George Herbert Walker Bush?

[XemaSab]

:shrug:

[spanone]

1. = iran/contra

[H2O Man]

10. Right.

That puts him not only high on the list of war criminals, but also as an enemy of the US Constitution.

[XemaSab]

20. Exactly

n/t

[EFerrari]

23. Here he is dismissing the slaughter of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador, instructors

at the University, this week in 1989.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dezo8Ds3DDE&feature=player_embedded

This announcement from the administration is very badly timed.

[dflprincess]

30. Treason is a Bush family tradition n/t

[Historic NY]

2. Dick.

[Deep13]

3. G.H.W.Bush had a huge influence on the greatest American war criminal.

[jobycom]

4. Mediocre beauracrat elevated by conspiracy paranoia.

I wouldn't exactly call him a war criminal. His war was at least legal in such terms. It was unjust, unjustified, and atrocious, but he at least honestly conned Congress into accepting his invasion. Yeah, he lied about troops amassing on the borders, and he probably authorized Hussein's actions beforehand, and he was probably behind propaganda like the baby incubator story... Not saying I like the guy. But really, he was a typical beauracrat with no imagination bumbling around Washington from unearned promotion to unearned promotion until he reached the top.

[XemaSab]

7. Even when he was at the CIA?

:shrug:

[jobycom]

8. You mean as head, or in one of those conspiracy theories that has him running the world?

Because I don't believe those latter. I knew people who worked around him and ran against him back in the 60s (I didn't know them in the 60s). He was a putz. Dude couldn't mastermind his own breakfast, much less anything else.

As for being head of the CIA, he signed papers and looked pretty, and didn't get in the way.

[EFerrari]

15. Only if you discount the hundreds of thousands of dead people in El Salvador

Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Panama. That's a lot of bodies for a conspiracy theory.

And for an extra bonus, the third of Bush 2's cabinet that were Iran Contra veterans were the heart of his administration, the black murdering heart.

[jobycom]

25. True enough. I usually think of Reagan as the instigator, but Bush continued his policies.

He and Reagan both skated on a lot of charges when HW pardoned the Iran-Contra players.

Our Latin American foreign policy has often been atrocious. Woodrow Wilson had American troops occupy several countries and force them to appoint his hand picked leaders, including Nicaraugua and Haiti, as well as brutally squashing any resistance. Some of those actions lasted into FDR's reign. A lot of the poverty and instability of Mexico, Central America, and South America is the result of our imperialism and our deliberate attempts to prevent nations from gaining too much power that close to us.

[EFerrari]

27. Bush was Reagan's Cheney.

Ronnie was the novice in the situation, Bush was the old hand with funds and influence on tap. Raygun was the Bush family's dream president with his declining cognitive function.

[jobycom]

31. No, he wasn't smart enough. Baker, maybe, but not Bush.

Bush is an unimaginative mediocrity. People want to make him something more because he was present for so many things, but he was present because he was like Herbert Hoover--a capable bureaucrat but not smart enough to interfere with things. That's why he was made head of the CIA, and VP, and even president.

Reagan wasn't controlled by any one person. Nancy kept access to him too limited. She sided with different factions from time to time, and some of those factions even intertwined, but no one person controlled Reagan. He liked power too much, and had enough charisma to take control, but not enough knowledge to really make decisions, so he listened to whomever handled him best.

People want to see Bush as some Francis Urguhart character from "House of Cards," but he was never that strong. Politics is more like "Yes, Minister," with a lot of factions rising up to control the leaders, and usually a couple of gatekeepers to control what the leader hears and knows. Strong leaders know how to play the factions against each other, and even how to control the gatekeepers, but weaker leaders get played, instead. Bush Daddy wasn't any of those. He'd have never run for office if he were the real power behind the throne.

[DCKit]

5. K&R for an honest poll. n/t

[Arctic Dave]

6. Top Bush shitstain that needs to hang next his son.

[leveymg]

9. GHW is the "greatest" "living" American war criminal, particularly if you count his clan

[Individualist]

11. is as criminal and corrupt as his deviant son.

[EFerrari]

17. Raygun's Cheney. n/t

[lpbk2713]

12. First thing that always comes to my mind about him ...

He's the SOB that left his crew to drown when he ditched his aircraft in WW-II. The rethuglicans thought
it was such an outstanding achievement that they named an aircraft carrier after him a few years later.

[Initech]

13. I'm seriously convinced either him or someone connected to the BFEE killed JFK

[NightWatcher]

41. he WAS is Dallas on that day and never talks about it. Add that to his CIA spookiness...

[Initech]

42. Add to the fact that his dad (Prescott) tried to overthrow FDR...

[treestar]

14. Why is this one a war criminal?

Everyone was fine with his war; there were no lies. In fact it was openly argued "Saddam can't have control of that much oil." I was around for that one and the population of this country was positively gushing over that war. People salivated over that war. They loved it.

[EFerrari]

16. He funded and ran dirty wars in Latin America that killed hundreds of thousands

of people. He and Raygun exported torture and death squads to Latin America, North Africa and Southeast Asia.

The Gulf War is just the icing on the cake.

And not everyone salivated over Bush's CNN war. Plenty of us did not.

[XemaSab]

18. My grandpa (a lifelong republican) worked in Saudi for years

and he hated Bush so much he was actively rooting for Saddam. :P

[EFerrari]

19. LOL

:)

[treestar]

38. Maybe, but a lot of people did

DU seems to have forgotten his Latin American, etc. wars, demanding the the son be punished but not mentioning pappy the same way. Would love to know if they condemned Clinton day and night on the same ground. And Clinton seems to even be friends with the guy.

[EFerrari]

40. Clinton did nothing of the sort in Latin America. He is criticized, though,

for his "free trade" destruction of Mexico and Haiti's ag sector, and for his support of the butchers in Colombia and Peru in the name of a drug war that is really counter insurgency and money laundering.

We don't know very much about Latin America up here because the media doesn't report it well at all. Also, Junior and Cheney were so obsessed with the Middle East, they neglected Latin America for most of their regime. Obama's administration is already more active there than Bush 2 ever was.

[superduperfarleft]

44. You're, once again, REALLY reaching in an attempt to defend Obama

from well-deserved criticism over this. I guess I shouldn't be surprised the lengths you'd go, though. Actually defending HW Bush? I mean, really...

[charlie]

21. No lies?

Look up Nayirah and Hill & Knowlton. Plus, April Glaspie.

[JackRiddler]

22. His war, singular?

Every country in Central America, Iran (the target of Iraq when it was "good"), Afghanistan and a couple of million prisoners and refugees of the drug-war and crack epidemic would like a word on that.

[EFerrari]

26. LIkely a number of people in Angola, too. n/t

[JackRiddler]

32. Yes, of course, sorry. Mozambique too.

You remember the summit of the "freedom fighter" CIA paramilitary armies - Contras, Afghan Mujahedeen, UNITA, plus Abramoff, I think Rove, the Republican young guns at the time.

[Solly Mack]

28. Not everyone was "positively gushing over that war"

Unless you mean tears gushing...because I was in tears when the news came on and announced that the bombing had begun. I can remember what I was doing, what I was wearing, who was around me at the time....clear memory...and not because I supported it.

[KBlagburn]

34. I can also remember where I was when the bombs dropped.

In King Fahd, KSA. and IMHO, Desert Storm was a justified, nearly globally supported effort. What Saddam did in kuwait was dangerous not only to that region but to the world and we could not and did not let that stand. I voted for Mondale, Dukakis, & Clinton, and served under Bush Sr & Clinton and though I did not agree with Pres. Bush on almost everything he ever did, I will say that I respected and Admired my Commander in Chief for the way he handled that war. He knew, as opposed to LBJ and Bush Jr, that he needed to allow the military to do their jobs. If you will remember, our casualties were very, very minimal. If you categorize him as a war criminal in part or in whole because of Desert Storm, then you must include LBJ in this category as well. What Bush Jr did was NOTHING LIKE what his dad did in Desert Storm. In fact Bush SR stated shortly after he left office that had we invaded Iraq and went after Saddam that it would have been against US & International law and that the coalition would have fallen apart, and it had been reported at the time of the Iraq invasion that he did not support what his son was doing. So go ahead and flame away if you wish, but I for one will not denigrate my Commander in Chief, not for Desert Storm. BTW he also ended the war earlier than the military wanted so as to avoid needless military and civilian casualties.

Edited to add: And unlike the repubs I WILL NEVER DENIGRATE a fellow veterans service to this country. Bush JR. the exception to the rule considering he turned his back on his fellow Airmen and went AWOL. I do not consider that "service to this country".

[Solly Mack]

36. Actually, Poppy Bush did tell a few ..ah..fibs...prior to the Gulf War

to increase support for the action.

1 Number of Iraqi troops...Iraq had half the troops the Bush WH claimed they did.

2 Iraqi troops amassing on SA border. 2 commercial satellite images (at the time) showed that contrary to what the Bush WH claimed, there were no Iraqi troops amassing on SA border. Yet that was one of the reasons Poppy used for going to war....that Iraq was amassing on the border of SA. The Pentagon claimed they had top secret images of a massive build-up...but they never once released them or countered the other existing images that showed something entirely different.

3 That incubator story? Nothing but bullshit....but it was used during the Congressional debate as an example of why we must go to war. Bush himself used the lie repeatedly in an attempt to build up support. Kuwait paid a Washington PR firm to get the lie out. The Bush WH claimed they didn't know it was a lie but they did call it "useful" for building up support to go to war. I somehow doubt they didn't know.

The House Armed Services Committee issued a 'lessons learned' report on the Gulf War where they cite the much lower Iraqi troop numbers than the WH claimed existed. The Bush WH inflated the numbers and their location as a push for war.

Research April Glaspie.

LBJ/Robert McNamara - Gulf of Tonkin August 4 "attack" was a lie - that lie got LBJ the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. See also Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

Poppy Bush engaged in crimes against humanity. Central America. You can read the information already posted on DU about Poppy Bush's crimes in Latin America.


I'm not flaming you. Just disagreeing with you on the kind of person Poppy Bush is...and you don't have to believe me...research it all yourself.

[treestar]

37. You were in some different neighborhood

I remember the media positively having a good time over that war, and everyone around me watched it on TV every night like it was a positive thing.

The overall mood of the country was just plain jubilant. I did not like it but all around me it seemed that most people were absolutely enjoying it. It made me kind of sick.

[Solly Mack]

39. I remember it being all over CNN and then other stations too

and people were watching it night and day. I found it surreal. A PR coup.

You're correct in that. From my neighborhood (Georgia) it did seem like everyone was having a good time watching the war...but it wasn't everyone is all I'm saying.

I was drinking coffee one morning while flipping through the news stations and I saw war being treated like it was a popular TV mini-series that was next up...so grab your drinks and your popcorn. CNN was non-stop coverage, just about. I think they would break long enough to tell people "we were first" to bring you the war.

A definite case study in group behavior if there ever was one. (Course, September 11 and the aftermath is too)

[myrna minx]

45. I remember when Sting appeared on SNL on Jan 19, 1991, it was the first time I had laughed in days.

I remember it was a bit controversial to have a new SNL so soon after the start of the war - but it felt good to laugh through the tears. No, not everyone "gushed" over that war - many did, but not everyone.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

43. There were no lies? You might want to rethink that one. I'm actually feeling

embarrassed for you.

[pokerfan]

24. Not my president

He once said in an interview that atheists couldn't be considered citizens so I never considered him a president.

[FarLeftRage]

29. Not only the greatest living war criminal...

but the real force behind every nasty, foul and evil political act that has occurred in this nation over the last 50-plus years...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

33. I remember him snapping at MTV's Tabitha Soren during an interview on a moving train

The interview took place a week before the election. They were standing on the back platform of the train as it went down the tracks. She was asking him something along the lines of where "young people" fit into his overall master plan and he gave some feeble response about "We have a number of special things planned for young people," and when she pressed further he just stepped on her neck (not literally...but he really, really snapped at her and basically told her to S.T.F.U. while he was talking).

It was in that moment that his attitude toward "young people" became abundantly clear. He didn't get a second term. I've always thanked Tabitha for that, whether she deserves it or not.

[defendandprotect]

35. Obviously, Jon Stewart is wrong -- !!!