Comments on: Study: Iraqis Failing On Reconstruction

Audit Finds Iraq Has Accepted No U.S.-Built Projects In Last Year

[donbl1]

Reagan bankrupt the Soviet Union through the building of the US military.

Gorbachev acknowledges Reagan as the reason the Eastern Block disolved whch was marked most clearly by the night the Berliners took over the wall and started hammering on it.

That night was after Reagan left office.

[donbl1]

Reagan bankrupt the Soviet Union through the building of the US military.

Gorbachev acknowledges Reagan as the reason the Eastern Block disolved whch was marked most clearly by the night the Berliners took over the wall and started hammering on it.

That night was after Reagan left office.

[donbl1]

Reagan bankrupt the Soviet Union through the building of the US military.

Gorbachev acknowledges Reagan as the reason the Eastern Block disolved whch was marked most clearly by the night the Berliners took over the wall and started hammering on it.

That night was after Reagan left office.

[donbl1]

j-whitman

Many do not know that FDR was not beloved. We assume that 4 terms makes a loved leader. He had vicious opposition.

But, in those days, the media respected the Presidency and hid his physical weakenesses and poor health.

Think they would do that today?

[j-whitman]

donbl1,,,, Reagan didn't tear down the Berlin Wall, it collapsed because Russia couldn't afford to keep it up & public outrage.

For Bush there is no Success in Iraq --- Millions of 14 year old Sunni Arab children in are working odd jobs for a bus ticket to fight the Occupiers in Iraq.

[j-whitman]

donbl1,,,, Note the name Prescott Bush
In 1933 Major General Smedley Darlington Butler reported to Congress a coup d'etat plot against President Franklin Roosevelt, sponsored by corporate interests. Alarmed by Roosevelt's Democratic "New Deal" which would redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, Irenee Du Pont, Prescott Bush, Grayson Murphy, William Doyle, John Davis and other representatives of J.P. Morgan banks, Du Pont, Goodyear and Bethlehem Steel sought to overthrow the U.S. government with a military coup and replace it with a fascist state, based on the recent success of Mussolini and Hitler in Italy and Germany.

[donbl1]

j-whitman

I think he made an honorable decision "at the time"..... When things started to come undone he should have been more forthcoming. That is the weakness of wanting to get reelected.

However, we will not know for many years the performance of this president. Truman is an example of a guy leaving office below Bush in popularity but saved MILLIONS of lives by dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan and is now respected.

If the Middle East changes and becomes stable, then Bush will be declared a success EVEN if Iraq is not finished by the time he leaves office. Remember when the Berlin Wall came down? Credit is always given to Reagan.

[samthetvcat]

donbl1

Well thank you for your service! The military by and large does seem highly motivated and competent, Bush not so much...

I think most of us would agree that optimism, determination, and confidence are great qualities and so often in life we humans have a tendency to be our own worst enemies by not believing in ourselves and giving up too soon. However, do people really appreciate that for somebody to reap the rewards of optimism, determination, confidence, etc that those qualities must also be based on REALITY which requires an ongoing reassessment of optimism against adversity, determination against roadblocks, and confidence in the face of conflicting interests? Like for optimism, determination, and confidence to be the determinant criteria of success, the chance of success needs to first realistically be assessed, the consequences of moving forward versus stopping need to be considered, and contingencies need to be thought out. And calculating the realistic chances of success requires an ACCURATE assessment of the relevant factors bearing on the failure/success of the project.

My point being that ungrounded optimism is a weakness when it's only factoring one's own locus of control...success in Iraq is outside this sphere and in the hands of the Iraqi people. This isn't my assessment, this is the assessment of the Iraq Study Group.

[j-whitman]

%u201CThe liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.%u201D
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

[seven-pesos]

thanks, bush!

thanks, southerners!

every time you dixie snakes get the power in america...

america gets war, hate, arrogance, phony christians, lost wars and lost of respect.

they still love bush in the south.

they're comparing bush to jefferson davis.

oh, well...that's the south for you, folks!