Bush and Blair will prove naysayers wrong.....

Editorial from the Chicago Sun Times 11-18-2003:




History will prove Bush, Blair naysayers wrong

November 18, 2003






If leadership meant just doing whatever is easy or most popular, nobody would lead. Policy would consist of those non-actions that upset the fewest, and the nation would drift until events overtook it. Luckily, that is not the case, and in the face of global Islamist terrorism, George Bush and his British partner Tony Blair have taken, not the easy or popular route, but a dynamic path whose end is not yet in sight.



Bush is on his way to Britain today for a long-planned state visit. No doubt both men would rather it be otherwise. Blair faces a firestorm of criticism at home from Britons who meshed seamlessly from mourning their nation's lack of influence in the world to decrying its commitment to a policy that has not yet ended tidily. And Bush, with the election less than a year away, must answer for a policy that costs American military personnel their lives almost every single day. In that light, of course the meeting of the two architects of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will be an occasion for a spasm of anti-West and anti-American sentiment. How could it be otherwise?

Bush's arrival, the Guardian newspaper wrote, "is about as appropriate as the appearance of a stripper at a wedding.'' An enormous weight of convention and folly is contained in that one word -- "appropriate.'' What was the "appropriate'' response to Sept. 11? What would NPR have done? What would the anti-war protesters have done? France? Nothing after Afghanistan, apparently. But had Bush done nothing, we know what the reaction would have been -- a shrill call for him to do something. Sadly, we can't make that alternate reality tangible and use it to illustrate the emptiness of the End the War crowd.

So we'll point this out. The terrorists from all over the Middle East who are flocking to Iraq to bring the war to the American Army are not -- as they otherwise might have -- flocking to the United States. There has been no sequel to Sept. 11 -- not yet. Maybe that is dumb luck. We'll never know. Or maybe -- just maybe -- the Bush administration is doing something right. That would be our conclusion.

We expect that Bush and Blair will hold their heads up this week, face the criticism, re-state, yet again, their reasons for doing what they had to do, and carry on. They don't expect the naysaying public to cleave to them, not yet, nor do we. But they are playing to a larger audience -- history, and the future of their nations.

They know that public opinion is often wrong. When Adolf Hitler rolled across a largely supine Europe, a desperate Britain turned to the United States where, between the isolationists and the America firsters and the Nazi sympathizers and the plain indifferent, there was little interest in extending ourselves or taking any kind of risk. So Franklin Roosevelt bent the rules, rammed through Lend Lease, and took the heat, until Pearl Harbor, when everybody realized he had been right all along.







Link to original story

 

:up:

 

WERD

 

God bless Tony Blair and George Bush.

 

Amen.

 

where are all the pinkos with their rhetoric on this one? hmmm?

yamablow? chuck? roger?

 

Good piece. Sometimes I dont understand the English, I mean, here's a chance to put the GREAT back in Great Britain, by taking the more noble path, yet you get all these middle-class suburban chatterers that put the plight of the kid that lost both arms above any obvious good that has come out of removing Saddam. I wish more of the English were like Blair. Perhaps most of them are, and we just get to hear about the ones that arn't....

 

We should all be glad that we have these two LEADERS that have the BALLS to actually lead...

My respect for Tony Blair has increased 100% since 9/11. The guy has guts.

 

George Bush met The Queen, and he turns round and says: "As I'm the President, I'm thinking of changing how the country is referred to, and I'm thinking that it should be a Kingdom"
The Queen replies "I'm sorry Mr Bush, but to be a Kingdom, you have to have a King in charge - and you're not a King."
George Bush thought a while and then said: "How about a Principality then?",
To which the Queen replied "Again, to be a Principality you have to be a Prince - and you're not a Prince, Mr Bush".
Bush thought long and hard and came up with "How about an Empire then?"
The Queen, getting a little annoyed by now, replies "Sorry again, Mr Bush, but to be an Empire you must have an Emperor in charge - and you are not an Emperor."
Before George Bush could utter another word, The Queen said: "I think you're doing quite nicely as a Country".

 

Funny. But the joke doesn't quite work for a non-commonwealth country...

Here's the original:

http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/meltingpot/jinx/399/jokes/Countries/Australia/John_Howard.html

-peekay

 

Hey butt wiper, this transgendered, buddist loving, pipesmoking, hat wearing, long-haired, flag-burning, communist has better things to do than to pick on stupid girlie men like Bair and Blush.

OK, who am I kidding? I'd love to pick on those panty-waists but I don't even have time to surf more than 15 minutes a day now.

Here's a thought about what losers Humptey and Dumpty truly are: More than 2 years ago Al Qeada killed 3,000 Americans. Osama has not been found and executed at least partly because Bush diverted our political and military assets to Iraq, a country that did not pose an direct threat to the US (no nukes, chems or other WMDs found, remember?).

When are we going to nail Osama, the biggest anti-US villian since Hitler and Hirohito? When are we going to annihilate Al Qeada and the Afgan warlords of the Taliban who supported the attacks of 9/11/01 and enslaved the people of Afganistan and still do to a large extent? Indeed, had we done this BEFORE going into Iraq, we probably wouldn't be facing the attacks at the rate of 30 per/day

And another thing. (No lunch for me today, i guess. ) I was against going into Iraq when we did and how we did, but now we are there we've got to pull out all the stops and kick some serious ass. We need more troops with better (safer) equipment, a better strategy for dealing with the crazies that are attacking us, and more $ to rapidly repair both the Iraqi infrastucture and our relations with the Iraqi on the street. We also need to get in gear and get other countries to help out. I'm tired of hearing Rumsfeld's pathetic excues.

So in the end, Bush and Blair are not even minor visionaries, they're mere political hacks on the level of Clinton and Reagan.

Rodger

 

yep that is the tired rhetoric i was expecting.

educate yourself roger. (we still have troops in afghanistan, as well as iraq)

damn shame saddam isn't in power over there. really, a damn shame. poor fella.

geee wonder how well the USA would be if gore would have won the presidential election.

stupid communists unite!!!

 

Yuk, yuk, yuk!

I would not be opposed to nailing Saddam even in the absence of a direct threat to the US and even w/o his WMDs - that is how much I hate him. I look forward to his head being hiosted on a pike in a central square of Tikrit. But i think Bush and Blair were stupid about how they went about the whole thing from the beginning.

Yay for our troops in Afganistan!! I just wish we could get the job done there and I'd like to see 100,000 more troops hunting Osama, even if it means going into lawless boonies of the Pakistan mountains where he is hiding.

I guess I am not just a bigger Hawk than you conservative girlie men, but I am smarter and more focused, too!!

KILL OSAMA AND AL QEADA!

GO HENDO!!!

FUCK YOU BRAD!! Whoops, that just slipped out!!

Later right wing Mama's boys, I'll see you tomorrow!! Flame away!!

Rodger

 

and your reply as to what the state of affairs would be in gore's possesion is?

 

One of the actions that helped convince Roosevelt was Churchill's decision to destroy the small French fleet off Oran, Algeria after France surrendered to the Nazis. He gave them the option of delivering their ships to British service or being sunk. The French commanders would not make a decision, so the British fleet sank 3 French battleships and 3 support vessels costing over 1300 French sailors their lives. His decision to kill so many allies to prevent their ships from returning to France and being converted to German use showed an amazing amount of backbone which helped garner support in the US.
I'd say Bush has gone easy on the French in comparison.

 

Do you Know your Bushisms?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/0,5961,1088715,00.html

 

It must just suck to be from CANADA. Noone in the entire world Knows or Cares if you actually exist???

 

i must be getting older. yesterday ignored that post. yes, i agree. it certainly must suck.

 

Same lackadaisical approach to Osama pre- 9/11 as Clinton and Bush, but with no diversion of our focus against Al Qeada. But who the fuck knows? We do know though that Clinton and Bush were/are both monumental asswipes on par with that nearly dead whore Reagan.

Did I say that out loud??

 

whatever. amazing that it is possible for even mediocre types like you to get a doctorate. must just burn your ass that he didn't have to sell his soul in lawschool to be president. did i say that out loud?