|
Click Here to Login |
Register | Premium Upgrade | Blogs | Gallery | Arcade | FAQ | Calendar | Search | Today's Posts | Mark Forums Read | Log in |
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread | Display Modes |
![]() |
#1 |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ireland
Posts: 10,122
Local Time: 02:59 AM
|
Greenspan finally reveals what he really thought about Bush
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...eenspan115.xml
__________________"Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US Federal Reserve, has issued a withering attack on President Bush handling of the American economy. The man credited with guiding the US through two decades of economic boom says Mr Bush and his inner circle put their political priorities ahead of the economic good of the country. Denouncing the tax cuts which President Bush brought after winning power, Mr Greenspan says in his memoirs that the Republicans deserved to lose the last Congressional elections in November because they abandoned fiscal discipline and hugely swelled the US budget deficit. ........ Without elaborating, he also observes: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” By contrast Mr Greenspan said Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were the most intelligent presidents he worked for." |
![]() |
![]() |
#2 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: The Q continuum
Posts: 4,770
Local Time: 02:59 AM
|
![]()
Too little, too late Mr. Greenspan. Where was your criticism when you were in office?
__________________ |
![]() |
![]() |
#3 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ireland
Posts: 10,122
Local Time: 02:59 AM
|
Quote:
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
#4 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: NY
Posts: 18,918
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
His almost over-complimentary comments regarding Clinton also strike me as a means of trying to associate himself with a successful president, after the fact, as a means of further distancing himself from the Bush administration.
Some people at least had the courage of conviction to point out that Bush was a disaster almost right from the start. |
![]() |
![]() |
#5 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Ásgarðr
Posts: 11,786
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
Quote:
Perhaps in this case, restraint was the prudent course of action. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
#6 | |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: NY
Posts: 18,918
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
Quote:
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
#7 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Ásgarðr
Posts: 11,786
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
Quote:
So this says one of two things about his character: that he's either a liar (saying back then that he was in support of tax cuts when he really was not) or he's disingenuous (rewriting history for the sake of legacy). Nonetheless, the "unreliable narrator" is a fixture of critical analysis of literature, so I'm not too surprised if the latter is actually true. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
#8 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Northern VA
Posts: 4,903
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
Quote:
In his testimony sessions to Congress, he issued warnings about the negative impacts of high budget deficits. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
#9 | |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: A far distance down.
Posts: 28,601
Local Time: 05:59 PM
|
Quote:
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
#10 |
Refugee
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,188
Local Time: 06:59 PM
|
Alan Greenspan > Pile of Shit > George W. Bush
|
![]() |
![]() |
#11 |
War Child
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 716
Local Time: 01:59 AM
|
Wow, I am so glad he spoke up, this needs to be known! I knew it was about oil and Bush is an oilman himself.
|
![]() |
![]() |
#12 | ||
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Wild West
Posts: 12,518
Local Time: 11:59 AM
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
![]() |
![]() |
#13 | |
Refugee
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel
Posts: 1,300
Local Time: 01:59 AM
|
Quote:
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
#14 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Northern VA
Posts: 4,903
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
Quote:
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
#15 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 28,221
Local Time: 09:59 PM
|
Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security
__________________By Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 17, 2007; A03 Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential." He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "I have never heard them basically say, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world,' but that would have been my motive." Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that." Greenspan said he had backed Hussein's ouster, either through war or covert action. "I wasn't arguing for war per se," he said. But "to take [Hussein] out, in my judgment, it was something important for the West to do and essential, but I never saw Plan B" -- an alternative to war. Greenspan's reference in "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World" to what he calls the "politically inconvenient" fact that the war was "largely about oil" was first reported by The Washington Post on Saturday and has proved controversial. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took issue with Greenspan on ABC's "This Week" yesterday. "I wasn't here for the decision-making process that initiated it, that started the war," Gates said. But, he added, "I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don't believe it's true." Critics of the administration have often argued that while Bush cited Hussein's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and despotic rule as reasons for the invasion, he was also motivated by a desire to gain access to Iraq's vast oil reserves. Publicly, little evidence has emerged to support that view, although a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive, titled "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy" and signed by Bush in August 2002 -- seven months before the invasion -- listed as one of many objectives "to minimize disruption in international oil markets." Though Greenspan's book is largely silent about Iraq, it is sharply critical of Bush and fellow Republicans on other matters, denouncing in particular what Greenspan calls the president's lack of fiscal discipline and the "dysfunctional government" he has presided over. In the interview, Greenspan said he had previously told Bush and Cheney of his critique. "They're not surprised by my conclusions," he said. As for Iraq, Greenspan said that at the time of the invasion, he believed, like Bush, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction "because Saddam was acting so guiltily trying to protect something." While he was "reasonably sure he did not have an atomic weapon," he added, "my view was that if we do nothing, eventually he would gain control of a weapon." His main support for Hussein's ouster, though, was economically motivated. "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands," Greenspan said, "our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first gulf war. And the second gulf war is an extension of the first. My view is that Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence of moving towards controlling the Straits of Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels a day" passing through. Greenspan said disruption of even 3 to 4 million barrels a day could translate into oil prices as high as $120 a barrel -- far above even the recent highs of $80 set last week -- and the loss of anything more would mean "chaos" to the global economy. Given that, "I'm saying taking Saddam out was essential," he said. But he added that he was not implying that the war was an oil grab. "No, no, no," he said. Getting rid of Hussein achieved the purpose of "making certain that the existing system [of oil markets] continues to work, frankly, until we find other [energy supplies], which ultimately we will." |
![]() |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|