How a two-term president became the quiet man of American politics

[financeguy]

Where's George W Bush? How a two-term president became the quiet man of US politics - Telegraph

 

[Kieran McConville]

He should be silent. He should be very silent indeed.

That said, aren't most US presidents the quiet men of American politics once they leave office? I didn't recall hearing much from Ford, Reagan (yeah ok, I know) or Bush Snr in their later years. Carter is probably a bit of an odd man out.

 

[Canadiens1131]

He should be silent. He should be very silent indeed.

Yeah, okay, Michael Cane.

 

[Dfit00]

Presidents, just like any other employees, hit it and quit it.

 

[Vincent Vega]

Didn't find a better place.

Bush knows why he better stays quiet:
US: Torture and Rendition to Gaddafi’s Libya | Human Rights Watch

Not only did the US deliver Gaddafi his enemies on a silver platter but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first. The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened.

The interviews and documents establish that, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US, with aid from the United Kingdom (UK) and countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, arrested and held without charge a number of LIFG members living outside Libya, and eventually rendered them to the Libyan government.

The report also describes serious abuses that five of the former LIFG members said they experienced at two US-run detention facilities in Afghanistan, most likely operated by the CIA. They include new allegations of waterboarding and other water torture. The details are consistent with the few other first-hand accounts about the same US-run facilities.

You will likely hear many similar stories from Syria.
The European intelligence services brought similar shame over their respective countries (not to mention the governments who approved of it).

 

[INDY500]

The report also describes serious abuses that five of the former LIFG members said they experienced at two US-run detention facilities in Afghanistan, most likely operated by the CIA. They include new allegations of waterboarding and other water torture. The details are consistent with the few other first-hand accounts about the same US-run facilities.

Anything in the report about "kill lists" or terror suspects that are blown to smithereens by drones?

 

[AchtungBono]

My guess is that he has nothing more to add. Like the good guy in a western movie, he helped the townspeople in their time of need, left them safer than when he found them, and now it's time for him to ride off into the sunset....

 

[digitize]

Yep, that's it. Couldn't be his low-30s approval rating all through his last three years or so in office, or the fact that he spent most of his term starting and defending and fighting a war that is extraordinarily unpopular nowadays.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

My guess is that he has nothing more to add. Like the good guy in a western movie, he helped the townspeople in their time of need, left them safer than when he found them, and now it's time for him to ride off into the sunset....

Such a wonderful, honourable man loved by millions, isn't he?

 

[AchtungBono]

Such a wonderful, honourable man loved by millions, isn't he?

Duly noted.....lol

 

[occlith]

That sorry punk said more than enough in his day.

 

[Irvine511]

GWB was the worst president in all of our lifetimes.

 

[Caleb8844]

Unless you're 32+ years old

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

My guess is that he has nothing more to add. Like the good guy in a western movie, he helped the townspeople in their time of need, left them safer than when he found them, and now it's time for him to ride off into the sunset....

I am presuming you're having some fun with us here.

'Cause if you're serious, yeah...no.

 

[Irvine511]

Unless you're 32+ years old

Indeed I am. Bush wins as worst.

 

[deep]

I was working, voting and paying taxes 32 years ago, it is not even close.

 

[AchtungBono]

I am presuming you're having some fun with us here.

'Cause if you're serious, yeah...no.

I am VERY serious......and I guess that living in Israel I can better understand and appreciate being in a state of war and the steps necessary to combat terrorism. I'm sorry that the American people don't seem to understand that terrorism can't be fought with cotton candy and lolipops (or the constitution). GWB was thrust into a situation that no American president since Pearl Harbor was forced to deal with - the worst terrorist attack EVER.

I would like to have seen any of his bashers deal with what he had to deal with, then we'll see how smart they would have been and what they would have done differently.

GWB is underappreciated and one day history will show that he was one of the better presidents the U.S. ever had.

 

[BVS]

I am VERY serious......and I guess that living in Israel I can better understand and appreciate being in a state of war and the steps necessary to combat terrorism. I'm sorry that the American people don't seem to understand that terrorism can't be fought with cotton candy and lolipops (or the constitution). GWB was thrust into a situation that no American president since Pearl Harbor was forced to deal with - the worst terrorist attack EVER.

I would like to have seen any of his bashers deal with what he had to deal with, then we'll see how smart they would have been and what they would have done differently.

GWB is underappreciated and one day history will show that he was one of the better presidents the U.S. ever had.

I do think this is the underlying reason why your opinion differs so much from American opinion; you have "an end justifies the means" approach to justice and other issues, whereas most Americans do not accept the "you have to become a monster to defeat a monster" mentality.

History will never be all that kind to GW. I believe it will be kinder than it is now, but never will he be touted as one of the better ones.

 

[Pearl]

GWB is underappreciated and one day history will show that he was one of the better presidents the U.S. ever had.

But you live in Israel, you have no idea what it was like having GWB as president of your own country.

And the vast majority of Americans - and even others worldwide - would agree there was no need to invade Iraq at all, hence GWB's lousy presidency.

 

[cobl04]

He became a segment on Letterman, for fuck's sake.

 

[Irvine511]

I would like to have seen any of his bashers deal with what he had to deal with, then we'll see how smart they would have been and what they would have done differently.

I can guarantee you no one other than GWB would have fabricated intelligence and used 9-11 as a means of battering an emotionally wounded populace into hesitant support for the invasion of Iraq.

Tell me, does your experience in Israel also help you understand the need to, say, torture suspects?

 

[trojanchick99]

I'm sorry, Bush's administration lied to the American people. The result of the lie is the deaths of thousands of people. That and he left the economy in a gigantic mess. He is near the bottom of the list.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I am VERY serious......and I guess that living in Israel I can better understand and appreciate being in a state of war and the steps necessary to combat terrorism. I'm sorry that the American people don't seem to understand that terrorism can't be fought with cotton candy and lolipops (or the constitution).

I like how being opposed to the way Bush did things automatically means that means we think terrorism can be fought with "cotton candy and lolipops". 'Cause apparently it's either be nice to the terrorists (which NOBODY has ever suggested) or go to war with the country at large. There can't possibly be anything in between those two options.

Also, as noted, Israel's situations are different from the U.S.'s, so it's hard to properly compare them often. And even then, what your country's doing doesn't seem to be working very much, since you're STILL often at war with the countries that attack yours.

GWB was thrust into a situation that no American president since Pearl Harbor was forced to deal with - the worst terrorist attack EVER.

I would like to have seen any of his bashers deal with what he had to deal with, then we'll see how smart they would have been and what they would have done differently.

Certainly it is easy to make comments when you're not in that situation, but I think there are two things that I know full well I definitely would have done differently if I were in his shoes.

1, I wouldn't have lied to the people about WMDs and Saddam's ties to 9/11 and diverted attention from where the terrorists actually were to wage war in a place like Iraq, both of which the Bush administration did and both of which cost us a lot of time and money that could've been better spent elsewhere.
2, I would've made sure we had a proper plan in place to get in, deal with the terrorists, hunt them, capture them, kill them if need be, and then get out, making sure beforehand we had the support of our allies and the people of the country the terrorists were in to help us along in such a quest. I would've tried to make sure that we didn't drag the war out for 10 plus years with questionable results.

GWB is underappreciated and one day history will show that he was one of the better presidents the U.S. ever had.

If you say so.

 

[Irvine511]

NY Times reporter: Bush White House didn't listen to 9/11 warnings

(CBS News) Eleven years after the 9/11 attacks, there is new information on what the George W. Bush administration knew about al-Qaeda's plans.

We learned after 9/11 that a presidential briefing paper in August 2001 was headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

But Tuesday in the New York Times, investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald says the White House received ominous warnings as early as May 2001.

CBS News spoke with Eichenwald Monday. He said, "What I've been able to see are the presidential daily briefs before August 6 of 2001. And they're horrific, and they are - our reports are 'an attack is coming,' 'there are going to be mass casualties.' The worst of them, the Pentagon, the neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, as the CIA was coming in saying, 'al-Qaeda's going to attack,' said, 'Oh, this is just a false flag operation. Bin laden is trying to take our attention off of the real threat, Iraq.' And so there are presidential daily briefs that are literally saying, 'No they're wrong, this isn't fake, it's real.'"

"CBS This Morning" co-host Norah O'Donnell said, "Then when a lot of people hear this, aren't they going to say, 'This is another example of where, not just the Bush administration, but our intelligence community dropped the ball. They failed to heed the warnings that were in a number of these (documents) that went all the way up to the president of the United States.'"

Eichenwald replied, "Actually, the counterterrorist center of the CIA did a spectacular job, and that's what really comes down. You know, in the aftermath, the White House and others said, 'Well they didn't tell us enough.' No, they told them everything they needed to know to go on a full alert and the White House didn't do it."

Eichenwald has stumbled onto a well-worn path, according to CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, former FBI deputy director and assistant director of National Intelligence, said on "CBS This Morning."

"We knew some of that," Miller said. "What he has added is the granularity of the actual memos and some of the actual words that were there in front of the White House and the National Security team. But, you know, Richard Clark, who is the national security advisor for terrorism, in his book, he said all the lights were blinking red and we were pushing this in front of Condi Rice every day and it was hard to get any priority on this. In George Tenet's book, he details the briefings they were given, so some of this we knew, and there's some of it in terms of the level of detail we didn't know."

But is al-Qaeda still a threat? Miller said the central command of al-Qaeda is "all but dead," but you "have to keep an eye on it." He explained, "It's still capable of being lethal on a small scale. What we have to worry about is not al-Qaeda central command. It's al-Qaeda-ism, which is the way they have marshaled the internet to find followers they have never met who can also do things that are lethal through this kind of inspiration."

NY Times reporter: Bush White House didn't listen to 9/11 warnings - CBS News

fuck Bush.

 

[Pearl]

Exactly.

How could he had not known? I'm sure Cheney and Rumsfeld knew damn well, yet for some reason didn't encourage Bush to do anything. After all, didn't he rely on those two for decision making?

It makes me sick that while the towers were burning and collapsing, Bush sat and read a book to schoolchildren. What was his logic in that?

I don't think Bush was some sociopath, but his brain certainly was not capable of functioning. Still isn't perhaps.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

It makes me sick that while the towers were burning and collapsing, Bush sat and read a book to schoolchildren. What was his logic in that?

Well I can't fault him for that. With all those kids there and you are told something like that. I don't think he kept reading a book for that long, while they were collapsing. I can't remember exactly how long it was. I think it was a brief period of time , before they got him out of there.

But I certainly do fault him for what's in that CBS News article, if that's accurate.

 

[Pearl]

OK, maybe I was ranting too much when I said that. But if an aide were to tell someone "our country is under attack", would that person stay put or get up immediately? I know he didn't read for too long, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Irvine511]

OK, maybe I was ranting too much when I said that. But if an aide were to tell someone "our country is under attack", would that person stay put or get up immediately? I know he didn't read for too long, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

It's because he was never really in charge. Tey had to go figure out what his role was going to be and what they were going to tell him, both about what had happened and what he was then supposed to do.

 

[Pearl]

I guess while we could never truly point the finger at one person over that, or agree if staying put was a wise decision.

I know there was great concern for the president that day. I remember after he left the school and Florida, no one knew of his whereabouts for deep security reasons.

Its just to have Bush read to the kids while even he didn't look like he wanted to either (I know I questioned earlier his logic, but if he was told to stay where he was, then that wasn't his decision), it just doesn't look like a very good decision to me. Whoever was in charge could've done something else. If they were concerned over alarming the kids, I can understand that. But our country was under attack and it looked as if Bush was advised to act nonchalant for the time being. It was just wrong to me.

 

[nathan1977]

I do think that hindsight on the day is 20/20. No one knew what was happening (I remember Today show commentators saying that calls were being placed to JFK and LaGuardia, to see if there was some kind of ATC problem; it wasn't until the attack on the Pentagon that it became clear). If I were advising the President, and if there was a fundamental lack of knowledge about what was happening, I would have told him to sit tight (particularly as he was in a school that was off the beaten track) until we knew something more too. 7 minutes in the long-term scheme of things is not that long; it may have been the last calm, measured response to terrorism that Bush's administration ever saw.