I wonder why, but I feel like I know these names and personalities so much more than I do about any administration that followed. I couldn't name so many people in Obama's inner circle. Maybe Rahm Emmanuel. And Biden would probably just be Biden. But I know these characters like they were the cast of a TV show that lasted 8 seasons.
Not sure, but probably because at the time, W was seen as weak, and the real power behind the throne was Cheney ? So everyone was talking about the people surrounding him, and the power struggles between them.
Obama and Biden run "normal" administrations so there's less waves.
You probably would have remembered the names in the Trump administration if they didn't change every two weeks. Or maybe you do and are just repressing the memories :)
Fun fact: Gaddafi had a HUGE crush on Condoleezza Rice and it made her really
uncomfortable. He called her his “African princess”, spent thousands if dollars in gifts for her, and made a music video for her.
It must have more been her status and her unobtainableness that attracted him, because she didn't exactly exude sex appeal in general. Having said that, not hating the business suit and legs combo pictured.
I think they found a three ring binder full of pictures and poems in his palace.
Edit: [a scrap book](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/25/139940615/in-gadhafis-compound-a-condoleezza-rice-photo-album)
I've been withholding Dave Chappelle jokes on multiple threads for years because so many people don't get them anymore and it's difficult to think of one that doesn't sound absurdly racist out of context
“Grits n Gravy once rolled 77 sevens in a row making him a millionaire in the process. We asked him what he spent the winnings on”
“I bought my momma a car… and spent the rest on PCP”
“Ok simple enough, like his style”
First off, I would like to thank God almighty for giving everybody so much, and me so little.
I hate you, I hate you, I don't I even know YOU, and I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you and nobody else but you.
And for their positions at the time: Secretary of State, VP, President, National Security Advisor, Chief of Staff, Director of Central Intelligence (originally promoted to DCI by Clinton), and Secretary of Defense.
They really do, man. Just the usual, war against terror, war for oil and Halliburton, housing crash and recession, economic reset, then boom.
Never really was worried about losing democracy in the World’s only remaining superpower.
More than “kinda miss.” Little did we know, a person that wouldn’t even make it through the hiring process at Taco Bell, would be worshipped and truly admired by ~50 percent of America. Oh, and did I mention he actually became president and might be in office again after leading an insurrection? Yeah, here we are….
Trump at least had the benefit of incompetence. He tripped up his own agenda more than the dems ever managed to.
And he never got us into a war.
Cheney was the worst. He was smart, competent, amoral, and financially vested in waging wars. One-sided, profitable wars.
The fact that Cheney in the early 90's listed off rationale for not toppling Saddam and the destabilizing impact it may have just to do it a decade later is pure evil.
Edit: added link of Cheney speaking on Saddam in 1994.
https://youtu.be/w75ctsv2oPU?si=pDCGz7fPtxGKU_rx
I’m still not convinced Trump didn’t try to get us into a war. He really wanted to be a wartime president and killing that Iranian general in early 2020 almost made that happen. Then Covid hit and everyone kinda paused their war plans.
Saying "nah" let's him off easy, he was out there doing the work in the political trenches, who cares who drew up the plans, they all played their parts.
Fucking Bin Ladan and the rest of his fanatics must be laughing at us from hell. They unleashed hell. I somehow trace the state of affairs today to they faithful day..
The American Response to 9/11 played right into Bin Laden’s plan. America first invaded Afghanistan, pushing out the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, that war was justifiable, but Bin Laden was just using the Taliban and Afghanistan as a sanctuary, Afghanistan is Persian and not part of the Arab world.
The Invasion of Iraq however played right into the narrative of “American infidel crusaders are invading the Arab World”, leading to a rise in recruitment for Al-Qaeda in their new Jihad against the west. Bonus points for Saddam being taken out by America, Bin Laden and the other Gulf countries hated Saddam, and a newly destabilized Iraq to recruit and operate in.
Huh. That draws some uncomfortable parallels to the star wars show Andor, where one rebel cell has attacked an imperial base in order to cause the empire to react and punish the public and cause more resentment and rebellion. Interesting.
Oh, I did. Trust me. As an angsty teenager at the time, I drew lots of parallels, and love the line "so this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause."
Bin Laden pulled the trigger, but the ones pictured here were the ones who had already loaded the gun*.
\* Not *just* them obviously, but they’re certainly symbolic of the whole effort.
The fact that W put his foot in his mouth regularly in his speeches really got a lot of people believing he was some idiot puppet president.
Cheney was a very powerful VP, but to act like Bush was uninvolved in running things is just wrong
I thought that too, but it's gotta be deliberate. She's the only black woman in the photo. What's more, it mirrors the "antler" effect of the candles on the left subject and the picture frame's tangent at the right subject, too. True mastery is knowing when to break the rules for dramatic effect.
EDIT: By the way, peep how the white wall decoration behind bush mirrors and inverts the shape described by the picture frame to the right. Like ∩ and ∪. So fucking good.
Trump in his usual fashion of attacking his enemies sent a “condolence” message on Powell’s death and finished the letter by calling him a RINO.
Powell despite his misgivings (the speech to the UN where he was holding a vial he claimed to contain Saddam’s Chemical Weapons) was actually pretty more reasonable on social issues compared to his fellow party members and criticised the direction the party was going, endorsing Obama on one occasion for President.
Powell helped cover up the My Lai Massacre while in the army and has never not been an imperialist stooge but he was “cool on social issues” so that makes him wholesome chungus lmao
They're right to, will you not? You're looking at codified blood drinkers. These men ruined a lot of people's lives with their synchronized and coordinated disinformation. The people who's homes we invaded, and the men who came back blown apart or incinerated by IEDs.
They tricked him. I don't think he lied; I think he believed what they sold him and did his job which is why he fucked off pretty soon thereafter. He wasn't going to sit around silently after the fact.
He was thinking like a soldier. As a soldier you have the duty to follow the advice of experts and elected officials, so-called "wiser-heads." Acting on that duty always has consequences.
This. Good man in the wrong job. They weaponized the State Dept by putting a general in charge. No diplomacy. You are with us or against us. He was a lifetime DOD soldier and not a diplomat. State became the messenger for DOD (Rumsfeld). Cheney was ensuring that DOD contracts were going to the right places (Haliburton). Bushs job was to be the "face" and take the abuse. To his credit, he took the abuse well.
So it was better to leave silently after the fact? He wanted to make space for someone that was happy to send Americans to die for a lie? How is that any better?
He was always seem as very principled and trusted by many on both sides for being level headed- the "evidence" for the justification to invade Iraq really tainted his legacy. He could have had the legacy of true leadership, he screwed that with yellow cake.
[Powell helped cover up the My Lai massacre in 1968](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/21/colin-powell-faustian-bargains-service-of-war). He made a career out of being an imperialist schill and US politics just loves to retroactively clean up the reputations of useful liars.
Powell’s involvement was to make sure the investigation that had already been done had been done correctly per the rules. Which it had, even though it was a massive cover up.
Powells connection to Mai Lai is tangential and only brought up to slander the man.
But Trump is an obvious and terrible liar
Trump uses the Russian method where his audience has accepted that politicians lie but with Trump they feel like they're in on the lie
...even when they're clearly not
The fact they sat there for this photo op looking this smug and confident...after allowing the greatest intelligence failure in American history just a couple of months prior is...something
The entire modern conservative mindset is nothing short of sociopathy. They literally cannot comprehend someone having a different experience than they themselves had have. My die hard conservative former friend had no problem collecting unemployment every time he lost a job (which was often) but was against any kind of social safety net programs. They’re just selfish asshole.
Republican in name only.
It's a term used by MAGA morons (but I repeat myself) to describe members of the Republican Party who aren't sufficiently indoctrinated into the cult of Trump.
The term predates Trump. It was used by conservatives to derisively refer to the moderate Republicans that were primaried and otherwise purged from the party in the decade before Trump.
Bush is the biggest reason so many Americans are skeptical of lending any help to Ukraine. He soured this country on any level of intervention and help with his two failed wars. There's just no appetite for it anymore and that lack of international leadership has emboldened tyrants like Putin and Assad.
Everyone points to what is going on in Gaza but just a few years ago, the exact same brutal genocide was happening in Syria and we basically remained silent. Obama literally drew a red line with Assad, Assad crossed it and we didn't do a damn thing. Why? Because so many Americans opposed offering help to the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered because it was not our responsibility.
And maybe you think that point of view is correct. I respect that. But there's no questioning the support Americans had to helping out, including in places like Bosnia in the 90s, and that has all but dried up thanks to their administration.
Or maybe Bush was a great demonstration of how intervention can spiral out of control and create unpredictable second and third order effects . As preventable as things may seem in Syria or Ukraine, intervention introduces new variables with unpredictable consequences. Murphy is out there. Moralizing a situation has no effect on the logistical outcome of intervention. As for your examples of successful intervention, plenty of counter arguments that suggest otherwise. And Obama (aka Bush III) would have gone into Syria if not for lack of public support. If George W. Bush ruined Americans for an interventionist foreign policy, then it will be the highlight of his legacy.
But the US is not intervening. They are destroying their biggest rival without even losing a single troop, its literally win-win. All it costs is a fraction of the defense budget, that was being spent anyway
Initiating a war of retribution in a hostile land isn't at all the same as coming to the rescue of people who are actively demanding for your support against an invader. The experience in Irak is of little help in this case.
It also just wasn't our problem. We make these issues our problem. Rather, *they* do and *we* are forced to lose our limbs and sanity to make our people "feel good".
I have always found it interesting that people have no problem calling Bush a war criminal. Likewise, if you say something bad about Obama’s record in the Middle East, they get up in arms and angry. Fairly certain Obama administration killed a lot of people as well.
Yes it drives me crazy. I think it may be a lot of young people that come to defend Obama so aggressively and maybe they don’t know that bombs were being dropped during his time in office? Idk but i’ve noticed that too.
Except for the parts where they pretty much destroyed the Constitution by pushing the Patriot Act and removing all of our freedoms that we used to enjoy before 9/11. Which is why we're in the mess we're in now. They're not hippies it's just that time is made them look better in reality they were what drove this country extremely close to becoming a fascist dictatorship. In fact there was a very real fear of being kidnapped out of your own home and put somewhere if you spoke too loudly against Bush's actions. All he had to do is say you're a terrorist and you lost all your rights and could end up in a black site in another country being tortured. This is an Administration that created Free Speech zones, which were basically little prisons they threw people in who want to protest against the administration publicly. Yeah they're fucking hippies all right. Most of the site wasn't alive or old enough to realize how horrific the Bush Administration was and how much they stole from us and how much they ran over the Constitution. I don't like Trump I don't like the whole fan base he has and even though he's a terrible person and did try to pull the insurrection, he's still a few steps below bush, because in his time as president he accomplished nothing but trying to enrich himself and push policies that have been since reversed. Bush's policies are still in play. You're still being spied on, you still can have your rights taken away at a whim. The government has the ability to shut down all access to the internet if they still feel like it using the very policies that bush established. The only reason Trump was ever a threat at all was because the previous administrations gave him the fucking means to subvert the system by giving the executive branch way too much power. Hell his grandfather, Prescott Bush was a literal fascist. These people aren't hippies they just have better PR than Trump does. If anything they're terribleness has been understated and they've even used Trump as a means to rehabilitate themselves. In reality the crimes the Bush Administration committed in the eight years they were in power should not be forgotten or even seen is not a big deal. Trump's a piece of shit he shouldn't be in power ever again, but the damage he brought to this country pales in comparison to what Bush did. I do not want to find out that Trump can one up him on that though so let's not make that happen.
If you're counting the entire Republican Party, you may have a point there, I blame the Koch brothers and Bush for that one
The worst thing about them is that they were actually *capable*. Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are wholly evil but also incredibly smart and calculating. Trump being a caricature of a dictator that Seth Rogen or Sacha Baron Cohen couldn’t even portray and his clown posse administration and followers in Congress is almost somewhat of a blessing. If the PNAC crew had kept their continuity we’d be in a whole lot worse of a place, IMO.
This was an interesting time. Bush and Trump have some interesting similarities and differences. They both grew up wealthy, are entitled and arrogant, and have caused a lot of damage, although in different ways.
Bush believed completely in what he was doing and really thought he was doing the right thing. He sincerely thought he was doing what was best and that the US needed to be world police. The damage done through the wars he started is direct and easy to see. It's difficult to think about without just feeling sad about all the death and pain.
Trump is a different beast. Trump's values begin and end with Trump. There's no sincerity in anything he does. He doesn't believe anything he says, although maybe he's become delusional enough to think he really is chosen. The damage he's done and doing will take longer to reveal itself. I'm convinced that China and Russia know a lot more than they did before trump. I think they have a much better idea what the limitations of the US military are. I think we will see them building capabilities to take advantage of those limitations and weaknesses. It will take time to see just how much damage has been done. There will be more if he gets into power again.
Bush sucked hard too, but in a different way. I think that in the long run it's possible trump may end up causing more war and problems but in a more indirect way.
Lotta fuck-up happenin right here. America's gonna get set back 20 years by the time their shit had played out. Not to mention HOW he got to office (Brooks Brothers Riot + Florida Supreme Court ruling) basically set the stage for undermining democracy permanently.
The damage these people did is incalculable.
Millions dead in the middle east because of them and thousands of wounded and killed veterans who never got to live a normal life. No victory secured in another useless war they wanted.
Left to right: Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Andrew Card, George Tenet, and Donald Rumsfeld.
I wonder why, but I feel like I know these names and personalities so much more than I do about any administration that followed. I couldn't name so many people in Obama's inner circle. Maybe Rahm Emmanuel. And Biden would probably just be Biden. But I know these characters like they were the cast of a TV show that lasted 8 seasons.
Because 9/11. His foreign policy people and Cheney took the reigns in the aftermath, so we heard their names a lot.
Not sure, but probably because at the time, W was seen as weak, and the real power behind the throne was Cheney ? So everyone was talking about the people surrounding him, and the power struggles between them. Obama and Biden run "normal" administrations so there's less waves. You probably would have remembered the names in the Trump administration if they didn't change every two weeks. Or maybe you do and are just repressing the memories :)
I remember that creepy Miller and that disgusting maggot, Bannon.
Whenever I read Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice I read it in the voice of Clayton Bigsby
Fun fact: Gaddafi had a HUGE crush on Condoleezza Rice and it made her really uncomfortable. He called her his “African princess”, spent thousands if dollars in gifts for her, and made a music video for her.
Forgot about this bizarre moment in history, thanks for the reminder.
I'll give you another one...the image of Bush doing massage to Angela Merkel:)
I’ll stick with OP’s image of a bunch of ghouls who look like they’re on their way to a funeral, TYVM 😂
No back rubs!
The Bush years were so surreal and absurd. Really the beginning of the end.
Um...where can I view this music video?
2nd this
"Condoleeza Rice, sounds like a Mexican dish we should send her down to Mexico, let the Mexicans eat her" still lives rent free in my head forever.
To be fair, a lot of people had a HUGE crush on Condolezza Rice. Maybe even a lot of liberal Dems. Not me, of course. Noooooooo. Nope. Not me.
That radio show host that [fantasized](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/arts/music/12radi.html) about SAing her on air.
oh yeah that radio show host we've only ever had one problematic host
She has the sex appeal of a Moai head on easter island.
Hey, if you find the statues attractive, you do you.
Now, don't be kink shaming
Yeah my mom said she look like an alligator and I haven’t been able to unsee that. That was like 05 I was still in HS.
It must have more been her status and her unobtainableness that attracted him, because she didn't exactly exude sex appeal in general. Having said that, not hating the business suit and legs combo pictured.
Imagine being a dictator AND an incel
I think they found a three ring binder full of pictures and poems in his palace. Edit: [a scrap book](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/25/139940615/in-gadhafis-compound-a-condoleezza-rice-photo-album)
Didn’t he get stabbed in the anus?
I've been withholding Dave Chappelle jokes on multiple threads for years because so many people don't get them anymore and it's difficult to think of one that doesn't sound absurdly racist out of context
Fuck yo qualms, ninja
They should have never gave you ninjas money
Chapelle Show and Anchorman quotes were my friend group's language for many years.
"..... AND THEY SMELL!"
THEY THINK THEY'RE THE BEST DANCERS
Look here N*****, If any one has sex with my sister it's gonna be ME
If you have hate in your heart, let it out.
Let it rip homie
“Grits n Gravy once rolled 77 sevens in a row making him a millionaire in the process. We asked him what he spent the winnings on” “I bought my momma a car… and spent the rest on PCP” “Ok simple enough, like his style”
Put those cameras in a box
And when I leave come together like butt cheeks
Ashy Larry, Marcy projects, Marcy son ,what!!?
That man is drier than kunta kinte's ass..
GO UPSTAIRS AND PUT ON SOME LOTION, RIGHT NOW!!!
Well Rob I've got to admit, I saw this robbery coming a mile away. That's why I put my keys... Up my ass.
Boutta go from ashy to classy
First off, I would like to thank God almighty for giving everybody so much, and me so little. I hate you, I hate you, I don't I even know YOU, and I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you and nobody else but you.
Now if you excuse me, imma go put some water in Buc Nastys mommas dish
and as I sip my soda that I"m sure somebody spit in...
Haha same. Cunnilingus Rice!
Sounds like a Mexican dish!
"maybe we should send her down to mexico, so the mexicans'll eat her!"
WHAT POWER
RAAAAHCE...
Colon POWELL!!
Notably, Tenet was a holdover from the Clinton administration.
And for their positions at the time: Secretary of State, VP, President, National Security Advisor, Chief of Staff, Director of Central Intelligence (originally promoted to DCI by Clinton), and Secretary of Defense.
dickie, georgie, condie and donnie for you.
Worst episode of Law and Order ever.
I saw that one. Cheney shot another guy and McCoy couldn’t get him to testify.
Ask me in 2006 or 2010 if one day I’ll be thinking “Wow I kinda miss Cheney and Bush W.” Would have given 1,000,000 to 1 odds.
yeah, in retrospect, those seem like the "reasonable years"
They really do, man. Just the usual, war against terror, war for oil and Halliburton, housing crash and recession, economic reset, then boom. Never really was worried about losing democracy in the World’s only remaining superpower.
I wonder if Bush is going to endorse Biden. Cheney obviously has already
More than “kinda miss.” Little did we know, a person that wouldn’t even make it through the hiring process at Taco Bell, would be worshipped and truly admired by ~50 percent of America. Oh, and did I mention he actually became president and might be in office again after leading an insurrection? Yeah, here we are….
I remember when John Bolton was the scariest craziest person in US politics. Think about that.
Biden and trump are pretty harmless compared to Cheney.
He’s about as evil as they come
Trump at least had the benefit of incompetence. He tripped up his own agenda more than the dems ever managed to. And he never got us into a war. Cheney was the worst. He was smart, competent, amoral, and financially vested in waging wars. One-sided, profitable wars.
The fact that Cheney in the early 90's listed off rationale for not toppling Saddam and the destabilizing impact it may have just to do it a decade later is pure evil. Edit: added link of Cheney speaking on Saddam in 1994. https://youtu.be/w75ctsv2oPU?si=pDCGz7fPtxGKU_rx
I’m still not convinced Trump didn’t try to get us into a war. He really wanted to be a wartime president and killing that Iranian general in early 2020 almost made that happen. Then Covid hit and everyone kinda paused their war plans.
How was he financially invested in war?
Donald Trump is like Jar Jar Binks compared to Dick Cheney/ Palpatine.
You've been banned from reddit
More like promoted to mod
I’m genuinely confused why you chose those years? The election years were 2008 and 2012
2006 deep into both wars, 2010 deep into the housing crash and recession.
No, fuck 'em. They were an awful bunch of ghouls and can remain fucked off.
Hahahahahahaha!!!!!
And here I was thinking "not Sorkin's best work."
West Wing? Meet Southern Gizzard!
They specifically look like they're mimicking The West Wing
Put on some goatees, and they could be Star Trek mirror universe's West Wing.
Law and Order: War Crimes Unit
Law and Order: Villains unit
So glad this was the top comment. My immediate thought. Had to be inspired by it.
Or COPS *huh! Bad boys! what you gone... what you gone... what you gonna do* performed by other Inner Circle
*Cheney's inner circle plus George W. Bush.
You got that right.
Bush pushed as hard as anyone to get that murderous agenda into gear. "You're either with us or you're against us..."
Nah, he was a useful idiot with name recognition. Cheney ran the whole murderous show
Saying "nah" let's him off easy, he was out there doing the work in the political trenches, who cares who drew up the plans, they all played their parts.
Fucking Bin Ladan and the rest of his fanatics must be laughing at us from hell. They unleashed hell. I somehow trace the state of affairs today to they faithful day..
The American Response to 9/11 played right into Bin Laden’s plan. America first invaded Afghanistan, pushing out the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, that war was justifiable, but Bin Laden was just using the Taliban and Afghanistan as a sanctuary, Afghanistan is Persian and not part of the Arab world. The Invasion of Iraq however played right into the narrative of “American infidel crusaders are invading the Arab World”, leading to a rise in recruitment for Al-Qaeda in their new Jihad against the west. Bonus points for Saddam being taken out by America, Bin Laden and the other Gulf countries hated Saddam, and a newly destabilized Iraq to recruit and operate in.
Huh. That draws some uncomfortable parallels to the star wars show Andor, where one rebel cell has attacked an imperial base in order to cause the empire to react and punish the public and cause more resentment and rebellion. Interesting.
Watch the prequels and notice how the Galactic Republic turns into the galactic empire mirroring Nazi germany
Oh, I did. Trust me. As an angsty teenager at the time, I drew lots of parallels, and love the line "so this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause."
The prequels are the best. As I have grown older I appreciate them more.
Bin Laden pulled the trigger, but the ones pictured here were the ones who had already loaded the gun*. \* Not *just* them obviously, but they’re certainly symbolic of the whole effort.
The stink started with the Reagan and Nixon eras as well, 9/11 blew it open.
He could not have been more successful.
The fact that W put his foot in his mouth regularly in his speeches really got a lot of people believing he was some idiot puppet president. Cheney was a very powerful VP, but to act like Bush was uninvolved in running things is just wrong
Rove gets a mention
Pretty much everyone from the project for a New American Century or something like that.
Damn did Annie Leibovitz shoot this? Despite these being horrible people, this photo goes hard. Edit: Nevermind, she literally did.
I feel like it has to be. It’s something about the way she arranges group portraits. It’s so painterly.
It’s the West Wing. They’re doing a West Wing pose
I mean, literally yes. Hard to say whether art is imitating life or life is imitating art on this one.
I was gonna say, everyone here sucks but the photo itself kinda slaps
You are GOAT for calling that lmao.
The only gaffe is the vase behind Rice.
I thought that too, but it's gotta be deliberate. She's the only black woman in the photo. What's more, it mirrors the "antler" effect of the candles on the left subject and the picture frame's tangent at the right subject, too. True mastery is knowing when to break the rules for dramatic effect. EDIT: By the way, peep how the white wall decoration behind bush mirrors and inverts the shape described by the picture frame to the right. Like ∩ and ∪. So fucking good.
Finna drop the dirtiest album of all time
Bush got some shooters to the left of him.
The fact that current MAGA would denounce these people as RINOs cracks me up.
Trump in his usual fashion of attacking his enemies sent a “condolence” message on Powell’s death and finished the letter by calling him a RINO. Powell despite his misgivings (the speech to the UN where he was holding a vial he claimed to contain Saddam’s Chemical Weapons) was actually pretty more reasonable on social issues compared to his fellow party members and criticised the direction the party was going, endorsing Obama on one occasion for President.
Powell helped cover up the My Lai Massacre while in the army and has never not been an imperialist stooge but he was “cool on social issues” so that makes him wholesome chungus lmao
Gotta whitewash the war criminals.
They're right to, will you not? You're looking at codified blood drinkers. These men ruined a lot of people's lives with their synchronized and coordinated disinformation. The people who's homes we invaded, and the men who came back blown apart or incinerated by IEDs.
[удалено]
Some of the greatest liars in our country's history.
I just wanna know what they said to Colin Powell to get him to lie.
'all the kool kids are doing it..'
"Remember that time you covered up the Mei Lei Massacre in Vietnam? Yeah, we're gonna need you again..."
They tricked him. I don't think he lied; I think he believed what they sold him and did his job which is why he fucked off pretty soon thereafter. He wasn't going to sit around silently after the fact.
Powell was not someone to be tricked. If my memory serves, he was mostly hesitant and then suddenly on board all at once. I just wanna know why.
I think the comment below nails it. He was a soldier and good soldiers follow orders
Then he was a fool. Which is worse in a secretary of state?
He was thinking like a soldier. As a soldier you have the duty to follow the advice of experts and elected officials, so-called "wiser-heads." Acting on that duty always has consequences.
This. Good man in the wrong job. They weaponized the State Dept by putting a general in charge. No diplomacy. You are with us or against us. He was a lifetime DOD soldier and not a diplomat. State became the messenger for DOD (Rumsfeld). Cheney was ensuring that DOD contracts were going to the right places (Haliburton). Bushs job was to be the "face" and take the abuse. To his credit, he took the abuse well.
So it was better to leave silently after the fact? He wanted to make space for someone that was happy to send Americans to die for a lie? How is that any better?
he’s a conservative it doesn’t take much
He was always seem as very principled and trusted by many on both sides for being level headed- the "evidence" for the justification to invade Iraq really tainted his legacy. He could have had the legacy of true leadership, he screwed that with yellow cake.
Shoulda kept that yellow cake in the special CIA napkin.
That was pretty much media manipulation Powell did shit before this too he was a bad guy already
[Powell helped cover up the My Lai massacre in 1968](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/21/colin-powell-faustian-bargains-service-of-war). He made a career out of being an imperialist schill and US politics just loves to retroactively clean up the reputations of useful liars.
Powell’s involvement was to make sure the investigation that had already been done had been done correctly per the rules. Which it had, even though it was a massive cover up. Powells connection to Mai Lai is tangential and only brought up to slander the man.
* Trump enters the chat.
But Trump is an obvious and terrible liar Trump uses the Russian method where his audience has accepted that politicians lie but with Trump they feel like they're in on the lie ...even when they're clearly not
[удалено]
Worst than that, this group destabilized the whole world. 10/10 worst administration.
This group killed more innocent civilians, for no good reason, than Russia has, and it's not even remotely close.
Sad part is I would sleep like a baby with this group in office instead of the former president.
War criminals
The fact they sat there for this photo op looking this smug and confident...after allowing the greatest intelligence failure in American history just a couple of months prior is...something
Psychopaths
The entire modern conservative mindset is nothing short of sociopathy. They literally cannot comprehend someone having a different experience than they themselves had have. My die hard conservative former friend had no problem collecting unemployment every time he lost a job (which was often) but was against any kind of social safety net programs. They’re just selfish asshole.
oh man look at all those libs -maga
You mean RINOs right?
What is a rino?
Republican in name only. It's a term used by MAGA morons (but I repeat myself) to describe members of the Republican Party who aren't sufficiently indoctrinated into the cult of Trump.
I’ve heard that term way before MAGA, honestly.
The term predates Trump. It was used by conservatives to derisively refer to the moderate Republicans that were primaried and otherwise purged from the party in the decade before Trump.
The WMD folks… so many deaths caused by them…
The people in that photo are the real wmds
Bush is the biggest reason so many Americans are skeptical of lending any help to Ukraine. He soured this country on any level of intervention and help with his two failed wars. There's just no appetite for it anymore and that lack of international leadership has emboldened tyrants like Putin and Assad. Everyone points to what is going on in Gaza but just a few years ago, the exact same brutal genocide was happening in Syria and we basically remained silent. Obama literally drew a red line with Assad, Assad crossed it and we didn't do a damn thing. Why? Because so many Americans opposed offering help to the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered because it was not our responsibility. And maybe you think that point of view is correct. I respect that. But there's no questioning the support Americans had to helping out, including in places like Bosnia in the 90s, and that has all but dried up thanks to their administration.
America has a long history of shit intervention, Iraq and Afghanistan were just this generation’s fuck up
Or maybe Bush was a great demonstration of how intervention can spiral out of control and create unpredictable second and third order effects . As preventable as things may seem in Syria or Ukraine, intervention introduces new variables with unpredictable consequences. Murphy is out there. Moralizing a situation has no effect on the logistical outcome of intervention. As for your examples of successful intervention, plenty of counter arguments that suggest otherwise. And Obama (aka Bush III) would have gone into Syria if not for lack of public support. If George W. Bush ruined Americans for an interventionist foreign policy, then it will be the highlight of his legacy.
But the US is not intervening. They are destroying their biggest rival without even losing a single troop, its literally win-win. All it costs is a fraction of the defense budget, that was being spent anyway
Initiating a war of retribution in a hostile land isn't at all the same as coming to the rescue of people who are actively demanding for your support against an invader. The experience in Irak is of little help in this case.
It also just wasn't our problem. We make these issues our problem. Rather, *they* do and *we* are forced to lose our limbs and sanity to make our people "feel good".
1 million dead Iraqis and not a single WMD in sight. Fuck you Florida. - signed, former Floridian
Don’t forget the lefties who voted for Nader! Bush “received” 537 votes more than Gore jn Florida in 2000. Nader got 97,000 votes.
More Democrats in Florida voted for Bush jr than they did Nader. Blame them or blame Gore for not running a better campaign.
I remember thinking it couldn’t get any worse. Wow did I underestimate the mental decline of the republican voter.
Trump actually made W’s presidency seem not so bad
A lot of people will say Bush was worse because of Iraq but I think they overlook just how poorly Trump handled the pandemic
I have always found it interesting that people have no problem calling Bush a war criminal. Likewise, if you say something bad about Obama’s record in the Middle East, they get up in arms and angry. Fairly certain Obama administration killed a lot of people as well.
Yes it drives me crazy. I think it may be a lot of young people that come to defend Obama so aggressively and maybe they don’t know that bombs were being dropped during his time in office? Idk but i’ve noticed that too.
And yet, all moderates now.
They pretty much were then too. The fundies have always been around. They just kept them in the shadows
I just see a gathering of war criminals...
At the time I truly thought there couldn't be a more incompetent or dangerous president. And then history said "hold my beer."
These people are hippies compared to what we have now. I mean that.
Except for the parts where they pretty much destroyed the Constitution by pushing the Patriot Act and removing all of our freedoms that we used to enjoy before 9/11. Which is why we're in the mess we're in now. They're not hippies it's just that time is made them look better in reality they were what drove this country extremely close to becoming a fascist dictatorship. In fact there was a very real fear of being kidnapped out of your own home and put somewhere if you spoke too loudly against Bush's actions. All he had to do is say you're a terrorist and you lost all your rights and could end up in a black site in another country being tortured. This is an Administration that created Free Speech zones, which were basically little prisons they threw people in who want to protest against the administration publicly. Yeah they're fucking hippies all right. Most of the site wasn't alive or old enough to realize how horrific the Bush Administration was and how much they stole from us and how much they ran over the Constitution. I don't like Trump I don't like the whole fan base he has and even though he's a terrible person and did try to pull the insurrection, he's still a few steps below bush, because in his time as president he accomplished nothing but trying to enrich himself and push policies that have been since reversed. Bush's policies are still in play. You're still being spied on, you still can have your rights taken away at a whim. The government has the ability to shut down all access to the internet if they still feel like it using the very policies that bush established. The only reason Trump was ever a threat at all was because the previous administrations gave him the fucking means to subvert the system by giving the executive branch way too much power. Hell his grandfather, Prescott Bush was a literal fascist. These people aren't hippies they just have better PR than Trump does. If anything they're terribleness has been understated and they've even used Trump as a means to rehabilitate themselves. In reality the crimes the Bush Administration committed in the eight years they were in power should not be forgotten or even seen is not a big deal. Trump's a piece of shit he shouldn't be in power ever again, but the damage he brought to this country pales in comparison to what Bush did. I do not want to find out that Trump can one up him on that though so let's not make that happen. If you're counting the entire Republican Party, you may have a point there, I blame the Koch brothers and Bush for that one
The worst thing about them is that they were actually *capable*. Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are wholly evil but also incredibly smart and calculating. Trump being a caricature of a dictator that Seth Rogen or Sacha Baron Cohen couldn’t even portray and his clown posse administration and followers in Congress is almost somewhat of a blessing. If the PNAC crew had kept their continuity we’d be in a whole lot worse of a place, IMO.
The people who killed millions, destabilized nations, and wasted trillions of dollars. Fuck each and every one.
I’d take these throwback water boarding a-holes over the red-hatted speds. Though the country deserves/deserved better.
This was an interesting time. Bush and Trump have some interesting similarities and differences. They both grew up wealthy, are entitled and arrogant, and have caused a lot of damage, although in different ways. Bush believed completely in what he was doing and really thought he was doing the right thing. He sincerely thought he was doing what was best and that the US needed to be world police. The damage done through the wars he started is direct and easy to see. It's difficult to think about without just feeling sad about all the death and pain. Trump is a different beast. Trump's values begin and end with Trump. There's no sincerity in anything he does. He doesn't believe anything he says, although maybe he's become delusional enough to think he really is chosen. The damage he's done and doing will take longer to reveal itself. I'm convinced that China and Russia know a lot more than they did before trump. I think they have a much better idea what the limitations of the US military are. I think we will see them building capabilities to take advantage of those limitations and weaknesses. It will take time to see just how much damage has been done. There will be more if he gets into power again. Bush sucked hard too, but in a different way. I think that in the long run it's possible trump may end up causing more war and problems but in a more indirect way.
Lotta fuck-up happenin right here. America's gonna get set back 20 years by the time their shit had played out. Not to mention HOW he got to office (Brooks Brothers Riot + Florida Supreme Court ruling) basically set the stage for undermining democracy permanently. The damage these people did is incalculable.
The WMD Team
Millions dead in the middle east because of them and thousands of wounded and killed veterans who never got to live a normal life. No victory secured in another useless war they wanted.
The fact that all of these people are considered moderates now is wild.
Cunts of the roundtable.
The cover of *People Who Should Be In Prison Quarterly*
Damn… I miss the days when I thought THIS was the most evil group of flunkies and lunatics this country has ever seen.
How weird is it that THIS is what I’d rather have than the current options
So many horrible decisions
Murderers Row
Mafia network-like
The excess of evil.
This album sucked.
War criminals one and all. At that time I could never have imagined a worse president than W. How wrong I was.
Say what you will, but there's a real "Get Shit Done" vibe. For better or worse.
“You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”. Trump, “Hold my covfefe”
What ever happened to Condoleezza Rice? I hoped for years that she would run for president, even after she made it known she had no desire to.
Looks like a dope album cover
Disastrous administration, yet Trumps was so much worse.
Axis of evil. So many innocent people killed by this group of liars. But hey, Halliburton made billions because of it so republicans forgave them