Bush: American Foreign Policy No Longer Seeks to ‘Manage Calm’

At today’s press conference, NBC’s David Gregory noted that, three years ago, the Bush administration predicted that “the invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace,” but that hasn’t happened.

In response, President Bush proudly declared that American foreign policy no longer seeks to “manage calm,” and derided policies that let anger and resentment lie “beneath the surface.” Bush said that the violence in the Middle East was evidence of a more effective foreign policy that addresses “root causes.” Watch it:

Transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. President, both of you, I’d like to ask you about the big picture that you’re discussing. Mr. President, three years ago, you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. And yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who has been sharply critical of Israel.

Arab governments, despite your arguments, who first criticized Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they’re sharply critical of Israel. And despite from both of you warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support from Hezbollah, effectively, Mr. President, your words are being ignored...

more at http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/28/manage-calm/

video here http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/calm.320.240.mov

....total chaos and war in the world, a complete Nazi agenda

Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, except for Insane Bush's Caligula-like delusion that he's a demi-god who will miraculously transform the Middle East from ancient enemies to neck-massagin' best buds!

At the height of the police riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Czechago.

"The police officer isn't there to create disorder. He's there to preserve disorder"!

He thinks this is an improvement over what we had when Clinton left office? :banghead:

cetera.

Not for anybody else. :grr:

The AWOL traitor never had the 'ability' to tell the truth, and nothing but the (whole) truth.

:banghead:

it's head. Violence begets more violence.

The fucks in charge have nothing to lose and everything to gain by having people kill each other in wars.

Good people on both sides need to come together and stop the violence. We do not have to follow those in charge.

How many here have children who've done something reckless, had it backfire, and then looked up with embarrassment shining on their sweet little faces and said, "I meant to do that!"

Acceptable for children. Positively irresponsible for a president.

Whether destabilizing the ME was his goal or a result of neocon idiocy doesn't matter. Bush** has done it, and placed us and many others in considerably more danger than there was before he came to power. And it'll stay that way for a very, very long time to come.

".... that manifests it's self in events like Sept. the 11th."

What a dangerous fuck wit .... 9/11 had 0 to do w/ Iraq and 0 to do with Hezeballah.

And his hims and haws as he is trying to answer a question ..... please!

"presidency," this may be the most outrageous.

It has to be both seen and read to get the full force of this absolute vacuum of meaning and morality in the man's mind.

More frightening than anything else is that this country ACCEPTS this.

What is the purpose of any country's foreign policy?

I would think one of those purpose's is to create conditions that are beneficial to that country - especially to the economy - based on the idea that a thriving economy benefits it's citizens...

That's why previous administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have tried to "manage calm" - because war in the middle east is bad for our economy - it makes the price of oil go up.... the price of oil has tripled during the Bush administration...


--------------


Bush is a dangerous man. He's an ideologue who's President of the world's most powerful country. He thinks that war solves things. The idea that pure military power can address "root causes" is.... insane. It's a recipe for endless war.

the world's most powerful nation when the Supreme Court installed Bush. Our Constitution was undermined for political gain, and any moral authority we had went down the tubes as a government of, by and for the people was replaced with an immoral junta.
Because we allowed a Republican mob to stop the recount in 2000, we are paying the price for not being there in equal or greater force to turn back Tom Delay's thugs.
Now that they have complete control of election mechanisms it may be too late. We weren't out in the streets when it counted, thinking justice would prevail. When justice is spelled Scalia and Thomas anarchy prevails. Both are eligible for impeachment as they should have recused themselves from that process as they each had family members who stood to gain if Bush were made pResident. Scalia's son and Thomas' wife both gained as a result. And we the people are the losers.
We should use the Ukraine as a model of what needs to be done to restore free and fair elections. The real solution is transparent boxes where paper ballots are collected and a shit load of cheap pens.
We thought fascism was rendered moot in 1945. We thought wrong.

Shouldn't this country (or any country) benefit from peace? Wouldn't that be the overriding issue - promote trade, buy & sell, everyone prospers that kind of thing.

But it's not that simple, in reality. In fact, what you have is like a Clash of the Titans. Conflicting interests of the Decision makers, or the Ruling Class.

You have

a) the military industrial complex like Grumman Northrup, Boeing, General Electric, the ARMS industry. These industries THRIVE on war. No wars going on? Hold on...we'll create some for you. Then you have the Oil Giants like Halliburton, Exxon, companies which propelled Cheney to power who are also reaping immensely from the chaos created in the world. They LOVE in fact they NEED chaos in countries, in particular wehre there is LOTS OF OIL because it's easy to steal it when everyone's fighting.

b) industries which need some semblance of peace in order to survive. These would be: manufacturing (other than war), skilled trade, agriculture, export & import, etc. These industries are hurt by warfare.

Which group is strongest? Hard to tell. About 1 month ago, there was an urgent meeting called by the 'New Wilsonians' who were urging Bush to work for peace. These would be Madeline Albright, Colon Bowel, Zbigniew Brzezinski and others who realize that sector a) has grown so huge & metastasized that it's threatening sector b).

Not everyone benefits from Bush's wars.

war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength


and big brother IS watching you.

In the end, the consolidation of power in the hands of a select few...the underlying premise of the neoconservative philosophy and the converse of detente...is self-defeating. When power eclipses or abandons persuasion, the amount of power needed to maintain the status quo increases exponentially as those upon which power is being exerted or imposed believe their autonomy is subrogated to the tenets of those in power. This administration may believe that democracy is on the march...but in reality they may simply be providing the drumbeat for those that seek to see its demise.

Read the full article here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

and he avoided giving anything of an answer with his typical "uhm, well you see..." He is an idiot!

In his mind, the root cause of problems in the world today is that there are people who hate us and will always hate us no matter what we do. There's no reasoning with people like that. If you try to keep things peaceful, they're still there hating us in secret, ready to pop out at any moment and go "boo!"

So what you have to do is flush them out, by encouraging violence and chaos, and then shoot them down in the streets.

After that, the ones that are left will be happy to accept democracy on our terms.

others think the same way. See this snippett from Project for New America Century.


From that statement comes our current policy of "preemptive strike". Now take a look at this bit from their publication in September 2005.




Way to shape those circumstances, Mr. President!
:puke:

A lot of people around the world think that the U.S. is the root cause of problems in the world. And they think there's no reasoning with the U.S. - we just do what we want to do.

When enough powerful people decide that the U.S. is more trouble than we're worth (think profit motive - it rules everything now), they'll take their money and we'll go kerplunk.

This has happened to every empire in the history of the world. Our fate will be no different. The only variable is time.

...first, once again the point is made - geedubya should never attempt to do a 'press conference' with Tony Blair and under no circumstances should he 'go first' in answering qustions. The more the 'effin' idiot attempts to respond to those questions, only to be followed by an articulate, reasonable, well thought out reply, the more even the least clever of us, once again, realize just how inept the little prick really is.

The second point is that no, we don't want to manage calm, we have a president that thinks he's smart enough to resolve the 'root causes' that have been in place for some 3,000 years and that a few million folks have died - and that's just the Crusades - in trying to deal with them like our 'brilliant' POTUS is.

She once said , " we should bomb their countries and convert them to Christianity. "

The bombing has begun......

I fear this bs admin is going to use this to accomplish their war with Iran. Hang on.

...this moron-with-a-goddam-o is *President of the United States*!!! And he's as crazy as a loon. Seriously--someone in the government, in Congress, in the military, should be thinking of some peaceful way of getting him the hell out of the White House. Even Elmer Fudd for a few years would be an improvement--Cheney is evil, but he isn't batshit crazy...

And "moran" with an "a" has a history. It isn't a misspelling. It goes along with "This is HUGH!!!11 I'm series!!!111

Check out the DU vocabulary page. I don't know where the button for it is any more, but I am sure someone here can find a link for you.

...was just emphasizing the seriousness of what I was saying...that's why I made it "moron with an o"...to contrast with our old friend "moran"...I'm not sure Cheney is really crazy, as opposed to simply evil...but that would be a syep in the right direction. What does that tell us about where we are?

With his comments about "not managing calm"?

While this was in defense of Israel in its war with Lebanon he is also defending the actions of none other than Saddam Hussein and his brutal crackdown on Marsh Arabs. Or, more to the point, the civil war currently raging in Iraq.

The Bush message endorses war as the final solution to political differences. And it is reinforced by his lack of a call for an immediate cease file in the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Well, history shows that final solutions are neither final nor solutions. Otherwise we would not be facing still another "final solution".

On a related subject, "stay the course" sums up the essence of George W. Bush. His gut tells him what to do then his gut tells him to stay the course. The gut is not capable of learning from past mistakes. Bush doesn't think with his brain, he thinks with his gut. Is there any wonder that everything turns out to be a piece of shit. That, after all, is the only thing that one's gut is capable of producing. Today's performamce was just another glaring example of that coming into play.

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of a more effective foreign policy" . . .

war is peace . . .

black is white . . .

up is down . . .

and Bush is fucking insane . . . really . . .

Buh bye, Arab-Israeli peace. This is not a failure, just a minor course correction.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

I'm pretty sure even Rapture believers aren't supposed to activetly bring about armageddon. This lunatic is going to get us all killed.

Why else would god talk to them?

"God touched me and said "don't let me down""
-- GW Bush

Hezbullah? Didn't he say that "Syria could stop this shit"? He has no clue about the actual root causes of anything.He should dig out the roots at his fake ranch instead of constantly cutting brush. Instead of Impeachment this Silverspoon Sociopath should be taken out of office due to mental incompetence to do the job.

Military belligerence as a "solution." Killing as a "solution." Conquest as a "solution."

The subjects of which have no cause for anger and resentment. Acting out of passion which erupts in violent conflict will create a "new better world."

It is the path of conquest. It is the rejection of reason, the rejection of dialogue, the rejection of peaceful commerce and pursuit of human happiness, for taking by brute force of arms. Murder as policy.

being in control of it, doesn't it?

Indeed, you've bottom-lined it completely. There is something very sinister, very out of character, with the current Israeli-Lebanese war. The provocation was moderate, based on prior history. And now, hundreds of innocents are killed (as we watch children shrink-wrapped), thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands are displaced. Meanwhile, the US haltingly, faultingly, refuses cease fire and mediation...and eyes are turned from Iraq, where a greater number of Iraqi civilians have lost their lives. Meanwhile, formerly just weeks ago we were assured that "troops are being re-deployed" and now "Baghdad needs re-inforcements!" and troops are being deployed into Baghdad.

Into the snare...

I hope not! As a vet, I so sincerely hope and pray not...

But, American foreign policy no longer seeks calm:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1758176http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1758176

This is a MEGASHIFT and we dare not fail to recognize it.

Almost whispered, it redefines the American goals, represented as "our" American goals -

But!

Are they YOUR goals? Do these represent the finest of American and democratic goals?

If not,

WHY NOT?

the last thing they want is stability. Fascism needs chaos and deprivations to grow.

Constant war leads to fear and deprivation among the populace, who supposedly will support the escalating wars because they fear the alternative.

It's a theory, but it has been proven false in the past. It didn't work for the Soviet Union. Eventually the populace got fed up and overthrew the government. Same with the French Revolution.

Edited to add: The trouble is, the revolutions are usually as violent as the oppression, and it takes a long long time for the countries to become peaceful and prosperous again, if ever. Once violence and chaos takes hold as the culture of a nation, it takes a long long time to heal.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com

White House Situation Room in January 2001, where bush is meeting for the first time with his National Security Council:

He'd met Sharon briefly, Bush said, when they had flown over Israel in a helicopter on a visit in December 1998. "Just saw him that one time. We flew over the Palestinian camps," Bush said sourly. "Looked real bad down there. I don't see much we can do over there at this point. I think it's time to pull out of that situation."

And that was it, according to O'Neill and several other people in the room. The Arab-Israeli conflict was a mess, and the United States would disengage. The combatants would have to work it out on their own.

Powell said such a move might be hasty. He remarked on the violence on the West Bank and Gaza and on its roots. He stressed that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon and Israeli army. "The consequences of that could be dire," he said, "especially for the Palestinians."

Bush shrugged. "Maybe that's the best way to get some things back in balance."

Powell seemed startled.

"Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things," Bush said.

Perhaps bush believes that Israel is acting in total accord with the bush doctrine. We should not be surprised that bush has adopted a seemingly hands-off policy.

Thanks for the heads-up, Chimp.