Worst President in History?

So not even a little on the CIA who trained Bin Laden, or the FBI who ignored crucial reports leading up to 9/11?

So, in that sense, since Rumsfeld didnt kill Saddam when he had the chance in 1983, the blood of millions of Iraqis and hundreds of American troops is on his hands. Right?

The problem with liberals is they spin everything. Since you're just out of school... let me give you a history lesson -- In the context of the late 70s and early 80s.

Iran was once our greatest ally in the middle east. Once the Shah was overthrown, the government turned extremely anti-american -- remember the Iran Hostage Crisis (which by the way, Jimmy Carter couldn't resolve, but Reagan did)?

To complicate matters, Iran and Iraq began a very bloody conflict -- we couldn't side with Iran (because of the capture and torture of american hostages) -- we sided with and provided aid to Iraq -- which at that time WAS the lesser of two evils. AmericaHAD to take sides because, let's face it -- we needed and still need a friend in the middle east. Granted-- things did not turn out very well; but to say Republicans are responsible for Saddam? A little more than unfair. Had nothing been done to aid Iraq, imagine ONE country with TWICE the resources imposing it's dictatorial will over an entire region and specifically demonizing the USA as the Evil One. A far more dangerous situation than has played out over the past 20 years -- even considering Gulf War I, the genocide of the Kurds, Mass Graves, Gulf War II, September 11, etc.

As far as Osama Bin Laden is concerned... this too requires one to remember THE COLD WAR.... you probably don't remember being scared that the USSR was going to nuke the good ole USA... living in constant fear that the world could end at any moment. Anyway, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the USA saw this as another Russian attempt to expand communism... YES, we did support the Afghan Fighters... YES, that did include Osama Bin Laden --- but at the time, it was the lesser of two evils...The Soviets were defeated; the fall of communism, I believe, began at this time. AND THAT's A GOOD THING....

My point is, had the USA not done anything in Iran/Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, things would have most surely been worse than they are now.

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Another thing... since we are talking about wars and rumors of wars... Why do you liberals give Clinton a free pass when it comes to Bosnia and Kosovo? To use your logic, didn't he usurp the autonomy of another nation and impose his will upon a lesser privileged people? I'm interested to see how you spin that...

[dawg80]

BTW, do I think Clinton was the worst president in history? Nah, not by a longshot. He was smart enough to assume a moderate position on most issues, ride the wave of the recovering economy begun under Bush Sr., and generally not screw up too much.

The worst prez in my lifetime, hands down, with no one a close second is ........Jimmy Carter.

That's why we all reveled in the 1980 US Olympic hockey team's success. This nation was starved for something good to happen along about February, 1980. It was horrible then. Carter was a royal screw-up.

Of course, our bigger reward came in November, 1980 when Ronald Reagan crushed Carter in a landslide victory.


But....Clinton still should have accepted Sudan's offer.

I also agree he should have.

But let's say he did. How do we know that the response by AlQueda wouldnt have been 2 or 3 times as bad as 9/11? Then Clinton really would have been the worst president ever.

The point is, we should really take into account the consequences of our actions. Was providing Osama with training to overthrow the communists the easiest thing to do, at the time? Yeah. In retrospect, was it the best thing to do? No.

Another thing... since we are talking about wars and rumors of wars... Why do you liberals give Clinton a free pass when it comes to Bosnia and Kosovo? To use your logic, didn't he usurp the autonomy of another nation and impose his will upon a lesser privileged people? I'm interested to see how you spin that...

No spin here, I wasnt too fond of that, either. Whenever there is injustice, does it anger me? Yes. Do I think that means that the US deserves the right to go in there do whatever it wants for whatever reason it wants? No. We are not the world's police force. We didnt go into WWII because of the German treatment of Jews- we did it because of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. We only fought Germany because of their treaty with Japan that forced them to declare war on us as well.

Now, if the UN had decided to go in there, and US forces were included in the UN forces, I would have been fine with that. I think that it would be good for the UN to take a more active role as peacekeeping forces for the world. However, it's also good for a nation to rise up on its own. India is a prime example. Gandhi helped rally a country, using non-violent resistance, to gain freedom from the British. So is it morally and socially injust when a leader slaughters his people at will? Yes, it is. But we cannot stop every act of injustice by every leader of every nation. We have enough problems stopping the injustices done by OUR leaders (both conservative AND liberal).

Oh, but also, there's no multi-billion dollar contracts for Halliburton in Kosovo. So there was less of a conflict of interest in kosovo- which was solely humanitarian. So it does make it a little better. Now, had Clinton claimed the Serbians were preparing for an attack on America as well, then gone and given billion dollar rebuilding contracts to his real estate buddies, then, yeah, there would be an equivalent comparison.

Kosovo -- humanitarian? Again, study the facts of recorded history. Please allow me:

Clinton claimed on March 24, 1999, that one purpose of bombing Serbia (including Kosovo) was “to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military’s capacity to harm the people of Kosovo.” The CIA had warned the Clinton administration that if bombing was initiated, the Serbian army would greatly accelerate its efforts to expel ethnic Albanians. The White House disregarded this warning and feigned surprise when mass expulsions began.

Yet NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark said on March 26 that the upsurge in crackdowns on ethnic Albanians was “entirely predictable.” Since NATO had no ground forces in the area ready to intervene and since NATO planes stayed three miles above the ground to minimize pilot casualties, NATO could do nothing to stop the surge in ethnic cleansing. Violence spurred by the bombing was quickly invoked as the ultimate justification for the bombing.

The longer the bombing went on, the more brazenly NATO ignored the limits it had initially imposed on its targets in order to limit civilian casualties. In the final weeks of the 78-day war, all that mattered was finding new targets so that NATO spokesmen could continue their daily bragging about a “record number of sorties flown” and “record number of bombs dropped.” According to Human Rights Watch, at least 500 civilians were killed by NATO bombing; the Yugoslavian government claimed that 2,000 civilians were killed. NATO repeatedly dropped cluster bombs into marketplaces, hospitals, and other civilian areas.

As Serbian civilian casualties rose, purported Serbian atrocities mushroomed. On May 13, 1999, Clinton declaimed that “there are 100,000 people [in Kosovo] who are still missing” — clearly implying that they might have been slaughtered. Clinton also claimed that 600,000 ethnic Albanians could be “trapped within Kosovo itself, lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home, or buried in mass graves dug by their executioners.”

On April 15, 1999, Clinton opened a speech to newspaper editors by proclaiming the “stark contrast between a free society with a free press and a closed society where the press is used to manipulate people by suppressing or distorting the truth.” However, NATO consistently misrepresented its own actions. The Washington Post’s Bradley Graham noted on May 24, 1999, that Pentagon and NATO

"...briefings about the air operation have ... acquired a propaganda element aimed at demonizing Milosevic and his Belgrade government and imparting a moral imperative to the conflict. U.S. and NATO spokesmen, in scripts closely coordinated with the help of several public affairs specialists loaned by Washington to Brussels, routinely mix reports on allied strikes with fresh accusations of atrocities by Yugoslav forces.
Graham noted that the spokesmen routinely sought to delay admitting NATO responsibility for bombing civilians for “at least one news cycle or two before owning up to attacks gone awry.”

For Clinton, bombing Serbia was a triumph of idealism. The Washington Post reported that on the day after NATO planes bombed the Chinese embassy, “Clinton complained to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that news coverage was not fully presenting the moral dimensions of the war.” In the final days of the bombing, the Washington Post reported that “some presidential aides and friends are describing Kosovo in Churchillian tones, as Clinton’s ‘finest hour.’” The Post also reported that according to one Clinton friend “what Clinton believes were the unambiguously moral motives for NATO’s intervention represented a chance to soothe regrets harbored in Clinton’s own conscience.... The friend said Clinton has at times lamented that the generation before him was able to serve in a war with a plainly noble purpose, and he feels ‘almost cheated’ that ‘when it was his turn he didn’t have the chance to be part of a moral cause.’”

In a CNN interview shortly after the peace agreement with Serbia was announced, the president enunciated what his aides labeled the “Clinton doctrine”:

"There’s an important principle here.... While there may well be a great deal of ethnic and religious conflict in the world ... whether within or beyond the borders of a country, if the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing."

So to conclude: Clinton misled the public, ignored and twisted the facts, used the press as an avenue of propoganda, inflicted scores of casualties and death, caused an increase in ethnic cleansing, and established the doctrine of American intervention at will.

This is the man Dems worship.
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As far as Haliburton is concerned... what company would you have contracted to put out the oil well fires? There were no other bids... Haliburton is very experienced in that area. They put out the fires in Kuwait in 1991.

I realize on the surface there appears to be a conflict of interest... but if you dig a little deeper (get out of the USA Today and the NY Times), how could there be? Cheney is not employed by Haliburton anymore. His financial future is not resting on how well Haliburton does. Furthermore, even if it did... do you know the percentage of Haliburton's revenues those Iraq contracts represent? This is a huge, multi-national, conglomerate we're talking about... These contracts are not going to make the company.

[dawg80]

I agree, the central government can NOT be trusted, ever! That is why, we the people, must reign-in the runaway federal government. It's probably already too late. Too many of the masses, both liberal and conservative, have been brainwashed into believing that "our side" knows the answers and will do right by the people. Bullshit!

The United States central government has a proven track record of distorting the truth for its own ends. Take the Mexican War of 1846-48. We started that war to grab land away from Mexico, a soverign (sp?) nation. Pissed-off that the Mexicans wouldn't "start" the conflict, General Zachary Taylor sent US cavalry across a branch in a river (the Rio Grande, probably) knowing full-well the Mexicans claimed the other side as their territory and would open fire to defend it. Taylor then claimed the Mexicans started the war by firing on our troops. It was the excuse he needed to launch the invasion. About 20 American soldiers paid for this deception with their lives that day. The defending Mexican garrison, about 120 men, were slaughtered at the point of the bayonet, and the war was on. Of course, we have Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California because of it.....so it was all worth it, right?

So, all you self-righteous fellows can spare me the debate about who is worse, the demons (meant to type "demos" but it came out as posted, so I left it) or the repugs (meant to type "repubs" but it came as posted, so I left it). There is very little difference between the major parties.

Any REAL freedom for Americans died at Appomattox.

I agree with dawg80?

...weird

[Bossdawg]

Anybody can name any piece of land besides the Louisiana Purchase, Canada, and Isreal that was not settled or taken over in the world because of hostile take over. I am sure the Texans, Californians, and New mexicans are glad they are part of America now.