Thanx just a whole shit load HW Bush, W Bush, and Dick Cheney

[Botany]

I can't put it all together but their policies and actions in the mideast
are in some part responsible for the horrors in France the world is seeing
now.

H.W.'s ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie, told Saddam Hussein that if he took over Kuwait
it would not be a problem and that brought on the first Iraq War which in turn had US
Troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia and that was seen as a major insult to Muslims
around the world because they didn't like having "infidels in their Holy Land."
Thom Hartmen

When Sandy Berger told Condi Rice that al Qaeda was going to be a major problem
in January of 2001 she and her bosses blew off those warnings. Despite those warnings
in the summer of 2001 the W Bush administration hosted Taliban members from Afghanistan
who at that time were giving bin Laden and al Qaeda a home base.

W. and Dick paid no attention to over 70 warnings before 9/11 and then they used that
tragedy as an excuse to start an unneeded war in Iraq which then spawned ISIS, in part the
war in Syria, new forms of al Qaeda such as the one in Yemen which is connected to the
bloodshed in Paris, and one of the murdering brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo spent
time in prison in France for recruiting fighters to go to Iraq to fight the American occupation.


je suis charlie

BTW thanx a lot to Justices Thomas, Scalia, O'Conner, Kennedy, and Rehnquist for your
Bush v Gore ruling which put Dick Cheney in power so he could start his war in Iraq to
make money and cuase so much death and destruction.

[mnhtnbb]

1. If anyone doesn't believe there is true evil in the world, they don't know Dick Cheney.

[hedda_foil]

24. The devil made a bad deal when he bargained for Cheney's soul.

The dick was born soulless and heartless to begin with.

[katmondoo]

2. I always thought they wanted a terrorist attack

so they did nothing and dismantled the group that was investigating the terrorists

[Wounded Bear]

6. LIHOP, in a nut shell...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. There are two theories.....

One is the PNAC "new Pearl Harbor" and the other is the Republicans believed their own lies AGAIN.

Remember the movie "Wag The Dog"? During Clinton the Republicans claimed all that talk of international terrorism was to distract everyone from the Monica affair and impeachment. They called an attempt to get bin Laden "blowing up a $10 tent with a $1,000,000 cruise missile." When they took over in 2001 they figured all the warnings were from former Clintonites trying to make their former boss look good.

Dubya was deep in trouble himself over his connections with Ken Lay at the time.

[KansDem]

21. "...so they did nothing..."

[malaise]

3. This is going to enter the discussion in the media

soon and very soon.
Beware of Jeb or expect more of the same PNAC madness

[Botany]

5. I hope you are right but I have my doubts ......

.... the MSM is way dirty and in the republican's pocket. Did you notice
how fast after the last election that ebola went away? But leading up to
the election it was used to whip up fears and linked to our border w/Mexico
with such tag lines as, "Fight Ebola and Secure the Border."

The direct links between those murdering thugs in France and our war in Iraq
are hardly mentioned in MSM.

[malaise]

9. Two nights ago Rachel mentioned that one of the brothers was very upset about

Abu Ghraib and was helping to recruit fighters in 2005

[Skidmore]

10. The media was trained by Bush and Cheney to look aside.

Embedding media with troops had a two-fold effect. First, they became part of the military also and they were subjected to an implied threat of immediate retaliation for reporting by their minders. We have a captive media content to not see and to only report the drama of battle as long as there is a movie script worthy story of heroics to accompany it.

[Botany]

11. You only have to look @ The election in Ohio 2004 and their reporting about W's "ranch"

W's "ranch" was built for him prop by Enron, the cattle were rentals, and the manure was
not spread on the fields but was hauled away because Laura didn't like the smell.

Hell, W didn't get "into ranching" until 2001 when the former pig farm became "Prairie Chapel
Ranch."

[world wide wally]

4. I am glad the OP included the enablers of evil otherwise known as the Supreme Court.

They have made all this, and so much more, possible through narrow minded actions for personal profit and political gain.

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. When you sow the wind

you reap the whirlwind.

[Botany]

8. +1

Fullujaha, Iraq November 2004 must have made thousands of current day ISIS fighters.

[calimary]

14. No shit. Did a lot more than just destabilize "the region."

Now, the whole world. Sure is a nice scab you picked open, bush/cheney. Thanks a whole smoking heap.

[Botany]

17. W did not know that Shia and Sunni Muslims were different less then 2 months before .....

.... he started Dick Cheney's war.

I will always remember Joe Wilson saying we could be in Baghdad in under one week
but then that would be when the real trouble would start because iraq had something like
105 different factions and their one unifying point was that all didn't like each other.

[calimary]

22. Sadly, w didn't know much about ANYTHING.

I think the sadist in him was probably wired in somewhat in the torture arena. He'd long ago demonstrated sadistic tendencies in the way he treated lower life forms - as a kid, so I've read, he loved putting firecrackers into frogs' mouths and throwing the frogs up in the air to watch them explode. Big fun, 'eh?

But with his limited intellect and all the brain cells he killed with all that heavy drinking and coke binging for so long, I'd suspect he didn't know much about anything except what was put in front of him to sign or to read aloud in public. And what he WAS given, I'd suspect, never really sunk in. I'll bet he could read whole pages and not absorb or even faintly remember much of what he'd just supposedly "read." He was damaged goods when we "got" him.

And if you'll recall, at one point the quote from him was - "I don't do nuance." Knowing what I've observed of him, it was probably too much trouble to look for nuances or try to interpret, or read deeper concepts or suggestions from what he saw on the surface. Probably thought that kind of thing was for sissies. Or - as was remembered here today from what happened in France - "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." One other reason I'd suspect - all that drinking and cocaine probably destroyed much of his reasoning "power" - if indeed he even had much of that to begin with. It'd be interesting to see an examination of his brain matter after he passes, whenever that may be. I wonder how closely it'd resemble a big hunk of Swiss cheese.

[hedda_foil]

25. He didn't read pages of anything.

Remember? He had to have briefings boiled down to less than a page, which was then read to him. He just wasn't interested. And I'll bet that was just how the evil dick wanted it.

[calimary]

27. Oh you KNOW that's just how the evil dick wanted it!

He saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be the "brains behind the throne" especially when the throne's occupant was far more interested in ogling his fawning female flatterers (karen hughes, harriet miers, and of course the lovely and vacant contradicta) and posing for photos at supermarket openings. Oh yeah - and copping a near-feel of Angela Merkel at a meeting table. Remember when he came up behind her at some gathering of Western leaders, and tried to give her a shoulder-rub? And remember her reaction was to raise both hands suddenly, in semi-shock, and push him away? Her body language spoke clearly - "GET YER GRUBBY TEXAS PAWS OFF ME!!!!!"

Wouldn't you want that nice big powerful job if the guy who really occupied it (whose second-in-command you were) would much prefer not to have to do any heavy lifting or get his hands dirty, when he could be sneaking drinks and leering at his national security advisor instead?

All dick cheney ever was or ever will be - is a would-be puppet-master in search of a marionette.

[malaise]

23. Add Gaza to this toxic brew

that only fuels more hate.
We forget both silence and complicity are wrong.

[lastlib]

15. THEY sowed it--WE reaped it!

And never forget their enablers in the halls of our legislatures. The Tom Delays, Newt Gingriches, Dick Armeys, etc, ad infinitum ad nauseum!

Bottom line: We MUST CRUSH the Repuglikkkan Party in this country!

[Stuart G]

12. k and r..this says everyting...everyone in the world needs to know what is here. nt

[calimary]

13. Yep, remember Abu Ghraib. Evidently, more than a few people did.

[tblue]

16. Almost no one knows about April Glaspie

Thank goodness for people like you who do.

Love this post. It's all so true.

Je suis Charlie aussi.

[niyad]

18. k and r

[JHB]

19. For what it's worth, I think that's overstating what Glaspie said

In 1990 Iraq was being heavily promoted as the new place to do business in the ME, and all signs pointed to Bush trying to make it into the strategic replacement for the Shah's Iran.

When Saddam met with Glaspie about the dispute with Kuwait (the Kuwaitis were slant-drilling into oil reserves under Iraqi land), she gave a diplomatic non-answer about "no position on Arab-Arab disputes". Saddam took that the way he wanted to take it. There were a lot of things he might have done that didn't involve wholesale invasion of the country.

My sense of it -- and this is just me -- is that after Saddam invaded (and Bush seemed to dicker around for three days) Bush & co. decided that this was an opportunity to get Iraq without Saddam, and without the baggage of keeping Iraq together. Break the army and get someone to replace him. It could be someone just like him (or worse), but hopefully more cooperative, and without Saddam's existing track record and bad press.

The reason I think this is what happened is because of what happened later: The ground war was stopped after 100 hours, and Bush started talking about "patriotic Iraqis" should overthrow Saddam. When the actual uprisings happened, however, Bush not only had Coalition forces not stop them, he allowed Saddam to use attack helicopters to ensure the then-advancing uprisings were put down.

That's why I don't think Bush planned it in advance: he didn't have anybody in the Iraqi army lineup up to volunteer himself as the "patriot" willing to stand up and call for Saddam's overthrow. In all of the coups that had happened in the previous decades, there had been collusion with "friends" inside those countries' militaries. But not in Iraq, where one thing Saddam was very efficient at was in preventing anyone else from fostering a power base that could be independent from Saddam. In the end, no one felt confident enough to stick their neck out, knowing it was likely to get cut off (and even more likely their whole families would pay for it).

The failure for a coup to develop led to the sanctions and US presence thoughout the 1990s -- one of the things that pointed Osama bin Laden's radicalism in our direction.

The Bushes are not masterminds, but they are shameless opportunists when they see the chance to advance their wish-list. As happened again in 2001.

[isobar]

26. Thank ya thank ya thank ya!

[grahamhgreen]

28. It's all blowback from our sordid ME policies.

[MadDAsHell]

29. Did Al Qaeda form in January 2001?

I was a 2-time Clinton voter but I'm not too happy with his performance on that front either. I have a hard time believing that if extremism was truly being kept in check during his administration that it could have escalated to the 9/11 attacks in a manner of months after he left office.



Let's face it, every president since Kennedy has sucked on foreign policy.

[Enthusiast]

30. Kicked

and recommended a whole bunch!