Bush made the world a safer place

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Gary loves the attention. Why do you think he is naked in his pic?

FYI That pic was taken in PI when it was about 100 deg. I had on shorts and she had on a tube top and shorts. Standard tropical dress.

But to us you look naked. How would we know?

You see bare shoulders and assume the rest is naked? Do you make assumptions based on incomplete information like that a lot?

You did it yesterday : http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...p;#entry1934420 (post#8 confirmed it)

No, I posted a story. Any assumptions made were by others.

Which would beg the question did you or do you think that the story as posted is true?

Since I don't know him personally I can't say. If he does have a half brother and his half brother said that then it presents a question about some of Obama's statements. Personally I don't care if he is Christian, Muslim, Jewish or druid. Just be honest about it. I just thought it was an interesting story. I make no promises about it's accuracy.

Did you actually read it through? The point there was that the author of your op-ed article deliberately omited part of Obama's brother's statement. We can take a fairly educated guess as to why he would do that...

Edited June 17, 2008 by Number 6

[Aubrey 10]

The shame will soon end...

Clueless idiot...

Edited June 17, 2008 by Aubrey

[Krikit 1,165]

Bless you, Number 6, for reducing your signature so I can read your posts.

[rika60607 215]

Gary lives in a largely democratic state.

It is hard for him.

He needs to vent.

Let's go back to topic..he doesn't agree with anyone except himself.

[zqt3344 21]

GW BUSH is a great patriot for the USA, and there have been no terrorist attacks on the US since! Now dispute that liberal committee of VJ!

Bush made the world a safer place

We may jeer him and tell him to go home, but America's allies continue to benefit from some of George Bush's decisions

Jimmy Carter was cheered when he visited Newcastle with Jim Callaghan. Bill Clinton was lauded in Northern Ireland. But it is more usual, at least with more consequential holders of the office, for American presidents to be told by European demonstrators to go home.

The postwar history of our continent would be different and less benign if the United States had heeded that message. His office, and the system of collective security from which we benefit, would be justification enough to welcome President Bush's visit to London this week. But there is an additional reason peculiar to the Bush presidency. For all Bush's verbal infelicity, diplomatic brusqueness, negligence in planning for post-Saddam Iraq, and insouciance regarding standards of due process when prosecuting the war on terror, the world is a safer place for the influence he has exercised.

When Bush ran for president in 2000 he was an isolationist advocate of scaling back America's overseas commitments. But after 9/11, he was right in not interpreting the attack as confirmation that America was stirring up trouble for itself. The theocratic barbarism responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers was driven not by what America and its allies had done, but by what we represented. In the words of Osama bin Laden, illegitimately appropriating for himself the mantel of Islam, "every Muslim, the minute he can start differentiating, carries hate toward Americans, Jew, and Christians".

The most fundamental decision in western security policy in the past seven years has not been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It has been the recognition that the most voluble adversaries of western society are not merely a criminal subculture, and still less an incipient liberation movement. Rather, they are a reactionary, millenarian and atavistic force with whom accommodation is impossible as well as intensely undesirable.

The grand strategy pursued by the US under Bush has overestimated the plasticity of the international order, but it has got one big thing right. There is an integral connection between the terrorism that targets western societies and the autocratic states in which Islamist fanaticism is incubated. Bush is culpable for much that went wrong after the overthrow of Saddam, but the outlook for Iraq has changed fundamentally owing to his decision to appoint General David Petraeus and pursue a confrontational strategy with al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bush was wrong, in his 2002 state of the union speech, to speak of an "axis of evil" connecting Saddam, Iran and North Korea – not because he overstated these actors' malevolence but because they were not a homogeneous threat. Two of them remain potent and unresolved problems. But little can be accomplished in restraining North Korea's bellicosity without the active support of China, and at least the Iranian regime has faced a united international front in constraining its nuclear ambitions. Whoever succeeds Bush as president will benefit from some decisions well conceived if often badly executed. So will America's allies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...ebush.terrorism

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Sure... If you believe that the author of the article knows things that the intelligence agencies don't...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/mi...t/24terror.html

[zqt3344 21]

How many terrorists attacks on USA since 9/11 six? You once again dodge the truth or answer the question, you are in constant denial.

Sure... If you believe that the author of the article knows things that the intelligence agencies don't...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/mi...t/24terror.html

[HAL 9000 96]

How many terrorist attacks before 9/11, six?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

How many terrorists attacks on USA since 9/11 six? You once again dodge the truth or answer the question, you are in constant denial.

Sure... If you believe that the author of the article knows things that the intelligence agencies don't...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/mi...t/24terror.html

Denial of what exactly? 9/11 was a watershed event and a unique event.... The only remotely comparable incidents were the '93 WTC bombing and the destruction of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

That there haven't been more terrorist activities doesn't mean much at all - given that we weren't exactly deluged by them before 9/11.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Let's go back to topic..he doesn't agree with anyone except himself.

Are you sure that Gary isn't like Braxton Bragg (who was infamous for managing to argue even with himself)? Edited June 18, 2008 by CherryXS

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Incidentally I would point out the train bombings in London and Madrid.

World safer indeed...

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Incidentally I would point out the train bombings in London and Madrid.

World safer indeed...

Perhaps akin to the myth that if JFK hadn't been bumped-off, he would have achieved world peace.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Its all feel-good nonsense.

[GaryC 7]

How many terrorist attacks before 9/11, six?

At least one. The first world trade center bombing.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

How many terrorist attacks before 9/11, six?

At least one. The first world trade center bombing.

I think the operative phrase there is "isolated incidents".