Hard for American People to Understand; Cracked Egg

[PerryChase]

I just watched Bush’s interview with Jim Lehrer.

Bush said it’s “hard, I think, for the American people to understand” the situation in Iraq.

“I’ve spent a lot of time during my presidency talking to the American people and educating the American people about the stakes and what we’re trying to get done.”

He’s doing the “very best to explain to people why success is vital.” But we still don’t understand. How long does he think it’ll take for us to understand the situation?

Cracked Egg or Broker Egg?
—————–
MR. LEHRER: Is there a little bit of a broken egg problem here, Mr. President, that there is instability and there is violence in Iraq – sectarian violence, Iraqis killing other Iraqis, and now the United States helped create the broken egg and now says, okay, Iraqis, it’s your problem. You put the egg back together, and if you don’t do it quickly and you don’t do it well, then we’ll get the hell out.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, you know, that’s an interesting question. I don’t quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the cracked egg —

MR. LEHRER: Cracked egg?

PRESIDENT BUSH: — that – where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg. And I thought long and hard about the decision, Jim. Obviously it’s a big decision for this theater in the war on terror, and you know, if I didn’t believe we could keep the egg from fully cracking, I wouldn’t ask 21,000 kids – additional kids to go into Iraq to reinforce those troops that are there.

Sacrifices in the cold war.
——————
PRESIDENT BUSH: — this is like saying why don’t you make sacrifices in the Cold War?

What the hell does he mean? No wonder we don’t understand.

Full transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june07/bush_01-16.html

[TheBreeze]

The article linked below provides the best explanation I’ve read yet as to why the President chose to start a war with Iraq. Basically, the threat of terrorism was used as a pretext to invade Iraq. The real reason for the invasion was to gain control of Iraq’s vast supply of oil. Further, the President never cared all that much about how the war was prosecuted and how many people were killed so long as Western oil companies were granted access to Iraq’s oil at the end. The Iraqi government is about to pass a law giving western oil companies unbridled access to Iraqi oil, which was the President’s real goal all along.

As stated in the article:

“From those earliest days until now, throughout all the twists and turns, the blood and chaos of the occupation, the Bush Administration has kept its eye on this prize. The new law offers the barrelling buccaneers of the West a juicy set of production-sharing agreements (PSAs) that will maintain a fig leaf of Iraqi ownership of the nation’s oil industry — while letting Bush’s Big Oil buddies rake off up to 75 percent of all oil profits for an indefinite period up front, until they decide that their “infrastructure investments” have been repaid. Even then, the agreements will give the Western oil majors an unheard-of 20 percent of Iraq’s oil profits — more than twice the average of standard PSAs, the Independent notes.”

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/46602/

I think history will show President Bush as having been one of the most immoral presidents in history. It’s pretty clear that Iraq was never a threat to us given that they didn’t have any WMDs and had no ability to make them. The real threat to our way of life today is individual terrorists and terrorist cells. Given the instability created by Bush in the Middle East, I fear that many, many young men who might have chosen a different path will now align themselves with Al Qaeda or some other terrorist group. All it takes is for one of them to get their hands on some kind of suitcase nuke and to bring it into the U.S. for our country to be irretrievably damaged. Additionally, not only has Bush’s War created more terrorists, but his immoral acts in prosecuting his war have likely inflamed the terrorits making them even more dangerous than they were before. We can’t get this guy out of office soon enough in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Well, you’ll have to wait two long years, TB.

I had my long eight years with Clinton emasculating the military, selling weapons to the Chinese, and turning a blind eye to Al Qaeda. Don’t get too many gray hairs during the ’07-’08, TB and PC.

[TheBreeze]

Thanks for bringing up Clinton, jg. Whenever I start to feel down about the current state of affairs, I just think back to the glorious Clinton years: A booming economy; lowest federal deficits ever; worldwide peace; putting an end to the Kosovo crisis; lowering crime rates; environmental stewardship; cutting federal beuracracy; etc. Wow, just thinking about those days fills my heart with joy. The Great President Clinton was truly a man among men. Not only was he a Rhodes Scholar, but he was a great orator and a tremendous statesman.

Contrast that with Bush: drug addict; only admitted to Yale because of family connections; a failed businessman; ignored a report about the dangers of Al Qaeda in the summer of 2001; vacations 9 months per year; started a disastrous war with Iraq; created a new prescription drug entitlement program; soaring deficits; can’t string two coherent words together; isolationist; has ostracized all of America’s allies; left Katrina victims to die; nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court; and on and on.

What a tremendous, tremendous failure Bush has been. If this is the best you have to offer jg, I predict that Republicans will be out of power for a long, long time to come after 2008.

By the way, would you have rather been in the military during the Clinton years when hardly any American servicemen were killed while on active duty; or would you rather be in the service now with Bush’s accelerated deployments and mandatory contract extensions so that you could babysit a civil war? And how many allies do we have now in Bush’s War? Isn’t Britain going to pull out all their troops leaving only Poland as the only other country with troops in Iraq? Yep, it must feel good to be a part of Bush’s military today.

[4plexowner]

9/11 was executed by the neocons to achieve the goal of gaining control over Iraq’s oil.

Iran is the next target and the objective is the same.

If you don’t believe these statements you haven’t read enough history.

~

Who put OUR oil under the Middle East’s sand anyway?????

[Diego Mamani]

I think Clinton was just lucky that he got to be president during the booming phase of the business cycle. Even with that in mind, and adding the Lewinsky scandal for good measure, he was a far better president than Bush is today.

The oil motive to start the Iraq war has some truth to it, but it’s not the whole story. War is always profitable, as Haliburton and its many subcontractors can prove. Also, following 9/11, the public came to perceive all arabs as “the enemy”, and so, it was convenient for politicians to endorse the war. This, I think, was a bigger factor than exploiting Iraq’s oil. Even Hillary Cinton voted for the war! So the democrats share some of the blame for this most calamitous foreign policy error.

As we’ve commented before, we are now in an infinitely worse situation than had Saddam stayed in power. He was a crook and a dictator, but he kept some stability in his country. More importantly, he hated and feared Al Qaeda, feelings that were large reciprocal. If we stay in Iraq now, we’ll further destabilize the country and foster more resentment against the United States, not only in Iraq but in the whole region and beyond. But if we leave, Al Qaeda and Taliban-type fanatics are likely to take over and use Iraq as a launching pad to attack us. What Bush has created is the very definition of a quagmire.

The man deserves no less than impeachment. Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried for crimes against humanity, and for blatantly deceiving the American public in order to take the country to war for personal gain.

Future generations will find it inconceivable that we let the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ike Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan be hijacked by a band of extremist theo-cons and neo-cons such as the three mentioned above.

[sdnativeson]

WOW. I cannot believe some of the things I have read here.
I didn’t see the Bush interview and I haven’t read the transcript yet so I won’t speak to that.

What I can, and will, speak to is the rhetoric that so many espouse with little, if any, validation. More so, I see a disconcerting rise in the level of civility. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I would hope however, that before they voice it they do some “homework” as to the validity of their argument. That would mean getting outside your comfort zone, finding and reading materials that may be contrary to the mind set you (and those who influence you)have. I really don’t see that very often here.

What I have observed and experienced, is those who spit out the most vitriol are quick to ask for “proof” or “data” from those with a contrary opinion, upon being provided with it they often disappear.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

The Clinton years were great economically. I miss that aspect. However, those years also included the initial attempt to attack the World Trade Center, the simultaneous attack of embassies and the bombing of the USS Cole. These were preludes to the attack on 9/11.

Maybe it was good luck to be prez when the economy was on a roll and maybe it was a result of his policies. Maybe it was bad luck that a series of terrorist attacks occurred during his presidency and maybe it was a result of ignoring a festering problem.

Either way it is easy to look back with fondness and forget the warts. But to be fair, it wasn’t exactly shangri la.

[gold_dredger_phd]

It’s great to be President when the end of history occurs just before you take office and you get to preside over a stock bubble of unprecedented proportions.

Bush had to clean up Clinton’s mess.

Clinton was just a smarter and better looking version of Jimmy Carter.

[JJGittes]

“Clinton was just a smarter and better looking version of Jimmy Carter.”

Perhaps like Mr. Obama? Oh yeah, I’m sorry, it’s all about a third way…..yawn

[poorgradstudent]

“Bush had to clean up Clinton’s mess.”

Wow. Just… wow.

Clinton’s middle class tax cuts were what made the 90s so great. Well, that and having a divided government, that reigned in wasteful spending.

2002-2006 will be remembered as the awful “rubber stamp” years, where a quagmire of a war dragged down our economy (please, no one use the “war helps the economy” crap. That was really only true in WWII which was a special case.)

Clinton cleaned up Reagan’s mess, and Bush has mucked things up again. But, the American people elected him in 2004 (and the supreme court appointed him in 2000), so we’re stuck with him for another two years. I’m cautiously optimistic that this divided government will be a lot more financially responsible than the rubber stamp congress was.

[North County Jim]

Clinton’s middle class tax cuts were what made the 90s so great.

What middle class tax cut? He campaigned for it in 1992 and then lobbied the Congress to raise income, corporate and gasoline taxes in 1993.

It was sold to the public as a soak-the-rich tax increase but was anything but that. The ever grateful middle class responded to Clinton’s “generosity” by throwing the Democrats out of power in the next cycle.

Go look it up.

[sdnativeson]

poorgradstudent “Clinton’s middle class tax cuts were what made the 90s so great. Well, that and having a divided government, that reigned in wasteful spending.” Clinton took credit for the tax cuts pushed through by the houses at a later time, dig a little deeper and in different places.

[4plexowner]

It amuses me to see the bickering back and forth between Republicans and Democrats.

As always, there is a bigger picture if you will back up and look for it.

In this case the bigger picture is that the banking cartel runs the world and they provide Americans with two political parties so we have the illusion of choice.

Because people are so busy arguing about which politicians suck the worst, the banking cartel is able to do whatever they want without being questioned.

Read “The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve” by Edward Griffin to get some insight into who really controls both political parties.

[SHILOH]

Conservatives believe that the ultimate end for communism obliterates rule-of-law…from which the American Constitution originates. The “Cold War” came to an end because of the strength of the free-world. Citizens in communist countries are killed for speaking out against their government. US citizenship is recognized globally as a prized privilege.

It makes me happy that the person, Saddam Hussein and his entourage are no longer in power anywhere, since he is of the same genre as Hitler -though not as powerful. I don’t understand why anyone would say the world would be the same or better off had we left him where he was…in power as a brutal dictator. The idea of his brand of terror against individuals with his unbridled brutality—-going unchecked—sickens me. The spread of it would be tragic.

Edmund Burke is attributed with saying ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil. is for good men to do nothing.’ That brand of evil that Saddam inflicted on other innocent families…had to be stopped for the sake of doing what is right. This has become American heritage. Saddam reportedly killed over 2 million people and was said to admire Stalin…the Soviet leader who murdered 4 million of his own countrymen.

The problem we face now…terrorism and violence against civilians is part of the modern Muslim cultural psychology –unlike modern “western” culture that views it as barbaric and appauling. Below is from an article I read:

“In a recent survey of 6,000 Muslims in 14 countries published in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, females were more likely to support terrorism than were males. What’s more, married and unmarried persons are equally likely to support terrorism. Age matters less than one may think at first blush. In the same survey, some 47 percent of 62-year-olds surveyed were inclined to support terrorism. That percentage was only 10 points higher for 18-year-olds.

Other factors, such as perception of a threat to Islam and opinions about the role of religion in government, have a significantly greater impact on support for terrorism than age or gender. The bottom line? Ideology and beliefs matter more than social or economic status, age or gender. Focusing outreach and counterterrorism efforts on young, unmarried Muslim males will only overlook enormous sections of Muslim populations who support terrorists.”
excerpt from ‘Think Again: Islamist Terrorism’
By C. Christine Fair, Husain Haqqani

[Author]

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