Speaking of GOP presidents...

[Duty]

Is it a conspiracy theory to say GBJ lead the invasion of Iraq in order to grasp oil, not because of WMDs? I mean really, his reign under the GOPs banner makes Trump's look like a harmless spot of buffoonery in the playground, no?

[onlinebiker]

GBJ???

Never seen anybody express it that way..


Edit to add...

And no....


He simply was too brain dead to make nefarious plans..

[HappySkeptic]

I don't think GBJ's main concern was the oil. He cared about finishing what Senior started, and that was partly about oil. Now, Dick Cheney -- he likely cared about the oil a great deal.

[The Grand Nudger]

Is it a conspiracy theory to say GBJ lead the invasion of Iraq in order to grasp oil, not because of WMDs? I mean really, his reign under the GOPs banner makes Trump's look like a harmless spot of buffoonery in the playground, no?

Yes.  If the point was oil, there wouldn't need to be an invasion.  We already had that oil. The us dominated that sector both before and after the invasion, if anything, the invasion made us lose some of that oil.

[Duty]

GBJ???

Never seen anybody express it that way..

Yeah, it felt weird coming up with that abbreviation and posting it. I guess I view his scummy psycho ignorant cuntery beneath my typing his name in full.

[onlinebiker]

GBJ???

Never seen anybody express it that way..

Yeah, it felt weird coming up with that abbreviation and posting it. I guess I view his scummy psycho ignorant cuntery beneath my typing his name in full.

My godfather was a 2nd or 3rd cousin (same last name). He had met both. He quite admired senior - and advised I vote for him. (I have a buddy who served under him at Langley - he advised the same. I did.)


The word on Jr was - a draft dodging party boy who couldn't decide on anything more important than what to drink with his pizza.....

He didn't get my vote.

[Rev. Rye]

Is it a conspiracy theory to say GBJ lead the invasion of Iraq in order to grasp oil, not because of WMDs? I mean really, his reign under the GOPs banner makes Trump's look like a harmless spot of buffoonery in the playground, no?

When did Dubya actually attempt an armed insurrection, actively court blatant white supremacists, or react to the news of a pandemic by demanding that society actively immanetise the eschaton?

To be fair, there is a pretty clear line between Dubya and Trump's policies, but it's honestly questionable to say that Dubya made Trump look like a simple playground bully. Maybe in terms of the Middle East, but in literally every other area, well, Dubya is Raskolnikov and Trump is, you know what, I've been comparing him to Svidrigailov, but since I remembered that his heinous actions were offstage for most of Crime and Punishment, maybe the group of nihilists from Demons would be a better Dostoevsky comparison.

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that Bush The Elder and Bush the Dumber didn't actively court the white supremacist vote. No republican politician has been able to afford otherwise since the civil rights act.

Racially conservative views are the core identity of the contemporary gop. Nothing about that changed between willie horton and katrina, and it hasn't turned into that since. It was always a snake, and we always knew it was a snake.

I'll give them credit where it's due, though. Both presidents managed to successfully export our violence beyond our borders, in their terms. A pressure valve for what would have otherwise been (more) violence on our own streets. That, I think, more than anything, lead to both men accidentally not fomenting a white supremacist insurrection with their rhetoric and policies. In fact, it was slick willies famous triangulation between both mens views (as representatives of paleo and neoconservatism) and his own parties that form the meat of complaints about clinton on the same issue.

[TaraJo]

Neocon foreign policy: there's never a country that wouldn't benefit from an American invasion.  

For the record, I remember, in 2004 I was in a waiting room with VASTLY out of date magazines.  There was a news magazine that was talking about US planning an invasion of Iraq.  The magazine was dated April, 2001.  If not for 9/11, he probably would have pushed for the Iraq war a lot sooner, but it would have been harder to convince us to do it.  

As for why, oil may have had some to do with it.  WMD's were just an excuse, in the wake of 9/11 to scare the public into supporting the war.  But, ultimately?  This was imperialism and American exceptionalism.  They were firmly convinced that America is always right and, therefore, any country that isn't America would benefit from being more like America and if we have to force them to be more like us, well, they'll thank us for it anyway because we're so great and grand and wonderful, who wouldn't want to be like us?

[The Grand Nudger]

The war for oil part has more to do with it being the ready made slogan of earlier anti-war sentiment. A generalized objection that could serve until specific objections to this specific war could take shape by it's playing out.

It would have been better had we did it for the oil. The irony of that line is that it provides us an example of how anti-war sentiment from the past can actually give cover to (then)current wars.