President Obama is about to make a statement, but major news outlets are reporting that Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Your point may be valid but it's the assumption that's under question. Many people believe that Bush's actions were not merely incompetence or mismanagement, but purposeful acts. To those people, Bush is a terrorist.Originally Posted by moonfirefaery
No, I don't think that anymore than I appreciate having such worrds put in my mouth. Bush's actions were deplorable, but he was not a terrorist. The loss of innocent life was a result not of malicious intent, but incompetence and mismanagement. A difference in intent doesn't bring dead people back to life, but it can make a difference in a court of law when responsibility and fitting punishment are being determined. Bush is not equal to Osama, and as much as I disapprove of Bush, I think you are making an inappropriately black and white comparison.
Yes, I think this is where we part ways. There was, IMHO, just as much intent in Bush's invasion of Iraq. There was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction nor an imminent threat of attack. Bush and family fully intended the heartless destruction, destabilization and murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens and lied to the world to gain permission to do so. Mismanagement was just icing on the cake. The evidence of torture, approved by the Bush Administration, was well outside international law and were otherwise crimes against humanity. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield should be put before The Hague to answer for their sins. Instead, they wrapped themselves up in an American flag and got away with mass murder.Originally Posted by moonfirefaery
No, I don't think that anymore than I appreciate having such worrds put in my mouth. Bush's actions were deplorable, but he was not a terrorist. The loss of innocent life was a result not of malicious intent, but incompetence and mismanagement. A difference in intent doesn't bring dead people back to life, but it can make a difference in a court of law when responsibility and fitting punishment are being determined. Bush is not equal to Osama, and as much as I disapprove of Bush, I think you are making an inappropriately black and white comparison.
Quote:Originally Posted by moonfirefaery
No, I don't think that anymore than I appreciate having such worrds put in my mouth. Bush's actions were deplorable, but he was not a terrorist. The loss of innocent life was a result not of malicious intent, but incompetence and mismanagement. A difference in intent doesn't bring dead people back to life, but it can make a difference in a court of law when responsibility and fitting punishment are being determined. Bush is not equal to Osama, and as much as I disapprove of Bush, I think you are making an inappropriately black and white comparison.
Laohaire you make a good point. Moonfirefaery - How do you or anyone else personally know what Bush's intentions were? How would you personally know he didn't maliciously intend it? I really don't know that. The answer is: you really can't know either. You need evidence to make this conclusion.
Yup. The evidence or lack of evidence in terms of weapons of mass destruction points to some other intent on Bush's part. Hmmm... lying certainly did happen. I agree with everything here. It's disturbing - the lack of accountability we hold our leaders to.Originally Posted by amma_mama
Yes, I think this is where we part ways. There was, IMHO, just as much intent in Bush's invasion of Iraq. There was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction nor an imminent threat of attack. Bush and family fully intended the heartless destruction, destabilization and murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens and lied to the world to gain permission to do so. Mismanagement was just icing on the cake. The evidence of torture, approved by the Bush Administration, was well outside international law and were otherwise crimes against humanity. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield should be put before The Hague to answer for their sins. Instead, they wrapped themselves up in an American flag and got away with mass murder.
yeah this...I was SHOCKED to wake up to dh showing me the news where it looked like people were celebrating a super bowl win or something...It was really off putting and bizarre to me... Nothing has changed, Al Qaeda is still functioning, we still have troops fighting a "war" that can't be "won" and I see college kids jumping into a river like morons...I'm not sad he is dead but there is a middle ground and I think partying like it's new years eve is messed up...just me.
That's ok, I'm not out to convince anyone of Bush's intents or lack thereof. Just pointing out that this is the crux of the difference of opinion.
Clinton also had the opportunity to capture or kill OBL during his presidency, but didn't. You can not blame all of the middle east problems on Bush. It goes back many presidents before, probably starting around Raegan.... or maybe even Nixon since he is the one who started the whole supporting Israel no matter what business.Originally Posted by mar123
Not to get into a debate about the Iraq war, but Bill Clinton said there were WMDs in Iraq when he was president. When Bush 43 took over, he was using the same intel Clinton was. How is one man lying and the other was misinformed? Also, there were weapons found- not what they expected, but there were some found. In addition, I am still convinced that Saddam got rid of many of them- hid them in sand, sold them, etc. I mean NATO only told him about 100 times they were coming to investigate. The man is not stupid. not to mention, we did get rid of Saddam in Iraq. This is a man who experimented on his own people with biological weapons. Is this not reason enough? Where do we draw the line? And Bush never said we would "safe" he said we would be "safer." And you have to put it into the context- this was 9 years ago when all of this was still fresh. Hindsight is always 20/20. (and I am not a huge Bush fan or anything, Actually, I am pretty down on politicians of all parties these days).
Yes, I believe the initial intel did show that he had them, plus he was being sneaking and evading, and not allowing the UN to investigate which led to even more suspicion. Hindsight is definitely 20/20. I don't think that at the time he had a good decision to make, it was either he did have them and might use them against us or our allies, and we could go in and find out or wait it out and find out if he was going to use them. Both options have the possibility of a terrible outcome.Originally Posted by moonfirefaery
mar123, I could be wrong but it was my understanding that most intel suggested he did have WMDs at that time, but that they were moved before the Iraq War erupted. I am, however, glad we got rid of Saddam; I disapprove of the methods used and the exaggerations that led our Congress to approve them.
Bush was told by the people who gave the US the information that it had been falsified before he even sent troops to Iraq.Originally Posted by mar123
Not to get into a debate about the Iraq war, but Bill Clinton said there were WMDs in Iraq when he was president. When Bush 43 took over, he was using the same intel Clinton was. How is one man lying and the other was misinformed? Also, there were weapons found- not what they expected, but there were some found. In addition, I am still convinced that Saddam got rid of many of them- hid them in sand, sold them, etc. I mean NATO only told him about 100 times they were coming to investigate. The man is not stupid. not to mention, we did get rid of Saddam in Iraq. This is a man who experimented on his own people with biological weapons. Is this not reason enough? Where do we draw the line? And Bush never said we would "safe" he said we would be "safer." And you have to put it into the context- this was 9 years ago when all of this was still fresh. Hindsight is always 20/20. (and I am not a huge Bush fan or anything, Actually, I am pretty down on politicians of all parties these days).
It is our job as members of a democracy...as people who vote...to pay attention to what is going on and to form our own analysis. It is my job as a teacher and as a historian to look at what is happening now in the light of what has happened in the past and to compare them. I will never believe that I just can't know something because I am not in charge (because those in charge tend to obfuscate) and I will never believe that we don't have a right to all the information we can get about everything (thank you Wikileaks!). This is supposed to be why we have the media, to provide a check (and a reality check) on those in charge...I'm not so sure they do such a great job usually.Originally Posted by love4bob
I also think it is easy to say what we would/would not do if we were in charge or what should/should not have happened, but until you are actually in that position I don't think that anyone can really say... as Obama is finding out with his presidency. He said a lot about the wars while campaigning, but I think he is finding the reality a lot different.
If the difference between morally justified violence and terrorism is intentionally targeting civilians, it's not too hard to find examples in US history where we intentionally targeted civilians. Hiroshima and Nagasaki spring to mind, with somewhere between 100,000 - 200,000 civilians dead in those attacks (and it wasn't collateral damage - we targeted the entire city). We justify it by saying that we were at war; that we had to drop the bombs in order to shorten the war and save American lives, etc. Going back to the comparison between people who celebrated the 9/11 attacks and people who are celebrating OBL's death, I imagine the people who celebrated the 9/11 attacks justified that attack in the same way we justify Hiroshima. They believed they were at war and a damaging strike had been made against the enemy.Originally Posted by moonfirefaery
No, I don't think that anymore than I appreciate having such worrds put in my mouth. Bush's actions were deplorable, but he was not a terrorist. The loss of innocent life was a result not of malicious intent, but incompetence and mismanagement. A difference in intent doesn't bring dead people back to life, but it can make a difference in a court of law when responsibility and fitting punishment are being determined. Bush is not equal to Osama, and as much as I disapprove of Bush, I think you are making an inappropriately black and white comparison.
This.Take that kid who shot up Virginia Tech....if crowds of people had gathered around his body at the scene and spit on him, kicked him, pointed and sang "hey hey hey good-bye," and danced on the quad, would we think that was appropriate? Would we not have expected the authorities to step in and say, "Hey, we don't do that." We might understand that people were freaked out of their minds and reacted badly in the moment, but we don't condone that.
With all the conflicting information I won't condemn it just yet. Even if he wasn't armed, if it appeared that he was, I would understand taking him out. The goal was to get him, one way or another, without any of our men dying, and if we had any suspicion that he was armed and could harm our men, we did right by not giving hiim the chance.Originally Posted by Subhuti
I, too, am very disturbed to hear that Bin Ladin wasn't armed. After the years of work and all the expertise that went into this operation, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't restrain themselves from killing an unarmed man.
Capture him, try him, and sentence him. Don't, as much as we are all relieved to have OBL out of the picture, just go in an assassinate him!