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Gems from our 42nd President
“We’ve had the look-back this and the look-back that… and I’m not goint to comment on, you know, other comments.”
“And that goes back to her question: Does being on the offense mean we create terroists? My judgement is: The only way to defend a country is to stay on the offense.”
- George W. Bush in a news conference with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. (Italics mine)
Full Text Here
Interesting Note
The question the reporter asked to prompt the above remarks did not resemble the President’s rephrasing of it in the least…
“Former President Clinton says that your administration had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after he left office. Is that factually accurate? And how do you respond to his charges?”
Your thoughts appreciated…
Steve September 26th, 2006 18:05 pm
I’d say that it’s rather frightening to have a president who believes we have to go on the offense to defend the country. Makes me glad we have such things as term limits.
Where else do we have to attack to be safe? How long until we are safe? Until the entire Middle East is democratic? Until every terrorist is dead or in Guantanamo? Until George Bush says so? I suppose pre-emptive war could go on ad infinitum, since none of those goals are realistic.
greg September 27th, 2006 23:05 pm
not really on topic, but Karzai is a puppet.
it bugs me that bush embraces christian ideals but says and acts the way he does. if Jesus was here today, i don’t think he’d be saying stuff like, “the best defense is a good offense.”
Steve September 28th, 2006 08:53 am
totally a puppet. about the only thing he says is, “Thank you, Mr. Bush. Your country is beautiful.”
i really hope in this next election that some christians can be a little less gullible, and not just vote for someone because they say they’re a christian. because throughout history, no one has EVER claimed to be a christian to get ahead.
sam September 28th, 2006 17:05 pm
I like that, Steve. You are wise.
jeremy September 29th, 2006 15:29 pm
yeah, but I guess if jesus were here he wouldn’t be president, governer, or mayor either.
jeremy September 29th, 2006 15:38 pm
steve,
what is your opinion on how best to defend our country?
Steve September 29th, 2006 16:32 pm
the point is not so much that jesus would be pres, et al. the point is that bush seems to care so much about what jesus thinks when it comes to homosexuality or abortion, but conveniently ignores him on war.
as far as defending the country, i think a good start would be to avoid going out to stir up a hornet’s nest in a part of the world where we’re not very popular.
let’s be realistic about the threat that we face. we got attacked by terrorists on 9/11 and 2,726 people died. that’s really terrible, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not so many. it’s not like we got nuked or someone invaded florida. our response, invading iraq, didn’t protect us. it didn’t save american lives. as of yesterday, 2,709 us soldiers have died in Iraq. we’ve almost doubled our casualties, and yet done little to defend our country.
what we did in afghanistan was reasonable, but continuing the offense in other places is not such a hot idea, which i think people are coming around to…hopefully.
long story short:
good defense=attacking the people who attack us
bad defense=attacking anything else.
greg September 30th, 2006 01:29 am
download this interview from relevant with donald miller:
http://www.seven-card.com/filetransfer/relevant_24.zip
listen at about 29:20. He talks about the war in iraq (back in february). interesting stuff.
Brandon September 30th, 2006 20:20 pm
It seems Bush is trying to have it both ways. Now the mantra to justify Iraq and elsewhere stems from a desire to spread democracy, forcefully or otherwise throughout the Middle East. It did not seem that this was the justification to begin with, but currently the position is held that a free and open democracy is no threat to the U.S. I find that hard to argue with at the moment.
Laker October 1st, 2006 21:07 pm
Are we really debating politics and matters of state on Chimpsahoy now? Are the days of (in no particular order) cardboard boat races, lard eating, and Sonath in a boulder costume that far behind us?
Last time I checked, there were plenty of serious political blogs where people can read about and discuss politics to their heart’s content. Do we really need to bring this here?
Nick October 2nd, 2006 00:43 am
What we don’t need to forget is that a large portion of the middle east want us in the USA dead. This has been going on long before President Bush came into office. They HATE us because of our wealth, capitalism, but most of all our friendship with Israel. Look back into your old testaments, although a different time period, God did what he had to do to protect his people. It truly is amazing that Israel is still around today, but they aren’t here just because they have been sitting on their butts, twiddling their thumbs either.
Steve October 2nd, 2006 07:05 am
fyi: I think cardboard boats and lard eating have a great deal to do with politics anyway.
While a free and open democracy might be less threatening, can that really be attained through force? Will it hold? Also, it goes back to my question before: how far does this go? China’s not democratic. Do we force them to be next? I find it hard to justify spreading political ideology through military force. Should we change the name of the defense department to the offense department?
If anyone else listened to that thing greg posted, I really do think this has a lot to do with stabilizing oil supplies. Maybe instead of fighting for democracy in the world, we should fight for honesty in democracy here.
Sam October 2nd, 2006 12:54 pm
To Steve’s Point on China:
In my econ class last semester, we were discussing what would happen if China and India (nearly half the world’s population combined) became democratic, free market societies.
Put yourself in the shoes of George and the rest of his Bushies… 3 Billion new consumers… mmmmm.
Sam’s Prediction: China and Inidia no longer state-ruled by 2010
shannon October 2nd, 2006 14:35 pm
I have to agree with Ryan here as well…ryry, maybe we should start our own blog where we can talk about lard eating and whatnot without discussing the political/social implications of it…would lard vote for Bush? does the lard in iraq hate the lard in America? is the war in Iraq just a ploy to stabilize our hold on the middle east’s lard supply?
Steve October 2nd, 2006 16:16 pm
all i can say shannon: i’d read a website about lard.
shannon October 2nd, 2006 16:46 pm
http://www.lard.net/index.html
useless website but the picture is funny. cant we all just get along…with a big tub oh lard?
Steve October 3rd, 2006 08:31 am
hey…leave dick cheney out of this…
Laker October 3rd, 2006 15:37 pm
I’m with you, Shan. And we may even decide to invite Steve to our blog if he’ll quit trying to interject with poor political jokes.
Steve October 7th, 2006 17:55 pm
I got that political joke from your mom! See…I am still funny!
jeremy October 18th, 2006 13:19 pm
ummm…china may be communist but they sure as heck aren’t muslim either…Buddha would probably frown on the very concept of jihad…