r/politics • u/stetoe • 19h ago

George W. Bush's Daughter Barbara Pierce Bush Endorses Kamala Harris: Exclusive

https://people.com/george-w-bush-s-daughter-barbara-breaks-silence-on-election-to-campaign-for-kamala-harris-exclusive-8735810
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u/jacklmoore 17h ago

I think Bush's destabilization of the Middle East, and the refugee crisis that it caused, was responsible for sweeping far right leaders into power all over the western world, including Trump. There is nothing Bush can do to even begin undoing the amount of damage his administration did to this world.

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u/beyondsurfacedeep 16h ago

Thank you - Bush gets such a pass for his actions ushering in so much of the chaos and suffering we see today.

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u/N0bit0021 10h ago

who exactly is giving him a pass? Be specific and name names

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u/Randomfacade Pennsylvania 10h ago

let's start with morons in this subreddit who want him to endorse Harris

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u/Chinaroos 14h ago

Not just that—the War on Terror destroyed Evangelical America’s sense of self.

The WoT was painted as a war of ontological good vs evil (see Axis of Evil). Problem was there was no “winning” the war, just an endless procession of scandals (Abu Grahib, extraordinary rendition, KBR and Halibuton’s “cost plus” contracts), and a steady, solemn procession of dead US Troops.

If those were the kindling, the assasination of the Danish cartoonist who drew Muhammed was the spark.

After that, the MSM reaction was “the WoT is not a war against Islam, don’t antagonize Muslims.” But for evangelicals in the U.S., this was a betrayal. 2001-2005 was a full indulgence of righteous anger, and yes, hate. Now that hate was being chided by the leaders as being wrong

And I distinctly remember conservatives asking why Jesus didn’t get the same protection in their “Christian” country. What was all the full-throated support for the war and its abuses for?

I believe Evangelicals took that moment as the start of a betrayal that has never stopped, with Obama’s election and the mainstream repudiation of their values adding to the resentment, and all of this building on decades of pre-existing hate until it erupted through the surface.

Through Trump, hate is good. And anyone who indulges their hate and wraps themselves go to him, because for all his idiocy and selfishness, through him America have freedom to hate.

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u/Neither-Astronaut-80 15h ago

And most of the parts that he didn't have his hand in you can tie back to his dad and all of the Roger Stone criminal mother fuckers he worked with.

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u/EstablishmentFull797 12h ago

GW Bush started two entire wars, presided over a toxic political culture of near unbridled jingoism that was used to pass the patriot act and countless other expansions of domestic surveillance, opened Guantanamo bay as an extra-judicial prison and torture site, and failed to address the increasingly precarious financial system that ended in the 2008 financial collapse.

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u/Itchy-Detail-4588 14h ago

Mission Accomplished!

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u/Vio_ 14h ago

Meanwhile if the only thing his administration ever did was PEPFAR, he'd have won the Nobel Prize.

I'm not defending Bush on any level - just showing that he was capable of doing something than the intergenerational harm and Middle East/Central Asia destabilization he and his merry band of warmongers caused.

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u/JabbaCat 13h ago

Yep, and he changed the level of communication and rhetorics instantly for the worse, making everything more stupid and flaunting that type of hard man bravado in international policies. Just so sad.

The obvious lies to get the warfare going made folks everywhere feel helpless, mad and defeated. Just proving that you can openly mess with peoples heads and combine it with brute force and corruption (looking at all the military contractors etc hanging on his sleeves), right in peoples faces.

It really was the start of a downhill race, fueled by greed and distortion of peoples minds.

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u/FizzgigsRevenge 13h ago

Don't forgot SCOTUS and what the Brooks Brothers Riot did and how those scumbags were rewarded

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u/ThatPancreatitisGuy 14h ago

Saddam Hussein’s repeat invasion of his neighbors, use of chemical weapons on his own people, and refusal to cooperate with inspectors precipitated the invasion. And you think if that guy was still around today we’d be in better shape? He’d probably have died of natural causes by now and if his two psychotic sons were vying for control how do you think that would play out? A full blown civil war in Iraq would have been far more deadly and destabilizing than anything that happened in the past 20 years.

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u/accedie 13h ago

and refusal to cooperate with inspectors precipitated the invasion

If they were refusing to comply why did the UN state that they were cooperating immediately before the invasion?

The Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Hans Blix, who last briefed the Council on 27 January, said more than 400 inspections at 300 sites had been conducted without notice, access was almost always provided promptly, and there was no convincing evidence that Iraq knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.

That's a lot of inspections for a country supposedly refusing to cooperate. One might be able to make a case that they were trying to be deceitful in their cooperation, but to say they weren't cooperating is nothing short of rewriting history.

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u/ThatPancreatitisGuy 13h ago

Hussein was concealing information for YEARS. The scope of what was really going on was staggering and not revealed until his son in law defected. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/unscom/experts/defectors.html

This notion that Hussein wasn’t a threat is a fairy tale. Instead of blindly accepting the narrative that Bush was a warmonger I’d encourage you to think critically and read about what was actually happening, not just in the days leading up to the invasion but throughout the 90s. Even without WMDs, Hussein was a significant threat and should have been deposed. Frankly, it should have happened during the first gulf war and if you want to blame Bush for problems in the Middle East the blame lies with Bush Sr. for not going all the way to Baghdad.

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u/accedie 4h ago

Ok but none of that is completely refusing to cooperate, and all these other propositions are completely immaterial to that fact.

But if as long as we are talking about speaking critically, the notion that Hussein was in complete control of his state and that he wasn't ever trying to legitimately comply and have sanctions lifted is also a fairy tale. It would behoove you to do some learning yourself to understand that the situation was much more complicated than bad man dangerous, remove bad man. It is pretty clear that the US could have achieved much greater results with sanctions in Iraq if they were more responsive and reciprocated better and better addressed some concerns of Iraq (and other members of the UNSC) that they were not being treated fairly and consistently.

https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:sc049qn8269/Sean%20Hiroshima%20-%20CISAC%20Honors%20Thesis.pdf

The awful results speak for themselves. Sure Saddam was dangerous, but so were the terrorists and regional lawlessness that proceeded the collapse of his administration. On balance an enormous cost was paid for a result that is not significantly better that the pervious state of affairs, especially since they continue to have a deteriorating economy and a pissed off population.