Bush comes out against war

He's also in favor of protective regulations for hazardous chemicals. Remember when he said this:

In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life.

-- George W. Bush

I'm sure this is what he meant.

Good one. Have to say I can hardly stand the sound of the President's voice anymore.

This is a fairly interesting article should you be so inclined. The writer even mentions your Olbermann revere.

Are Americans unready to boil?
By Joel S. Hirschhorn, Online Journal Contributing Writer, Jun 22, 2007

The frog-in-boiling water model helps us understand political upheavals: how citizens wake up early enough (or too late) to respond to social and economic oppression. Sometimes the greed and arrogance of Ruling Classes makes them careless and social waters heat too quickly. Sensing doom, alert citizen-frogs escape or revolt. Or they stay complacent and boil. The Bush administration has turned the heat up on us, explaining why nearly 75 percent of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track and 70 percent think the economy is worsening. . . .

Some Americans keep warning us -- people like Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Aaron Russo, Dennis Kucinich, Lou Dobbs, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Bill Moyers, Jon Stewart, and Keith Olbermann. They entertain complacent frogs and preach to the choir of alert frogs that also know the temperature is rising dangerously. . . .

. . .

How much worse does American democracy have to get before public outrage demands what the Constitution's Framers gave us in case citizens lost confidence in the federal government? Haven't Americans lost enough trust to use what elites have fought and feared? Can't we trust ourselves to have a peaceful populist rebellion through an Article V convention before we boil?

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2113.shtml
............

Oh you can bet I am on a boil Lea. I have kids that I trained on the ground in Baghdad and in the NW quad of the country that are taking fire every day and for no damned good reason. Its not so much the president as it is the unwillingness to do the necessary. That being that you establish your political goals, then military and then you go in there and just do them. Imposition of will by total subjugation. That means annihilation of whole villages in a loud and vocal way. Murder? Depends on who is making the call afterwards. Revere would say it was of course. So is setting off a 500 pounder next to a HumVee. Oh yeah, its been armored up now because Hilary politicized that one.. Cant get off the road with one during an attack because they are too heavy to drive in what they were designed to do, the desert. Armor is too heavy.

As far as wars go its been a non event. 3500 now, when we were expected to lose that many and more in the assault to take Baghdad. Its very, very low numbers. Its not low for the guys who are actually doing it and having been unsupported by our electeds during the time I know what they are feeling. Screw Sheehan and Moyers, its about the willingness to win a war or tamp this back to a level that is acceptable. Acceptable to whom? Revere would just say leave. Okay he's a Doc, I dont tell him how to fight bugs. I could accomplish a military mission with enough pre-planning to have the troops out in under six months. But the gloves would have to come off to do it.

Michael Moore? I fully think he is a communist and that he is deliberately working to subvert the country under the guise of patriotism. He has the right to do so. Sheehan is not very bright and didnt realize she was being used by the Democrats to curry votes. Now they are in and she is out. I dont think she is so stupid anymore.

Kucinich? I dont think he even knows where Ohio is? This isnt a boiling point but it is mindlessly stupid to use US troops in a police mode. Iraq will disintegrate if we leave and likely fracture into multiple states as it was before 1935. What could insert itself into the picture is a controlled Iraq via Iran. That disturbs me as they would control 1/3rd of the worlds oil and be in easy proximity to the Saudi oil fields. Once taken we would have a hell of a time getting them back and in any sort of shape. That leaves Hugo down south and its one of the reasons we are going ethanol. After our shift, its going to raise the price of oil as they cut production and limit the number of barrels we take. Want to end the war in Iraq? Drill for oil in the Anwar, off the coast of LA and FL. All the incentives to stay just left. They can go and ram supertankers into each other and decide who wins then. Brings new meanings to the words, "Go pound sand!"

But the post is about Bush being against the war. I am against the war in its present modality. Its a waste of good men and women and I for one am sick of it. We saddled them up with the most awesome war fighting machine and our generals said stop it, its a massacre. Uh, huh. Who is getting massacred now?

What happened to GWB? I have no idea but he has completely wussed out. But its also one of the reasons that Gen. Franks left. You cant fight a holding action and a certain guy named Robert E. Lee said that to his President, Jefferson Davis. This is proving itself again.

So what to do? For one, eliminate Irans nuke and conventional military capability. Do it immediately and then break their infrastructure toys. Dont put one person on the ground in Iran. Just tell them point blank that they are going to need one hell of a lot of pine boxes and body bags if their insurgency doesnt stop. Destroy THEIR ability to supplement a rag tag militia of guys with AK's that cant mount a credible attack on our forces and are only making IED's that maim for the better part. Supposedly our vaunted UN accounted for all of the heavy bombs and secured them. Uh, so how are these same rag tags hauling 500 pounders across the border without blowing themselves up?. How are they planting them on the sides of busy streets without someone noticing? Thats not happening in a vaccum. Start blowing up the Iraqi munitions dumps then we will see if someone can haul one safely across the desert on a camel from Iran to Iraq. Then hire mercenaries to eliminate the leadership inside of Iraq one by one such as Al-Sadr. Counter insurgency-work to overthrow the Iranians at their own game. Have counter agents do their best to rocket some of their LNG facilities inside Iran. One of those would set them back about three months at a bop. Hit that one big refinery that the Iranians have and it will shut their economy down in under a week. It would bring that government down around their mullahs ears.

Look its the Vietnamization of Iraq. We arent going to win the hearts and minds of the people. So we go in and make sure they cant organize anything bigger than a couple of hundred guys at a time and we wade in there and pick them off when they do. Oh the war is winnable but our losses are acceptable right now against theirs. High ratio of kills. But no one wants to kill women and children but this is the Dresden raids all over again. Hit what is necessary to stop them from becoming a regional or world power and do it now.

If we dont take their assets off the map, the reconstituted Ottoman Empire will pit the Turks against the Persians after they go for Kurdistan and then we are going to have to take sides. If we level the playing field constantly with high level conventional attacks we dont need to lose another guy on the ground. They dont have anything that can touch us and the Russians dont either for the time being.

If they dont want to do the necessary, then they should just leave and I mean today. I will point out the one thing that isnt evident here... the political goals. Having them take over and govern themselves is like putting a TV dinner in between six or seven kids who live in Dachau. It aint going to happen our our shift unless we REALLY get ugly. But we are Americans, moral high ground and all of that. I would say that is about over in our eyes. Oh the world fears us for sure and the EU is flexing its wings now that the Russian Bear has a leash on it. Dont think for one minute that more than a handful of those countries want to do anything other than to sell arms to the Iranians.

Those political operatives you mention above are FUBAR'D and they cant help themselves. They would disagree with anything any Republican would do to bring this to a close because it serves their political goals. In fact they have done just about everything they could to support the Iranians. They better be damned careful or they'll get another Carter or Clinton that runs the country based upon polls. Forget GWB. History will have to judge his performance AFTER the next two presidential runs. One way or the other we are about to enter a tremendously trying time for the country.

Feel free to disagree and say we just CANT bomb the living hell out of innocents. Foks agree or disagree, we are going to leave there soon and they are going to be on our heels when we do. A short lull, consolidation of power and then launching of regional then world attacks in both conventional and later on NBC capability is likely. We have forgotten that we can be tagged. This will change soon.

M.Randolph Kruger writes:

If we dont take their assets off the map, the reconstituted Ottoman Empire will pit the Turks against the Persians after they go for Kurdistan and then we are going to have to take sides.

The dominoes!! The dominoes!! Why do the warmongers feel the need to sew fear and believe that the US must impose itself militarily on the world? The best weapon that the US has is free market capitalism. Once Bush is finally out of office (none too soon), then the US should concentrate on becoming a good world citizen again. It can regain the credibility it lost between Afghanistan and Iraq. The First World will not allow rogue states to get carried away. Collectively, they may be slow and uncertain, but they will act if not repulsed by unrestrained US militarism. In the meantime, the US can isolate any threats and concentrate on the transformational power of commercialization and integration. It takes longer but is more certain and humane in the end.

Kucinich? I dont think he even knows where Ohio is?

"We know where Ohio is. It's in the area around Cleveland and Columbus, and east, west, south and north somewhat."

HP: LOL. But does this mean when we actually go to look for Ohio we won't find it?

Ex-

You know IMO getting rid of Saddam was a good thing by just about any means necessary. GB1 left a deal for Clinton and GB 2 to clean up. Both did an absolutely perfect job of blowing it. Clinton appeased and did a no fly zone while people were being murdered on the ground. We got the first attempt on the WTC's during his watch and he knew they were coming to boot. GB2 came in and we got ourselves a shooting war. But all roads lead to Baghdad and it is the key to the Middle East. Up to that time it was a war of words. We could just warn them all. Work together or we will respond directly and massively against any area that launches attacks against another. Take out a block or two at a time and they'll get the picture.

Either way. Get yourself ready for whats going to be the larger picture. The US doesnt need any help in deciding whats moral. We have our own leftists to do that. Unfortunately when we get on a roll after having been neutered as we were having no center line, its hard to stop. Its a natural reaction to want to hit back and the WTC's fired one hell of a lot of people up. Our sovereignty was impinged.. Iraq was one thing, Iran another. IMO we got the wrong guys, but the removal and hitting of Iraq was always going to be necessary anyway. A huge fear is beginning to form that Pakistan will fall, Iran will get Iraq and then roll south into Saudi Arabia. Ethanol and drill the Anwar, then use the time between to develop alternative energy.

The way to win Iraq is to simply eliminate the competition. As with the N. Vietnamese, once we did Linebacker they wanted to negotiate. Okay, so lets do it and put the Iranians on notice that Iraq is free and is going to stay that way. One pop into their infrastructure and the Iranians are going down. I could assure you that it wouldnt take more than a day to bring their economy to a halt a the cost of thousands of "civilians" which in their case is a question mark. I dont know any of these "war mongers" that you speak of. Its a designated job that certain people in the world rise to the occasion for. Much to the dismay of the leftists who want to negotiate everything out and control all things. The rightist do it by pure unadulterated agression. The end result is the same.

Randy,

You need to go back and study a little military history, specifically the history of colonial insurgencies.

Um, why is it we are in Iraq again? It has nothing to do with 9-11.

If...

What else could this mean? George Bush is opposed to war.

Then...

The Clean Air Act is about cleaning up the air.

Imposition of will by total subjugation. That means annihilation of whole villages in a loud and vocal way.

You only do that if you want to be al Qaida's best recruiter, Randy. Not to mention the recruiter for every band of nuts from Indonesia to Morocco.

We've been there once before, and it didn't work that time, either.

The only reason we didn't end up paying even more than we did for that particular stroke of genius is that the North Vietnamese trumped our act of stupidity with an even bigger one: they figured they could take us in a straight-up fight. Thus, Tet. The result on the ground was that the VC was broken outright, and the NVA was bled white. They spent the next five years rebuilding after that little bit of idiocy.

There is absolutely no way that the Iraqis are going down that path, because there isn't a unitary command structure on the other side to order it. They simply cannot. Even if they were that dumb, which they've shown absolutely no signs of being to date.

Jesus, Randy. What are you thinking?

"Want to end the war in Iraq? Drill for oil in the Anwar, off the coast of LA and FL. All the incentives to stay just left. They can go and ram supertankers into each other and decide who wins then. Brings new meanings to the words, "Go pound sand!""

This is completely unrealistic. The U.S. oil need is practically insatiable. ANWR will not fix the problems caused by the U.S. dependance on foreign oil.

THere may be ~10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in all of the ANWR and coastal zone. The U.S. currently consumes ~7.5 billion barrels of oil a year. It would take 10 years to begin production in the ANWR, at which time our consumption will be even higher. Exploiting the ANWR and coastal zone would only reduce our daily import rate by an estimated 4% of our current import rate, for a short period. That is not enough to make the U.S. disinterested in oil rich countries' politics. (Plus, there are serious arguments to hold that oil in reserve, for future generations who may need it more than we do. Petroleum makes more than just gasoline and other fuels.) Either way, we need to find another way to fix the fact that the U.S. is terribly dependent on the main oil exporting countries, even if we do drill in ANWR.

Randy and Cassie:

The war stopped being about oil when the situation on the ground went irremediably chaotic.

There is NFW that you can run an oil operation when the locals can, and do, wreck your pipelines and kidnap or kill your staff any time they feel the urge.

Try reconcentrating your people to adequately guard your production and transshipment assets, and you lose the entire rest of the country. Then you lose your assets too, when they get overrun.

Hi MRK. Say, that information was posted just for reader's of EM to see and read. It doesn't mean that I'm in agreement with it, I just said it was interesting.
Would like to see American's take control of their lives and future rather than allow their rights and freedoms to be stripped away one by one. Things have gone too far.

Moore lost all credibility when I heard him say that taxes should go up and that he'd stop at 70%.
Sheehan? No thank you.

Mr. Kruger (General Kruger?):

You say "Kucinich? I dont think he even knows where Ohio is?"

But he does seem to have the intelligence and leadership to introduce articles for the impeachment of Big Dick.

Do you disagree with his doing so?

ssal-I believe that unlike WJC and Kosovo he did go to Congress for approval. He presented the evidence that was available and they nearly all voted for it. So what would you impeach him for except being a very bad CIC? So was Clinton.

Gee Melanie, miltary historian too? Okay, look up "scorched earth" and even the Wikipedia example out there is a good example but not quite violent enough. The simple fact is that as I have said it before, we might just have to do them all to resolve the situation. If anyone thinks thats immoral, illegal and etc okay thats your opinion and partially mine. If they bring out a knife, I bring out a gun. If they plant an IED, I follow them back to their homes and area and tell them to put him out the door like the trash or we take the block out. Gruesome, but it DOES solve the problems. We are just too nice to our adversaries.

I wouldnt hesitate to knock Teheran off the map right now because of that other sources are telling me. First is their funding of the Al-Mahdi. One squadron of B52's could finish that problem in an afternoon.

Respectfully Charles, I would have taken Hanoi off the map in 68 when we were being attacked. Gone, obliterated as they fit the Geneva convention of legitimate targets. Our own legislators sit around and wonder why everything we get into militarily for the last 25 years has gone south? Its them. I dont like this meat grinder we are in. Time to turn the tide and win it. If not just lose and leave. Oh, and I dont think its irretrievable. The fix is like you say going to be a great recruiter.Thats good because massed people make mistakes. When they do they will be dead and dead ones dont vote and they dont kill our soldiers and they dont make IED's. So if they want to become martyrs then so be it. I think we have enough of those on our side now.

Cassie-Depending on who you talk to, there is supposedly 30 years of average Saudi well production up there. They arent going to go up and drill where there isnt oil. You know it and I know it. So the oil companies believe that there is one hell of a lot of oil. I dont know and neither do you that you can prove. One way to find out is to stick the holes in the ground and find out. Each time we do it makes up the difference. I am told by another group that 15 oil wells producing at Saudi capacity right now is the equivalent of 3cents at the pump. It is time for a change for sure, but do we really want too? Not really. It would put too many people out of work to go to something cleaner. Also air pollution inevitably will start going down in the next 20 years unless we have some sort of baby boom. Old people will be dying off in droves.

Ssal-You also miss one thing and that is that we are now just over 1.3 years away from losing GWB. What then? I dont even want to think about that.

Mr. Kruger (General Kruger?):

You write "Ssal-You also miss one thing and that is that we are now just over 1.3 years away from losing GWB. What then? I dont even want to think about that."

Goodness -- and here I thought it is a little over 1.5 years before "losing" GWB!

Beyond the amount of time before "losing" President Bush, what in the world did I write to lead you to make such a statement?!

Third, just to make sure I understand you correctly: you are not being sarcastic, right? You are in fact among those who regard GWB as a good (maybe even great?) president?

I would have taken Hanoi off the map in 68 when we were being attacked. Gone, obliterated as they fit the Geneva convention of legitimate targets.

Hmm. B-52s didn't manage this with conventional bombing, so that pretty much leaves nukes. Unleashing Curtis LeMay. If we had done that, the odds that we would be having this conversation - or any conversation - would be too small to be seen without a microscope.

We came close enough to nuclear war in 1983-84 as it was.

Yeah, I think the Soviets would have reacted. If not immediately, then 10 or 15 years down the line. Because losing 30 million people to invasion on top of the 30 million you lost to a psychopath like Stalin makes paranoia into a civic virtue.

The fix is like you say going to be a great recruiter.Thats good because massed people make mistakes. When they do they will be dead and dead ones dont vote and they dont kill our soldiers and they dont make IED's. So if they want to become martyrs then so be it.

Randy, the problem with the Iraqi insurgencies (note the plural form of the noun) is that they are NOT a mass. They are instead a swarm. We do not have a unitary threat agent to contend with. Instead we have dozens. Most of them are agents we don't even know are there until they start shooting at us. At which point, it's a little late to take a census.

In order to deal with them all in a either a reactively or preclusively destructive way, we pretty much have to kill off the entire population, or most of it.

We can either do that in the traditional manner, as Hulagu and Ghengis did, or we can simply nuke the place.

The first option leaves us with hunreds of thousands of vets who have been comprehensively taught that civilians are completely expendable, whenever and however and in any numbers that are expedient.

The second option leaves us in a world with other nuclear powers, who have just observed as we wiped out a nation that did not strike us first. Next thing you know, we have cities getting vaporized by weapons sent from states where Allah doesn't even get the time of day, let alone worship.

I don't think that either set of consequences is particularly survivable.

Charles-N. Vietnam was a joke. We could have literally destroyed Hanoi in a matter of days. We were held back by the politicians who were calling the shots on what to bomb that night with the Navy, and the USAF by day. I am sorry but even without nukes we could have done them and quickly.

Yes, DEFCON 2 from KAL 007 was the footing that you saw. DEFCON 1 was what we were flying. Reagan almost ordered it until he found out what really happened. It lead to the meeting in Rekajvik and things cooled down rapidly after that.

Your para about the fix being a great recruiter is a very good point. But there is no way we can treat these guys like its a police department problem. The Sean Penns of the world are full of crap as Christmas Turkeys if they think they aint coming for us. We leave Iraq and they will topple every regime for 2000 miles and consolidate their holds. Then Charles it will be the old cigar chomper himself and the writings that he did for the air war college. What I am saying is that unless something dramatic changes, we will leave Iraq as we did Vietnam. We have been beaten back now as far as Guam in the East and Turkey on the West. If they get their hands on it we wont be able to get it back.

The troops will be visible then and once they have the bomb, they will make hundreds of them. It leads to the inevitable showdown and we will lob our arrows and they will lob theirs at us, the EU and Russia. The recruitment is already underway and it is the Saracen method of recruitment. That was shown today in front of the Al-Qaeda bombing. You are with us or against us is the message. Sound familiar.

You are right Charles about the civilians. We are taught that civilians go last if there is a choice but if they give aid and comfort to the enemy then they go down too. I am sorry but war is not some game that is fought with one hand behind your back and thats what IMMEDIATELY happened when we went into Iraq and we were being attacked. I blame most of the Dems for this, but not all.

Now we can argue the points of this until time runs out. Time isnt any longer on our side and the Dems and some of the Republicans dont get it and that is they KNOW they can get us now. I hear your argument Charles, I really do and understand it. But to not support this one ensures we are gong to take a WTC again and very quickly somewhere. There will be those that disagree of course.

Ssal-Yep. I think that GWB is a good president but a poor CIC. The economy is good. I think he really believes what he says although its out of touch with reality at times. Clinton was a good president too, but a poor CIC. He invoked the war powers act to get the stain off Monica's dress but it stuck like glue and we went to Kosovo without Congressional approval. At lease GWB did that.

GWB has a good economy, Clinton had a good economy. But both deluded themselves on what could and couldnt be done. I dont fault either of them though. I blame daddy Bush. We should have gone into Baghdad on the ground, arrested or killed Saddam and his henchmen and then put the arabs in charge. Remember though, most of Iraq was and is Persian and that means Iran and to a lesser degree Syria. Such nice neighbors.

Lot less casualties and fewer toys broken. I think what GWB is trying to achieve could have worked with that coalition we had back then. Spilt milk. The 1.3 reference was time to the next Presidential election. He also will be President until January 20, 2008. Lame ducks can do a lot of good and harm. Carter was a lot of harm. Clintons people were and are just vindictive sociocrats that feel that all of us are below THEM (remember removing all the W's from the keyboards at the WH?) So yeah I think he is a pretty good president that needs to pull out the stops and start hurting the insurgency and that Ssal means dead people who "might" be civilians.