Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 07, 2010

He was a no-brainer, all right.

Eeee … I don’t know. This has dragged on a little long. W is too difficult to satirize.

When it comes to BS and Bush, satire pretty much writes itself. There’s no beginning or end, it’s all a loop with the same or equivalent retreads.

I realize that Trudeau and many others consider Bush as this century’s answer to Hitler and Pol Pot and deserving of a war crimes trial, but if we had not gone into Iraq, what do you think the Arabian Peninsula would look like today? Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait have over half of the world’s oil reserves and one fifth of the natural gas. Saddam had already invaded Kuwait once, and was slapped on the wrist and left in power. What does your perfect hindsight tell you he would have done?

Saddam had no plans and no chance of another invasion. He was far too weak. The fact is that our country invaded another country that had neither attacked nor threatened us or our allies. And the oil is not ours to control, so what they did with it was not our decision.

sandfan said, 31 minutes ago…

The usual right wing nonsense from the Dick Cheney playbook.

Iraq War has cost ust $741,000,000,000. and counting, not to mention 4427 dead Americans (and 100,000 dead Iraqis).

It has eliminated one big enemy whom we could intimidate, and created thousands of little enemies we can’t find. Kind of like cutting off the hydra’s heads.

Do you think, just maybe, that those resources could have been expended more profitably?

It is perfectly possible to impoverish and bankrupt America fighting jihadism, and still be left with a problem to be managed rather than a war to be won.

This isn’t World War III, not yet it isn’t, but it can still get there. Jihadis and Neocons both WANT this to be World War III. They may still get their way.

Everyone should look at the PNAC plan to stage an event so that the American people would tolerate an invasion - of Iraq and Afghanistan so that we could remove their assets and give big bucks to the military and contractors. Bush was just a tool and a useful one because his clown-like behavior somehow excused his administrations war crimes. Remember 9/11 happened under Bush but it was planned well in advance under Clinton. And now over 1,100 architects and engineers say the buildings were blown up - with a peer reviewed scientific paper that proves it.

Basset,,,,, Get Real! (second paragraph)

Did you not listen to the Arabian Imam’s conversation with Osama where he discussed the planning for the attack and how it worked better than he expected? What about the Pentagon and flight that went down in PA they believe was intended for the White House?

@Fred

How about this: Name even ONE of these supposed architects and engineers. Tell us WHO wrote the “scientific paper” and WHO peer-reviewed it.

…I can’t believe we gave this guy eight of the best years of our lifes and are only giving President Hussein two…

Amen, billdog!

FredBassetfan – You take paranoid, conspiracy-theory delirium beyond even the level of your “sources”. Go back on your meds.

The “PNAC plan to stage an event so that the American people would tolerate an invasion” didn’t exist – even in the minds of PNAC (Project for the New American Century). A PNAC document stated that “some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor” could be needed to bring about the changes it wanted, but it did not call for one to be created. Wikipedia remarks:

“Though not arguing that Bush administration PNAC members were complicit in those attacks, other social critics such as commentator Manuel Valenzuela and journalist Mark Danner, investigative journalist John Pilger, in New Statesman, and former editor of The San Francisco Chronicle Bernard Weiner, in CounterPunch, all argue that PNAC members used the events of 9/11 as the ‘Pearl Harbor’ that they needed….” (Wikipedia article, “Project for the New American Century”)

And I second pksampso: show us the specifics of your extraordinary claim that “now over 1,100 architects and engineers say the buildings were blown up - with a peer reviewed scientific paper that proves it.” Surely with that much expert testimony out there, you can produce something believable for us? Or not…in which case, as I suggested, go back on your meds and leave reality to the rest of us.

The most astonishing thing about the Bush-phenomenon is not his bumbling calamities but that Americans voted for him -twice.

No one outside the US understands why. Nor why the pattern is being repeated by putting similar folksy morons into power like Rand, Palin and their ilk.

We fought a high tech was against a low tech enemy and lost. Saddam was holding Iran in check, uncertain what the unpredictable leader may do.

With Bush and Cheney, the ends always justified the means, and our civil liberties were eroded, as well as the world’s opinion about the US of A.

Sandfan-

The Middle East does NOT have over half the Earth’s oil reserves. Turns out oil is pretty equally distributed under just about all of the seven continents. (Who knew that a naturally occurring substance would be distributed…naturally?)

Saddam didn’t pose any threat or risk, either - we had been imposing “no-fly” zones in the north and south of Iraq since the First Gulf War. Any time he so much as locked on a radar, we blew it up. Add to that the fact the INTERNATIONAL embargo against Iraq was working (which is why he didn’t have any WMDs), and what you get is a pretty toothless tiger whose only influence was to keep Al-Queda out power in Iraq.

Noteworthy is that FOX Media (radio & TV) blanket the Nation’s airwaves daily with anti-Democrat / Obama, pro-Republican/Conservative propaganda. It’s non-stop political campaigning supported by huge resources, charismatic personalities (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Levin, etc.) and a large following.

One of the tidbits they are promoting is that Carter is now the second worst U.S. President in history, Obama is the worst. I haven’t heard where they rank Bush - probably high.

Again, astonishingly, why do so many Americans believe the lies, distortions, exaggerations, and out-of-context information they dish out daily?

Neolibs, egged on by Trudeau’s spectacularly mistimed strip, have retreated into an illusory world where there are no wars (yet they call for war-crime trials) and no truly evil leaders (yet they make Bush-Cheney into a demon).

Neolib, your denial of history is starting to sound pathological. Even G.W. Bush and President Obama agree that 9/11 began a war America is still fighting.

Listen to the wisdom of the people. It’s really possible that they know something you don’t (see my avatar).

canbag> so many Americans believe the lies because they do not take time to determine the truth for themselves but allow supposed intellectuals (ie: Limbaugh, Palin etc.) to do their thinking because we would rather be entertained by reality shows. Sounds much like the roman citizen before the fall of rome

Still bashing Bush!! I think Bush was great when we compare the Idiot we have now. Remember it was the UN resolutions - seventeen resolutions that President Bush, including both houses of Congress, decided to change the government of Iraq, Grow up and get over it.

$741 billion. $741 billion. $741 billion. $741 billion. $741 billion.

Pretty soon we’ll be talking real money. Whose pockets do you suppose that money is sitting in?

Here’s where it isn’t: In our schools. In our health care provision system. In our alternative energy programs.

Can anyone IMAGINE what this country would be like – what AMERICANS would be like – if we had invested in our children and in ourselves?

Instead, we have $741 billion worth of weakening our society and, basically, giving aid to our enemies.

$741 billion worth of treason, in fact.

We are so much weaker today than we would have been if that money had gone to build out country instead of going to tear down international law.

Dumb stick messed up my job, too. Everyone blames Obama.

@diggitt

The $741 billion was wasted on the Bush/Obama fiscal policy, not on their wars. That policy is still in force. Ben Ne’erbank announced on Wednesday that the govt. will be creating another $900 billion by the middle of next year and as much more thereafter as Ne’erbank deems necessary to reinflate the economy.

Ne’erbank argues that all this credit (debt) will be paid down when jobs recover—-if not our jobs, then our grandchildren’s. He’s giving the $900 billion to his banksters so they can make loans; but of course they don’t. They invest it instead in govt. bonds, which are less risky than some start-up business employing uninsured workers.

This is a nice deal for the banksters and for the politicians they bankroll. But the voters are furious with the president for allowing this to go on. Why has Obama put the banksters’ profits ahead of our jobs?

(See yesterday’s discussion, or click on the “Federal Trust” tag)

The military occupation of Iraq is possibly the single most stupid and dishonest move ever made by an American president.

It’s uncanny how Trudeau brings that stunted creep to life. At this point I’d much rather he didn’t.

Although the sequence is funny in its molar-grinding way. Dumb interviews Dumber.

RSRussell’s mockery conveys more truth than he realizes. If Gore had been president on 9/11, he would have found some excuse not to send troops abroad, just as Clinton did with Bosnia, and today al-Qaida would not be on the ropes.

In a time of war, you don’t want a pacifist intellectual for president. (A neolib by definition cannot become president, since presidents are elected by the voice of the people.)

To “arrest” Noriega, his daddy only killed a little over 600 Panamanian civilians, and granted, could have said “don’t do it” to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, and headed that off at the pass. Stupidity is genetic?

The Iraq war WILL end up costing us around or over $3 TRILLION when all costs come in. Tax breaks have added over 60% of the debt since Reagan took office- so it isn’t just a matter of increasing the top rate by 4%.

Cheney looked upon “W” correctly- as a doll–an empty headed plaything.

Neocon: “—and today al Qaida would not be on the ropes—”

In your dreams. You don’t defeat al-Qaeda and similar populist underground resistance with guns and bombs from the other side of the world. You may beat them back for a time, but they will resurface stronger in another location, another time, or another name. Seems they have moved to Pakistan, Yemen, or wherever. Something like less than 100 al-Qaeda presently in Afghanistan but $2.8 billion being spent weekly. Completely futile in money and lives unless you want to police the area @ $2.8 B per week for evermore. Which, by the way, would destroy your own country.

@dtroutma

You need to check those figures. Reagan/Bush Sr. added more than $8 trillion to our debt and Bush Jr. added nearly another $4 trillion. That made it $12 trillion before Obama took office, and his budget adding in the war costs (your “$3 trillion”) will send the debt higher. So “60% of the debt since Reagan took office” comes to more than $8 trillion, or about three times what the wars have actually cost so far.

@Canbag

I have no idea what “policing the area” means or how much it would cost. By “on the ropes,” I meant exactly those al-Qaida under Osama whom we have nearly eliminated in Afghanistan. If the Taliban will finally agree to hand them over, then our casus belli will disappear and we can bring our troops home. I voted for Obama two years ago because he said (and still says) this is his objective.

pseudo-intellectuals

I hear fiddling ….

If Bush’s plan was to go into Iraq and get rid of Saddam Hussein, then why were our troops left there for years after Hussein’s death? Seems like we stayed around only to try to force democracy on a country that doesn’t really want it. With all the hostility between the different Islamic sects, as soon as the US is completely out of the country, chances are good that it will revert to civil war, and whichever side wins will put another dictator in place.

All the US has done by going into Iraq unnecessarily is to create thousands of more enemies of our country. Bush, Cheney, et al have a LOT of blood on their hands.

Palos,

You are correct. Saddam kept the radical Shi’a sect of Islam from spreading its control over the middle east. Now they have control in Lebanon, Gaza and are seeking other conquests, including Israel and the Western Civilization.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and bin Laden and Saddam Hussein loathed each other. If we had stayed focused on bin Laden we might have captured him at Tora Bora.

@ Canbag,

“Noteworthy is that FOX Media (radio & TV) blanket the Nation’s airwaves daily with anti-Democrat / Obama, pro-Republican/Conservative propaganda. ”

Noteworthy also is that whatever anyone on Fox says is absolutely meaningless unless there’s someone there to listen to them. If Fox News was simply an insignificant propaganda machine, listened to only by a small handful of drooling idiots, then it would be MSNBC, not Fox.

And you guys still don’t get it. Hannity and the hardcore conservative pundits are only preaching to their choir, and there are not enough of them to have made any difference in the election. Those guys turn off the middle. It was guys like Cavuto, and even a few commentators on CNBC who carefully explained the business and financial implications of left wing politics to the thinking Independents that set up the recent liberal “shellacking” (Obama’s word).

What bothers me, Nemesys, is all those who made thier choice based on false information.

1) 60% of Americans think Obama has raised their taxes, when they actually got a tax cut. 2) A majority of Americans think the TARP money is gone, when it looks as if we will make it all back with a profit.

3) It is a widely-held veiw that the stimulus did nothing, while the knowledgable are debating whether the number of jobs created and saved is 2.5 or 3.5 million, or somewhere between.

Blame for the knowledge gap should rest primarily with those who remain uniformed despite evidence that is easy to find, if not always easy to understand, but Fox is certainly part of the problem.