The Middle East....NRA, etc and arguing....

[Gloria]

I think it is a bit over the line to be rolling with laughter over an ambassador being killed.

Oh no Mark, I'm not laughing at the death of our ambassador, nor do I consider it just "a bump in the road".

I'm amused by the fact that Obama and the leftists were so confident that their policy....overthrowing dictators and turning the Mid East over to the Muslim Brotherhood...would make the Islamic world LOVE America.

AND they don't dislike us anymore. because we supported the Arab Spring.

[Yogi Bare]

It is really time to stop blaming Bush for everything

Why? Is it because it hurts to acknowledge the fact that Bush did so many things wrong to the detriment of the country that we are still feeling the effects of his blunders today? Heck, even his own political party is so ashamed of what he did to the country that they bestowed a persona non gratis status upon him and barely ever mention his name. Why don't the Republicans speak of him with the same glowing reverence as they do of Reagan?

[Gloria]

Why? Is it because it hurts to acknowledge the fact that Bush did so many things wrong to the detriment of the country that we are still feeling the effects of his blunders today? Heck, even his own political party is so ashamed of what he did to the country that they bestowed a persona non gratis status upon him and barely ever mention his name. Why don't the Republicans speak of him with the same glowing reverence as they do of Reagan?

Because President Bush was no Reagan. Just as Obama is no Clinton.

Be careful when you say that President Bush did so many things wrong "that we are still feeling the effects of his blunders today." Most all of the "blunders" are still in effect today because your president Obama, who promised to repeal, fix, or end them has not done what he said.

Blunders (?):

TARP. George Bush gave us TARP at the end of his term. (Obama voted for it as a senator) Obama expanded TARP and takes credit for it. (It was really a disaster...but Obama doesn't know that)

Auto Bailout. George Bush began the bailout of Chrysler and GM, Obama took over and really screwed things up. Again Obama takes credit for saving millions of auto worker jobs.

Since this is the Mideast Thread...let me stick to the subject.

1. Special Forces funded: Since 9/11, funding for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has tripled, even as its overseas deployments quadrupled. This Pentagon unit oversees all the military services’ elite Special Forces units, including the Navy SEAL Team Six that was dispatched to Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani hideaway. Under Obama, the command continues to be well-funded even during times of economic problems and budget cutbacks. The Pentagon is seeking a 7% budget increase for SOCOM in fiscal 2012, and the command is fielding the first of its 72 new MH-60M helicopters, while upgrading other aging hardware.

2. Military tribunals: Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder were determined to end military tribunals and try terrorist detainees in criminal courts. Only when Congress rebelled and New Yorkers denounced the since-revoked decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Lower Manhattan, did the administration back down and accept the obvious—that deadly terrorists couldn’t be allowed the full set of rights afforded in U.S. federal court. Do we really want a committed jihadist to be set free because a Navy SEAL didn’t read him his Miranda rights when pulling him out of a cave in Tora Bora?

3. Iraq not abandoned: Obama won the presidency with the help of the anti-war Left by promising a quick end to the Iraq War. He has stayed the course long enough for the country to stabilize following the Bush surge, which Obama opposed. Now, with the Middle East pushing out longtime rulers, the new leaders can choose from two models: a democratic Iraq or a demonic Iran .

4. Gitmo still open: Obama’s first act as President was signing an executive order to close the facility holding terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay within a year. More than three years later, he has finally concluded that there is nowhere else to house such murderous jihadists.

5. Renditions continued: Obama has continued a version of the Bush practice of renditions. No wonder. It was in a secret prison in Eastern Europe where a waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave intelligence to the CIA helping to identify Osama bin Laden’s couriers, one of whom led U.S. Special Forces to his doorstep.

6. Afghanistan surge: Obama foolishly set a date for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, but he partially accepted his general’s recommendation for more military personnel for the battle. Under Obama, the number of troops in Afghanistan has doubled since Bush left office. Let’s hope the Commander-in-Chief ignores his own deadline and lets the military do its job.

7. Indefinite detention: Even while Obama and Holder wrung their hands over how to bring terrorists to justice, ultimately they came to the same conclusion that Bush reached: There are some detainees who are so dangerous that they can never be released. At one point, Holder even went so far as to say that he would try hard-core Gitmo detainees in criminal courts, but if an acquittal was reached, he would still keep them imprisoned.

8. Surveillance maintained: The Left went crazy over Bush’s so-called assault on civil liberties when the Patriot Act allowed the surveillance of calls from suspected terrorists coming from overseas and permitted the FBI to obtain certain phone records without warrants. Obama’s Justice Department has given legal authority for the continuation of the policy, with the anti-war crowd voicing only muted concern.

9. Record number of drones: Obama has greatly increased the number of unmanned drones used in Afghanistan, an effective weapon against the enemy in rough terrain. One abhors the persistent civilian casualties, but it also greatly reduces U.S. troop deaths.

10. Killing terrorists: Bush said, “Bring ’em on,” when al-Qaeda flocked to Iraq, and he sent intelligence agents and Special Forces around the world to aggressively track down terrorists. American warriors have continued the long battle with continued success during the Obama administration. But because the targeting of an individual for assassination is legally murky, the shot into the head of Osama bin Laden would not have happened if the Obama-supporting American Civil Liberties Union had gotten its way.

It is understandable to see how Bush was be caught off-guard by the 9-11-01 attack. But what kind of maroon gets caught off-guard by 9-11-12 attacks?

[Naturist Mark]

TARP. George Bush gave us TARP at the end of his term. (Obama voted for it as a senator) Obama expanded TARP and takes credit for it. (It was really a disaster...but Obama doesn't know that)

Good point. Under Obama the banks all failed anyway, and none of the TARP money got paid back.

Or was it the opposite?

Auto Bailout. George Bush began the bailout of Chrysler and GM, Obama took over and really screwed things up. Again Obama takes credit for saving millions of auto worker jobs.

Yeah. The auto industry died anyway. 4 million jobs lost in the auto and parts industry. Ohio unemployment highest in the nation. Not a penny recouped.

Or do I have it all backwards again?

[Gloria]

Good point. Under Obama the banks all failed anyway, and none of the TARP money got paid back.

Or was it the opposite?


Yeah. The auto industry died anyway. 4 million jobs lost in the auto and parts industry. Ohio unemployment highest in the nation. Not a penny recouped.

Or do I have it all backwards again?

Mark,

Not long ago you an I had a brisk discussion about TARP and the Auto Bailout. I provided a lot of information showing the failures of these programs and the billions of taxpayer $$$ that was lost. You, very factually, pointed out that George Bush was responsible for initiating both of those programs.

You will also notice that liberals are very fond of claiming how those programs saved or created "Billions" of jobs and Obama gets the credit.

So here is the dilemma:

If George Bush (who is blamed for the economic condition of our country..up to today) gave us TARP and the Auto Bailout....why would "the smartest president" in our history want to continue ANY of "Bush's failed economic policies" ????

Conversely, if those programs proved to be actually successful, then George Bush should get the credit.

[nimrod]

What is the connection between TARP and the Middle East? Did we bail out banks in the Middle East? With the auto bailout and oil I can see the connection, bit of a stretch but still there.

[Naturist Mark]

What is the connection between TARP and the Middle East? Did we bail out banks in the Middle East? With the auto bailout and oil I can see the connection, bit of a stretch but still there.

Actually we did bail out banks from the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and elsewhere. Mostly it was the Fed that did those bailouts (although some TARP money did indeed go to foreign banks, so long as they had 'substantial holdings' in the US, in particular UBS) While TARP only distributed $431 billion of the $700 billion originally authorized, the Fed has distributed many undisclosed trillions of dollars more - somewhere between 3 and 7 trillion dollars. Among the foreign banks bailed out was Muammar Quackdaffy's Arab Banking Corp, also banks in China, France, Germany, Japan and elsewhere - and yes - foreign central banks that hold a substantial share of the US national debt were bailed out by the US Fed.

[nimrod]

Actually we did bail out banks from the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and elsewhere. Mostly it was the Fed that did those bailouts (although some TARP money did indeed go to foreign banks, so long as they had 'substantial holdings' in the US, in particular UBS) While TARP only distributed $431 billion of the $700 billion originally authorized, the Fed has distributed many undisclosed trillions of dollars more - somewhere between 3 and 7 trillion dollars. Among the foreign banks bailed out was Muammar Quackdaffy's Arab Banking Corp, also banks in China, France, Germany, Japan and elsewhere - and yes - foreign central banks that hold a substantial share of the US national debt were bailed out by the US Fed.

Thanks Mark, I did not realize that we bailed out foreign banks. I figured that some of the U.S. banks are also in the Middle East, but had not heard about foreign banks, or just forgotten. I only faigley remember something about a "world bank" that some of the money went to.

[Gloria]

After three weeks of excuses and delays, FBI investigators finally investigated our Libyan Embassy this week... for a whole 12 hours... and now we await their findings.

One thing is sure: Obama officials at the highest levels of the State Department (think: Hillary Clinton) misjudged the threat from the start, despite clear warnings; failed to act account ably when predictable failure came and instead acted like children ("The video did it -- honest! It's not our fault!"); and failed to apologize for the deaths directly resulting from their negligence. Currently, the administration only admits that it has "revised its initial assessment to reflect new information that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack."

[LumpyPostage]

Whenever there is an American election, Americans can give long lists of their president's/government's failures. If American leaders are so terrible at handling apparently everything, why should anybody in "the Middle East" want anything that even resembles an American style government in their country?