Bushwank

Hashasheen

Banned
No stoppage at the Syrian border.

Full support to the Cedar Revolution and the Egyptian elections (need a cool name for it, maybe the Nile Revolution or some such). Democratic principles fully supported in Egypt and Lebannon. Military occupation governments in Iraq and Syria that are OCCUPYING forces. ~100k troops.

Iraqi Army not disbanded. Used instead as expeditionary force to the Sudan. We keep an eye on a large group of armed and trained soldiers, they perform a needed peacekeeping task under US guidance, cashflow continues to families in Iraq.

Gardner not replaced.
So more war in countries that haven't done shit, and are either decent allies or neutrals? :rolleyes: your logic astounds me, Tel, it really does.
 
Hash, he's a Neocon who actually believe the "spreading democracy" bullshit. Going into Syria just causes more messes than the US already has in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 

Hashasheen

Banned
Hash, he's a Neocon who actually believe the "spreading democracy" bullshit. Going into Syria just causes more messes than the US already has in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ah, then I'll stay quiet and not inform him that US-style democracy doesnt adapt well to tribal and religious based societies that have deep-standing feuds stretching into decades. :)
 
This thread talks about the possibility of Bush going into Sudan rather than Iraq. If he does that, and gets UN sanctioning, and the condition he do it "smarter" than he did OTL Iraq. Not full occupation, maybe, but air support, arms embargo, and along those lines. You'd need more, but that's a start. Maybe Butterflies come and he catches Bin Laden. I think a good way for any random president to be remmbered well is a very just war. So maybe N. Korea invades teir Southern nieghbor(those butterflies are at it again!) and he leads the USA to help fight 'em off. If you combine all of these, he'd be up there.
 
This thread talks about the possibility of Bush going into Sudan rather than Iraq. If he does that, and gets UN sanctioning, and the condition he do it "smarter" than he did OTL Iraq. Not full occupation, maybe, but air support, arms embargo, and along those lines. You'd need more, but that's a start. Maybe Butterflies come and he catches Bin Laden. I think a good way for any random president to be remmbered well is a very just war. So maybe N. Korea invades teir Southern nieghbor(those butterflies are at it again!) and he leads the USA to help fight 'em off. If you combine all of these, he'd be up there.

I agree that this could make things work for bush, but I am to some degree skeptical that this would happen. basically, the neocons who were basically running things under bush had ideological reasons to invade Iraq, and didnt have any comparable reason to want to invade the Sudan. So Bush is probably not going to choose to invade Sudan unless he gets some concrete benefits out of it (which, in terms of domestic politics, might happen). Of course, he could get pushed into it, but that is not likely and will not really help his image. Finally, you have to keep Sudan from turning into a quagmire in any way resembling Iraq IOTL, or Bush's approval ratings are going to quickly resemble a lead brick.
 
Overthrowing vicious, tyranical regimes and bringing freedom and democracy to beknighted people did not cause Bush's popularity to plummet; rather it was the serial incompetence displayed by him and his inner circle in doing so. To be one of the most popular, and in the views of many one of of the greatest US presidents, Bush simply listens to the strategists who told him to triple the size of the Coalition taskforces to Afghanistan and Iraq, and doesn't go in until a proper occupation plan has been put together.

A stronger focus is given initially to winning hearts and minds and rebuilding the Afghan and Iraqi governments and security forces. If the troops who initially occupied Baghdad were directed to stop looting and guard more buildings than the petroleum ministry, it wouldn't hurt. Pakistan is pressured into assisting in the defeat of radical Islamists in the FATA and Bin Laden is killed or captured. Napalming the poppy fields might earn Bush kudos down the track too.

By 2009 both nations are basically stable democracies and Bush's idealistic, unilateral foreign policy is vindicated in the eyes of the majority.
 
He might in OTL in about ten to thirty years, maybe sooner if Obama continues on his current path.

Not gonna happen. That's about as likely as people thinking Grant was a great president by 1900, and adding on top of that abuses of power, violation of civil liberties, etc., etc. actually actively being taken part in by the President. History will not make Bush look good. No reason to say it because it won't happen. For history to make you look good, you have to have actually done something good. And if you think anything Obama is doing now will make him look like a bad president (I mean, you could say mediocre, and I'd be ok with it -I'd disagree with it, but be ok with it-, but actually bad?), and especially worse than Bush, A) I'd say you severely misunderstand what he has been doing as well as the long term effects -long term being, say, only a year or so from now-*, and B) I think you need to wait more than like a month before you make any decision about a "doomed presidency".

*For example deficit increase which is an issue currently. Whereas you may shout from the mountain top "Oh, look what he's doing! He's destroying the economy, he's just like Bush!", as many are, that totally misunderstands it. Firstly, deficit and debt are not the same thing, and many people think they are and there is issue one. Deficit is the difference between spending and intake. Debt is...debt; how much in the red we are. And that deficit is not like the Bush deficit because the Bush deficit was just pissing away money in the Middle East and in trying to avoid economic turmoil in the first place after reversing the policies of that "evil Clinton", which failed miserably because Bush's economics were obviously flawed. The Obama deficit has come about by increasing spending on social aid and stimulus programs to boost the economy. While in the short term, that increases the deficit, it will lead to recovery, and in the long term, it will allow enough economic achievement to balance the deficit after a relatively short time, leading to a stabilized economy, whereas trying to balance the deficit now would only lead to recession (well, a worsening of recession since we already have one). Like the phrase says, you have to spend money to make money, and that is especially true when you have national economic woes.
 
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