speculawyer
Member
Watch it online here.
Awesome chronology of the Iraq war. The infighting in the adminstration is scary.
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Frontline: Bush's War . . . anyone watch it? Opinions?
- Thread starter speculawyer
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Watch it online here.
Stoney Mason
Banned
PBS!
More like Public BS!
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More like Public BS!
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speculawyer
Member
Anything specific you'd like to point out? Or is this just the standard "liberal media" whine?Stoney Mason said:
The documentary is maining made up of interviews & public footage stitched together.
Stoney Mason
Banned
Mandark said:
Pretty much.
State of Denial was an interesting read back in the day although since then I'll admit I haven't really followed the behind the scenes stuff on the war. I'll watch this when I get some free time.
What I was going to say. Covered a lot of the same ground as their Rumsfeld piece (which was excellent as all get out, btw). It's sad to see how many absolutely stupid mistakes the same people (Rummy/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Scooter) were allowed to make before being sacked. And of course Cheney is still around, telling us that Iran is now seeking nuclear weapons. Just trust him, he says...Atrus said:
speculawyer
Member
Holy crap . . . could anyone be more wrong than those guys? It is sad to see only one of them get criminal punishment so far. Wolfowitz is very deserving of punishment . . . how badly can one man fuck up? And Cheney . . . I think I'll stop now before I say something that will get me in legal trouble.Triumph said:
Stoney Mason
Banned
All my anger at these people were burned off a couple of years ago. Not that anger isn't an appropriate emotion to still have. I just sort of reached a point where I was at the bottom of the well with that emotion and there was no more to summon.
My over-riding feelings of the last few years has mainly been centered around their incompetence in conjunction with the notion that some of these true believers honestly believe all the this stuff. It's easy to fall into a mindset of thought that they are just ignorant and sort of evil. I really did sort of feel that originally. But when you read State of Denial, you realize these aren't stupid men, nor do they not exactly know what they are doing or sort of want to achieve. They are just staggeringly incompetent about it which sorts of scares me and dulls me even more somehow than just if they were stupid and malicious.
My over-riding feelings of the last few years has mainly been centered around their incompetence in conjunction with the notion that some of these true believers honestly believe all the this stuff. It's easy to fall into a mindset of thought that they are just ignorant and sort of evil. I really did sort of feel that originally. But when you read State of Denial, you realize these aren't stupid men, nor do they not exactly know what they are doing or sort of want to achieve. They are just staggeringly incompetent about it which sorts of scares me and dulls me even more somehow than just if they were stupid and malicious.
siamesedreamer
Banned
This was abso-fucking-lutely infuriating.
The part about the "downtime" after the fall of Baghdad where nobody had any clue of what to do was surreal. Then comes Bremer out of nowhere disbanding the army that went directly against the wishes of the high level meeting 9 days earlier. Mistake after mstake after mistake. Argh!
To have them all these things laid out in successive view really shows the staggering level of incompetance of this adminstration. I voted for Bush twice, but if I had paid enough attention and not been so blindly partisan I would have voted for a third party candidate instead. Sorry guys... :/
The part about the "downtime" after the fall of Baghdad where nobody had any clue of what to do was surreal. Then comes Bremer out of nowhere disbanding the army that went directly against the wishes of the high level meeting 9 days earlier. Mistake after mstake after mistake. Argh!
To have them all these things laid out in successive view really shows the staggering level of incompetance of this adminstration. I voted for Bush twice, but if I had paid enough attention and not been so blindly partisan I would have voted for a third party candidate instead. Sorry guys... :/
Stoney Mason
Banned
avatar299 said:
While I don't think he will go down as Hitler I don't think he will be redeemed much at all in the true sense of that word. I don't think any president is viewed as Hitler by the general American public although a number are viewed as hellaciously incompetent and I think Bush and his administration will squarely stand very high on that list. But that is for the future to decide.
way more
Member
I checked out the first half and it's excellent. It should be issued as a "white paper" before a war with Iran starts.
Any one else see Charlie Rose's black-eye?
Noob.
Any one else see Charlie Rose's black-eye?
http://commercial-archive.com/node/143033
Noob.
Stoney Mason
Banned
I decided to watch some of this and it's very long so I won't be able to finish it tonight but I swear the slack Condi Rice is allowed to have will always baffle me. There were people talking about how this lady should run for president or maybe be the vice president and my jaw always drops at this sort of talk. What has she done where she deserves to maintain her current job or the one before she was sec of state much less be seriously talked up like she deserves a better one or some sort of special recognition? I'll never understand it.
Tyrannical
Banned
Stoney Mason said:
She's smarter then Obama, that must count for something.
Stoney Mason
Banned
Well I'm finally going to bed. This thing was so addictive. Absolutely riveting. It is very damning. It's one of those things that you feel should almost be mandatory viewing if there could be such a thing.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Stoney Mason said:
Anything named "State of Denial" is biased off-the-bat when is deals with the administration, and Woodward's book is very biased and should be taken with a grain of salt as he was not a reporter within the administration. So far the most unbiased book written on the administration has been the acclaimed "Dead Certain" that I have mentioned to you in the past. Quite an interesting read, but as I saw one person on CNN correctly said: "it is difficult to evaluate an administration before it's over and write a book." However, I still find it really interesting to see what was going on behind closed doors from a journalist who was there every day.
CharlieDigital
Banned
I watched the whole thing. It was captivating.
If I took anything from it, it's that it changed my opinion of Rumsfeld and Condi.
I think there are really two positions you can take on the war: you either fall into the "We can win it" camp or the "Civil war is inevitable" camp. If you believe that victory can be achieved and that it must be achieved, you fall into the Condi camp.
Her adoption of McMasters' "Clear, Hold, Build" strategy for taking Iraq back from the insurgent groups is a strategy aligned with the belief that we can ultimately defeat the enemy and bring peace and stability to Iraq. Had it been implemented earlier and had Rumsfeld and Casey not advocated the "Light Footprint" approach and had Bush not dismissed the "Clear, Hold, Build" strategy, who knows where we would be today.
Rumsfeld and Casey, on the other hand, with the "Light Footprint" approach were ready to get the hell out of there with the belief that there is only so much that American forces can do for the country of Iraq. At the time, it was the wrong thing to do if only because the Iraqi coalition was still weak and needed more support from the US and the documentary gave the impression that there was the possibility of victory (a mirage, I would say).
As much as I thought Rumsfeld was a lying douche, I have to say that in retrospect, he might have been right. Civil war in Iraq seems inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing (sure it's bad from a humanitarian perspective, but in the end, it may lead to either a natural division of the country or unification under a powerful leader (much like Saddam)). America went through a bloody civil war, Russia has an ongoing civil war of sorts with Chechnya, and it's a common theme in the history of many countries; it may even be inevitable for long term stability.
I also took away the numerous fuck ups by Bush as commander in chief. From appointing shitheads at all levels, to not listening to his generals at the onset, to acting too indecisively (Fallujah), and so on...anyone who thinks that Barrak or Clinton could do worse than him is dead wrong because he failed on so many levels in leading this war. It could be the case that the ultimate blame lays on Cheney (as the documentary tried to paint him as "The Bad Guy"), but Bush was responsible for calling the shots and he got most of them wrong.
If I took anything from it, it's that it changed my opinion of Rumsfeld and Condi.
I think there are really two positions you can take on the war: you either fall into the "We can win it" camp or the "Civil war is inevitable" camp. If you believe that victory can be achieved and that it must be achieved, you fall into the Condi camp.
Her adoption of McMasters' "Clear, Hold, Build" strategy for taking Iraq back from the insurgent groups is a strategy aligned with the belief that we can ultimately defeat the enemy and bring peace and stability to Iraq. Had it been implemented earlier and had Rumsfeld and Casey not advocated the "Light Footprint" approach and had Bush not dismissed the "Clear, Hold, Build" strategy, who knows where we would be today.
Rumsfeld and Casey, on the other hand, with the "Light Footprint" approach were ready to get the hell out of there with the belief that there is only so much that American forces can do for the country of Iraq. At the time, it was the wrong thing to do if only because the Iraqi coalition was still weak and needed more support from the US and the documentary gave the impression that there was the possibility of victory (a mirage, I would say).
As much as I thought Rumsfeld was a lying douche, I have to say that in retrospect, he might have been right. Civil war in Iraq seems inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing (sure it's bad from a humanitarian perspective, but in the end, it may lead to either a natural division of the country or unification under a powerful leader (much like Saddam)). America went through a bloody civil war, Russia has an ongoing civil war of sorts with Chechnya, and it's a common theme in the history of many countries; it may even be inevitable for long term stability.
I also took away the numerous fuck ups by Bush as commander in chief. From appointing shitheads at all levels, to not listening to his generals at the onset, to acting too indecisively (Fallujah), and so on...anyone who thinks that Barrak or Clinton could do worse than him is dead wrong because he failed on so many levels in leading this war. It could be the case that the ultimate blame lays on Cheney (as the documentary tried to paint him as "The Bad Guy"), but Bush was responsible for calling the shots and he got most of them wrong.
CharlieDigital
Banned
Stoney Mason said:
If anything, I think she was the only competent one in the entire administration. She realized the only strategy for victory was for the troops to be embedded among the people, trying to help bring some level of stability so that the communities could rebuild. Unfortunately, the window of opportunity for that closed very quickly after the bombing of the Askariya Shrine and her strategy was dismissed in favor of the Light Footprint approach. Condi didn't just blindly buy into the reports from Rummy, she sent her own counsel to Iraq to get the state of the war straight from the generals and troops. She also acted to bring change to a broken strategy if victory was our goal.
Stoney Mason
Banned
UltimaKilo said:
Woodward was given some inside access by this administration. There are criticisms that can be laid at that book just like any but the title of the book is the last thing that should come under fire. They were in a state of denial especially the public face of this war that Americans were getting. Not to mention the Bush Administration was mostly happy about his first two books and many liberals were upset that the first two books weren't essentially tough enough on him. That doesn't mean of course that other books don't have correct insight into this situation also or different viewpoints based on who they had the most access to.
Stoney Mason
Banned
Finished it. Very good. As others have mentioned it really is the story of the ouster of Rumsfeld. Anything post surge isn't really covered unfortunately although its understandable that it's much more difficult to report on what is happening currently without proper perspective. Definitely recommended watching obviously.
speculawyer
Member
I'm a HUGE critic of Bush, but he is certainly no Hitler. I'm sure he really did have good intentions. But whole concept was bad, the plan was bad, they stretched the intelligence to rationalize the war, the made a gazillion mistakes. etc.avatar299 said:
One can make very limited analogies to Hitler . . . like the whole "we better invaded them because they are a threat to us" was very remensicent of Hitlers rational to invade Poland. But I'm fairly certain that Bush really did this because he really felt he would help the Iraqi people. He was just dead wrong.
And we can sit around and list every mistake they made with the war . . . I think the overall invasion idea was just wrong and could not work out well even if they didn't make all those mistakes. We just were not wanted in Iraq and Chalabi was definitely not wanted.
speculawyer
Member
:lolTyrannical said:
I watched what I could before the medication caught up to me and put me to sleep. It was really good, and I'm someone who voted for Bush twice. I think it was a little slanted in its approach, but not unfair. Some of the information, especially about the inside fighting, was absolutely amazing.
I really wonder how these 8 years will be viewed by the American public 30 years from now.
I really wonder how these 8 years will be viewed by the American public 30 years from now.
speculawyer
Member
Stoney Mason said:
She was the National Security Advisor during the greatest breach of national security ever in our nation's history. What was her big plan? Missile defense . . . yeah, that would have been great help against Al-Qeada.
She is the Secretary of State at a time during an Israel/Lebanon war, a "coalition of the willing" that has dwindled to virtually nothing, a NATO operation in Afghanistan where we have to continually beg for troops from other nations, etc.
Perhaps the North Korea nuke deal could be viewed as a triumph?
Seriously, she really doesn't have much of anything to point to as a success besides the North Korea deal . . . and even that was only after letting them build a nuke weapon.
Stoney Mason
Banned
What will you drive you insane if you let it, is going back and reading articles pre-war and shortly after post war. I mean it's really hillarious/insane.
April 12, 2003.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.pentagon/
April 12, 2003.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.pentagon/
What a load of crap.
The whole administration is BAD. Be it Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Rice, Powell, etc etc. The United States is not any better off than it was before 9/11 or this stupid war. People need to wake up and see that what they are doing over across the world is not for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of their pockets.
The only decent president that the US has had that i can think of is J.F. Kennedy. That dude atleast cared about you guys.
The whole administration is BAD. Be it Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Rice, Powell, etc etc. The United States is not any better off than it was before 9/11 or this stupid war. People need to wake up and see that what they are doing over across the world is not for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of their pockets.
The only decent president that the US has had that i can think of is J.F. Kennedy. That dude atleast cared about you guys.
speculawyer said:
I'm sorry. This administration isn't Bush. Bush means absolutely nothing. He had almost zero say in any of these decisions, and was just propped up on stage to spout out his good ol' boy attitude in whatever way Cheney and company wanted him to.
He didn't "really feel" like he could help the Iraqi people. He didn't have "good intentions". Every single piece of evidence points towards the hawks running the show. And they did. Bush was nothing but a figurehead.
The most sickening part about this entire Frontline was that 80% of this information was public knowledge during the 2004 elections. And did anyone give a shit? Nope. Terrists bad, gawd guud! Fliiip floppin jawn kerol ain't nutin but a pussy who ran away from charlie and done stole all his medals! All them libruls culdn't catch a worse candidate with a ball of string and sum gum!
WOOO WEEEE U S A U S A 4 more years 4 more years.
Fucking retards.
the_zombie_luke
Member
It bothers me that everyone focuses on "where were the WMDs!?" but honestly, when did Iraq attack us? That's the important question. They never did, as much as Cheney and Bush tried to connect Iraq with 9-11. We had NO reason whatsoever to go there. And even if you say we did to get their oil, it would have been cheaper for the Feds to subsidize gas prices instead of starting a war. Afghanistan was a horrible idea because the terrorists were most likely hiding in Pakistan too. Of course everything is easier to see in hindsight and we were willing to do anything after 9/11, but man. We need a President who isn't so bloodthirsty and unreasonable.
Stoney Mason
Banned
gandm said:
Yes. Not in depth but yes.
Also No end in sight is a good companion piece to this film. Many of the same people are interviewed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGPp-WhgEXE
speculawyer
Member
Yeah, Curveball gets mentioned.gandm said:
They also talk about another source of intel that is even more shocking . . . some high level guy that they did an 'extrodinary rendition' to Egypt. The Egyptians tortued the guy until he made up some crap about Saddam training Al-Qeada terrorists. That (completely untrue) "evidence" was then used to help justify the invasion of Iraq.
And these boneheads still want to know why torture is bad? How about the fact that it just produces bogus intel which then gets used to justify disastrous unnecessary war. Of course, these guys should full well have known that the intel was unreliable since it was beat out of the guy . . . but they didn't care . . . it was the intel they wanted to hear. Truth didn't matter.
Thanks guys, I've just started watching it.
Oh and by the way, the article I was referring to before is available online: How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq. I guess this is old news for some, but it's way more in-depth than anything I've read about it before.
Oh and by the way, the article I was referring to before is available online: How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq. I guess this is old news for some, but it's way more in-depth than anything I've read about it before.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Stoney Mason said:
About the title, it just sounds a bit too much to where "Dead Certain" does not give an opinion about the administration being wrong or right, it just says that in their minds, they were "Dead Certain".
"Dead Certain" is not without it's bias either, but the read is very insightful because it has 8 interviews with Bush and looks as far back as his 1978 campaign for congress. It talks about the infighting within the administration and Bush's trust for the people around him.
Here is a couple of reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743277287/?tag=neogaf0e-20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/02/AR2007090201422.html?hpid=topnews
MassiveAttack
Banned
gandm said:
60 Minutes did what is probably the definitive investigation (2 years) into who Curveball really is a few months ago. Warning: Don't watch if you happen to be in a good mood.
Part I
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6rwYj0R4_uA
Part II
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ILALivdQ0jQ
Stoney Mason
Banned
UltimaKilo said:
I'll eventually get around to reading Dead Certain, although if it was on audiobook it would much easier for me to get too
As far as the title I think it is really a semantics argument. There is no doubt a portion of the Bush Administration was in a state of denial about what was happening. You can't listen to these people speak and then look at the facts and not come to that conclusion. If the argument is, was the entire administration in a state of denial then the answer is of course not. But the people with the most power and pull were for large portions of the conflict. I don't equate that characterization with bias if the evidence bears it out although people are free to hold a counter opinion of course with their supporting evidence.
MassiveAttack
Banned
Stoney Mason said:I'll eventually get around to reading Dead Certain, although if it was on audiobook it would much easier for me to get too
As far as the title I think it is really a semantics argument. There is no doubt a portion of the Bush Administration was in a state of denial about what was happening. You can't listen to these people speak and then look at the facts and not come to that conclusion. If the argument is, was the entire administration in a state of denial then the answer is of course not. But the people with the most power and pull were for large portions of the conflict. I don't equate that characterization with bias if the evidence bears it out although people are free to hold a counter opinion of course with their supporting evidence.
The 60 Minutes piece on Curveball is just about all the proof of denial and delusion you could ever dream of, portions of the CIA included. It's impossible to watch it without wondering if lunacy in the White House was actually an airborne virus.
ConfusingJazz
Member
I tried watching this the other day, but it made me so frustrated that I had to turn it off for the sake of my TV.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
How could the US manage to do in Iraq what Israel is unable to do in Israel, after decades?
Seriously, did anyone ever bother to wonder about that in the US? Plus, the US has less margin as far as what kind of actions it can take, at least on a short term. They can rely on the government to extend that margin, but right now it's close to being Shiite VS Shiite, so even then the extent of said margin is shrinking.
In the long term, they could succeed in implementing a government that manages to keep the country under relative order, but they could have done that with the previous government simply by taking out key officials. I don't think that you can get rid of radical elements, they have to disappear on their own as the population sees radicalism as a negative. For that to happen, the country would have to become stable and prosperous. This takes a very long time. It has taken a long time for the West's roots to plant themselves firmly in the Middle East. It took colonization of the kind that is no longer possible, over a period of time that is no longer even thinkable.
Unless this was is for extremely short term interest, like another 5 to 10 years or so, then it will be another US failure like so many before.
On top of that, US failure = billions of dollars spent to make the greatest gift Iran could ever receive: a "free" Iraq and a new, very close ally.
That's the complete opposite of what they are trying to do, yet it is heading in that direction.
Seriously, did anyone ever bother to wonder about that in the US? Plus, the US has less margin as far as what kind of actions it can take, at least on a short term. They can rely on the government to extend that margin, but right now it's close to being Shiite VS Shiite, so even then the extent of said margin is shrinking.
In the long term, they could succeed in implementing a government that manages to keep the country under relative order, but they could have done that with the previous government simply by taking out key officials. I don't think that you can get rid of radical elements, they have to disappear on their own as the population sees radicalism as a negative. For that to happen, the country would have to become stable and prosperous. This takes a very long time. It has taken a long time for the West's roots to plant themselves firmly in the Middle East. It took colonization of the kind that is no longer possible, over a period of time that is no longer even thinkable.
Unless this was is for extremely short term interest, like another 5 to 10 years or so, then it will be another US failure like so many before.
On top of that, US failure = billions of dollars spent to make the greatest gift Iran could ever receive: a "free" Iraq and a new, very close ally.
That's the complete opposite of what they are trying to do, yet it is heading in that direction.
laesperanzapaz
Member
FUck you all!!!!!!! I hate all you ignorant hicks!!!!!11111
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ok, just kidding. Serious question:
where does teh "PBS = librul bias, its govt funding should be cut!" thing come from? What exactly makes the US public hate it? When did this start?
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ok, just kidding. Serious question:
where does teh "PBS = librul bias, its govt funding should be cut!" thing come from? What exactly makes the US public hate it? When did this start?
Stoney Mason
Banned
laesperanzapaz said:
The US public doesn't hate it. It's a Republican concept and talking point that they do. There is an arguable point to be made that PBS is a bit liberal when it comes to balance although the way people define conservative and liberal can be twisted to be almost meaningless when certain people are talking about the issue.
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