliban would have been executed in cold blood, no nonsense about trials or sending them to that holiday camp called Guantanamo. The ones they couldn’t capturedwould have been discouraged by seeing their extended families, from ancient grandmothers to month old children, rounded up and executed which would also have sent a very persuasive message to others thinking of taking up arms. al Sadr and every other militia leader would have been slaughtered. Clerics who criticised the occupation would have been ‘martyred’ and their mosques and madrassahs bulldozed. Protestors would have been shot. Recalcitrant districts would have been bombed out of exitence (so much easier than street-fighting in places like Fallujah). That’s what real war criminals do. But the upside would have been that by murdering a few thousand inncoents the war criminal Bush would have secured the lives of tens of thousands of equally innocent Iraqis and Afghans. That’s how the Taliban and Saddam esnured peace and order (though for some reason they are never described as ‘war criminals’). But far from being the army of a war criminal, I’ve seen repeated footage of Iraqis looking very unconcerned and indifferent in the presence of patrolling American soldiers, not quivering with terror as you’d expect if you were to believe some of the stuff written here.
The hysteria and lack of balance with whch some people speak of President Bush is laughable. Iraqis and foreign Muslims – for no good reason at all – kidnap and murder ordinary Iraqis and plunge the country into a bloodbath. Therefore Bush is a war criminal. This is utterly dishonest and irrational unless you are prepared to the following points: that: things were better under Saddam; Iraqis are the kind of people who require the hand of a Saddam to govern them, just as Afghans require the lunacy of the Taliban to keep them in order; George Bush was wrong to view Iraqis and Afghans as decent human beings who wanted to be free and prosperous, since they are in fact bloodthirsty anarchists who, given the chance, will reduce an oil-rich country to chaos and poverty; the Taliban should be restored to power in Afghanistan and A Saddam clone should be installed in office to give the Iraqis what they deserve; all of which will leave the world a much better place
So, Bush-haters, where do you stand: Bush the war criminal, or a restored Taliban and Saddam-Mk II? Otherwise clam down on the Bush-hating rants.
@Steve
Would you mind indulging my pet peeve?
The problem lies not lays 😉 with the US, of course.
The US is the one wielding the big stick. The problem cannot lie with the people for whom the stick is intended, unless one believes in corporal punishment.
Do you believe in corporal punishment?
@ selena
Is the US the ones blowing up mosques and killing people because they belong to the “other” sect? Why not blame the people actually doing the killing for the killing?
I believe in corporal punishment for serious things, so that kids don’t grow up to be entitled, spoiled brats, running around on rampages. There some things that telling Tyler or Connor to take a “time out” is not good enough for, but that’s way off topic.
George Bush will be remembered as the president who made the USA a hated nation, especially in Latin America and in the Muslim world, especially after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. He was unlucky to start his presidency with 9/11 attacks which must have shaped his whole internal and external policies.
But the fact that he was re-elected in 2004 shows that he isn’t a minority in his country. The republicans are historically the most electable to the White House. In the past forty years, there were only two democrat presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Contrasting Clinton with Bush, the first ended his term as one of the most popular presidents in US history, because it was a time of peace and economic prosperity. He left a surplus of $1, 3 trillion which was used by Bush to finance his wars.
Concerning the Middle East, he was true to his words when he threatened to remove Saddam from power. But he failed in his peaceful initiatives. Iraq is still unstable. There is no peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and it remains doubtful if the Palestinians can have their state by the end of his term.
What should he be considered: a disastrous choice, a ruthless and opportunistic war-monger?
After his election, he was described as a cowboy in the White House. As a cowboy he tried to be heroic in every aspect, but wars have so far proved more costly than decisive.
What will he leave the world on January 20th, 2009?
On the one hand he will leave the wars he has started. His successor will have the challenge to establish peace in the troubled regions like Iraq and Afghanistan. He will leave him to deal with a more obstinate Iran concerning its nuclear program. He will leave him with a more militarily powerful Russia and a more economically powerful China. Internally, he will leave an economy that needs redressing after being battered by the war efforts, the oil prices and the fall of the dollar. These are just some examples.
The good point is that he will leave his successor some strong allies in Europe, particularly, France, Germany, UK and Italy.
In case, the Republican John McCain gets to the White House, not all the blame should be on George Bush since it is the will of the majority of the voters to have a president with conservative ideals. In case Obama wins, how far can he undo what was done by Bush during his eighth years in office, especially foreign policy? Time will tell.
Again, I’m curious, how many of these people who “so much hate America because of bush” would turn down a greencard?
Hi Steve
Iran desperately needs friends. We must dispel the type-set image of masked, gun wielding Iranians shooting at everything and anyone in sight, but how?
Does the Iranian in the US match up to your image of a peaceful, law abiding and amiable stranger?
It may be years before we gain our former respect. Again, we must promote programs where Iranians feel useful and can contribute to the general well-being of society, wherever they may be.
Perhaps it is our own fault for failing to stop fanatics blowing their own trumpets. We must also ban segregation on religious grounds.
From another list…
*No matter who you supported in the primary, this is just simply a
wonderful response by Jon Stewart to a stupid question:
Is America ready for a black president?
In Larry King’s interview with Jon Stewart, Larry brought up the
subject of the primaries and asked Stewart if America was ready for a
woman or a black president.
Jon looked at him quizzically and said “This is such a non-question.
Did anyone ask us in 2000 if Americans were ready for a moron?”
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/20/lkl.01.html
I read the transcript and didn’t get the same black and white impression.
@Steve
I believe you will find, if you check the literature, that the children who turn out to be spoiled brats are the ones who have had corporal punishment and related violence in their lives.
Muthee worote: “President Bush has been the most unfortunate thing to happen to our world in this new millennium.”
That would be ahead of 200,000 dead in Chechnya, the capital Grozny raised to the ground, and the country (which has oil reserves) enslaved by the Russians at the direction of a genuine war criminal, Putin? Presumably not including the 4-5 million who have died in the DR of the Congo? Does that take into account the collapse of Somalia, described by the UN as the world’s foremost humanitarian crisis? Are you setting aside Darfur and the 200,000+ who have died there in this new millennium (more than in Afghanistan and Iraq combined)?
“President Bush has been the most unfortunate thing to happen to our world in this new millennium.” Is it any surprise that people have coined the phrase ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’ to describe the extravagant and unreal criticism that some people have to make of him? He certainly deserves to be criticised, but a lot of the comments I’ve seen here are so distorted with thoughtless hatred that it makes me wonder.
Very strange indeed.
I would turn down a Green Card. I already have Permanent Residence from Canada, and I would MUCH rather return to Canada than ever move to the US. That way I don’t need to apologies all the time for the attrocities that the country that I’m living in, is doing. Steve, Bush’s action have extremely destabilized the Middle East, he and his buddies went in there without a proper plan of what they will do once they’re there, and the people put in charge were either incompetent or striped of their authority/replaced. You can read it up: Bob Woodward, “Bush at war”, parts I – III.
@ selena
I doubt that, given the sense of entitlement of people these days, and the spoiled brats I see running around uncontrolled, I hav ea feeling that during times when parents could discipline their children within reason, the kids grew up being less self absorbed. Honestly, how does a “time out” discourage a kid from behaving badly? “CONNOR! Quit playing with the candybars in the checkout line, CONNOR! NO! DONT EAT IT OR YOU WILL HAVE A TIME OUT!”
I’m sure that will really discourage the kid from eating something he didn’t pay for.
As the supper power that is well guided and driven by principles of helping in giving freedom to all humans and animals on the earth, US took a role to implement these in where they are denied to humans therefore, it is no doubt that US has done the best they could and still holding to it and credit must be given to where it deserves. President Bush has made though someone has to accomplished it as ten years is not a enough time to correct what have gone wrong for centuries.
As to why people die? everything has cost even welcoming a visit to your house somewhat may result to a death of a chicken or a goat, therefore, the two wars fought in Iraq and Afghanstan have not racial, ethnic, tribal or religious discrimination but freeing the oppressed people by dictators and the terrorists.
if these crucial decisive decisions were not made by President Bush, world wouldnt be a safer place the way it is today even if he has not completely removed other elements like Omer El Bashir who is butchering the people of Darfur as well as Southern Sudanese. the rest will be accomplished by his successor, God willing!
Instead of tinting him as of that Hitler type is a big mistake but lack of understanding of what might have happened if Bush didn’t take those decisions and the current situation where Iraqis and Afghans enjoy their freedom.
@ Katharina
“and I would MUCH rather return to Canada than ever move to the US. That way I don’t need to apologies all the time for the attrocities that the country that I’m living in, is doing.”
Who said it is your job to “apologize” for the “atrocities” your country has done? Didn’t Canada just have to apologize for taking indians from their homes and reeducated them to take away their indian culture? Is that something you are proud of and something you feel the need to apologize for? How about the clubbing to death of baby seals so some snob can wear a fur coat? Again, what atrocities is the US conducting? In iraq, the killing is being done by fanatics against other iraqis.
President Bush became president 8 years ago when most people felt that Al Gore would have or should have been elected the president of the US. Because of his speech blunders at the time, many took George Bush to just be another president who would fade into obscurity.
But then Osama Bin Laden and his Taleban friends decided to come to Bush’s rescue with their dastardly attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Bush, to the astonishment of many, rose to the occasion with a kind of astuteness that many thought was beyond him. He rallied world opinion on the side of the United States in his declared War on Terror.
But then Bush lost it with his extension of his War on Terror to Iraq. And because the Americans had no proper exit strategy, the rest of the world now has to live with the consequences of that decision. Less I be mistaken, it is my belief that the removal of Saddam Hussein from office was necessary, however wrong/false the stated reason turned out to be. The problem was the failure of the Americans and British to have any meaningful plan for stabilizing the situation in a post-Saddam Iraq. It is the consequence of this that energy prices have more then double what they were just a year ago. That’s why I’m paying around $5.00 dollars for a gallon of fuel oil for my vehicle.
It is left with history to judge, but it is my thinking that had 9/11 not happened Pre. Bush would have just faded. Don’t even think he would have gotten a second term. But I think when his history is finally written, historians are not going to agree on whether George W. Bush was a great president or not. But I believe that he should be regarded as great for preventing a recurrence of 9/11 throughout the reminder of his term.
President Bush erred badly by thinking that it’s only through wielding the military brawn of America, he will be able to attain world peace. As a matter of fact, no single nation can guarantee the world’s security through its might and this can only be done through collective collaboration.
Bush made the world a better place of learning for the childrens…. Really that’s just a misunderestimation of all he’s done. More to come.
@Selena
The lack of corporal punishment does not mean a child won’t be spoiled. Spoiled, bratty kids are the result of the parents and the way in which they raise their children and the people the children associate with. I was raised under parents that used corporal punishment but they did not use it with my brother and he is a huge brat but he also hangs out with bratty, spoiled kids that think they are entitled to everything.
Bush is not the smartest person, but he is not a war criminal. The US is in worst shape than it was eight years ago, but I am still proud to be an American. I still think we are the greatest country in the world. Plus, the US is not Bush. He is only a man that will be out of power very soon.
I hope the next president’s policies will be different and will change the preception of the US.
@Is he the most disastrous president of modern times? –
US President? yes
@Or has President Bush made the world a better place? –
not that I can tell,
and I think he has done so much economic harm to this country that it may take decades to recover
when we speak about this man we see the blood coulor infront of us whet is better in the time of prisedent bush. he did not make anything for the world except fighting muslims in iraq and afganistan and many several countries and made the relatins between the muslims and weastern more difficult in the time the world need more peace than war .
so weasterns people should choose the person who is able to understand others ane able to spread the peace over the world .also iwant meniton that the time of prisedent bush was very bad not only in political bet in economy also .see how amrican dollar became very weak compare to other currency this is becouse the policy of mr bush and many bad things in his time over the world..
Bush like the Republicans and Democrats damaged the USA. Unless there is a Libertarian Government, we will have more of Bush and Company.
Bush made the world a better place of learning for the childrens….
“No Child Left Behind”… HA!
@Jackson
I don’t agree that Bush has helped many Iraqis. I think Saddam was not the best person, but I personally believe that we did not need to remove him from power. I think we should have pursued Osama and forgot about Saddam. Life would be a lot better if we had not gone to Iraq but we did, now we have to deal with it. Hopefully, someone will find a solution to the problem because we are in alot of debt because of this crusade.
Although I agree with many of the criticisms presented here, I also agree with the comments that cite dis-proporitional hatred aimed at Bush. And I am not a Bush supporter by any means. And McCain will only lead us farther down the same road.
Our world has seen horrible humanitarian atrocities in recent history (including the current situation in Iraq).
Continuously blaming a single leader is anti-productive, especially if it leads to insulting people who support him. It just creates more gulfs for people to overcome. I think everyone agrees the world is not in a good state, so that may be step 1!
What is more productive would be to discuss ideas about how such skewed ideologies ever gain enough momentum to lead to wars and genocides.
Individual citizens need to be more involved in politics if things are ever going to change. Though many of these things need to be said, criticizing alone will not lead to change….
@ Angela
Of course there are exceptions to everything.
Not all children who are treated badly grow up to be fiends.
But if you review the history of criminals and especially the worse ones, they were, almost without exception, treated cruelly by their parents and/or society.
Steve makes a good point about time out not being adequate for punishment.
It is the concept of *punishment* that I question.
Why blame Bush? Who voted for him in 2004?
@Steve
For the record I have twice turned down “green cards”….or, rather, turned down firm job offers which would have led to a green card.
I can’t speak for every person in the world, but the self-image many Americans have that their country is the envy of the world is not always accurate.
@ Bob
That’s not the same. You turned down two jobs, perhaps because they didn’t want the job? A lot of the US bashing is coming from countries where people burn the US flag yet at the same time, when asked where they would most like to live, they list the USA.
@ VictorK – 13:32 & Malc Dow – 14:58
Victor, though I’ve never seen eye to eye with your perspective on economic architecture, your analysis of the Bush foreign policy legacy is thoughtful and spot on. Kudos, amigo griego a mi. (paraphrase: howdy, stranger. nice work.)
You’re criticism of Jimmy Carter, though, leaves me confused, as it is seriously lacking in same. But please, spare me your laundry list. You know what they say. You can judge some of the people all of the time…
@ MD, (if you don’t mind the informality) Your comments seem to come the closest to sharing the “outside the box” optimism I was getting at in my comments at 13:09. Millions of people recognize the failure of so many Bush policies, but the majority of those people are deluding themselves if they think that a return to business as usual is the way ouy of this mess.
Our only hope is that things have gotten so bad for US, that WE will finally rip these blinders off from our “Gheek Thaal” and start seeing things the way they really are.
There is a new term emerging in psychology known as procovery, which accepts that a person recovering from a traumatic experience can never be returned to a state prior to the effects of that event. We as a nation must never be allowed to return to the naive innocence of our self righteous past.
We must go forward with eyes wide open to the good, the bad and the ugly in everything we do. Or we will continue to drift, as Einstein predicted, toward unparalelled catastrophe. People *can* be pretty thick.
To quote Mark Twain, (from memory, with regrets to the author and publishers) From THE WAR PRAYER:
It was believed the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Angela,
Osama was not out there for himself but hidding and being protected by the dictators. Saddam and Bashir of Sudan have financially, weaponry, accommodation and so forth supported Osama for their common ill-intentions against innocents people of the World.
Plans to hit New York and Pentagon were planned in Khartoum and coordinated in Bagdad by the two notorious dictators? what would you have done, if you were the president? you have no access to catch Osama and you know where he is being hosted first and foremost, you have to hit the Godfather before getting him which is exactly what Mr. Bush did to rescue the tortured and the opperssed.
Just take a simple example of Mohamed Harun, the war criminal accussed of murder in Darfur, what do you think that can be done to bring him to Justice since the government of Sudan has refused to hand him over?
War could be a good tool of accounting those who tends to be disastrious to the World.
@ Andrew
No one voted for Bush! 😉
Whether or not he made the world a better place, he is a disgrace to our “founding fathers” and every person who died in wars before us. His JOB is to do the best for the USA, and keeping us out of war should be number one. I really dont think he accomplished that AT ALL.
To bad the people who should be president, don’t kiss butt enough to get up there!
-Anthony, LA, CA
@Jackson
I would agree, if I thought we actually went to Iraq because of Saddam but I don’t. I believe it was for a variety of reasons. I stated earlier that Bush was motivated by his morals, but also greed. Most people believe oil was another reason for going to Iraq, but that is a different issue.
I know this sounds bad but I would rather have soldiers fighting for policies that truly affect us in the US. Many of my peers have went to Iraq and died for other people, when things need to be changed in the US.
People may disagree but most Americans do not care about what happens overseas, unless they see it on the news. Most Americans don’t really care about things that happen in the US that don’t concern them.
After 9-11, I wanted to get the mastermind of the attacks, not the accomplice. The accomplice is gone but the mastermind is still out there. Bush once said he wanted Osama dead or alive.
Essay writers have overtaken this blog. Does WHYS score Essays here???????
These are not Freudian slips now, these are the real statements of a Yale man scrambling to keep his pants on lying. Let’s look at the revealing overzealous misstatements from the man in the White House:
Bush made the world a better place for the children: This is why the next President will almost certainly have to abandon the No Child Left Behind Act because it has been such a colossal failure to improve schools and a waste of money. Bush, in actuality, knew the act would fail with the few billions of dollars spent on it, making a pail comparison to the trillions spent on war. He was just too busy looking for the gains of war to make it up, right?
Now as for the depth of terrorism he underestimated: Perhaps what he meant to say there was he underestimated how much the price of oil would go up post invasion of Iraq? Where his own analysts miscalculations said there would be a $15-18 a barrel jump from about 15; Instead it went up 500%. As oil barrels started going to China right out from under his army divisions you could see the President a little lost for words.
@Selena,
“Corporal punishment” indeed! Now I’m all distracted from the urgent task of composing my brief against Bush. I need to concentrate. Time for fun and games later…
Bush is a cocky idiot who followed the orders of his superiors, (ie. his “base” as he so fondly referred to the power brokers and corporate entities that shield and fund his exquisite acts of hubris). America will remain in the shadow of president Bush’ ill conceived actions for many decades to come, unless we were to impeach him and his charming administration, showing the world that we do not agree with what has been done in our name. Silence is consent…………The world will not forget, nor should they………Being an American, I am proud of the microcosm in which I live (ie. my community), but, I am deeply ashamed of my countries continued actions abroad, this is, in large part, due to the last 8 years of the Bush presidency.
Robert Carlos Alvarez makes a good point that Democrats and Republicans are just animals dressing up like each other in disguise. It’s true.
But there is also truth in the fact that without term limits we would be as economically desperate as Zimbabwe in another 20 years. In other words the success of a President in most ways can be measured by how effective they are at accomplishing goals within their term. Bush started a war, and a war for oil, which he could not finish, he drove the economy into a recession which he will not be able to correct. Need more evident failure?
And I’m betting, just like his father, he still didn’t finish his broccoli!
@ Archibald
Given that same world is silent about atrocities like Darfur, do you really think they will be anti US forever, or there perhaps is some just standard USA bashing going on, and this is the reason? You said, silence is consent, and nobody in the world is doing anything really about Darfur. You said it, silence is consent.
” I am deeply ashamed of my countries [sic] continued actions abroad, this is, in large part, due to the last 8 years of the Bush presidency.”
Does that include our aid during the Tsunami and other disasters?
Angela,
I totally agreed with you that, Iraqi was motivated by many reasons among them is the denied democracy and freedom of innocent persons who have been subjected to difficult life. as these were the main reasons, the dictators went further to an extends of killing innocents American and followed by various deaths in difference countries in Europe and Asia and Africa. where on this world would people be allowed to be murdered by those who can also be taken care of and make sure they account for the atrocities they have caused the world.
well, it has happened and we must say truth Bush has taken this upon himself and his administration as you said, but who else would have done this for the sake of his people? this is where I say, he has done it and deserve thanks though ot the way others may or might have thought but this was an immediate available tool to be used. Sharia laws say when you bite a person to death you will also be beaten to death, tooth with another tooth.
for sure, the world has learnt it better or the worst and we should keep it like that till permanent and best solutions is found to replaced Bush’s temporal solutions to the acute outcry which were the best and on time of demands.
G.W Bush has done the world this one very big service: he has shown all politicians everywhere which policies and practices are to be avoided in the new millennium.
Good and bad things can be said about his tenure before the deceitful rhetoric thet preceded the invasion of Iraq. However good his motives may have been, he should have stated the true reasons for going to war upfront, instead of transparently lying to the world at large and the the UN in particular. From that point Bush and his administration become a hive of conniving liars, and nothing good can be said about that.
He may have turned out a mediocre president if 9/11 had not happened. But he was not the man to lead America in the aftermath of a second Pearl harbour.
He had a raw deal and could not overcome his limitations in facing it and solving it.
Learn from him how not to do things.
(as an afterthought):
You know, I can’t help wondering if George W. Bush is actually reading any of these thoughts, or if at least someone in his employ is sifting, digesting and compressing it all into a form a person of his important stature might actually have time to absorb.
Falling short of any actual policy statements, a mere automated response from comments@whitehouse.gov might serve as a token of good faith in the efforts of so many here today. Is anybody in there listening?
It depends on where you are coming from. If you are from a country like Ghana, Uganda etc who are benefiting from the Millennium Challenge Account, you would say yes.
But if you are from the islamic world (Iraq) you would say NO. I have this question to ask. “Will President Bush and his accomplice Tony Blair be tried as it’s been done to African Presidents who get involve with war?
I see BUS and BLAIR no different from Charles Taylor, President Mugabe, May his soul rest in Peace Sadam Hussein, etc.
I think the world would have been a better place if people like the Blair and Bush were not in it.
Bush has made the world a worse place to live.
Thank you
James from Ghana
I think it boils down to whether or not you think that the US should be allowed to say to the leader of another country:
You have to leave your country within 48 hours
not when there is an imminent threat to the US, but merely because the US has decided that the behavior of the leader of the country in question is no longer acceptable, according to criteria the US president can make up for himself.
Many people around the world would anxiously wait for the day when president Bush leaves the Oval Office. He is someone who leaves the office worse than he got it. We have never seen genuine initiatives from his administration to change the world for the better during his tenure. His foreign policies were utterly ridiculous, especially in the horn of Africa and the gulf. Many people have lost confidence on America and Mr. Bush takes most of the responsibility. It will take a genius to restore that confidence. I wish he could leave his office sooner than the scheduled date, as the world would be better off without him.
Even given the benefit of the doubt to say that freedom given is the ability for the people to take their freedom back: What peoples are free from the terrorism that was? The Taliban has recaptured 2 cities and hundreds of the prisoners and now are making a stand in Afghanistan. How is that freedom from the oppression that was?
How are the people of Iraq more free because of a war that could have been accomplished with the CIA alone? If someone had killed just Saddam Hussein; that would have been an attempt at freeing the people. A full scale ground occupation was an attempt to do just that- occupy!
I appreciate all that President Bush did. It was no easy matter to deal with the set of circumstances he was handed. Only the ignorant who do not know much can be so clumsey at criticising a decent man, trying to protect his country and the good people of the world.
His mistake was to enter only a limited war and not mobilize the entire nation to a war footing. It is a shame that only a few of us stepped forward to bear the entire burden of two fronts on a war. It is a shame that most of the West is so shallow and selfish not to realize that Bush needed help and loyalty to fight our enemies who will now perhaps haunt the world for a lot more decades.
America has always tried to do what is right for the world and itself. Bush really did attempt to help a lot of Muslims who were not the type to wish to kill all who were not Muslim. America has spent a lot of its treasure and our dear young people trying to help those in the Balkins, those in Kuwait, those in the Tsunami,
those in the Philippines. There are many Muslims in America and they are treated as Americans not enemy people.
troop
@ steve RE: defending Bush
I understand your arguments, but I’m curious if you think he’s “done good” because he’s b.s.ing, trying to look good, or does he actually care. Like he said when he was running for president, his hero is “Jesus Christ”. What do you think? Personally I believe he’s doing the least possible, then putting a spotlight on it.
-Anthony, LA, CA
every presidents would be judged on the basis of the major decisions he has ta ken.Bush has taken decisions.what were they?has it been good to the collective interest of world peace?.
@John D. Augustine
you must still be under the impression that anyone in this administration cares what the people of this country or the people of the world thinks of it. I don’t belive it ever has, and now as a lame duck, ever will. This presidency has been about oil and profiteering by big business- nothing more and nothing less. I don’t believe any of the hype that it has all been about God, democracy or freedom. It is about how much debt they can drown the American people in- and how much they can drain off to their own accounts via Halliburton.
Bush has a long lasting legacy to leave behind which no mothern American president will find it had to surpass. These are some of them:
1. Openly make lie as a state policy.
2. Openly armed and support act of terrorism.
3. A racist president.
The effect of what he has done is just manifesting. What was destroy for more than 7 years can not be rebuilt in a decade.
Who can actually make the World better place ??? Shouldn´t this be of concern of each of us, and not only political leaders???
If George Bush always did what he thought was the best, isn´t it a very strange way of thinking???
@ Anthony
If you think bush meant what he said, I have a bridge in brooklyn to sell you. Bush said that jesus stuff because that’s what the voters wanted to hear. Politicians, including bush, will say/do anything to get elected and reelected. We don’t have to single out bush, when we can see this day in and day out with mccain, clinton and obama. Look, Mccain is now open to offshore drilling, whereaas for years he has been against it. Someone wants to get elected!
Besides all the other gaffes and mistakes in policy and judgment made by the Bush administration over the last eight years, the most significant mistake Bush made that will define his negative historical evaluation is his misinterpretation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Instead of seeing those events as the heinous crimes that they were, Bush saw them as acts of war and proceeded to attempt to fight terrorism with military means instead of law enforcement means. The consequences of that decision have alienated the United States from its traditional allies and hampered the cause of peace and justice in the world.
Bush might be an anomaly in that he actually believes in Jesus and his mission.
I say that because apparently he is a recovering alcoholic.
It is not unusual for alcoholics to find Jesus.
@ steve
I guess my question is do you beleive that any of Bush’s “good” actions are sincere, or is it all B.S. so that he might “look good” in the books?
-Anthony, LA, CA.
Hi WHYSers!
Of course, President Bush has not made the world a better place. If nothing else he will leave the world community more anxious and fractious than before. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are but two of the clearer examples of this fact.
Though, it is to be said that President Bush’s presidency was underwritten by an attack on the very principles of democracy and the American ideal of freedom for all, regardless, he perhaps rightly felt that his was the task to educate the world and especially the terrorists that might is (still) right. In so doing, underlining that it will take more than the bringing down of two buildings in the heart of its commercial capital to cause Americans to run with their tails between their legs. One cannot but appreciate that sort of steadfast committment.
However, that said, one wonders whether a more committed approach to diplomacy, especially the type of ‘tough diplomacy’ echoed in the remarks of DNC presumptive nominee for President Sen. Barrack Obama, might not also have reaped (better fruits)? For my part, I am not so sure that we have, necesarilly, enjoyed watching the spectacle of American foreign policy in one of its finest hours (?) with those campaigns in the desserts. The stiffling of democratic freedoms and the hinging of an anti-war sentiment to a sense of anti-Americanism are but some of the not-so-appealing parts of that experience, which continue to impact us even now.
Indeed, of all groups Muslims have fared the worst in this period with the increased animosity and stereotyoing of all members of that religion/ culture as potential terrorists. The destruction of the Q’uran at Guantanamo and the abuse of prisoners there, many of who are still yet to recieve a (fair) trial are telling reminders of the difficult period in which we now live.
The environment also came in for a fair amount of beating, as Kyoto was never seen as important under President Bush. Refusing to believe that climate change was/ is real, notwithstanding the alarmist interpretation in some sectors, does not deny the value of the conversation and the importance of the information dispensed therein.
I would argue that conflicts over clean air and the technological investments needed to address same are but some of the more urgent effects of the President’s legacy which has been bequeathed to future generations. This means that, the more foot dragging that goes on on the subject the more the ice-caps will continue to melt and the more lives will be placed at risk. These are some of the serious effects of the leadership under the current American President, which though not all directly his fault, were nonetheless handled in ways that have made us all less safe.
Indeed, now that more people are increasinly agitating for an end to the war in Iraq, especially, as the WMDs were never found, it remains to be seen whether the increased anxieties as well as the disappointment in the moral leadership of the most powerful democracy on earth might not yet have more devastating consequences. These are some of the consequences of President Bush’s leadership, currently, none of which is necessarily positive.
@ selena
HAHAHA! LOL. I don’t know why, but that was pretty darn funny! Lol. I hope you’ve seen the clip when he’s on YouTube, drunk, talking trash about some married couple. Lol!
-Anthony, LA, CA
This period of time will be viewed by history as one of United Stated of America’s dark ages–Bush is responsible for one of the most oppressive and divisive decade for Americans.
Not to mention the economic turmoil he is created domestically. He has done the opposite of making the world a better place. By the way, I lived in Texas during his 2000 election and did not vote for him.
@Bret–Rob Page (HISD Superintendent for prior to becoming the US Secretary of Education) based the NO Child Left Behind policy on Houston Independent School District statistics of successful school. My school was one of the “successful” models and it graduated illiterate athletes and listed dropouts as transfers; thereby showing a false improvement in schools. No child was, indeed, left behind. *sign*
Sorry Selena, but that just makes me laugh, have you seen ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’, that makes me think of Matt Damon’s description of why he can’t get drunk enough.
The most revealing thing to me is, correct me if I’m wrong, but a President isn’t actually a ‘lame duck’ until the last 3 months of his term when a new one has been chosen. Yet people have been referring to Bush as one for, well since there was a prospect of someone else to do the job!
Yes, Bush is the disasterous,optimistic leader of all the Presidents. USA has alot of enemies today because of him. He doesn’t listen to anyone,he wants the world to accept whatever he suggests. He is truly the disastrous President in this modern era.
1.By refusing to talk to Iran and other so called leaders he calls bad.
2.Wars in Iraq,Afghanisan,etc and Mugabe’s behaviour are all due to Bush.
Once Obama who will definetily be the next US President takes over he will realy bring CHANGE. Bush is simply the worst, Gordon Brown beware.
Maybe we will look back in the months ahead and think that G.Bush want that bad after all.
My guess is though we will only think that because its got a lot, lot worse. Like bombing Iran and Oil at 250 Dollars..
This must be a spoof episode of World Have Your Say!
A silly and stupid question and topic. Or perhaps just a slow news day??
No! Of course President Bush has NOT made the world a safer place.
Stanley
Portland, Oregon
@ Zak- it’s the anticipation that is making us jump the gun on the lame duck term
Taliban ready for battle with NATO-led forces near Kandahar
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080617/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanunrest
The most arrogant man alive.
Let’s give it about 10 / 15 years before we pass judgment on President Bush. Remember, there have been no attacks on US soil since 9/11.
for some George Bush will be a hero who was decisive in his actions. He added to the US new national heroes that patriots will celebrate with great pride. For others, he was just a disaster, making the US feel more frightened than secure in their homeland through his anti-terror policies, which some see as an infringement on their personal liberties.
His era will also be remembered as an era of big lies, especially about WMD in Iraq and the fact that the Bush administration didn’t tell the whole truth about the reasons for this war. The most outspoken about misinforming the public is the former White House spokesman Scott McClellan : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7423099.stm
Bush has undermined international relations by throwing away the need to prove one’s allegations against others if wanting to confront them militarily or with the threat of sanctions and violence. The U.S. push to build a new nuclear bomb and U.S. war-making have increased horizontal proliferation pressures, as have the U.S. ignoring Indian, Pakistan and Israeli disregard for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty while instigating yet another war, this time on Iran. U.S. policies under Bush have lead to a free for all with regard to international commodities leading to the rise in fuel and food prices. His rhetoric about spreading democracy is such a cynical lie as to be heart-wrenching. Meanwhile, he buys shreds of support with insignificant tax rebates. Your question was absurd in how balanced it was as presented, but I respect your need to pose them as impartially as possible. I dread to read comments from any poor people who have bought into the lies of this regime.
Bush the most oppressive president? For the LOVE OF GOD people! FDR, one of the most “beloved” presidents put US citizens in concentration camps becuase of their ethnicities!
@ Stanley
Its not a stupid topic. I just recently talked to an Indian here in the states, and he said “Thank God for George Bush”. I’ve heard a lot of people (mostly republicans) who thinks he’s done a great job. One person even said he wishes Bush could do another 4 years. I couldn’t beleive it, but yes, there are a lot of people who think hes a great man.
-Anthony, LA, CA
Taliban ready for battle with NATO-led forces near Kandahar
So what does that tell you about the thoroughness of the one real mission we had in war, to destroy the ones who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks?
@ Steve
I can see you defending the USA – that is admirable and the world should not overlook what the USA has done to help in disaster areas around the world. They, the US citizens have, to the best of their ability, come to the aid of as many people as they can – but that is the US citizen – certainly not Bush!
Bush and his immediate administration are to blame for many, many things – some have been voiced on this thread alone.
I do not sign up to the fact that Bush is a war criminal on the same scale as Hitler, Stalin, Hussain. That is a patent fact. What he is, is an idiot, moron and many other derogatory words.
He and those who advised him have made the world a worse place – not just for Americans but for westerners.
It will be a while before we will really know how the world has been effected by this Bush tenure. But what we do know now is that he has left the world in a situation where a war(s) are rampant and has given credence to those who he said he was fighting.
Those who attack ordinary citizens of the US for what Bush et al have done is wrong. But Bush should be vilified for those acts and rightly so.
President Bush is a war criminal, liar and manipulator. All he did (removing Saddam Hussein, etc.) where all selfishly motivated endeavors and he did not think of the people in America. He ruined our relationship with the rest of the world and has made Americans look absolutely ridiculous! It will take decades to repair the damage he’s done. He has made the world a much more dangerous place, in my opinion.
Yes, absolutely…Geoge Bush is THE WORST president in modern times. I am ashamed at how he has ruined this country. Not just here at home but overseas as well. It is criminal what he has done and we may never recover from the effects of his actions and words. His Evil Empire was run by the devil-incarnate, VP Cheney, who pulled the strings on puppet president George Bush. Even worse, I am extremely fearful that we are going the way of the Netherlands and Great Britain when you track the changes and follies over the centuries that happened to those empires. We are now a nation with a gimpy leg that is dragging behind thanks to the ineptness of Bush. May we never face such disgrace and disorder ever again. And I hope that Bush will pay for his egregious mistakes in more ways than can be counted.
Bush, his warped perspective and his destructive legacy riddled with hidden agenda cannot come to an end quickly enough for the world.
The real issue however is how one man who appears so incompetent and devoid of intellect on the surface could wield such power and remain in power for two terms.
quite obviously the real problem is not bush, but the puppet masters who control the strings.
I never, never could have imagined that I would ever have thought, “Worse than Nixon”. Bush is the worst U.S. president in the history of the country. It is hard to decide whether corruption has exceeded incompetence, or vice versa, under his rule; and the only “achievements” of the Bush administration have been to implement the policies of warmongering fascist maniacs – the neocons. His administration has damaged the U.S., and the world, in ways that will require generations to repair.
Bush is guilty of multiple capital crimes under international and U.S. law, ranging from Crimes Against Peace and War Crimes, to treason and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Under U.S. law, and under the Nuremberg protocols, Bush should be hung, along with Cheney and the rest of his cabinet.
No he has not left the world a better place. Each time he is asked if he regrets his choice he keeps saying the world is a better place with out Sadam.
The follow-up question to that comment should be is removing Sadam worth a 100 billion dollars, 600K Iraq’s, 4000 American lives and 50K wounded?
He is a stain on the American flag that will never come clean.
“It is a shame that most of the West is so shallow and selfish not to realize that Bush needed help and loyalty to fight our enemies who will now perhaps haunt the world for a lot more decades.”
Are you kidding me? Perhaps Bush needed to listen to the American people. He got us into a war we didn’t want. He has abused the power of the presidency, used 9/11 as a permanent campaign to serve his own interests and used his religion to promote other forms of discrimination; diminishing the freedom of the American people.
NO, NO, NO, MOST EMPHATICALLY NO!!! If Fact: he has made it far, FAR more dangerous, and deadly, especially for journalists, and travellers, abroad. He has angered more people, and incited more terrorists, than any five presidents combines, and as a result of his policies, actions, and attitude, caused more war, threats of war and terrorist acts, than Reagan and Thatcher ever dreamed of in their wildest New World Order wet-dreams.
I also thought (hoped?) that with the changing of the guard in the U.K. that Mr. Brown would, AT THE VERY LEAST, bring a leveler head to the proceedings. Last night I found I have been wrong. I feel for your people, almost as much as my own (U.S.), for they are driving us all (the world) into an ever-widening, ever-deepening HELL that we may never be able to pull ourselves out of.
Could it be that it is already too late?
george bush could have had a fine legacy if he’d only kept his eye on the ball–the taliban and al-qaeda. but no, he had avenge the attempt on his dad’s life and stop the blackmarket oil for his buddies. the world has a fine lot of brutal dictators that rank above saddam, and that speaks volumes.
George Bush will go down in history as one of THE worst presidents in the history of this great country. It is an absolute shame what he has done to our standing in the world community – he has left the world in much worse condition. Iraq was contained, they were not spreading weapons of mass destruction. Bush should have focused on Afghanistan and left it there. Now, the terrorists have a rallying point in Iraq and the world is a much more dangerous place.
@Michael Holmes
Was “winning” the civil war worth 600,000 lives and countless more injured, for Abraham Lincoln, despite him being regarded at the best President ever? was it worth it? The iraq figures are peanuts vs. the civil war.
@ Steve:
No attacks on us soil. Yet initially it happened while he was in office. And look at what else happened while he was in office. The “great” response to Katrina. Our economy. The “credit crunch”. At least we found those WMD’s they were talking about…oh wait, they found some UAV practice drone hand-me-downs that could do pretty much nothing. And now the price of oil is sky rocketing and the job rates are dropping like flies. Hail to the Chief….hehe, lol.
-Anthony, LA, CA
President Bush has worked as a propagandist and war profiteer. His administration has ignited resentment against the US, caused horrific environmental damage, taken advantage of and torn apart countries and taken away constitutional rights which were set up centuries ago with the Patriot Acts. The US government has expanded to the point that we cannot fund our cities properly. We are no longer able to provide for our citizens. The prison regime has become immense, and now we have private contractors who have tortured people training our police forces.
We are told to trust him without being critical, even though what we have done in the last eight years has caused anger throughout our world. I hope the youth in this country will become more active so we can right the wrongs our country has done. It will take a long time to fix the problems President Bush has brought upon the world.
I voted for President Bush both times and during his first term and the beginning of his second term I supported him. After trhe first year so many things have come out that hes been doing that I really regret voting for him. I do not believe that the world is safer. To me he’s very bullheaded and just has a total disregard for the world around him. people around the world do not feel safer now because of him. He should have used some better diplomacy. And yes I do believe that he is a wrecking ball.
As a counsellor responding to the tragic effects of trauma on the individual and the environment, it always saddens me when Bush et. al. call themselves men of God and freedom seekers. The massive destruction that Bush and the international republican institute have wrought on this world is far worse in my view than any single country dictator. Bush is terrifying and should be held accountable before this world can begin to heal.
To answer Coleen:
Beyond his actions as of a result of 9/11, is this woman honestly comparing Abraham Lincoln to G. W. Bush? This country was not civil outbreak, nor were unjustices being done to american citizens by other americans. Grant it we were attacked, by cowards, in the name of islam. Those are radicals, just like there are radicals in america whom, under the guise of the amendment which allows one to still have the right to bear arms, operate.
It is ridiculous that this woman represent even half of the population. Rather, sounding like a very misguided individual wtih her own twist on the realities of what is going on in the world.
Bush has been nothing but destructive to our international relations, in many ways beyond the Iraq invasion, as well as the destruction of families torn from the shear conditions of war. Beyond that, he has had the oddacity to DENY veterans additional services, even after he claims that they are the ones who defend america, and he was the one that put them in this situation.
I am appalled by such analogies this woman made, and when asked to elaborate, she sounded as if she never really had considered many other issues , essentially making baseless comments. I hope people recognize most of us americans (some of us veterans) are disgusted by people like her, whom undoubtedly voted for Bush.
George Bush will be rememberd in history as at best an incompetent. No american president in recent history has failed in all policy areas: From Iraq war to the response to Katrina, the ecomomy to poisoning of the american food chain, wholesale corruption to the imports of danagerous products from China. The list is endless. American and the whole world is not a better place.
I am a Liberian age 27 and a sophomore student of the University of Liberia.
It will be a mirage and an apparent contradiction to think that waging war on Iraq ,Afghanistan and supporting Israel to fight Lebanon is making the world a safe and better place. I think president Bush has been a disastrous, a ruthless and opportunistic war monger who has eroded civil liberties.
We can not boast of the world being a safe place when thousands of our brothers and sisters are dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think what president Bush should do now is to apologize to all the people of the world for the death of the Innocent soul in Iraq and Afghanistan in his farewell trip around the world.
for me president Bush is the most disastrous president of modern times. I will never forgive him for the atrocities that are committed in Iraq and Afghanistan daily.
Many people do not like President Bush; However, he is the only president who has stood up for the world in defense of Terrorism. Without the Bush administration the terrorist of this world would be free to continue there pursuit of terror. We are born with free will and its not the right of any one group to tell us how to choose our ways of life. Thank you Bush and all countries and who support the end to Terror.
President is a stubborn, narrow minded, ideolog, war monger! He will go down as the worst President in US History, he has made this country and the world a less safe place, he used 9-11 to progress his own, and Dick Cheney’s agenda in the Middle East, which can only be seen as an oil and money grab for thier buddies (and their own) in Corporate America, just look at Haliburton, the largest contractor in Iraq. I only hope that he has not set the World on a path of no return.
As an American living in self-imposed exile in Spain, I am deeply ashamed of Bush’s policies. I have only to speak to Europeans and others from around the world to feel their frustration and sometimes outrage. I can’t help but agree. His juvenile notion of spreading democracy in the Middle East while simultaneously supporting corrupt dictators in the region is truly horrendous. His haughty unilateral approach is downright despicable. Anyone who does not consider him the worst thing that could have happened to the U.S. and the world, has no idea of the truth behind all of his lies and propaganda.
No!
His legacy is just more BLOOD OIL.
Murder for Oil.
There’s just no way to make that look pretty.
Three trillion dollars worth of murder for oil.
And if I may: GEORGIE has also broken more laws, re-written laws, defied the International Laws, than a serial killer. He is, simply, the worst president, the worst politician, most criminal person in the history of this country. It makes me long for the days of Nixon/Agnew.
How any breathing human being can even believe a single worf out of his pompus, condicending face is absolutely beyond me. AND I am at a complete and absolute loss as to how this traitorous clown keeps getting away with it.
In fact: he keeps plunging us all into a deeper and darker concentric circle of HELL than I ever believed possible. And yet, he keep on.
I think that Bush has been disastrous for his own country and its standing in the world.
He has condoned torture, set back issues of the constitution and women’s rights and freedom of religion (and brought it into the state and Supreme Court); “corporatized” sectors of governmental services and gutted the economy to benefit his friends within that sector; ignored environmental issues in favor of corporate ones; left countless children of color behind; bankrupted the treasury not in a needless war; but in a completely unplanned one!
We cannot live in our own country without shame of our position in the world. His legacy will be of abuse of power, lying and greed.
Other than that, he was fine.
It’s appalling that people still consider George W. Bush as a good president. His presidency is synonym with disrupting government by ignoring congress and his engagement to administer the law. Using the opportunity of 9/11, he has successfully deluded the American people and led them like docile puppies to endless war. There is no merit in “removing a tyrant” if it has been achieved at the human and economic expense that is the war on Iraq (which has been conveniently waged under the umbrella term, “the war on terror”).
So the world is a better place for G.W. Bush’s corporate friends and the powerful at the untouchable agencies (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.), but democracy has made a huge step backward in the past eight years.
Guy Tiphane
listening on KALW San Francisco
I am an American citizen, 59 year old.
For the past 7 years President Bush has been an embarrassment for our country. He is the worst modern American President.
My wife and I have a constant debate; she feels his administration is the most corrupt, and I say George W. Bush’s Administration is the most inept, most incompetent.
And what really I find most galling is that George Bush has surrounded himself with political hacks, that have little to no regard for the American Constitution.
Good riddance, George W Bush, America, the world will be a much better place without your administration’s corruption and incompetence.
@ Janet T – 17:36
I don’t believe I suggested I was under any impressions of what to expect from the office I referred to at 17:10. I was merely asking a question. One I see is still waiting for a more direct reply. But I’m not holding my breath.
I do actually lean toward agreeing with you.
President Bush DID remove a dictator, an evil man, but the way he went about it was not only illegal, but extremely arrogant and isolationist and demonstrates the aggressive, unilateral focus of US Foreign Policy since World War Two…additionally his actions in Iraq distracted the nation from the real fight, and now look at where Afghanistan and Pakistan are now…while at the same time he diminished freedoms of individuals in the US and ignored home land security. He has stretched the military to its breaking point, has done nothing to work against Global Warming, the economy is in shambles, largely because of his aggressive actions, and all he does is isolate his enemies, making them more defiant and dangerous.
Saddam didn’t have any WMD, nor did he have any collaboration with Al Qaeda. He started an unlawful war and didn’t uphold the Constitution which he swore to protect. He has done some positive things around the world, like Liberia and Afghanistan, but Bush has harmed American influence around the world. So yes he is one of the worst US presidents ever.
Hitler and Mussolini did not make Europe a better place. But the European renaissance and reconstruction that followed WWII would not have happened had it not been for the terrible acts committed by the Axis powers.
Similarly, George W. Bush made the world a much worse place, but were it not for his disastrous presidency, the US population would not be ready to embrace a truly inspirational figure like Barack Obama.
I hope that the terrible legacy my government has left over the last eight years will be offset by a new approach of leading the world by example, not by bullying other countries.
Aaron in Portland, Oregon
What about the erosion of our U.S. constitution AND international law with regards to overthrowing and occupying a sovereign nation and our abuse and rendition of prisoners, some of which aren’t even terrorists or a threat to our country. Is there a international lawyer or constitutional lawyer listening?
George W. Bush is a laughing stock. No, he hasn’t made the world a safer, better place. The entire Bush administration has destroyed any credibility the government had what-so-ever.
My anger isn’t just about Iraq. I have incredible gripes about his work on this country as well. It is obvious that he is a wrecking ball, look at the U.S. economy, oil prices, and the job situation. This administration has done nothing but fill the pockets of their rich friends; while others continue to struggle, loosing their jobs overseas. George Bush has some serious personality flaws and they made themselves blatantly obvious throughout his presidency.
Bush is a criminal and should be brought up on committing war crimes and impeached. He did not act alone, he is not smart enough to have crafted what was done during his time in office. Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove hold the principle positions for that.
I have to say that I have never felt completely ashamed to have the presidents that we have had in my lifetime. That changed with President Bush. He has made it so that Americans are less safe and more hated in the world.
There is no justification to invade another country, destroy hundreds of thousands of civilians, poison the environment just to route out a few bad apples.
We did not destroy the town and its people where McVeigh, the perpetrator of the Oklahoma bombing lived.
President Bush made difficult decisions when the UN insisted on being indecisive. This is a mark of a good leader and history should treat him well – though I’m skeptical that the world media will allow history paint a fair picture of him.
Bush Jr. has possibly been the most damaging person in world history if you take into account the body count he has racked up in total. I would argue, that counting that he has forgone helping the millions killed by genocide and adding the innocents killed in Iraq, at the end of the day, he will have a higher death count than even Hitler. Over 6 million. Shocking!
And he does care what people think. At the last election he barely got more then 50% of the vote and he boasted a “mandate”! He is embarrassed to admit he is a failure and is pegging his hopes on the last chance for redemption… historical perspective. He is going to be sorely disappointed.
Better place? The world will be a better place when that bumbling, beady-eyed moron leaves office, and better still when he’s hauled off to the Hague in leg irons. We can only hope that there’s anything left of the world more than a smoking cinder when he’s done.
Worst president ever? He’s even worse than that. He is worse than one could ever have IMAGINED a president being. Bush has robbed every American of our precious birthright: the moral foundation that we took for granted. Even Richard Nixon in his darkest delusions never contemplated kidnapping, imprisoning, and torturing people at will, with neither trial nor charge. Nixon looks like Thomas Jefferson by comparison.
I now know something of how modern Germans feel. All I can say to a properly horrified world is that we’re very sorry, and we didn’t actually elect him, and we don’t quite know how it happened, and we’re very sorry.
Steve your comparison of America invading and occupying another country in Iraq as analogous to the civil war is ludicrous.
For one thing you don’t calculate the near million Iraqi civilian casualties. But secondly the reasons for civil war, are never the same as the reasons for invading another country. That’s like equating the colonial wars to the civil war, they are completely separate endeavors. Civil wars are inevitable collapse of government within one country and quite beyond control; the Iraq invasion was the premeditated attempt of one sovereign country not under threat to invade another.
He has done more to abbrogate individual rights in the United States than any President in history, thus doing the work of terrorists organizations themselves. By unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation he is no better than Saddam Hussein was in attacking Kuwait
reply to rick: 9-11 should have never happened. rice and ashcroft had their heads elsewere when they were more than adequately warned.
The president of the United States can not do anything good under the scope of the liberal minds, but history would do justice to the Bush’s Presidency.
George Bush is not perfect a perfect man, neither was Churchill, but Churchill was 100% right . I want President Bush to be a lot tougher to the evil of terrorism.
Liberalism is a mental disorder and they believe that Saddam Hussein was a good man, perhaps they believe that Hitler was also a good man. The liberals would destroy the world and their messiah Osama is more dangerous than his own followers.
George Bush has ruined America internationally and internally. Under his rule, the World has lost most if not all respect for the US and inside America we are a fiscally bankrupt and morally divided country. The “Great Uniter” has done more for the cause of global terrorism than a hundred Bin Ladens. His legacy is the destruction of the world’s last superpower.
@ Steve:
Good comparison, not.
There are just and unjust wars. Iraq is an unjust war. The civil war, WWll where just. Going into Rwanda & Sudan would, in my humble opinion would also have been just but there where no American interests.
Comparing the war to end slavery with a war based on lies and deception is a joke at best.
I would argue that President Bush has encouraged terrorism by his radical policies, disregard of human life and the geneve conventions. He has endorsed policies that are now destabilising the world such as his energy policy where biofuels have partly caused the prices of oil to rise and the poorest people to starve due to this. Surely, a more intelligent and forward looking Bush would have understood that the future is in need of renewable energy, not oilsand reffineries, drilling in Alaska, control of oil producing nations such as Iraq.
It is obvious that the sum of the Bush is: The world is one step closer to realising a situation where there are to many people starving and suffereing, energy is in short supply, people have predguse against one another and religions become polarised.
History will show that the invasion of Iraq was not part of a grand strategy. Rather, history will show that a form of a grand strategy was constructed around Bush’s desire to invade Iraq. The U.S. does not follow the “grand strategy” of which Iraq is supposed to be a part, except in the case of Iraq. For instance, the U.S. more than tolerates the lack of freedom in Saudi Arabia; Bush even goes to Saudi Arabia begging for lower gas prices.
Many outside the U.S. also do not understand the disaster that Bush’s view of executive power has wrought on the American constitutional scheme. Our government is based on separation of powers and checks and balances among the three branches of government. Bush has done his best to establish an executive that does not answer in any way to the other branches.
I believe the callers are being far too kind when analyzing whether the world is a safer place because of George Bush. I do not think the world is safer place as a result of his administration. In fact, Bush and his cronies have created more animosity and distrust among the global community. Bush and company have the highest number of classified documents than any other administration in U.S. history. The middle class is slowly dying away and many hurricane Katrina victims are awaiting government aid; hence citizens’ financial and overall safety continues to be threatened. Additionally, Sadam Hussein was not responsible for the 911 attacks, yet U.S. troops are embedded in the Iraqui Civil War where hundreds of Iraquis and Americans are dying daily-that does not seem safe to me. I am looking forward to the end of his crooked presidency and am welcoming a candidate who truly has the intelligence and compassion to promote world peace.
I really don’t get the praise for Bush’s actions following 911. Any President would have had the same set of circumstances and the same goal – namely reducing or eliminating terrorism.
But since the advent of the “War on Terror” terrorist attacks have increased. A tremendous recruiting tool has been established with the presence of American troops in the Middle East. The Taliban is on the rise in Afghanistan and in Iraq we basically made things so bad that they couldn’t get any worse and now we call a gradual decrease in the still tremendous violence “progress.” Everyone who can afford to leave Iraq has left and sectarian violence has resulted in a partitioned state. Of course the violence is down – the ethnic cleansing is nearly complete.
I think we had an opportunity following 911 to unite the world against violent extremists – instead we divided the world.
Thank you for discussing this issue. It is wonderfully controversial.
My personal opinion is that, overall, he has severrely damaged America’s reputation worldwide.
It will take more than one term of one president to repair our reputation.
I did agree with the overthrow of Hussein. I did agree with the combat to oust the Bathist (sp) regime. However, in the second year of the war, I began to see too many similarities to the Vietnam War. I was horrified and disgusted. In 2006 it was obvious to me that the disaster had evolved into a civil war.
Overall, President Bush and the decisions he has made and put into effect have resulted in terrifyingly volatile results in the entire middle east.
He has probably done some good things, though it is difficult to fine any.
I would say that President Bush had the right instincts – but his execution was extremely poor. He was absolutely right to fight terrorists in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately, he did not send enough troops to do the job properly.
In Iraq, President Bush started a war that was not necessary. He did this with (perhaps), the intention to bring freedom to Iraqis – but if so he should have sold to war policy on that basis – not WMD.
Guantanamo and Torture – Very, very bad for the United States’ image – almost certainly a war crime.
Katrina – breathtaking stupidity. This is the worst domestic stain on his record.
Overall, I think a good man who achieved an office that was too high for this capabilities.
Two points:
(1) The Bush Administrations war aims were skewed towards a conflict with Iraq
The man who took personal responsibility for bombing the World Trade Center is still alive (Osama Bin Laden);
the man who said he had no weapons of mass destruction was lynched (Sadam Hussain).
(2) How two-faced can you get?
Iraq – no weapons of mass destruction – war;
North Korea – nuclear bombs and the missiles to delivery them – diplomacy
Bottom line:
Whatever the Saudis ask Bush to do he will do.
The U.S. is just another emirate.
Has President Bush made the world a better place?
US interests matter to the US,whether the world is a better place is immaterial.
The USA is the no.1 country in the world, other countries have to know about the US,the US does not have to bother about other countries.
This point was made to me by an American whose insularity and lack of geographical knowledge I questioned.
Lets see
Budget deficit check
Trade deficit check
Massive National Debt check
Financial crisis check
Security crisis check
War check(nobody gets thanked for a war not even Winston Churchill)
Because of the things that Bush has done, I no longer wear my sweatshirt that has an American flag and the words “PROUD TO BE AMERICAN”
The entire mission of the Bush regime has been nothing less than to destroy the basic system of checks and balances that is the key element of American democracy. For some in this regime, and I suspect Bush himself is among them, this is symptomatic of a lack of understanding of, and curiosity about, US history and it’s relation to world history. Others in the regime, obviously smarter, are simply committed to the concept of rule by an oligarchy rather than a true democracy. They seek to cloak their sinister goals in mantles of patriotism by controlling the media and creating an atmosphere of fear.
This regime took advantage of the opportune (for them) criminal conspiracy of 9/11/01 to declare a war without end against a nameless, placeless opponent which gave them justification for numerous actions, such as the unilateral, unprovoked war and murder abroad and the stripping of civil liberties and destruction of civil society at home.
Fortunately, since the characteristic shared by all in the regime is that they are ideologues who ignore facts that don’t fit their mental model of the world, many of their ideas and schemes have gone awry and the corruption they engendered been exposed.
Unfortunately, tremendous damage has been done, some of which will take years to correct and sadly, because hundreds of thousands have been killed and maimed, leaves a lasting stain on the American nation.
The opportunity to provide moral and civil leadership has been lost for eight long years and in the void that was left, much in the world has gone in the wrong direction.
This is the legacy of Bush. Unquestionably the worst of American presidents.
W will be judged as the worst president in U.S. history after he leaves office and loses the ability to control information. Just as with all major efforts in his life, he comes out smelling like a rose financially while leaving a trail of wreckage behind. Wrecked lives, wrecked countries, wrecked economies, wrecked political principles and parties, and a wrecked Constitution.
The numerous voices on this program speaking up in support of bush, The Lesser, all express a xenophobic fear of “world terrorism,” having no comprehension of the interference in other peoples lives practiced worldwide by the U.S. that creates fertile ground for the growth of “terrorism.”
The invasion and occupation in an ongoing criminal enterprise for the purpose of theft of Iraqi resources and establishment of a permanent U.S. military outpost in the Middle East.
Going to Iraq was not the best thing. I don’t think every country needs to be a democracy. Many countries in the Middle East don’t need to be a democracy.
You ought to know what the majority opinion will be when you ask a bunch of emotional people what they think of George W. Bush. America has had worse presidents than he is–Buchanan, Harding, Hoover.
I don’t believe that President Bush made the world safer, nor do I think he made it more dangerous. He simply tried an ineffective solution in Iraq. Islamic terrorists made the world more dangerous, and that was their goal. It is going to take the combined efforts of all civilized nations, regardless of religion, to make the world safer by opposing terrorism of all types. And all of them together will sometimes try ineffective solutions, just like George W. Bush
No he has not! Bush opened a Pandora’s Box in the Middle East, got America in Debt, ruined America’s reputation abroad, killed a healthy foreign policy by “going it alone”, took America back to a Wild West mentality and pissed off the Muslim world with his policies, comments, killing and his lop-sided (pro-Israel) politics. As a result, the terrorist situation is much worse, having handled it like a cowboy instead of a statesman. The world has become too complex for such a president. I am hoping, that with the next, U.S. president, I won’t be ashamed to call myself American.
Some people say that Harry Truman has been redeemed by current historians; but he still is the history’s worst murderer. Cruel and shameless are the only way you can judge them, they’re horrible human being for what they’ve done.
There is no redeeming for people like Truman or Bush, if you value human life.
As I travelled throughout Europe this summer, I was ashamed to say I was from America. To get involved in a war that no one supports is ridiculous. Well, we are talking about George Bush; the only support he cares about is the support from the oil companies.
Don’t get me wrong. I am very happy for Iraq and that we were able to bring down Saddam Hussain but we should have left and let them run their own country. Staying in that place any longer only puts the that country and it’s people in a position where the blind are leading the blind.
If he wants to wage war on terror, what about Sudan? Has he forgotten about Africa since he already checked them off his list of places to help?
Oh, and please don’t forget that he opposed a bill that would take the tax charged for cigarettes to help pay for children’s healthcare.
I could droll on about all of the failures from Bush and his administration. I could cover every misstep ad nauseam from the massive Katrina response failure to the ever decling state of our economy. But I won’t. I simply have two words.
Good riddance!!
as an american in self exile, i think bush was the closest america has come to a fascist. absolutely lawless, ruling by executive orders and secret spying and torturing. his wrong headed war for profit, a thousand times more enemies and lost friends, launching a so-called endless war on terror where very little threat existed. i t is all the neo-con plan to shove the world around in the name of holy profit.
Watch what happened after Bush took the reins in 2000:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/02/10/nkorea.timeline/index.html
Increased extremist recruitment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html
Oversaw and propagated corruption of energy industry
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4830129/
Participated in the most outrageous and high level of treason ever committed in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_Libby
Gas prices, food prices, inflation, national debt, and unemployment are all up to record high numbers. The dollar, international respect and confidence, military integrity, efficiency, and recruitment, and US overall prosperity are all down to record low numbers.
If there is one good thing to say. well I guess if you stretch it. The increase in oil and the housing foreclosures have made people drive less and therefore reduce the US carbon footprint. Look how hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies have lead to more affordable housing.
Bush is a self serving, insecure fool who is responsible for more death and destruction that I could’ve imagined. 3,000 die on 9-11 as a result of him ignoring intellegence, and then as he sat dumb in a classroom while it happened. 4,000 dead troops, and tens of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq, while tens of thousands have died in Sudan and elsewhere. He proves his ignorance, detachment and general cluelessness everytime he opens his mouth, as he lets the majority of his own populace fall into poverty in a new police state. He is surely a criminal worthy of impeachment and trial. The world is so much worse for his presidency.
@ Terry
Are you suggesting that either Bush or Truman is responsible for more deaths than Hitler, Stalin or Mao???
If so, please get a refund for whatever education you got.
By the end of Bush’s term, the United States will have spent at least a trillion dollars on this questionable conflict in Iraq. There are so many areas of the globe where these resources could have been better spent. For example, millions of people die annually due to poor water quality. With a trillion dollars, we could be closer to energy self-sufficiency. Bush’s legacy will be one of squandering our national treasure. We should fight terrorism by improving our humanitarian assistance and responding to evil by doing good.
Here are some of his accomplishments:
Got rid of Saddam, but did it for all the wrong reasons.
Not gotten rid of any other dictator.
Forgot to plan for the peace in Iraq or to rebuild the infrastructure Lied about Saddams ties to terrorism and done very little (and too
late) to win the war in Afrghanistan
Has institutionalized detention torture and extreme rendition.- -has held innocent people for 6 years without accusation Undermined the rule of world law by opposing World Criminal Court Strongly supported the privatization of military occupations Tried to forestall any progress on global warming by insisting on only “market based approaches”
Corrupted the US Constitution by lying to the American people and violating many laws.
Contributed billions to malaria and AIDs in Africa Failed to take any serious initiative in the Middle East that involves all players.
Made the world afraid of terrorism, without offering anything other than a “bomb them” solution Tried to undermine nearly all environmental laws in the US Supported space exploration, but not with any serious focus.
Spoken out against racism
Failed totally to take responsibility for Katrina disaster Wasted Ameirca’s wealth on a wasteful war with very vague (and changing objectives) Relied on a governance of fear, not on a positive view of the future.
You be the judge.
Great NorCal minds think alike:
Precisely the point, what America wanted was to see Bin Laden’s head on a pole first and of course that hasn’t happened and second the Taliban finished off which the news reports show is far from the truth.
He has pledged a ton of money to help Africa, but as we learned yesterday it is not getting there…additionally the money he has pledged to fight AIDS is conditional, one must accept Bush and other Extremist Christians’ view of the world, all of his humanitarian efforts come with strings and conditions and are intended to promote his image, not to help people…look at his desperate push with the Israelis and Palestinians, peace in that area is a noble and worthy cause, but Bush wants it so he can save his legacy, and in typical Bush form he and his administration are trying to dictate how it is to be done, even the Israelis are not listening, just look at their comments concerning Sec States Rice’s comments about additional settlements.
@Terry
I am not sure who you are referring to because as far as I know Truman is not seen as the worst person in history. Bush took the US to war but several other dictaors have killed their own people. I think that is worse than anything Bush did. Stalin killed his own people.
i think the war for was OIL, Bush was not comptenet president. He totally failed to bring democracy to Iraq and failed to do america and world any thing good. Generally, no one can give a country Democracy, it has to be earned.Iraqi people are now enslaved by americans….
As an American, I have little to no respect for President Bush. His Administration was filled with people who had there own agenda, i.e. Rumsfeld, Rove, the Religious Right, etc. As a result of these and other negative “policies” we have gone backward in scientific advancements, diplomatic status, infant mortality rate, etc. The Admin. basically plundered US coffers for their own gain and leave this country in ruin.
Lets not forget it wasn’t just Bush. The president can’t delare war, and put the patriot act and other laws into place. It was all his buddies that helped it all. 😉
-Anthony, LA, CA
i think one good point is that Bush didn´t ly to his enemies and didn`t use euphemisms for his”power-policy” and showed the world that “power-policy” is the bad reality in this world without any mask
George W Bush made the world a horrible place. President Bush manipulated the American people into a false war into Iraq. President Bush and Dick Chaney lied about how there was WMDs in Iraq, that Al-Queda was supported by Saddam Hussain, Iraq was a threat to the world, and that the Iraqi people will treat us as liberators. What Bush, Chaney, and Co. wanted from Iraq was Oil. Thanks to Bush, Iran is now out of control, and President Bush sees this as a new opportunity for a new war. President Bush also has trampled on the US Constitution. President Bush is the only president in American history who is taking the free-ride when he is clearly violating the Constitution. He as decapitated Habeus Corpus (pardon my spelling, I’m not good in Latin), and he is blocking investigations against his administration. President Bush has a Attorney General that President Nixon wished he had.
Excuse me?! How can anyone try to compare George W. Bush to Winston Churchill! For one thing, Churchill was a voice in the wilderness in warning about Nazi Germany, whereas Bush was a Governor or running a baseball team, with no apparent interest in the ROW(Rest of the World) before his operative committed grand theft in 2000! Bush’s warnings also turned out to be “crying wolf”, over months. There was NO alQuaeda in Iraq before Bush invaded! It is precisely because the USA and UK are bogged down in Iraq that the dual travesties of Darfur and Zimbabwe are continuing!!!
Wow, someone is blaming Lebanon on Bush? I wonder if that guest ever heard of the lebanese civil war, which began when Nixon was President. It lasted for a very long time, and I assure you, had nothing to do with Bush. But if it’s easier to use Bush as a scapegoat for every problem on earth than to make people accept responsibility for their decisions, more power to you!
I am appalled to hear your program sounding like a cheering section for that wretched idiot George Bush. I urge you to bear in mind that his approval rating in the US is now about 25%, the lowest for any president in history. Surely it’s even lower in the world at large.
Your show makes it sound as though domestic and international opinion were evenly divided. It is not. His support has finally withered to a fanatical few, in the face of overwhelming evidence.
I’ve always liked the British press because it’s less hobbled than our own by the bondage of “the other hand,” the compulsive treatment of every issue as having two equally credible sides. You good people are going American at a very unfortunate moment.
This is about the most milk-toast panel I’ve heard on WHYS, why didn’t you just pick people randomly off the street in America? The panel is debating semantics on an ethical question? It’s a simple yes or no; and why was he a good President or not. One thing everyone who talks on this issue will agree on is there’s nothing subtle about the ethics of GW.
How about Scott McClellan’s perspective, how about Kevin Phillips, it’s too bad we can’t hear from some real dismay from Republicans.
The terrorist attack of 9/11 was a tragedy not only for the US but for the world. Many of those killed were from other countries and the vast majority of nations, including such “rogue” regimes as Iran, expressed their solidarity with the American people. George Bush immediately squandered that good will, even distancing the US from our longtime European allies. So-called “American interests” are now world interests. We must rejoin the world community in fighting the global threat of terrorism.
For the United States Bush has been terrible.President Bush used propaganda to scare the U.S. citizens into giving up our rights. the government now has the ability to supersede my rights and look into my private business. he has been the worst president of us. he took away the foundations that America was founded on. As for the world, i think if we wouldn’t have initially put our hands in other countries business we would have a better world now. let us not forget that America has funded many terrorist groups. therefore stopping one is still a net loss. his way of dealing with what will be his and our legacy is deplorable. i am disappointed in our leaders ability to lead with truth and honor.
Maybe the question should be, has Osama Bin Laden made the world a safer place? There really was never the Bush that we see today without Osama and the 9/11 attacks.
For well over a hundred years the global oil corporations have corrupted governments and created and waged wars for the control of Oil and Bush/Cheney are just a very bad continuation of that legacy.
At this moment of Global Warming crisis when we need to drastically cut back on burning fossil fuels, Bush wants to drill in wildlife refuges to get and burn more Oil and cause more global warming.
Bush has done everything backwards to logic and rational thinking.
“Backwards Bush!” will be his legacy.
Not to worry my liberal friends. Obama the messiah is coming to save the world!
IT IS A LIE TO SAY BUSH WANTS DEMOCRACY IN THE ARAB WORLD. HIS TWO CLOSEST ALLIE IN THE ARAB WORLD ARE SAUDU ARABIA AND EGYPT WHERE THERE ARE FLAGRANT DISREGARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND NO DEMOCRACY WHATSOEVER.
lol @ whoever said they don’t wear thier “proud to be an american” sweater anymore, just because it was probably made in china. Another B.S. subject that Bush and fellow republicans messed up. Lets just use cheap labor so we can make a bunch of money, but screw our economy and the American people over in the process. To bad more people don’t boycott Wal-Mart.
-Anthony, LA, CA
“he is the only president who has stood up for the world in defense of Terrorism.”
Please, when are people going to realize he didn’t do it for terrorism which is the propoganda he used as a justification; he did it for his own hidden agenda. Look at his cabinet and you don’t need to look much further. He has a little frat club that is all getting rich while other people suffer.
A weak-minded man who has surrounded himself with right-wing ideologues, Bush has headed an administration that, through it’s hubris and lack of forethought, has damaged the reputation of the US to an extent that will take years to recover from. The most horrifying aspect of the entire 8 year debacle is that in spite of ample evidence of what this administration was about by the end of the first term, we re-elected him. Hopefully, we’ve learned our lesson.
Hi,
George Bush is interested in Bush Inc only.
Materialism leads to war.
Bush and his friends wiped out Lebannon in 2006.
A crime that cannot be forgiven,
As for Iraq. How many terrorists were in Iraq before 2003.
Now Bush is planning to attack Iran.
Bush is in the business of creating more enemies.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
😦
Wow, Steve, you really like Bush! Bear in mind, he hasn’t done anything about Sudan either… so I guess since that’s something he hasn’t sone, it must be right, right?
J.c.
Oh, for goodness sakes, Iraq was a democracy under Saddam Hussein! It was corrupt but it was a Democracy! Everyone had to vote!
The Bush argument about spreading democracy just doesn’t even pass the smell test!
The day Bush announced a war on “Terror” I knew he was a war zealot. You just can’t go around killing all the people who don’t agree with you and expect the world (or history) to smile upon your actions. I thought we learned our lesson in Vietnam, to not start a war that has no end, a war with no obtainalbe objective, a war whose propaganda is based on lies. Bush has done much to destabilize countries in order to make way for his own interests. When he retires as president, he will be right back in big oil, and lining his pockets with Iraqi oil money and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil money. He’s in it looking out for number one. His whole presidency has been about obscuring or hiding the truth, making up lies to publish and insert in crazy speeches in order to get others to let his do whatever the hell he wants. If you say something enough times, people start to believe it. The thing is, we all know his policies are ridiculous. Money to Africa fro abstinence training-you can’t just tell a whole population to never have sex again. Libia sold Iraq plutonium, a “fact” he knew was false months before he said it. In regard to the whole WMD thing-you know we (America) are the only country to ever use all three- chemical warfare in Vietnam, biological warfare in Korea, and we all know what we did with our first nukes. And we acted like parents who tear apart a teenager’s room because we are sure the have drugs, beating them and burning their belongings, but not finding any, end up saying, “oh well, I didn’t find any, but I know you had them anyway.” UNFAIR.
We have so many -so many- problems here in the US, but we didn’t declare war on ourselves when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City building. It is unfair for us to blame an entire population for acts of a few nuts.
Bush is a war monger. He is also bull headed, he did not win the presidency the first time. He started the war in Iraq because we have never elected a new president in the middle of a war, and when it began , he said a couple months was all that it would take, and I knew it would be more because there was no other way Americans would give him a second term. Starting a war doesn’t guarantee you a positive place in history.
We may never know the real story behind whatever Bush has told the world. WHen he was Governor of Texas, all his records were supposed to become part of public record, yet he sequestered everything and sent it out of state, so he’s hiding something that happened there too. Unjust war, extreme secrecy, and ignoring the checks and balances that other braches of government, secretly reading all e-activity and phone conversations-these are the things Bush will be known for.
One last point, it took a week to figure out why Anna Nichole Smith died, but in less than 3 days they could point at a person who was “at fault” for the demolision-type collapse of two huge buildings half a world away. I don’t believe it. The empire state building had a plane fly into it and it did not collapse. Lets be real here.
We should not go around making other governments change, it is none of our business. I am anxiously awaiting the end of this disasterous presidency. It was invalid and objectionable from the day his brother (gov of Fla) told the secretary of state in Florida to change things until George Bush came out on top. It’s only gone downhill form there.
It’s too late in the last few months of his presidency to act like Mother Theresa.
@ Angela
Stalin didn’t just kill his own people, but he killed tens of millions of them. Mao’s policies led to the deaths of millions of his own poeple…
Bush misses the point, Democracy can not be forced upon a people from the outside, it must be built internally. Everyone, when it comes down to it will choose freedom, but when faced with an invading army, whether they are touting the ideals of Freedom and Justice or not, are still seen as an invading army and will create resistance, coupled with the often clumsy and arrogant actions of the invading army (or those hired to fight for it) only builds more resistance.
Pointing out the “good” things Bush has done is like saying “yeah, but Hitler was a great dancer” or some other nonsense. Bush’s actions are inexcusable.
You know, I think it’s great and wonderful that we’re helping Africa ($50 billion dollars you said) but how about our own citizens? The people who are losing their homes because of this ridiculous credit crunch? How about Katrina victims? Do those people who lost their homes not matter? Of course not because that’s not on the world stage.
Truth is he messed up Iraq and that’s a no brainer.
Now under his watch:
The US Dollar is pretty much Worthless
The States have had over 100% increase on petrol.
New Orleans was abandoned to drown, and its still not doing to well.
The recession, that may have to do with spending too much on the war, through all the private contractors who are also his buddies.
Banks were saved during sub-prime crisis, when it would’ve made more sense to save the individual people, (which would’ve protected the banks as well)
He tried to Change French Fries into Freedom Fries.
Come On. Really? Bush is simply the inspiration for a future Shakespearean style comedy. And Tragedy.
Those that hate President Bush do not understand evil. These are the kind of people that would be apologetic for Adolf Hitler and would condemn Churchill for standing up to Hitler.
The US was attacked by terrorist and they took the life of over 3,000 people. What we suppose to do?
England was attacked by the Nazis. England did the right thing in order to protect its citizens. Today Churchill haters would defend the evil of Hitler.
Today, nothing has changed, the world is full of haters when it comes to good men fighting evil.
Now, when we have an earthquake, hurricane, tornados, volcanoes eruptions, by all means blame President Bush.
For the haters President Bush is the illness of the world.
Bush has committed the greatest amount of atrocities towards all mankind. No one is more responsible for destroy life than Bush. I think your panel is missing the basic point. There really is no arguing here because Bush has made the world an unsafe place. Thanks.
First let’s not cheat the #’s. 3 trillion in, 3 trillion out if we get out now.
We had no interest in Iraq except oil. Rarely is the question asked and never is it answered why the CIA had no primary role in Iraq, because everyone knows, if it hadn’t been for oil we wouldn’t have even gone in.
A good moral decision could be argued to have removed Hussein alone and let the Iraqi’s fight for their freedom, but that wasn’t Bush’s decision.
Our president had a chance to pull the world together to fight terrorism after 9/11 – instead he tore it apart. What Bush has done for me as an American citizen is make it harder for me to make ends meet,- gas has almost quadrupled in price since he’s been in office, my paycheck can’t keep up with the skyrocketing prices, I can’t afford to even drive my kids to the beach for the day let alone take a vacation. That is what I will always remember about President Bush. And for those who say he has nothing to do with the price of oil – think about it – We’re in Iraq and the Arabs are fairly quiet about it – Bush got his war and the Arabs get more and more for their oil – The Arabs don’t need to terrorists to ruin America they just need to keep raising the price of oil – Bush made a deal with the devil and the soul he sold was ours
Quickly: one holds President Bush responsible only for the negative effects his decisions and actions made by him worldwide. One does not blame him for all the horrible things going on in the world. It is simply that President Bush has been largely responsible for many poor decisions which have resulted in radically worsening the condition of our world.
This man, I”m sorry I did not catch his name, needs to take a wake-up-and-smell-the nitro pill!!
smile…….some of his comments I have agreed with, however, this particular view is completely upside down!
Although I appreciate the discussion of international poolicy on the bush legacy this is only a portion of the total arguement that will shape his legacy. Please lets not forget the impact he has had and the many blunders and his disregard for AMERICAN LAW
Bush has made the world a worse place! He opened a Pandora’s Box with his invasion of Iraq, ruined America’s reputation and foreign policy, and pissed off most of the Muslim world with his comments, policies and arrogance. Not to mention the fact, that he hasn’t taken care of his own people. How can he? All the money and focus is going into his Wars! I want to feel proud of my culture again. Maybe there’s a chance with the next president…
On the subject of AIDS funding for Africa, yes GW Bush has provided millions of dollars of funding, but that funding has many restrictions on it that the governments are forced to follow if they want the money. Those restrictions are based on a right wing, conservative agenda, and include abstinence only sex ed, no ability to work with people involved in the sex trade, and restrictions on needle exchange programs, to name but a few. When the governemts in Africa accept this money, they also accept the rules, and the rule explicitly forbid accepting any money from anyone else, including their own budget, unless those rules are upheld. This effectively forces conservative Christian values and morals on a diverse population, or sentences those same people to death. Not a very free choice, is it?
Interesting that there should be such support for Bush’s AIDs policy in Africa, a policy which began by cutting off funding for all NGO’s that promoted family planning and distribution of the condoms that have been proven to do more to prevent AIDs than anything else.
Anyone could have thrown money at the problem. The fact that Bush did is hardly an endorsement of his leadership.
“Please lets not forget the impact he has had and the many blunders and his disregard for AMERICAN LAW.”
SPOT ON! The American people are giving their freedoms away and don’t even know it.
Mr Bush worked through the United Nations to get approval for the action against the government of Afgahnistan. After the attacks during 9-11 the world believed he was justified in removing a government which allowed terrorists to plan and carry out attacks on other sovereign nations.
However there was no proof that any terrorist attacks were being planned or carried out against the United States by the Iraqi government. Yes it was an oppressive regime but so are governments of other countries and the US has not attacked them (ie North Korea). It is an affront to international laws when one nation invades another sovereign nation.
To justify this action there must be irrefutable proof and many countries believed the US did not provide this to the United Nations. That is why so many countries in the United Nations did not support the invasion. The UN weapons inspector himself had stated that there was weapons that were “unaccounted for” and on further investigation he felt that these had probably been destroyed but had no proof of it. The US decided to ignore his report and instead latched onto the phrase “unaccounted for weapons” and interpreted it as “concealed weapons” and used it as rationale for their invasion.
Pre-emptive attacks are a dangerous precident. When India and Pakistan both threatened each other with nuclear weapons if one or the other had decided on a pre-emptive strike we would have had many deaths and a guaranteed war. It was a sad day when diplomacy broke down and the United States pre-emptively attacked Iraq – they guaranteed many deaths and a war.
It is Mr. Bush’s responsibility to mend the fences with other countries and aid those destroyed governments to establish stability and infrastructure.
George Bush, is, and always has been, a FAILURE! He stole the first election, and then lied about it. He failed to capture, much-less bring to justice bin Laden. He lied, and still lies, about Iraq, and never even had a good excuse, let alone a reason to go there, and had no business ever going there. He had privatised our government to the point of fascism, and made a profit for his cronies in the process. He had violated our own Constitution, repeatedly, inorder to gain position and power for himself and “friends.” He make everyone around him, Blair, Brown, Israel, etc., look like fools and bumpkins, and lap=dogs.
He has done everything wrong he possibly could. He has failed in Afganistan. He has failed in Iraq, in Farfur, in Samalia, and is going to fail in Iran and Sudan. He alraedy has by most accounts. His “legacy” will be one of a failed presidency, in a failling country, and will go down in history as the worst president this country has ever, and will ever know. He DESIRES fear, war, hate, and absolute criminal behavior. He thrives on it.
And he lies, every step of every way, about everything he even thinks about.
He is also a boob of the lowest order, and an embarrassment, not only to the office and our country, but to the world, and humanity as a whole. He perpetuates the stereotype of the ignorant, illiterate, ill-bred, inbred, hateful, spiteful, vengeful and violent American, and cares not.
In my opinion, he is a thief, a liar, murderer of children, war-monger and fear -monger. He is also a traitor to our country, our constitution, and to life itself.
If the aliens come and grab him as example of the human race, we will be exteminated as virus, deadly to all who may inhabit the universe.
I truely hope that he dies, by his own hand, and is cast into the bowels of for all time.
A plague upon him and his for his TOTAL incompetence.
John an John are right on- hey poetry!
One of the biggest problems with aids in Africa is the prostitutes who don’t even know they’re infected. Because Bush’s aid has those restrictions it doesn’t even get distributed to help this cause. Rack that up with the militant movements he’s ignored, and the ‘secret’ air raids he’s conducted in Somalia killing civilians I’d say he’s ambivalent about Africa at best.
Fae Marie also made the right comparison: Bush is equally ambivalent about American citizens!
It saddens me to listen to all the talk about making the world a safer place and how many millions one leader killed as opposed to how many the other person killed. One person killed is me or you and that is unacceptable, isn’t it?
When are we going to have a debate about why it is we think that killing lives to save lives is moral and just?
Truly,are you comfortable with a young person dying so that you can be safe?
Are you comfortable knowing that people are treated abominably because someone has labeled them a terrorist?
Could you tie up other human beings and torture and humiliate them for information? Could you? If you could, then ask yourself what gives you the moral right to do so?
@ Vanessa
Can you tell me what freedoms I have given away? The only difference I’ve noticed is that I have to remove my shoes at the airport, and that’s because some lunatic stuck explosives in his shoes. Oh yeah, I cannot bring liquids on planes anymore, again, becuase some lunatics tried to make liquid bombs.
Selena,
To me it’s as though Tony Blair was back in office today on WHYS. That panel just about put me to sleep.
@Vanessa
Any freedom that has been taken away from me is understandable after 9-11. But those freedoms only hurt the people that may have tried to plan an attack on American soil. If you aren’t doing anything illegal or planning on doing anything, you are not affected by the changes, due to the Patroit Act.
in my opinion, george dubya is a product of the very same, 1% of the american wealthy for whom he created huge tax breaks: people who believe that they can have whatever they want whenever they want, regardless of who it hurts, and who are you to say anything about it? to say that bush did what he thought was right suggests he believed there to be some moral do-gooding influencing his decision-making. WRONG! i believe his decision to go to war was more related to avenging his father’s inability to manage that when HE was in office, as well as protecting his own oil rights than anything more noble. he is a typical republican: smile in your face, sing a hymn, lay claim to the ground he’s standing on – which is yours – tying you up, and making you watch while he rapes your wife, all the while demanding she enjoy it!
he is a coward, a liar, a manipulator and a bully.
he reminds me of men who live by the “good ole boy” code, with little or no thought outside of his own realm of pleasure. i do not believe he is able to muster an ounce of remorse for those people who died in the war, i don’t care how many tears gathered in the corners of his eyes! it would have been extremely interesting to see how quickly the troops came out of the war if either of his daughters were in battle.
the sooner he is out of the white house, the sooner the democrats can go about fixing things.
Good lord – where is Bush getting all of this money?! Regardless of anything else he has done, this spoiled little daddy’s boy doesn’t even know what the price of gas is and is spending money like a drunk sailor – a trillion here a billion there – “What? my loyal subjects are loosing there houses and jobs – let’s just send out some money and fix everything” Thanks GW that got me about 3 1/2 tanks of gas – Bush must not watch Dr Phil, you can’t fix the problem by just throwing money at it – Why is this man not impeached yet?
As a psychologist, not a political scientist or historian, I look at Bush from the perspective of his character as an individual as well as his effect on my life as an American. Mr. Bush appears to me to have a narcissistic personality disorder. He appears to believe that the rules of the constitution and of morality do not apply to him. He has spied illegally on our citizens, he has given huge contracts to friends and relatives, he has thrown the Geneva convention out the window, he has quietly usurped powers that were constitutionally never intended for the presidency, he has ignored and denied obvious environmental issues, and yet still believes that the world should see him as a compassionate and moral man. As the common man struggles in this country to pay the huge price increases on utilities, gasoline, transportation, food, Mr. Bush’s family and friends have made obscene windfall profits off of his policies. Americans are having foreclosures in record numbers, unemployment is high, gun control is gone and gun violence is rampant. Iraqis are suffering more now than they were under Hussein and there are more terrorists not less. If we had spent even one tenth of the money we have spent on this war, on aid to Muslim nations, there probably would be no terrorism. Terrorism comes from suffering and you can’t stop suffering with war, only with kindness, compassion, and generosity.
think president Bush’s legacy’s a big mass.. In fact, now most of european, asian, middle eastern dislike american people which is in my opinon the resul of president Bush’s administration.. He’s very disliked and unpopular here in Europe..
For all the talk of Iraq and Afghanistan, people forget what George Bush has done to the office of the Presidency itself. In war, he has hired outside contractors to feed and furnish the troops; contractors who, incidentally supported his campaigns mightily with millions of dollars in donations.
He so depleted our volunteer National Guard that they were not able to help in New Orleans, nor even now with the flooding in Iowa. He has been a disaster & historians will judge him as such.
I like what Dr Mwanawasa keeps saying when people focuses much on his wrongs; quote, “people forget easily, the maxim that no good deed go unpunished is right”, end quote. The world will miss the water when the well runs dry. War is a wrong way of solving problems but overall George W. Bush Jnr has been a great man.
The world is better place now.
Bush may have done some good things for other countries like Africa, but he’s not the president of Africa. He’s our president and we hate him. When will we get a president that is more worried about his/her own country instead of helping all the other countries so that they look better to the world. He’s the American president, but he’s not taking care of America. Feed your own before handing out food.
Washington may not have as much power as we assume and are certainly not responsible for most of the world’s ills but President George W. Bush in invading Iraq specifically as a part of the war on terror committed what anyone but a stubbornly blind person would call a colossal and unnecessary mistake with dubious motives which has spawned several more problems than it solved. His reaction to the disaster in New Orleans, his single minded approach to his own allies and his double standards approach to democracy in the Middle East display his lack of judgment, arrogance and self righteousness.
Having worked as a doctor in Nigeria I’ve seen something of his PEPFAR program. Though highly effective, bringing life and hope to perhaps millions of otherwise hopeless and stigmatized sufferers, it’s lack of emphasis on prevention is a big dampener.
Will history prove him right? No, history has already shown him to be wrong – there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. History teaches us that no man, or in this case, country, is an island and Bush has learnt this lesson too late as shown by his last minute frantic attempts at diplomacy around the world.
George Bush is a complete buffoon. He has done nothing for the world and his profligacy has badly weakened his own country. It will be left to historians to figure out how on earth he managed to win a second term. The world may not be worse off because of George Bush, but America definitely is.
The American President, George Bush, took the nation to wari n Iraq for the right reasons. The REASONS he said war was necessary were the ones he and his advisers decided would bring the most backing and the least flack from the fence sitters and the political maneuverers arrayed against any action he takes. He should have trusted the American people and the leaders of other countries to understand why it was necessary. He should have said going to war in Iraq was a huge gamble that the Iraquis, of all the peoples in the mideast, if freed from the tyrant Saddam Hussein, and with help from the U.S., would want to and be able to establish a stable working democracy in an area generally opposed to democracy. And he has a sincere belief that a strong democratic government that has as its reason for existence the good of the people, would be less vulnerable to the allure of terrorism.
The gamble has not yet paid off. Events could go either way. It depends on the Iraqi people.
President Bush has made majority if not the entire countries in the world to look at America as a target especially the propagandastic war he took to Iraq and Afghanistan which has led the US economy to even decline beyound repair.
The only the people of USA have now is Obama if not except Russia step in or China
From the beginning of time, lives are given for freedom so people can analyze this moral judgement based on propaganda and academic review. That is the nature of what we are. President Bush made a decision that none of us can step into to except to judge it from far away. We’re safer than when 911 happened, at least in the United States. Political change is happening at a rate that some of us don’t like but it is getting better in Iraq, (based on people that are living there or we’re the victim of a butcher by the name of Sadam. Lets continue to moralize and have our academic judements and not truely know what we’re talking about . Base all your facts on what we see and read., because for some reason we think this is empirical truth which then allows us to make hugh judements.
@Jim
“From the beginning of time, lives are given for freedom so people can analyze this moral judgement based on propaganda and academic review.”
Quite true, imo
But is this acceptable to you? Are you happy for life to continue in this manner?
Jim Harper~
Speaking of doing your homework, I somehow doubt you have read “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, co-authored by Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby in 1991, where they layed out the rationale for invading Iraq in order to establish a “significant American force in the Gulf region”, something they also described as being more important than dealing with Saddam Hussein.
But if you really believe we went in to liberate the Iraqi’s and spread democracy then don’t bother – you’ve already drank the Kool-aid.
As far as I am concerned, Bush should be had up for crimes against humanity.
He is also probably the dumbest leader/president of all time. He and his allies, Blair and Howard, conned the whole world into believing the propaganda on Iraq having so called ‘weapons of mass destruction’. He should be in JAIL right now, so that he cannot cause the world any more grievous bodily harm…
He and his cronies have made billions of dollars with their interests in weapons manufacturing and I feel sorry for the American tax payer. I am not a Saddam supporter by any means, but he was the only person that would have been able to control that melting pot that is present in Iraq right now.
Bush’s warmongering arrogance is unbelievable, and he can’t understand why the whole world thinks of him in this way….?? what an idiot !!
@Graham in NZ —
Thank you for your kind words and your consideration of Bush’s crimes against America, which so easily and so often get lost (even within the US) amidst the enormity of his crimes against the rest of the world. His casual destruction of our most sacred principles has cut the fabric of our nation more deeply than we can even yet comprehend.
If anything you were overgenerous. I think it’s all too clear that the world is immeasurably worse off in all kinds of ways because of Bush. The 75% of Americans who have (finally) grown weary of him would probably concede the point, inasmuch as we consider the rest of the world at all, i.e., not very much.
We don’t have to await the verdict of history on anything about the presidency of GW Bush, despite his fevered fantasy that someday we will finally understand his greatness (it’s just too grand and glorious for us to recognize so soon). We don’t have to wait for historians to tell us how he won a second term, as you speculated. I can tell you right here and now: He stole it, as he did the first time.
Crimes against humanity – that should be directed towards Hussein and certainly not against Bush. Iraq possesses uranium Chemical/Substance used to create WMD. Why dont people understand that. The world is a better place without such a sadistic evil person (Hussein) in power.
The accusations that our soldiers are specifically targeting Iraqi civilians is a drastic and troubling distortation (propaganda) of the truth which is typical of the type of information you will find on the BBC and is a belief shared by most unthinking uneducated viewers simply because it allows many ignoranamous’ to buy into idea the US is a superpower that got its power from recking havoc on the people that cant defend themselvs.
It would very naive of people to think that that country did not pose any serious risk to civilized world? The countless number of deaths the people of Iraq and the extreme manner in which they were put to death by such a brutal dictator such as Hussein is mind bogling.
Folks, the Middle East, although possibly not all bad people, breed terror into the lives of many foreign and domestic countries. Terrorism is a way of life for them and it always has been. The United States has an interest in protecting its own way of life free from terrorism even if it means invading another country. We cannot wait for them to act. We must be proactive. Failure to do so would end our existance.
and for those of you who have convinced yourself that we invaded Iraq to reap the benefits of oil, why am i now paying almost twice as much money for gas. That argument is easily dismissed.
I’m almost reluctant to delve into Iraq, because it’s just such a small sliver of the catalog of horrors GWB has committed, and it’s too often the only one discussed. But it’s worth thinking about.
I don’t know why he invaded Iraq. I think nobody does. I know what were NOT the reasons: WMD, democracy, whatever other reasons he cited were of course lies. We know about the cobbled-up WMD, but with or without them, it was clear as he trotted out a series of different reasons that they were lies, each one improvised as the previous one failed to convince. If you’re telling the truth, you only tell it once, in one version.
I know we didn’t “invade to take their oil.” How silly. First, there’s the small matter of fact, to wit, we haven’t taken any of their oil. Second, we’ve spent hundred of billions of dollars on this endeavor. It would have been infinitely cheaper simply to BUY the blinkin’ oil, had that been the purpose. We’ve got lots of money; we don’t want or need to colonize Iraq to get its oil, and that’s not our history. We were preventing them from selling their oil, via the corrupt mechanism of the UN. We could have allowed them to sell it, and bought it. Simple enough.
I’ve examined every reason I can think of, and none of them makes sense, and I’ve yet to hear any speculation that’s convincing or even credible. I’m inclined to think that Bush is an empty suit, and an empty cranium; that Cheney is the de facto president. I know Cheney was the prime instigator of the Iraq war, and he convinced Bush, who is evidently so weak that he does Cheney’s bidding. (If I thought it was really Bush’s idea, I’d probably chalk it up to his religious nutcakery–he’s famously confident about his decisions, and I’m quite sure he gets his orders straight from Jesus.)
Worst. President. Ever.
lets put this issue in terms that most people would understand. if you walk into a bar and someone knocks you down in an unprovoked attack, what do you do? you dont sit on the ground waiting for a kick in the mouth. you get up off your ass, you knock him down hard enough so that he doesnt get up and you make damn sure he sees who just opened up a can of woop ass on him.
John, I believe that you believe what you read in a 1991 book. Selena, do you really think you have a choice over evil people. Someone has to stand up for what they believe, who would protect the pacifist ,so they make their comments? I have seen and have directly been involved with people that do not value your life or others.
G. W. made the world a much worse place. His knee-jerk decision making has resulted in a million needless deaths and has without question made him the world’s premier terrorist recruiting poster child. But; I do not blame him. I blame only those who elected and supported him. If Earthly justice exists, perhaps one day they will be forced to depend upon the mercies of people exactly like themselves.
g
Here, here!!! Clap, clap… all you Bush-bashers. The man is an idiot, and he’s been a dangerous one at that.
The Patriot Act was very much an oportunistic way for the government to diminish civil liberties.
President Bush made a decision that none of us can step into to except to judge it from far away. We’re safer than when 911 happened, at least in the United States.
———————————————————————————————
——- Judgement already passed with a 25% approval rating.
The world is more dangerous, including in the US which can’t even control it’s own borders or provide decent jobs and healthcare systems for it’s own people.
Damn shame Jughaid didn’t take up the bottle again. I’d rather have a falling down drunk president too out of it to sign off on all his nonsense than the global chaos he’s been at the forefront of creating.
Being drunk again would have no adverse effects on his speeches either.
Win/Win……
Someone spoke of telling the truth, you only have to do it once. This person obviously doesn’t understand that things change. Clinton was constantly changing his mind and his actions we’re equally open to your over zealous naive critique. SLATS you seem to be saying something that others don’t want to here. Maybe you have first hand experience. Good for you!!!! As for the opinion polls, Jim Jones had great following too, speaking of ” Kool-aid”
@ viola?
Are you serious. So if your stock broker told you about some great stock, gave you a list of all the reasons to buy it, convinced you to invest your life’s savings into it, and then you found out that your broker know there was a multi billion dollar lawsuit against the company for malpractice and product failure, would you say, “well he sold me on the stock for the reason he felt would get me to invest my money. H really believed in the company and the product, and the lawsuit has 2 or 3 appeals yet.” It is the same thing. The only difference is that we were asked to invest the lives of our sons, daughters, mothers, father, friends, and a few other people we didn’t like but deserved the truth all the same. If you are asking me to invest my life, you had better give me all of the facts.
He could have said, “Most Iraqis wanted democracy”, but there was even less proof of that then there was of nuclear weapons. If he was really after a democracy, why not invade Saudi Arabia where 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were from? The Iraqi people had chosen before hand. They had chosen not to stand up to Saddam Hussein, the dictator that the Americans had brought to power. Even now, the invasion removed the “minority” Sunni government, and let the Shia rise to power. Who is enemy number one? The Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Now we are paying Sunni’s to fight the Shia. 10,000 years, and maybe more world has been waiting for that area to “go either way”. Don’t hold your breath that anything this treasonist clown is going to help.
@Jim Harper.
I can step into that decision. A stumbling drunken baboon could have made the right decision then. Listen to the words of Cheney. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I . Go to any country in the Middle East and you will hear the horror stories of one side about the brutal dictatorship that has killed their people. It is the roughest neighborhood in the world and the only way to keep your enemies at bay is to oppress them. Too much money at stake in the area.
Unquestionably Bush has been an utter disaster for America. He is completely devious and, it seems, he has had business relationships with those who are now sworn enemies of the USA. It would appear that this is not so commonly known. Like many tyrants he has appointed people around him who have paid homage to his presidency. America welcomes his departure. The Iraq war was undertaken on the flimiest of reason; there was strong evidence that NO Weapons of Mass Destruction existed Sadly, we elected a Prime Minister who complimented Bush far too much. Policies get one elected was his histronic cry. And so they did. But he never had the slightest idea on how to put his
policies into useful practical plans. So rule from Whitehall and throw money at problems. None of which served any real purpose. The world is in quite a mess.
Too many natural disasters? Perhaps Unnatural too.
@ Slats
Saddam had Uranium since we put him in power. It even occurs naturally in Iraq. (That would be like invading the U
S because we posses stupid cowboy rednecks that might become potentially dangerous. They are found all over this country.) Anyway, if that is all that he had, he still had about 30 years to go before he could produce a valid nuclear weapon. See the trouble that Iran and even N. Korea are having. The president and the intelligence community all know that. So, one can easily remove nuclear WMD, and by extension saving American lives, as the real reason. Was Saddam a “sadistic evil person” in the 80’s when we gave him weapons and told him to protect our oil from the Iranians?
When you invade a country, the “innocent civilians” are the people fighting you. You can not differentiate. If say the Taliban with their massive army invaded the US. Would you run over to the local army/ navy store to get you fatigues before you picked up a weapon to protect your house? I doubt it. See ealier post of mine were it was shown by the CIA that the US invasion of Iraq crated an environment were terrorist were more easily recruited.
As for the misconception that we invaded Iraq to lower the cost of oil is silly. Cheney, Bush and his cronies make money out of every gallon of oil that comes out of the ground. One way to make your product more valuable is to decrease supply. Look at the huge profits of the oil companies not at the price you were paying for gas. To think that Bush Co. did this so you can pay less for their product is naïve. That would mean they were doing it for your benefit. Things seem to have gotten out of control on them, but they are still reaping the biggest profits in US history.
Get em’ Dwight you’re our designated sling shot to all the unbelievers! We really did misunderestimate the learnens in these childrens!
President Bush did not create the choas in Iraq, the iraqi people have created their own chaos. President Bush does not have the ability to create a stable government in Iraq, only the Iraqi people have that ability if they so desire. President Bush got rid of Saddam and gave them (the Iraqis) the opportunity to create a better life for themselves. So far the only thing they have done is to sit on their butts and whine for someone to give them peace and prosperity, with no work on their part.
The people who are killing and setting roadside bombs are the fathers, brothers, uncles & cousins of the people who are doing most of the whining. Until the population decides not to tolerate the terrorist acts nothing will change.
The Kurd’s appear to be the only ones willing to work and create a civilized State, the rest want everything given to them for free.
It would serve them right if we did pull out and leave them to themselves. Within a years time they would have another dictator and be crying for the world to help free them from his harsh treatment.
The Iraqi people should thank President Bush for the opportunity he has given them.
@ slats
In the case of Iraq, We walked into a bar that we had last week paid a couple of gang members to shoot up. Then we walked in, somebody knocked us down (Al-Qaeda) and we got up and beat the snot out of the scrawniest weakest guy in the corner (Iraq) who had no connections to the guy that hit us. What part of “Saddam had no WMD, not ties to Al-Qaeda, and was no direct threat to the US” don’t you understand.
@ Jim
Never judge a politician by the sounds coming out of their mouth, but as a result of their deeds. I don’t know if you have checked our economy, national security, or integrity lately, but the US is not faring well. That is a complete 180 from 9 years ago.
AS far as protecting this pacifist, don’t do me any favors. I find it humorous that so many people who believe that there is a better life after this one fight so hard to keep people here.
What a great job Mr.Bush did for USA & rest of the world, all humanbeings are proud of him including G. Bay detanees, after down fall of Saddam Hussain Isriel is cobsidering him as a national hero.
No doubt he put US army to sacrifice for Isriel.
I always have problems with Myopic viewpoints where we look over ever problem to complain about our lives. I lived through the 13-15% loan rates of the late 70’s and early 80’s, our economy may not be as bad as people can’t remember. But opinions are always the last convenient period of time to make their point. Being critical of taking action is what people do that can’t take any on their own.
@Dwight
You are speaking my language! 🙂
@Jim
Please don’t think that you have to protect me. My life is not worth more than children dying in war torn countries.
Do you really think that I could believe i deserve more protection than the soldier who would be sent to protect me?
What kind of skewed logic is that?
The only way to protect anyone is to see EVERYONE as valuable human beings worthy of protection, even the soldiers and the *enemy*.
Your logic sounds nice but not practical. I do agree with the value of life unlike the mass graves that Sadam was responsible for. Somehow the value of the enemy may not be viewed the same when your on the receiving end of their wrath.
@Jim
What’s not practical about it? Do you really think that your life or my life is worth more than the children who are dying to protect you and me?
Do you? If yes, why?
You may have lost me. I do not view warriors as children and I am sure they do not perceive the value of the enemy as equal to their value in life or the value of their fellow soldier.
@Jim,
do a little digging. A) see how many “mass graves” you would find that date back to the colonization of the American continent and filled with native American Indians. For all intents and purposes they were “our own people.” and B) dig a little and find out where Saddam got the weapons to cause such carnage. A little help, Type “Rumsfeld”, “Saddam Hussein”, and “chemical weapons” into your favorite search engine. Why weren’t these patrons of good and righteousness so worried about human life back then? Don’t you think that some of the Iranian that Saddam gased with US chemical weapons and their families are still alive today? Don’t you think they feel like somebody walked into their bar and “knocked them down”?
@Jim
Perhaps you believe in hierarchy, as in some people are superior to others and therefore have more value.
In that view, you might think it is alright to kill a few people to protect those of greater value.
I don’t take that view. I believe everyone on this planet is of equal value. So, I don’t subscribe to sending eighteen year old children to war to fight, be maimed or die to keep me alive or in a comfortable pew.
I don’t believe one single person should have to die to protect me.
Perhaps I am still not making myself clear…. 🙂
For this to be considered a valid HYS question that warrants discussion beggars belief.
My response to your query: Has President Bush made the world a better place?
Is this question valid, serious, honest?
After eight years of gross mismanagement and unlawful actions legalized under a corrupt government, the question is INSULTING AND OFFENSIVE. That anyone should pose the question or regard it as necessary is a statement of complacent, irresponsible mindlessness. The answer is NO LONGER a matter of opinion, political or personal. Mr. Bush’s performance as president is a CONSTITUTIONAL and a LEGAL MATTER.
A list of the LAWS–Constitutional Law, International Law, common sense and human rights laws–that Mr. Bush has violated with impunity and, mostly, with the knowledge, consent and assistance of the US Congress; will answer the question. Add to that list the number of people, all peoples, killed in Mr. Bush’s illegal wars; the shambles his wars have made of Iraq and Afghanistan; the shambles he has made of the economy; the mess he has made of international relations and America’s standing in the eyes of the world; the attacks upon the environment, domestic and global, in utter disregard of treaties and agreements made by previous presidents and in violation of his mandate to preserve national resources… Need I go on? The list does not end here.
Beyond Law, what say Honesty, Integrity, Humanity, Responsibility and Honor to Mr. Bush’s presidential ‘deportment’?
My judgement and assessment: “Worse than disastrous, his record is CRIMINAL and more than suffices for impeachment and criminal charges. He may be stupid. He may be without conscience. He remains utterly and blatantly irresponsible. Above all, HE IS ACCOUNTABLE TO ME, TO YOU, TO ALL CITIZENS, UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR VIOLATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND THE TENETS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, FOR CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIOLATION OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAWS, AND FOR THE BETRAYAL OF HIS OATH OF OFFICE!”
One need not be a constitutional lawyer to know the Law. One needs be a citizen versed in the duty and rights of citizens to hold this man accountable under the Constitution. Only thus, under the Rule of Law, is Democracy made possible or continue to exist. This is the sacred duty of all citizens and it begins by thinking our own thoughts, not mimicking the words of those in the pay of a corrupt government.
As for the media, national and international, if indeed it hates Bush’s guts why doesn’t it dare say so openly and honestly? To do otherwise is likewise criminal.
A.Cristina
I have to say that sometimes the hardest decisions are not only the necessary ones but also the most unpopular ones. Who’s to say that Iraq will not stabilize and become a safe and stable country within the next few years? How is weakening and practically dismantling Al-Qaeda not making the world safer?
The hate for President Bush clouds everyone’s perception of the progress in Iraq. The truth is that things are getting better and in a matter of time Iraq will be stable and capable of governing it’s self without help from the US. I expect Bush to be regarded as a President that made hard, correct decisions in the years to come. Partisan politics at this moment is clouding that reality.
mmm, lets see
Valerie Plame outing
colin powell’s vial of anthrax
drawing of “weapons lab” before war
more americans with no healthcare
tax cuts for the rich
patriot act
stolen elections in ’00 ’04
prosecutor gate
guantanamo
waterboarding — tourture
abu graib (sp?)
“osama bin laden determined to strike america”
donald rumsfeld
dick cheney
shock and awe
global warming denier
kyoto agreement
geneva convention
human rights
“stop loss”
renditions
weapons of mass destruction
osama bin laden free
katrina (not preparing or helping now)
condolezza rice
……
and one of your invited guests claimed Bush would be remembered as one of the greatest presidents…. wow!
I find this question about as unworthy of the BBC World Service and about insensitive as asking if Hitler made the world a better place? So I won’t stoop to answering it. I will however, respond with questions of my own:
How does being responsible for torturing people and killing 100s of 1000s of defenseless people make George W. Bush any superior to the likes of Sadaam Hussein or Pol Pot? That he’s white? That he speaks English as his first language? P L E A S E! Ask a question worthy of your listening audience!
steve
Do you concider a statement put out by the state department and reported by CNN that there is one sick terrorist in Bagdad a reason to go to war?
If the buck stops in the oval office then the deaths during Shock & Awe = mass murder. The increase in the number of violent deaths in Iraq above the normal rate since S&A are also George’s responsibility = serial mass murder. War criminal? You bet.
Would they have Sadam back? Damn right they would.
PRESIDENT BUSH IN HIS TENURE HAS TRIED HIS BEST TO PROMOTE AND MAINTAIN PEACE IN THE WORLD. HE ALWAYS ENSURES UNIONISM AND TRANSQUILITY IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD. HE ENSURES THAT PEOPLE OF OTHER NATIONS ARE NOT SUPRESSED BY THEIR LEADERS. THE STANDARD OF LIVING DURING BUSH TENURE WAS IMPROVED IN AMERICA AND THE WORLD AT LARGE. BUSH MAINTAINED STABILITY IN GOVERNANCE IN AMERICA AND ENSURED PEACE IN HIS POLITICAL SYSTEM. FROM MY OPINION BUSH TRIED HIS BEST IN HIS TENURE BUT I EXPECT BETTER FROM THE IN COMING PRESIDENT.
talking of the state of the earth during bush tenure,,,its clear she has been battered just like an african woman in darfur.recession in US,tension in south america(venezuela/colombia) coz of arming the latter,gaza concentration camp and every evil on earth is because of bush and his damn pastor.
I am a listener from Australia. I don’t believe Mr Bush has made the world any safer. I do admit he got his job at difficult time (less then a year before 9/11), but there is no excuse to go to war with Iraq. Especially when considering he had no plan with what he could do after the war. We are more worried about Terrorism then ever.
George Bush, is, and always has been, a FAILURE! He stole the first election, and then lied about it.
——————————————————————————————
—– This is the kind of weak nonsense regurgitated by liberal opposition that helped to get Jughaid elected in the first place.
No, you’ll never hear liberals and democrats acknowledge their role in making Jughaid a two term president. They’re like the dog that sees a toad in the yard. He knows he’s gonna be frothing at the mouth sick as soon as he snatches it up but he does it anyway and the typical lib is no smarter as soon as the topic turns to GW.
GW was elected because he was quite successful working in a democrat controlled Texas as an extremely popular Texas governor. His father had a very long and distinguished record in politics.
Libs always forget that their man not only conceded defeat twice, but graciously cast the deciding vote in a congressional gridlock that was holding the country in a constitutional crisis.
God bless Al Gore. He shucked the party yoke and became an American patriot and a global humanitarian first and foremost. He’s followed his muse, kept the domestic peace and altered the world’s thinking and policies on the environment.
In the meantime, GDub has shot both his feet off, run the country and his party into the ground, created chaos with almost every decision, yet the democrats have been so weakened by their own lack of relevance, that they have been relegated to the sidelines.
You modern day libs are as much responsible as GDub for the current status quo. No need for me to wish a pox on both your parties. You guys have already cast your pox upon the globe.
Gee, thanks, for nothing.
Jim~
You believe that I believe what I read in a 1991 book?
When Paul Wolfowitz, the man who was credited by Rumsfeld with the actual planning and strategizing of the war, originally said that we should do it to accomplish a specific goal – the establishment of a large permanent American force presence in the Gulf region that would be of vital importance to our country for the rest of this century – and then 12 years later we are suddenly the dominant military power in the Gulf region – yes, I am inclined to believe that was the goal.
Do you believe one of Bush’s shifting rationales instead? Regime change? An alliance of Saddam and Bin Laden? WMD’s? Liberation and democritization?
If there was someone more intimately connected with it than Wolfowitz, someone whose word is more credible or believable in hindsight, then by all means, enlighten me.
President Bush Is the best President of the decade. He will be remembered by his courageous approaches and confrontations that led him to solving so many problems the world wouldn’t ve been able to solve in two decades to come. He pulled saddam Hussein,the world most deadly, down. Bush is my Hero.
Franklyn From Nigeria
What bothers me most is that Bush thinks what he did was and is good for the Americans. Firstly in my view, he did the will of his father and I would remind people what he said at the beginning of his presidency talking to world press about Sadam Hussein “…..and this is the man who wanted to kill my dad” Do you remember this statement??. It is only a child who can say these things.
And then he got stuck in Iraq, just to kill Sadam and take his oil. How much is oil today?? How much was oil then?? How many innocent women, children and men have died needlessly?
I would rather see Bush in the International Criminal Court than see him retire peacefully.
I read that he has started regretting that he has caused so much hatred of Americans around the world. I also note that he is visiting Pope Paul soon. Is he going to confess and ask the Pope to pray for him so that when he dies goes to Heaven?? May be he will find Sadam Husein at the gates of Heaven!
True Mr Neil McGowan about your article below.
June 17, 2008 at 1:25 pm
“Bush is a vicious and evil war-criminal who has blackened the reputation of the United States permanently. The world will never forgive the yanks.
Worse still are the spineless lardballs like Gordon Brown who have slavishly followed this Naz pig’s orders.
Half a million innocent people killed??? ROT IN HELL, YOU STINKING YANKEE TYRANT!!”
Also true Venessa of yor article below.
June 17, 2008 at 2:54 pm
“Bush is an embarrassment to America. The only thing he accomplished is sinking our country into a horrible deficit, employing all of his friends and going to war so that he could line his pockets along with all of his friends at the expense of many lives.
He did provide entertainment when he gave speeches…”
Finally there is only one chance America may get back on its feet again, and that is elect Barack Obama as the President of United States. Mcain, as I pointed out earlier, elected as President would be “Bush on steroid”. Think of the consequences.
Alma emails….
After eight years of gross mismanagement and unlawful deeds legalized under a corrupt government, the question is INSULTING AND OFFENSIVE. That anyone should regard it as necessary is a statement of a nation’s complacent, irresponsible mindlessness. The answer is NOT a matter of opinion, political or personal, any longer. Mr. Bush’s performance as president is a CONSTITUTIONAL and a LEGAL MATTER.
A list of the LAWS–Constitutional Law, International Law, common sense and human rights laws–that Mr. Bush as violated with impunity and, mostly, with the knowledge, consent and assistance of the US Congress; will give the answer to the question. Add to the list the number of people, all peoples, killed in Mr. Bush’s illegal wars; the shambles he has made of the economy; the mess he has made of international relations and America’s standing in the eyes of the world; the attacks upon the environment, domestic and global, in utter disregard of treaties and agreements made with other nations by previous presidents and in violation of his mandate to preserve national resources… Need I go on? The list does not end here.
Beyond Law, what say Honesty, Integrity, Humanity, Responsibility and Honor to Mr. Bush’s presidential shenanigans?
My judgement and assessment: “Worse than disastrous, his record is CRIMINAL and more than suffices for impeachment and criminal charges. He may be stupid. He may be without conscience. He remains utterly and blatantly irresponsible. Above all, HE IS ACCOUNTABLE TO ME, TO YOU, TO ALL CITIZENS, UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR VIOLATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND THE TENETS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, FOR CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIOLATION OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAWS, AND FOR THE BETRAYAL OF HIS OATH OF OFFICE!”
One need not be a constitutional lawyer to know the Law. One needs be a citizen versed in the duty and rights of citizens to hold this man accountable under the Constitution. Only thus is Democracy made possible and continue to exist. This is the sacred duty of all citizens and it begins by thinking our own thoughts, not mimicking the words of those in the pay of a corrupt government.
@ myself – June 17, 17:10
(I guess one must think before calling it an afterthought)
In my previous comment, I started from wondering whether GWB was following this multilogue, and jumped straight to wondering whether he would reply, without considering whether it is his place to do so. And no, it is not his place to tell us what he thinks of what we think of him.
He could defend himself if he were not so helpless to do so, but the fifth is his right, and the most powerful diplomatic immunity on the planet is his unearned privilege. Do I think he won’t use it?
I think the reason he will never choose to come out from the cloak of his secrecy is that he doesn’t know the difference between a policy statement and a pitiful excuse like “We see things differently.” I think the world’s problem is he really doesn’t know what he’s doing. And I for one can not help, but forgive him for that.
Any stones I threw would surely come home to roost.
To: Hiam Chipman @June 17, 13:46
I would never call myself a liberal. I am more conservative than I suspect you will ever comprehend. But I gladly count myself among those not deserving of such an indelicate prostration as you described, regarding the paying of lip service to an ass. You, sir, and I would hope you alone, are welcome to an honor of that regard.
And I’m curious about another thing… And anyone who speaks German, perhaps Yiddish, or at least has a tooth for jelly donuts (berliners), can chime in here… Is “lickshpittle” a real word, or was it actually coined by Mr. Burns on The Simpsons?
But seriously, Chipman, to give your perspective the respect it is due… (you see, I may not be liberal, but I am most generous when it comes to the speaking of minds) I do get tired of the repetition and the thoughtless slander myself sometimes. We do think alike that way.
@ angela
he will msot definitely NOT be remembered for his policies. He has no policies. He’s a hypocrite and of the biggest idiots ever. He’ll be remembered for lying to his country, going into war, and not doing absolutely anything for Katrina until his hand was forced. He’ll also be remembered for being an idiotic hill billy. He’s done nothing for America, except maybe take it from the best country in the world, to the most hated.
@ Selena
“I think Angela is spot on. President Bush believes he is doing exactly what his God wants him to do. He probably won’t be around to see the true outcome of his legacy. The true evaluation will come many years after we are all gone.”
It doesn’t matter AT ALL what his God says, the US has the separation of church and state for a reason. They’re not supposed to be mixed. Comment like this one frustrate me simply because we seem to forget that it doesn’t matter what a president’s personal beliefs are, God and politics DO NOT MIX AT ALL. EVER. Or at least in an ideal world they shouldn’t. So if his God said to bomb Iran, he’ll bomb Iran for that sole reason? That’s unacceptable. The only thing Bush is leaving behind is cheering American citizens who are awaiting a new competent president to bring the US back from the dead.
“The evil that men do lives after them,while the good is oft interned with their bones” Bush will have more than enough room for himself in his grave as his legacy will be one of misery for millions of innocents in the Mid-east and egregious undermining of the US democracy.and the rule of law.His empty rhetoric of spreading democracy is a testiment to his arrogant stupidity .easily manipulated by the neo-cons who saw he as a vehicle for their agenda to reorder the Mid-East by force to leave Isreal as the hegemon armed with nuclear weapons.His domestic policies have serious social implications for the future of Americans.The US national debt has trebled to $3 trillion and we are indebted to China and the oil states who have financed a false prosperity..Encouraged to profligacy the Americans are poised to see their standard of living fall and the future of their children mortgaged by the imprudence of their parents .Financial distress from home foreclosures and rising inflation could strangle the hard pressed middle class and add more misery to the poor. Political upheavals do not occur with full stomachs! America,’s reputation is in tatters and it’s influence abroad is at an all time low..A legacy of ruin, The bitter fruit of hubris and ignorance.