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George W. Bush's Most Underappreciated Accompishment

Submitted by Cahnman on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 13:54
in

India.  As much as it shocked me, this story actually appeared in the New York Times (wierd, huh?).  Money Quote:

In fact, the president beloved by the Indian elite is George W. Bush, credited with “de-hyphenating” Washington’s longtime “India-Pakistan” policy and championing last year’s landmark U.S.-India civiliannuclear deal. Indeed, this may be one capital where Barack Obama finds George Bush a hard act to follow.

That historical legacy is getting revised upwards faster than I would have ever imagined.

That is all.

Cahnman out.

 

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Comments

Long live W

Submitted by skayne on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 14:11.

One good thing, and that's going to make up for everything else. 

Long live George W. Bush and all those who think his record is going to get better over time. 

It's going to be very frustrating when you find that it only got worse.

Wouldn't your title be more accurate

Submitted by NextRightNando on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 14:55.

Wouldn't your title be more accurate if you took the two words in the middle out?

Bush's Legacy

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 10:18.

Bush's accomplishments are No Child Left Behind and Prescription Drug Plan. They will be reformed but not repealed. They will live on because they have actual bipartisan support.

Bush's legacy is:

  • Oversaw the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
  • Unfinished wars in Iraq and Afganistan.
  • Doubling the national debt from $5 trillion to $10 trillion when he inherited a budget in surplus.
  • Diminished the US's global reputation.
  • Torture.
  • Diminished our civil liberties.

Republicans still have not dealt with Bush's legacy and by extension, the Republican legacy. I don't know the stages of grief after a political loss, but Republicans are stuck on anger and will not move on until they lose with a Movement conservative in 2012.

 

But its not Republicans living in the past

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 14:53.

is it?

"those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past..."

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 14:59.

include Barack Obama, who hasn't learned from Bush's mistakes. We will continue to harp on them until our Government improves.

End Of Message.

Clean Up

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 15:50.

You've got to clean up the mess before you can move on.

Of course

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 15:11.

Bush's legacy is:

  • Oversaw the deepest recession since the Great Depression. (Until Obama)

  • Unfinished wars in Iraq and Afganistan. (Status quo)

  • Doubling the national debt from $5 trillion to $10 trillion when he inherited a budget in surplus. (Obama debt projected to go to $20 Trillion)

  • Diminished the US's global reputation. (Obama apologizing and we'll see how that goes)

  • Torture. (Fraternaty hazing)

  • Diminished our civil liberties.(Status Quo)

     

Obama's isn't exactly making a "clean break" with the past now is he?

 

 

I'm sorry, but where I come from, slamming someone into

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 15:21.

a wall is physical assault, which is a FELONY. Whether or not such things are acceptable within the context of a fraternity depends entirely on how masochistic the frosh is, I would assume.

Why are we allowing our soldiers to commit felonies on prisoners of war? I'd gather that is rather NOT what military ethics are all about.

At Least ...

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 15:53.

we're in agreement of Bush's legacy. It's kind of early to detemine what Obama's legacy will be.

I think a lot of Africans

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:01.

would disagree  with youon Bush's legacy. And a lot of Americans who are still alive after 9/11.

i'd give bush a lot more credit on that...

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:06.

if he had actually stopped ANY competent plans. since he didn't, and explicitly failed to stop terrorism from entering our nation's capital, I won't give him jack on that.

AIDS

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:28.

I'll give Bush credit for that, but how many Africans contracted AIDs because of he would not fund UN condom programs and funded abstinence only programs?

And thousands of American soldiers are dead in Iraq in an unjustified war. Let's not forget the hundreds of civilians who were murdered in Britain and Spain by Al Qaeda since 9/11 because this is a global war on terror.

Bush wasn't the president

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:33.

of Britain or Spain.

Is the U.S. the only country that could buy condoms for the UN? Really? Non effective anyway.

The Iraq war was authorized by congress, (Iraq War Resolution), so a lot of people thought it was justified initially including Hillary and Kerry. It had huge popular support at the time. I find Monday morning quarterbacks tiresome, since hindsight is 20/20.

 

Leader of the Global War on Terror

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:48.

When you're the self-proclaimed leader on the global war on terror, foreign civilian deaths caused by our enemy is some of our responsibility.

Condoms are not effective in preventing AIDS? The health community disagrees. And, I'm sure there are not enough supply of condoms in Africa and US funds would help prevent AIDS.

I call the Iraq war unjustified because the evidence was ginned up in Cheney's office. I remember the polling. The Iraq war did not have immediate support because many Americans wondered why would we go to war with a country that didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Only after Bush and company started banging on the drums of war did support rise.

Twisted logic

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 17:22.

When you're the self-proclaimed leader on the global war on terror, foreign civilian deaths caused by our enemy is some of our responsibility.

I really can't get my head around that statement. Seriously? You don't think Britian helped lead the charge into Iraq? Aren't they a sovereign nation? As is Spain?

Were we at war in Iraq and Afghanistan when the 9/11 attacks occured? When the Cole was attacked? When numerous embassies were bombed?

Is your point that we should not have responded to any of these attacks and . . .negotiated? surrendered? apologized? Worked it out through theUN?

As far as condoms in Africa, of course they are effective, but there has to be a lot of education along with them. If your theory were correct, there would be no AIDS in the US.

 

Terror and Iraq

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 17:54.

When you're the self-proclaimed leader on the global war on terror, foreign civilian deaths caused by our enemy is some of our responsibility.

I really can't get my head around that statement. Seriously? You don't think Britian helped lead the charge into Iraq? Aren't they a sovereign nation? As is Spain?

Just because America has not been attacked since 9/11, doesn't mean that Bush has made the world or America safer from Al Qaeda. I'm saying that Bush takes a lot of credit for the Global War on Terror that is not earned when you factor in the attacks in Bali, Madrid and London that is caused by our primary enemy.

Were we at war in Iraq and Afghanistan when the 9/11 attacks occured? When the Cole was attacked? When numerous embassies were bombed?

Is your point that we should not have responded to any of these attacks and . . .negotiated? surrendered? apologized? Worked it out through theUN?

I'm saying we should keep our eye on the ball and finish the war in Afganistan rather than gin up a Iraq war we could have avoided.

As far as condoms in Africa, of course they are effective, but there has to be a lot of education along with them. If your theory were correct, there would be no AIDS in the US.

Yup, both education and condoms are necessary for effective AIDS prevention and which Bush denied to Africa because he was beholden to social conservatives.

Got it

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 19:10.

We weren't attacked, Bush gets no credit.

If we were attacked, blame Bush.

If Africa greets Bush as a hero for all of the aid and support he delivered, he coluld have done more. I guess you are saying that social conservatives were behind what little Bush did do for Africa. Your critcism here is laughable:

It is some story. And I have always wondered why it was never told properly to the American people, who were paying for it. It was, for example, Bush who initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by Senators John Kerry and Bill Frist. In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid (though some critics find the mechanism of contribution controversial). On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1717934,00.html

Time 2/28/08

Smoke and a pancake? It seems there is no pleasing you . . .

I get it. You hate Bush and you will twist yourself up into a pretzel to avoiid giving any credit at all. But you won't be making up facts around here . . .

Facts Are Good

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 20:29.

More pesky facts:

Nevertheless, $6 billion a year is a significant amount of money. It remains to be seen, though, how much of it will be spent in ways that worsen the epidemic instead of making it better. Under the current policy, one third of the money allocated to HIV prevention goes to abstinence-only campaigns, often run by evangelical allies of the administration.

But this figure is also deceptive, because the prevention budget includes things like fighting mother-to-child transmission. In fact, a full two-thirds of the money for the prevention of the sexual spread of HIV goes to abstinence. What's left is targeted to groups considered high-risk. HIV-activists have spent the last two decades trying to show that condoms aren't just for prostitutes and the promiscuous; Bush has undone much of their work.

and more from Stephen Lewis, the U.N. Secretary-General's special envoy for hiv/aids in Africa:

"There is no question in my mind that the condom crisis is being driven and exacerbated by pepfar and by the extreme policies of the U.S.," said aids envoy Lewis."

 

You are not stating facts

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 04:33.

You are quoting from a progessive website and the UN. Ha!

You get an "F". Sorry.

You're Right

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 12:50.

They are opinions from extremely qualified writers and the lead UN envoy based on their view of the facts that George Bush's policy has been a hinderence in preventing AIDS in Africa. Are you disputing the fact that more money could have been allocated for condoms? Are you disputing the fact that money was only allocated for abstinence programs run by evangelicals? Do you have evidence that abstinence programs reduced the spread of AIDS in Africa.? I'm waiting.

Nope.

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 13:13.

"F"

You are simply a Bush hater and there is no point in discussing your "facts".

Representative of the Republican Problem

Submitted by ToddLuvsLounging on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 13:55.

Whether I hated Bush should not have prevented you from debating issues. I have no problem with conservatives supporting Bush. I do have a problem when conservatives support Bush's policy without evidence that his policy actually improved anything. Moreover, that seems to be the problem with the Republican party as a whole; they can't seem to reform, restructure, debate their philosophy anymore. For example, are Tea Parties the true expression of fiscal responsibility or just an excuse to blow some steam. I would argue fiscal responsibility includes decreasing the deficit by increasing taxes. However, all I ever hear from tea parties is about cutting taxes, but never hear about what spending they would cut. I think in the internet age, multiple cable channels and an articulate president, the Republicans cannot sloganeer their way back into power.

fluky attacks on America....

Submitted by RisingTide on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 08:53.

there isn't much to credit bush with, in terms of fighting terrorism. Engineering an attack on America is thousands of times harder than one in England or Bali. The fact that Bush was only able to find imbeciles indicates that either

1. nobody wanted to attack America

2. they're still planning the next operation.

If bush had caught one just one smart terrorist i'd change my tune in a heartbeat.

I've always thought of torture

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 15:31.

as bamboo shoots up the fingernails, cutting off fingers. gouging eyes, hooking up someone's nads to a car battery . . . you know, torture.

By your definition, Ultimate Fighting we see on cable is torture. The NFL is torture. Watching "The View" is torture.

Sorry, but I'm not buying the concept that putting a man who caused the violent deaths of over 3,000 American civilians into a box with a bug is torture.

And terrorists are not "soldiers" or "POW's".

then they are criminals and subject to the same rights as

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 15:46.

criminals. Which Includes Habeus Corpus.

I know someone who has been in charge of executing innocents. He knows a lot of people, from a lot of places you haven't ever even heard of. He says, and I quote, "Professional torturers do it invisibly." It ain't like TV, the idea is to be able to send someone back who looks hale and healthy, like you haven't just imperiled his life or caused him pain to the point of unconsciousness.

It's relatively easy to do, I've had the field medic training, and I know that dislocations and such can cause extreme pain. Likewise with waterboarding. Slightly harder are things like :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroneal_strike

and other pressure point techniques.

 

If you threw two people into a cage, and said that only one would leave... that's akin to forced dogfighting... Geez, if we say it's TOO FUCKING AWFUL to do to dogs, shouldn't we say the same about humans?

 

You're fighting a strawman. Part of John McCain's torture was solitary confinement. You can literally drive someone insane from solitary confinement for long periods of time -- certainly children who have grown up in such situations NEVER learn to speak. Humans were not designed for that, and doing it is cruel and inhumane.

But, believe it or not, that's frackin beside the fucking point. The point is, we had more effective tools in our arsenal -- and some dipshit decided to pull out the big guns, even knowing that once he had, there was no going back. 180 times waterboarding? That's indicative of an ineffectual intelligence gathering technique -- particularly when it's proponents say that it will work quickly. Nobody says the same things about the alternatives, because they are well known and time-tested ... and they do take a while.

Well since the results were redacted

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:04.

from the report, we'll never really know.

that's a logical fallacy.

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:08.

these were "time tested" torture procedures developed from SERE. We can ask our veterans who have had such done to them exactly how well it worked.

I believe Senator McCain's answer has something to do with the Steelers. Or some other football team, he used more than one in the anecdote, over the years.

continuing...

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 16:12.

Also, we can rely on psychologists and intelligence officials who were there. The CIA has explicitly removed torture from their tools to gain intelligence -- and it did so for a damn good reason! You torture someone, and they spew multitudes of Complete Crap -- which then wastes critical manpower, while you track down 99% bullshit.

In contrast, other techniques tend to lead to cross-referential data, all of which can be correlated, so that one can tell the reliability of the informant. This is how Germany was able to squeal about our YellowCake delusions -- they didn't find their source credible, as he wasn't matching up to other information from other sources (both public and spy).

Maybe we will?

Submitted by acinphx on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 14:24.

With Cheney calling for the release of the 'results' reports, perhaps we will?

Or maybe not.  My cyncical self thinks he knows full well that they can't release the 'results' report because it would reveal 'intelligence' obtained from the torture sessions.  Then, when the administration refuses to release, Cheney will kick off his 'Torture Rocks!' tour, on which he loudly proclaims the report is being withheld because it 'exonerates' torture as a method of gaining worthwhile information.  I'd have to hand it to him -- he'd prove he hasn't lost the ol' sinister genius.

I'm pretty surprised by all the torture apology these days among the same conservatives anxious to put themselves on the Homeland Security watchlist with more traditional domestic terrorists.  If on one hand you're arguing torture is an effective technique to use with terrorists, and on the other loudly proclaiming your terrorist status, isn't anybody worried that if enough of us get sold on the torture efficacy argument, there might be some call for law enforcement agencies to use torture on suspected domestic terrorists in the ticking time bomb scenario? 

Just for kicks:  if law enforcement had apprehended one of McVeigh's accomplices and had reason to believe they could prevent a domestic terror attack if useful information was obtainable through torture of an uncooperative acomplice, should they have used it?  Should the accomplice's status as a U.S. citizen be a roadblock, if torture is so effective?