George W. Bush opened the gates of hell....
By louisehartmann
While the Senate approved $60 Billion for more war, the House slashed $24 Billion for the unemployed Workers and state aid to those in trouble. The Afghanistan war is about to go beyond two milestones, with the American death toll surpassing 1,000 this week, and on June 7 it will break the record of the war in Vietnam to become America’s longest-ever war. George W. Bush opened the gates of hell when he turned down the Taliban offer to arrest Osama Bin Laden and send him to a third nation for trial and instead began a bombing campaign that has killed thousands of Afghan civilians and alienated the entire world. He then made matters worse by attacking Iraq, a country that represented no threat to us whatsoever, and spent trillions of dollars that he borrowed from the Chinese to do it. President Obama has inherited a mess of epic proportions, and if he doesn't figure out a way to end these wars and convert our military intervention into building schools and hospitals, his most lasting legacy, like LBJ's, will be a disastrous and unnecessary war based on a lie. There's an effort in Congress now to do what Congress did in 1973 and defund the war, although the members of congress are trying to make it more difficult by attaching important amendments to the war funding.
Comments
#2
correction-the georgie/dickless game of g.i.joe over there is a colossal boo-boo, however, it remains a long way from beating the record time in S.E. Asia. The US actually supported Ho Chi Minh in the '20s & '30s, buying into his nationalistic credo, not recognizing the murderous thug dictator he was. SEAsia was a French colony. Following WWII, the British were the occupying power. The record of France in WWII is not good. The people of SEAsia (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam) were hopeful the British would leave and the countries would revert to the people. No chance of that happening. So the French found themselves in a desperate battle against the Viet Minh (1945-1954) until they found themselves near annihilation in the NW ville Dien Bien Phu. That was the end for France. Remember the '50s, McCarthy, Domino Theory, Soviet hegemony, and General Eisenhower in the White House. The Viet Minh were more than happy to finish kicking out the French or annihilating them. Ike considered there would be a 'void' in Dien Bien Phu. So, the French, now a bit smarter, split, and the US went into that hell hole under the official congressional guise of a 'police action'. And so it was, a 9-5 bit of police action, until 1965 in the south in the Ia Drang Valley, where 3 days of hell left the US a phyrric victory, thanks to air superiority, and it became a full scale war, still an official police action. Officially, the US won every battle. The final kick in the US pants was the truce with Hanoi in 1973, flight from the roof of the embassy in Saigon in 1975. 19 years of a meat grinder that was archaic and not winnable, the first fought by this country by a standing army against guerrillas. The NVA & VC just wanted the US out. Today's stakes and battleground are greater. So that is a drawn out time frame broadly presenting the the historic data that Afghanistan and Uraq lag that other earlier folly.
#3
This is a great conversation. Isn't it wonderful that we live in a country where we can debate these issues? Please elaborate on President Bush's rejection the Bin Laden arrest. I am sure if the world had heard of this we would all be outraged and he would have been impeached.
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#4
Our troops need to be here defending the Gulf. Bring our troops home where they are desperately needed to defend the Gulf. Declare victory in Iraq and Afganistan and task the Military with defending our borders. There is a massive cleanup looming just over the HORIZON and if Obama does not prepare for this by mobilizing all his resources then this will actually become Obama's Katrina.
#5
Bush opened the gates of hell--and Obama is acting like the doorman. Bush appointed industry cronies in charge of regulating their industries. How could Obama be so naive as to leave most of these industry hacks in his administration? Surely Obama must share part of the blame for not cleaning out the agencies that Bush had undermined!!
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Perhaps if we had allowed the military/industrial complex to charge a third nation a trillion dollar fee to put Osama on trial...the wars could have been avoided.