Bush & roosevelt

[GonzoStyle]

It's pretty tough to compare either Bush to FDR. But with the recent acusation that Bush might have been aware of the threat of attack which took place on 9/11. It's reminiscent of the allegation that FDR was aware of the chance of attack by Japanese on Pearl harbor in 1941.

The difference is the time periods now. With the advent of television being the major one. Many people say that FDR might have not been elected if TV was as prominent in 1932 as it is today. Cause no one elects a man in a wheelchair to be president. Plus with every aspect of everyones private life just look at Clinton, being scrutinized. Add into that the loss of innocence and trust in our goverment fueled by Nixon and the Kennedy Assasination and Vietnam to name a few.

But mainly the fact that FDR was the epitome of American guts and triumph. He led us to great victory in WWII and aided the soviets and british to defeat hitler. FDR died during his 4th term before Truman decided to drop the bombs on japan so that is barred from his legacy.

So the mystery of wether he knew of pearl harbor beforehand kinda took a backseat. Since the biggest argument is since america refused to enter WW2 due to our belief after WW1 of isolationism. FDR turned a blind eye cause he knew this would get us into the war.

But now what of bush? Yeah we overthrew the taliban I say that with a straight face. Because we couldn't stop it cause we couldn't control a bunch of rebels which actually did the job with our bombs ofcourse. But Bin Laden is alive and now threatening us again so Bush hasn't been the leader that FDR was in that caliber. Yeah he gave a pretty speech before congress that fueled americans, myself included. But what is your opinion of him now? With these allegations that he knew and did nothing. Plus that our goverment looks helpless now. We are being threatened and doesn't look like we can do a damn thiing about it.

It's tough to call as of now cause we are basically in chapter 3 of a 12 chapter book. Bush's p[residency is not over yet. But will he go down like FDR or will this cripple his legacy as Vietnam did LBJ?

[Arpikarhu]

i hate bush. but this talk of him knowing is bullshit. yes, the indicators were there, and yes something may have been able to be done, but i am sure the gov't gets a million of these threat reports. we cant act on them all. this hindsight partisan attack is political bullshit. bush is a moron but how do you prep for every threat that gets made? jesus, we would never be allowed to leave the house. mistakes were made and a credible threat was ignored, but to blame this guy for not stopping 9/11 is crap. hopefully we will learn from this mistake and start to investigate these reports a little more fully, but to start pointing fingers is counterproductive and damaging to future efforts.


p.s.
nice to see Gonzo posting. we missed you



Edited By Arpikarhu on May 22 2002 at 02:35

[Arpikarhu]

now to post on subject: bush aint even in the same universe as FDR. he has already failed miserably in his war on terrorism. other than to return afghanistan to tribal rule (the breeding ground for what has happened to us). he has done nothing. he has proven himself weak and uninformed. he claims alliance with the saudis yet they are terrified of osama and his followers and do nothing to stop them. he focuses on iraq because they are an easy target. he sides with countries that are known accomplices of terrorism. his policies are contradictive and disengeuious(SP?). i was moved by his speech, but have since found them empty words

[IkeaBoy]

Didn't the warning only say that there were possible hijackers coming- no notice of date or where? And besides, I understand peopel are quick to bash bush myself included but what could he have done really? Do you think they give him all the information? Do you think he'd be able to stop it? He's not a smart man. I mean the government's known for years that Bin Laden's a threat and they probably get hundreds of possible threats a day and can't look into all of them. And it's not the president's job to look into these himself. He probably didn't even read the sheet.

EDIT: And Bush has been an awful failure at this. He's shown no consistency in his war on terrorists, he's AIDED terrorists (Saudi Arabia), there's no plan for Afghanistan and no other country listens to him. He did adequate rallying earlier in the 'war' but it's seemed to have slipped out of his consciousness as it has ours.



Edited By IkeaBoy on May 22 2002 at 02:59

[GonzoStyle]

Many people who do not know the true working order of our goverment view the president as the final word. He is like the mafia chieftain whose word is always the law. Ofcourse there are hundreds of people involved in the decision making of our nation. But the president is in all honesty most of the time a figure head. Someone to represent us and our hopes, dreams and desires for our nation. He is also the scapegoat for when things go bad. We forever blame vietnam on LBJ even if the problem began in the Eisenhower administration. Just as we applaud Kennedy for the triumph and saving millions of lives possibly during the Missle Crisis in Cuba in 1962. While they may be held unreasonably at a high standard it is their decisions at times.

But we all knew going in that Bush was probably gonna to boggle at most all foreign affairs, luckily he surrounded himself with a great staff. Namely Powell & Rumsfeld. Cheyney is a lost cause all together in my opinion.

I also agree that for this one terrorist attack their are hundreds that probably were prevented which we never even knew of. But I still believe signs were ignored, lets face it. Bush is a texan who thinks and thought you don't mess with texas and you damn sure don't fuck with the USA and maybe that arrogance was his downfall and may have contributed to 9/11. You can not lay 100% or even 50% of the blame on him but maybe you could lay 10% of the blame on him and a 10% chance is better than no chance.

You can play devils advocate either way, guess thats the point of a post like this.

[Arpikarhu]

Didn't the warning only say that there were possible hijackers coming- no notice of date or where? And besides, I understand peopel are quick to bash bush myself included but what could he have done really? Do you think they give him all the information? Do you think he'd be able to stop it? He's not a smart man. I mean the government's known for years that Bin Laden's a threat and they probably get hundreds of possible threats a day and can't look into all of them. And it's not the president's job to look into these himself. He probably didn't even read the sheet.

thank you for the uniformed, simple man's view



Edited By Arpikarhu on May 22 2002 at 02:58

[GonzoStyle]

Ikea actually made me laugh. When he said Bush was not a smart man I automatically got a picture of Forrest Gump looking all confused like staring at a blinking red button.

[IkeaBoy]

thank you for the uniformed, simple man's view

I won't disagree with this. I'll just say you don't like me.

[Arpikarhu]

I won't disagree with this. I'll just say you don't like me.

its not that, its just that if you are going to throw your two cents in at least try to be a little informed

[GonzoStyle]

Nw, now boys stop your bickering. Rather than scold him in his short comings why not school him and inform him where he is wrong. Then stand over his sweating, quivering body while pointing and laughing.

[Arpikarhu]

dont need to school him to do that

[Arthur Dent]

The time to prevent 9/11 was over ten years ago. During the last series of highjackings when terrorists were taking control of planes in order to land them somewhere and make demands, a major push was made to mandate the upgrading of all airport security and improve the training of security personnel. This would have cost the airlines millions of dollars each in upgrades. Instead, they sent lobbyests to Washington to get the bill killed so they wouldn't have to spend the money. The airlines did not beleive there was a serious threat since only one or two people would be killed and then the terrorists were captured and the crisis ended. They considered it an acceptibel risk, preferable to spending the money to fix the problem.

Now, they are being given no choice but to upgrade, but are demanding that the governement pay for most of it becasue "they lost too much money after 9/11".


As for FDR vs. Bush. If FDR knew about Pearl Harbor, it was a cold calculated strategy to get an isolationist america to get off it's ass and do what had to be done to protect the lond term interests of the US. Every person who joins the military signs their life away to the government to be spent as the government deems necessary. You can argue the morality of that all day.

If Bush knew 9/11 was going to happen and did nothing, then he is as guilty of murder as Bin Ladin because those were civilians. But, I don't think he did. I don't think anyone who saw the raw information come in was able to make the intuitive leap to figure out what was going to happen. 9/11 redifined what terrorists are willing to do. It fundamentally changed the way terrorists are viewed.

[OAS]

The issue of what Bush knew pre 9/11 isn’t the problem. Could we have done something different is Monday morning quarterbacking. No person in their right mind would accuse Bush of foul play in not being prepared. The problem is that in the days, weeks and months after 9/11, the White House repeatedly said we had no intelligence, no warning, no indication that this attack was about to happen. The Bush administration lied to the American public to protect it’s ineptness. Anyone who doesn’t understand Bush is inept and unable to properly run an administration never paid attention to how he ran his businesses (all bankrupt) and how he ran Texas (complete breakdown of government services and agencies). The man has ADD. He cannot pay attention to details at the level needed to run an administration.

His speech to Congress after 9/11 will go down as one of the most politically moving and moving and most patriotic speeches in American history. Thanks to passion, adrenaline and a great speech writer, he made history.

And FDR? Please! FDR was dynamic, tough, in control and used power to his advantage. Clinton was a closer match to FDR then Bush could ever dream of being. Clinton survived impeachment and remained popular to the bitter end. Bush will crash and burn as fast as his father did. Bush’s actions forcing post 9/11 spending bills to recover the airline industry, recovery efforts and military buildup have not even begun to affect us yet. On the heels of his self serving tax rebate that virtually every political and financial expert has stated was a huge mistake will take it’s toll on us in the upcoming years.

Bush has to be hoping for an escalation of the war. It may be his only chance of re-election. Israel/Palestine, Pakistan/India or the terrorists themselves, may give him his wish.

[Skitchr4u]

Did you vote for FDR OAS?

[Spitfire]

:lol: Ski

Here's an article that brings up some interesting points "The Case for Bush Administration Advance Knowledge of 9-11 Attacks"
...you can find the whole thing at From the Wilderness I've read a lot about the author, including the fact that he came across the knowledge that the CIA traded drugs to fund covert ops (nice war on drug, huh?)...

Anyway, I'll just skip to the conclusions drawn from it.

CONCLUSION

There is clear and substantial evidence to suggest that the Bush Administration had sufficient foreknowledge of the attacks of Sept. 11 to have prevented them. Rather than viewing each of the four listed areas as a separate piece of evidence, they should be considered as a body, in the exact same way exhibits presented to a jury in a criminal trial are viewed as a body. By viewing the evidence in this manner, an unavoidable conclusion is reached -- the USG knew 25 suicide hijackers during the week of Sept. 9 were going to use United and American airlines commercial planes, some of them likely originating in Boston, to attack the WTC and the Pentagon. A multitude of press stories and intelligence reports indicate the WTC would have been the primary target.

Given the financial commitments made during insider trading activity that occurred immediately before the attacks involving businesses that were directly damaged by the attacks, the threats had clearly moved from the realm of speculation to reality. Why else would mysterious investors have risked millions of dollars to purchase the put options? There is compelling evidence to suggest these trades were noted by the CIA and other USG entities.

Recently, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., has been widely criticized in the mainstream press for raising the need for a Congressional investigation to answer some of these obvious questions. This, in spite of the fact that popular reaction indicates a different sentiment. An opinion poll, conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution just a day after McKinney’s remarks received wide public attention in a Washington Post story dated April 12, was pulled after poll numbers showed that 51 percent of the respondents agreed with McKinney.

The people seem to recognize and agree with the opinion of former CIA officer Mike Osborne who says, “I think that the U.S. government needs to get behind McKinney’s questions because her agenda is truth and justice, and nothing else.”

I've been reading some weird conspiracy theories, no one will ever know the "truth", but I think someone at the top had a good idea what was going to happen...and lied about knowing it.

[Galt]

Let's just hope that Bush's economic policies don't poison the nation's economy like FDRs has for the last 70 years.

[OAS]

Not to worry Galt. His administration's cover-up efforts of illegal dealings in the Enron scandal wont allow them time to screw up the economy much more than they already have. Today's vote along party lines of the judicuary committee to subpeona White House employees was interesting. The White House attorney's have asked to delay the subpeona's until they voluntarily turn over documents the committee has been requesting to see. If I ever get subpeonaed I think I'll try that tactic. "Please Ms. Justice, throw your subpeona way and I will get you the evidence your looking for when I get around to doctoring it, I mean get around to sending it to you".

[PollyannaFlower46]

President Bush in my opinion has been an utter failure...his speech at the WTC that said "the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon" has proven to only be true in Afghanistan. Where is our revenge? Where is America flexing her muscles and avenging the death of our citizens? What is being done to protect us as citizens? My mother has told me during the Cold War therre were drills in class where they would get under the desks in preparation for a neuclear *sp* attack...sure this wasn't effective, but at least they had a plan...where are our plans? What is really being done to protect us? Our leaders are saying something's coming and we don't know when...why can't they say "something's coming, but we're going to get it before it gets us"? The sad thing is, as much as I feel Bush is failing us, I don't know who would be a good leader...sometimes I think Guiliani would be what we need as a nation, but I don't know.

[JIMMYSNUKA]

Ok...i now love Polly more than spit.

Sorry spit. :-p

[Galt]

Democrats never vote along party lines. Republicans are partisan. Democracts' only focus and goal is protection of the people.