I don't know. Is it really better to think that the president as an incompetent moron instead of a liar? Personally, given that option I pray to God that he is just a liar.
i dont give a ****. he's not there to do what he thinks is the right thing. he's there to do what is best for america. and if he can't do that, he should resign.
Sorry, but my presupposition was that "doing the right thing" was doing "what is best for america." I can see cases where the two may not be equivalent, but for my point that was what I meant. In other words, what if he truly believed that Iraq did pose an imminent threatto the U.S. What if he did believe, as most other world leaders and members of congress did, that Iraq did possess WMD's. Does that not make the war the right thing. OK, he was wrong along with anyone else who thought those things including many of the people standing in line to bash him for their political gain. Yet, that does not make him a liar, nor judging by the widespread acceptance of those premises does it make him a moron.
Being as wrong as he has been and ignoring all of the evidence beforehand which was pointing this out to him makes him an incompetent moron. If someone drives past 40 signs that say 'bridge out ahead' and drives off a cliff it is not a case of making an honest mistake.
Peace conference?!?! This has got to be a joke. Based on the article, I don't think the Hamas are invited to the conference. Hamas is there to stay in Gaza Strip, and not inviting them renders the conference useless. Based on this, it seems like Bush is trying to gather backing for the Abbas. I have a feeling he is going to try to remove the Hamas by force, and he is going to use the Abbas to do the job. I guess at least that'll distract them from Israel. Maybe I'm over-analyzing this, but this peace conference looks to me a prelude to some major bloodshed.
I personally believe that GW Bush invaded Iraq for a number of reasons including a belief that this was the best thing for the US. Like Otto had said though I believe this was an erroneous belief that failed to carefully consider the situation and that there was a rush to judgement and a lack of planning on the part of the Admin.. I believe that the individuals at the top of the Admin. mixed up their own interests with the interests of the country and came to see them as being one in the same. I don't know if they outrightly lied but they certainly exagerated and cherry picked facts to make their argument. IMO they actually believed their own hype and refused to consider any possible views that might indicate they were wrong. Once committed to the course of action they conducted things with almost unprecedented incompetance. Whether they felt it was the right thing to do as leaders it was also their duty to react with wisdom and caution before committing to such a momentous undertaking and once committing it was their duty to both try to act with competance. IN those respects the Admin. failed. Its almost academic whether they lied or not because either way this endeavor was ill concieved and horribly executed.
Whether or not I agree with you, at least this is an argument that is rational, reasonable, and not solely based on Bush is a bad person, I hate Bush, etc. I think others could take a great lesson from the way you present your case. It goes a lot further than the constant angry vomit I see in most of these debates.
Not to mention that fact that Jr has said that any government that does not accept Israel’s right to exist will not be invited to the conference. Kind of hard to have a peace conference when you don't invite the people you want to have peace with. I just can't help but feel this conference is nothing more than one last, desperate attempt to save some kind of face and establish some type of legacy. It really has nothing to do with Palestine or Israel
Probably not. I don't have high hopes for it - but any time you can get a bunch of people at the table together, you have potential for improvement. Without that, you've got nothing. One positive from all this is that Israel and the US are actually coming out in support of a particular Palestinian government - that's never really happened before. They would support the gov't, then back off, then support, etc. But with the rejection of Hamas by Fatah, there is a new opportunity there. I don't know that Bush can do anything with it, but it can't hurt to try. It also doesn't hurt that it will be Rice representing the US and not Bush.
I dunno - I think that's a pretty reasonable basic standard to have in place. If you have a party in the conference that is just saying "no" to anything that doesn't involve "Israel will be dismantled", you're not going to get anywhere. What countries/groups does that include, anyway? Iran? Hamas? Is there anyone else? I believe Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, etc are all on board. Not sure about Syria.
I see that as a good thing. Palestinians need to choose what government they are going to support, and whether they want a route to peace or a government that wants the end of Israel. One group or the other needs to end so that Palestinians can have one voice, whatever that voice will ultimately be.
Read this: (New Yor Times) http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/04-03-15-NYT-Blix-on--WMD.pdf Hans Blix was the chief UN inspector who had time and time again said there were no wmd in Iraq, Bush did not listen, nor did he want to, the man had already decided he wanted to go into Iraq. From these facts would you consider Bush a liar? As far as I'm concerned it was a good move from a strategic point of view, just poorly planned.
