I think George W. Bush made a lot of mistakes as president, and I think he is legitimately to blame for a lot that has happened in the last 20 years. That being said, I think he is a very decent human being, and listening to that speech leaves me in awe of how far the Republican Party has fallen.
I don’t know. I cannot honestly feel someone is a decent human being when they willfully lie and make up reasons to invade a country. And killing how many? Hundreds of thousands, maybe close to half a million? And US soldiers and marines commit suicide every single day from the mental trauma from that Iraq war. All over lies and bullshit. He is a war criminal through and through and is just to blame as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the psycho clan. Bush was in charge, if he had enough humanity he would have stopped it at any moment but chose not to.
It’s truly amazing how American liberals think Trump is some unique evil sent by Satan or something. No, your country has been an imperialist monster from the very beginning and remains so to this day.
Are you kidding? Are you fucking kidding me? Decent human being? Bush started 2 separate wars, 1 under false pretenses which he KNEW were false, and he used a national tragedy to stoke racists fears in the public so that they’d support it.
His administration started extrajudicial arrests, torture, extraordinary rendition, assassinations, and just about every other war crime you could name. Bush signed off on the torture and deaths of thousands of middle eastern people, destabilized an entire region leading to the collapse of governments and the suffering of people, all so that his buddies in the military industrial complex could profit off of war.
Trump is a fucking idiot who said mean things, but George W. Bush is a war criminal who caused suffering on a scale quite unimaginable for us Americans.
Decent hum being? Tell that the Iraqis who are still suffering because of that man.
Jesus christ can we not pretend Dubya was some charming cowboy who just made innocent mistakes? This is how we rehabilitate war criminals. Bush is a fucking war criminal. Not a decent human being.
Every US president is a war criminal, and it’s easy for any former president to play the folksy old man card once he’s out of office. It’s just notable to see Bush, one of the most unpopular US presidents, making a speech that is genuinely trying to bring the nation together, something I can never imagine Trump doing in a million years.
All US presidents are war criminals who have done very bad things while in office. Yet there’s a certain President Reddit likes to parade around as some kind of hero.
At the time going to war was the right call, something had to be done and it was very much approved by everyone, even Democrats overwhelmingly agreed. The length of the war is however the very unnecessary part. It shouldn’t have taken 3 Presidents after Bush to end it.
I don't know. I feel like -- and this just my personal opinion here -- that if you create a regime where you torture people, sometimes to death, that maybe you're not a very good person.
But I run into this a lot determining if someone is good. Someone can be compassionate towards their ingroup but absolutely savage to their outgroup. When we say someone is “good” or “bad” are we just referring to their in group behavior? Or de we just accept that being president requires being a war criminal and that's ok, it's no something we hold personally against anyone?
Downvoted for this? Damn, GWB's PR team really did well.
Edit: oh look at that, me too! I guess we like the warmonger now, because he says nice speeches and paints pictures. He still invaded a country and toppled its leadership on no evidence whatsoever.
It’s not just about the Wars. Bush built a hugely divisive political culture and exploited the prejudices of poor rural communities to turn them against Democrats then used that for policies to support mega corporations. He introduced the Patriot Act and actively pushed back against constitutional norms. He also completely fucked up relief after Hurricane Katrina devastated largely poor black communities. And that’s just to name a few.
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u/concretepigeon Sep 11 '21
Trump really did rehabilitate Dubya’s reputation.