Favorite President

[Svengoolie 3]

I hate all the presidents.  lincoln started a war that killed 600,000 americans almost all of whom had nothing to do with slavery. great problem solver there

roosevelt gets credit for ending prohibition, but honestly the best president was bush 1. you forgot he was there. we need more mediocre bueaurcrat presidents less "visionaries" leave that to the private sector

Hmmm, let's see.....wasn't he the wimp that got us into iraq after it abosrbed the family ran oil corporation called kuwaite? How was that our business?

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and a mass murderer but he did keep the radical islamofascists out of iraq. After the shrub took him out it opened up the middle east to islamoifascist groups like ISIS.

I gotta agree on on Bush. Both Bush's actually. The wars in the Middle East were done simply for oil . That's kinda a given.Though the consequenses of deposing scumbag Saddam were bad, killing that murdering sad sack of s**t was a good thing.
And the ISIS thing- that would have happened no matter what.

Well it wasn't happening in iraq while hussein was there. He forbade radical muslims from holding public rallies. When a large group defied him, he killed 1500 of them. No more radical muslim rallies under him.

Hussein was a b-st-rd but he was a secular b-st-rd and saw radical islam as a threat to his power, so he crushed it.

[Alex]

The whole ISIS wasn't actually a foregone conclusion. They had in one form or another been running around since the 70's, possibly earlier. That came down to Bush Mk II disbanding the Iraqi army and suddenly giving a lot of experienced and combat trained men no way of earning a living and ISIS offered them a way to support their families. That to my mind was the worst decision he made during his time in office. The sad truth is that in there own ways, both Bush's managed to do more damage to the US than the current administration as bad as people think it is, although I would have to quantify that by mentioning that how badly things would go wrong from things Bush Mk I did were unforeseeable and even unavoidable, but for the following on mistakes of others.

Bush Mk II was a whole different matter however. He made mistakes that made all the best efforts on the ground useless. If you are strongly pro republican and against this, well Obama could have stopped things by following his generals advice a little more closely and fixed Bush II's mistakes but didn't. Given the public's attitude to wars in the middle east at this point I don't think you can completely blame Obama for not wanting to embroil further troops in that morass.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was indeed to do with oil, but what if I told you that the whole operation to liberate it had nothing to do with that, nor the second gulf war where Saddam was finally overthrown, something that should have happened the first time around, UN be damned. The man slaughtered tens of thousands of his own people. The first Gulf War also led to the September the 11th attacks, as al-Qaeda had offered to defend Saudi Arabia from Saddam and was turned down in favour of the US. aQ took umbrage at this. I am not saying defending Saudi was wrong, merely that it is why AQ then looked for stronger ways to attack the US using the continued presence of US troops in their holy land as justification to continue this policy and encourage a Jihad attitude against the USA and the rest of the 'free world'.

His overthrow had absolutely zero to do with who he had killed though, how many he had killed, what countries he had invaded, the worlds oil supply or anything like that.

Simply put Gulf War II came down to a man with daddy issues. He (Bush Mk II) was finishing what he saw as his his fathers unfinished work. Feel free to feel uncomfortable with that, but in the end of the day it is the real reason behind that war. Everything else is just a convenient excuse. To my mind though, Saddam was an evil turd who should have been removed from power much earlier.

On the other hand, he was merely a proxy for other powers in the whole Iran/Iraq war who was disposed of when he was no longer convenient. If you look at things from an Iraqi point of view the invasion of Kuwait can be totally justified. Middle Eastern (and assorted western powers) encouraged and in some cases even bankrolled Iraq to go to war with Iran fearful that the Islamic Revolution in Iraq might spread. When the war finished Iran expected its grateful creditors (including Kuwait) to cancel the war loans. When they didn't Iraq then invaded Kuwait as a way of rebuilding itself. There are a whole load of economic arguments behind this that I am not going to go in to just now.

I am not saying I agree or disagree with any nations position here. Merely that this is the reasons behind what happened. There is more behind the scenes that I can't talk about here.

Anyway, to get back on the subject of American Presidents I'd have to say looking at it from an outsiders point of view, I like what I read about TR and FDR.

[lester1/2jr]

alex-

Saddam was an evil turd who should have been removed from power much earlier.

totally disagree. he protected the Christians and held the country together, which was a lot more than they managed without him. If he had been driven out during the arab spring then so be it. it woulnd't be our responsiblity. We arent the worlds police. Kuwait and Israel aren't part of the US they have their own militaries.

 look at Libya: they wanted to get rid of a dictator in the name of democracy and liberty and now its a jihadist hell hole. how would you feel if you were Libyan? I used to know an Iraqi woman. When Iraq fell she was kidnapped and assaulted by the bandits that roamed free there after saddam fell. Her family had to pay a massive ransom to get her back.

all this "world as chess board" stuff is like communist central planning in the soviet union: it doesn't work and the people implementing it have no skin in the game.

[Alex]

He gassed tens of thousands of his own people. His 'elite republican guard' were nothing more than trained rapists.

Just one of his chemical weapon attacks killed between 3,200 to 5000 people and left another 7000 to 10,000 injured. Let me emphasis that. Just one of his attacks. If committing genocide if your idea of holding a country together, well there I completely disagree.

He might have protected Christians but he persecuted others. I don't think protecting one tiny part of the population really justifies his reign.

Let me put this another way. Would you say that Hitler should have been kept in power? After all he protected blonde haired and blue eyed people, not to mention leading the rebuilding of Germany. He led a country that had been devistated by war back to being a world power. Before him all sorts of left and right wing groups made violence a fact of daily life throughout that country. He kept Germany from fracturing into civil war. Removing him led to eastern europe living under the heel of communist dictators.

Personally somehow I don't think leaving him in control would have made the world a better place though.

The whole kidnapping people and ransoming them back, well that happened before only it was legitimized under his secret police (I think they were officially called The Department of General Intelligence, but it all adds up to the same thing).

I also know an Iraqi woman. She along with her family were arrested when her husband had attended a pro-democracy rally. She has never seen him again, but has good reason to believe he was executed and the body dumped. She was beaten and raped while her children were tortured (mostly high voltage shocks applied via their feet). That kind of thing happened a lot under Saddam. Difference is that you just didn't get to hear about it. It is going to take hard work to get there, but her country now at least has a chance to rebuild and be a bit freer. Imagine if you lived in a country where just having this kind of conversation on a forum could lead to you just disappearing off the face of the planet. She has since moved back to Iraq. Things are tough, and will continue to be for a long time, but she has hope. Something she never had before under Saddam.

If being made to live in terror is the only thing holding a country together than perhaps it is time to let it fall apart and rebuild. Yes, these things are going to be painful and there is going to be chaos along the way but that is part of the price of freedom. If I was a Libyan I'd be doing my damnedest to rebuild my country, (although much of the problems with the middle east is that these countries were created by diplomats from other countries drawing lines on maps which cut through tribal lines rather than them evolving naturally). They were always going to fall apart at some point. If Saddam had been overthrown during the first Gulf war there was at least an armed resistance that could have stepped in, but he wasn't and Saddam got to use his favourite chemical weapons again and wiped out entire towns. It could be that once ISIS is defeated another war will break out between the Kurds and the rest of the country, or perhaps the Kurds will finally get a country to call their own.

Even having seen the chaos that follows a war first hand, if I was living under a murderous tyrant I certainly believe I'd be willing to stand up against him and fight for my freedom rather than live on my knees.

[lester1/2jr]

He might have protected Christians but he persecuted others. I don't think protecting one tiny part of the population really justifies his reign.

the alleged reason we attacked iraq was because of their complicity in 9/11. When the american military took Baghdad they put the flag from the pentagon that had flown on 9/11 over the face of a big Saddam statue. Obviously we all now realize that made no sense.

America isn't the worlds police. We didn't invade iraq because of saddams crimes, heinous as they may have been.

more to the point: terrorism is an industry that depends on our interventions in that part of the world and certainily al queda and ISIS gained imeasurably for that, which is absolutely a detriment to ours and the western worlds safety.

[indianasmith]

That is incorrect.  I watched the runup to the Iraq War very carefully; no one said (after the initial confusion of the first few days) that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.  The real reason was the anthrax attacks that followed after 9/11.  While Iraq was not directly linked to those attacks, they were never ruled out either.  Anthrax is easy to make and there was some pretty convincing testimony that Saddam had been weaponizing it during the 1990's.  A single five gallon bucket of weaponized antrhrax, dumped into the ventilation system of a major travel hub or sports venue, could easily kill 50,000 to 100,000 people in the first week.  Saddam's willful refusal to abide by the treaty he signed, the strong evidence that he still had not destroyed all of his gas stockpiles (which he had not, our troops did find many of them, as the NEW YORK TIMES finally revealed after Bush left office), and the fear that he might supply terror groups like Al Qaeda and others with those weapons out of sheer spite for the USA, drove the Bush administration to conclude he must go.
   They may have buggered up the occupation, but I still believe toppling Saddam was the way to go.  Not to punish him for an attack he had no part in, but to prevent him from carrying out or enabling one that could have been even worse.

[lester1/2jr]

While Iraq was not directly linked to those attacks, they were never ruled out either.

yes they certainly were  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks#Al-Qaeda_and_Iraq_blamed_for_attacks

and they absolutely claimed iraq was involved in 9/11

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2002/09/did_mohamed_atta_meet_an_iraqi_spy_in_prague.html


and the effort to connect 9/11 and iraq was such that again, our military thought it made sense to place the flag from the pentagon that flew on 9/11 over the head of saddams statue

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125241&page=1

""And the flag — it was on the Pentagon when it got hit on 9/11. That was the same flag, and me being from New York, it kind of all goes together a little bit. It was a team effort, which made it even better, you know," he said. "


more to the point: after 9/11 they went to war 2 years later with iraq. they didn't say hey these things have nothing to do with each other, they definitely implied it as all part of the same general security effort.

 instead, way more americans were killed in iraq than on 9/11, all of saddams weapons that were under UN seal were looted , and ISIS, who are even worse than al queda, formed.  every aspect not only failed but made the previous problem worse

They may have buggered up the occupation

they told us it was going to be a cakewalk. another lie

(which he had not, our troops did find many of them, as the NEW YORK TIMES finally revealed after Bush left office),

a search just reveled nothing. do you have a link? or is this like your "marco rubio woud have beat hillary poll "claim?

edit: they found old stuff from like before 1991 they were in various states of decay.

"Then, during the long occupation, American troops began encountering old chemical munitions in hidden caches and roadside bombs. Typically 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets, they were remnants of an arms program Iraq had rushed into production in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. "

 do you really think americans would have allowed a war to go on if they knew thats all there was? more like al capones vaults than a smoking gun

[indianasmith]

Those gas shells were effective enough that insurgents were able to use them against our troops on several occasions.
And I would say ISIS was caused more by our precipitate withdrawal than by our presence.  We left a government not yet ready for the job and they rushed into the power vacuum.  20,000 troops left on garrison duty and they would have been strangled in their cradle.

[Svengoolie 3]

Those gas shells were effective enough that insurgents were able to use them against our troops on several occasions.

Provide documentation and evidence from one non right wing source for o e attack like that.

[Trevor]

My fave: President James Marshall.



 

[lester1/2jr]

indiana- the point is saddams "chemical weapons program" was portrayed as not only ongoing but fearsome, modern and deadly. again, no one would have agreed to go to war with saddam after 9/11 to strip him of degraded old weapons of not much destruction.

And I would say ISIS was caused more by our precipitate withdrawal than by our presence.

 ISIS was founded by Zarqawi who we killed, to much fanfare, when we were still there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

whether our leaving was an advantage for them or not, they weren't birthed by it.

[RCMerchant]

The Middle East is a whole world of f**ked up s**t, I don't think it can ever be "fixed", but I do know one thing, Trump can't find his ass with both hands, and he should just stay away.
 If he thinks Korea for one second is gonna take him serious, he's stupider than he looks.
He's up Russia's ass because he owes them money.

[RCMerchant]

As far as Nixon and Vietnam goes, Nixon did a covert deal with South Vietnamese to keep them out of the Paris Peace talks, because if the Democrats (who prolonged and started that f**king war) ended the war, Nixon would loose. Hanoi was ready and at the table. Johnson knew about it too, because it's on tape of them having that conversation. He didn't say s**t, because Johnson had covert operations in Vietnam going in his term too.Nixon ran on the promise of ending the war, yet prolonged it when he was in office, with covert bombing and infiltration into Cambodia. That war went on 5 more f**king years, and we didn't accomplish a f**king thing. So Nixon got re-elected- and the kids got killed just because Tricky Dick didn't wanna be the President Who Lost a War.

(I just watched Ken Burns 10 episode documentary-pretty amazing! Recommended!  )

[indianasmith]

Those gas shells were effective enough that insurgents were able to use them against our troops on several occasions.

Provide documentation and evidence from one non right wing source for o e attack like that.

The New York Times good enough?

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/middleeast/army-apologizes-for-handling-of-chemical-weapon-exposure-cases.html

[bob]

To pick just 1 of 45 Presidents, as your favorite is a tough task.

I liked a lot of what people from both sides did over time.

George Washington (no party) set a dignified standard for what the President should be, the 1st President was a great example for others to follow.

JFK (D) supported the Civil Rights movement and established the Peace Corps.

Teddy Roosevelt (R) was great as a trust buster.

Bill Clinton (D) presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement.  He signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. He also balanced the budget and signed the Brady Bill into law.

Lincoln (R) is a hero for freeing slaves.

In my lifetime I think Obama is the best President. His main reforms were the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (often referred to as "Obamacare", shortened as the "Affordable Care Act"), the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 served as economic stimulus amidst the Great Recession. He issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning climate change and immigration. In foreign policy, he ordered military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, promoted discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global climate change, initiated sanctions against Russia following the invasion in Ukraine and again after Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, brokered a nuclear deal with Iran, and normalized U.S. relations with Cuba. He could've done so much more if he hadn't been stonewalled by Republicans for the bulk of his presidency.

Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase.

FDR (D) is probably my favorite – he established the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Social Security. He ended the Great Depression. Additionally, he ended prohibition.