Need some help here. Got refutation?

[RushIsRot]

Got this from a co-worker:

Some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war. They complain about his prosecution of it. One person recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.

Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember. It was started by terrorists on 9/11. Let's look at the "worst" president and mismanagement claims.

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.



Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

Worst president in history? Come on, get real!

[DarkPhenyx]

1. Well, for starters...

...The Clinton-Sudan allegation is false.

Germany and Japan were allies.

Korea was stopping the Commie hoarde.

So was Vietnam.

Those last two are great Republican "victories".

[Arkana]

2. and the part about "liberating two countries"

As far as I can tell, we haven't "liberated" anyone...we've just changed the occupying power.

[rfranklin]

3. A valid comparison would be if after Pearl Harbor,

FDR attacked Australia. There is no connection--as indicated by Chimpy himself--between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and the WMDs were a joke--as admitted by Chimpy himself. As far as liberating Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is a corrupt hellhole and Afghanistan is back to its old status as the source of most of the world's opium and the Taliban are back in the saddle in most of the country.

So, by all realistic measures, Chimpy is a liar and a miserable failure.

[radwriter0555]

4. Why bother refuting freeper brownshirt propaganda and lies?

what's the point?

the bush regime is PNAC. end of story.

[Sandpiper]

5. Glad to help

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did.

Following the US declaration of war on Japan, Germany declared war on the United States in hopes that Japan would break its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in return.

Fortunately, Japan never did, or else WWII might have ended very differently.

[mkultra]

6. well,

The easiest place to start is with the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism and has never been linked to AL Quida prior to our invasion.

So we basically pissed on the UN and practically every major European nation for no reason but to replace a distasteful dictator.

This means that supporting the war in Iraq is direct support for American invasions in China, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Suadi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, to just mention a few. That doesn't even include south America.

This warmongering idealism is a cast aside of the cold war era of spreading democracy to the world.

The stupidity of this course of action should be obvious to anyone with an IQ over 50.

[quisp]

7. this was a letter to the editor in my local paper

and I responded. The letter I saw went back to World War I and counted 103 million dead on the hands of the Democrats.

There are many responses, mainly because the reasoning is so bad.

First off: Iraq had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. We were prosecuting the war on terror in Afganistan, but that was called off for the invasion of Iraq.

Second: Germany and Italy declared war on us first (December 12, 1941) and we responded in kind.

Korea and Vietnam: Treaty obliagtion made it so the attacks on those countries were the same as attacks on us. And as far as Vietnam, Nixon kept us in the war another 6 years, while attacking Cambodia that had never attacked us.

Reagan never responded to the attack on the Marines in Lebannon (283 killed and pulled off by Iranian agents). His response? Continue secrectly selling arms to Iran to fund illegal war in Nicaragua, who never attacked us, to topple a democratically elected president.

Iraq attacked the USS Stark in 1987 killing 37 sailors. Reagan's response was to continue selling weapons of mass destruction to Saddam.

hope this helps.

[BOSSHOG]

8. So, if terrorists started the war

why aren't we (bush) fighting terrorists?

Have your compatriot provide proof of the Sudanese offer "head on a platter" claim. Merely parroting limbaugh. Ask about the Saudis involvement in this "offer." Your friend is living proof that today's modern independent thinking republicans are lemmings.

Crippled Al-Quaeda? - Demand proof.

Counter - If Clinton were president on 9-11, the terrorist attack would not have happened because Clinton did not need the 9-11 terrorist attack. Clinton did not have to follow the orders of cheney's energy task force to secure the oil fields and nail down no-bid contracts for halliburton. (that mission has been accomplished by bush/cheney) If your friend objects ot this ask him to produce the cheney task force minutes to prove you wrong.

[Another Bill C.]

9. A start on this one.

"Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember. It was started by terrorists on 9/11. Let's look at the 'worst' president and mismanagement claims."

Iraq has no connection with the terrorists on 9/11. This is supported by the following among many others:
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski, USAF, formerly of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans.
Jeffrey Record of the U.S. Army War College.
Joseph C. Wilson IV, a retired ambassador who was a secret envoy of the Bush administration to Africa.
Paul O’Neil, former Treasury Secretary under G.W. Bush.
Rand Beers, former Bush White House counter-terrorism coordinator.
Richard A. Clarke, counterterrorism coordinator for the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administrations.
Stansfield Turner, former CIA director
Ray McGovern, who heads a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Pentagon Middle East analyst Peter Molan
Greg Theilmann, a former senior official with the State Department.
Tom Maertens, foreign service officer in the counterterrorism operation of the State Department.
David Kay, former U.S. weapons inspector.
Hans Blix, U.N. weapons inspector.
Rolf Ekeus, the former head of the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq.
Scott Ritter, chief U.N. inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998.
Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.
Is the writer suggesting that we should have allowed Germany to conquer Europe and continue the progroms under which they killed 12 million people? Does the casualty number include those from both theaters of war?
Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.
We had a treaty obligation to defend South Korea. Had MacArthur not tried to bring the war into China, there might not be a North Korean threat today.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.
JFK was preparing to wind down our participation in that action at the time of his death.

[mikey_1962]

11. Kennedy had no plan to remove our advisors from Viet Nam

read Dean Rusk's book

[Another Bill C.]

12. Oliver Stone had me fooled.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/vietnam.htm

[Media_Lies_Daily]

25. McAdams has been a long-term Warren Commission apologist...

...and attempts to explain away any and all data that does not fit with his ironclad view of the JFK assassination. As far as he is concerned, Oswald did it, and Oswald acted alone.

McAdams also buys into Arlen Specter's "Single-Bullet Theory" where one bullet allegedly was fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano carbine and created seven wounds, four of entrance (JFK's back five inches below his shirt collar, Connally's back below his right armpit, Connally's right wrist, and Connally's left thigh) and four wounds of exit (JFK's throat, Connally's right ribcase shattering a couple of inches of ribbone, and Connally's right wrist leaving behind a fair amount of metal particles).

It's amusing to me that the FBI refused to fire that rifle until it was repaired...the cocking mechanism tending to stick, the scope was loose, and the trigger had a two-stage action that prevented the shooter from knowing exactly when the weapon would fire.

Oswald is a very interesting character. While in the USMC he was a radar operator tracking the U-2 as it flew in and out of Atsugi Air Force Base in Japan. He also stood guard over the U-2 hangers when they weren't flying. Add to that his CIA 201 personnel file and you have a lot of questions.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

24. Bull. Read NSAM 263 that JFK signed on October 11, 1963...

<http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html>

Now read NSAM 273 that LBJ signed four days after JFK's assassination:

<http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html>


Dean Rusk was a self-serving pile of crap just like today's NeoCons.

[mikey_1962]

10. The Cold War was a different paradigm

We were forced to confront the other great world power at every point of contention.

We had to befriend and back many, many brutal dictators because they were "our" dictators and worked with us in the goal to stem world communism.

We were forced to fight two large proxy wars, and several small ones over those years.

Comparing the cold war era with post cold war era is comparing apples and cinder-blocks.

I think more interesting would be to compare after WWII but before the USSR had the A Bomb with 1990 to present....

In both cases we are the only world power, and how did we conduct ourselves...

[keithyboy]

13. 9/11 was an attack on us BUT NO Nation attacked us. Declaring a

war on terrorism (can't identify the enemy, could be old allies, definition of "terrorism")was pretty stupid and will result in endless wars and attacks in years to come. Terrorists can morph from and into all kinds of splinter groups. Today's terrorists might be tomorrow's freedom fighters (example: Taliban and Afghanistan) Would anyone have called al-qaeda terrorists when Russia had invaded Afghanistan? The Bush administration's over reaction and unwise labeling of war on terrorism was stupid and costly. We should have waged war on the perpurtraitors of 9/11. Identified who they were, garnered international support without having to bribed and threaten allies. No one is taking time to point this out. Invading Iraq as part of "the war on terrorism" is the single most wrong-headed move by any US government in history. While everyone is praising Bush for his behavior in the aftermath of 9/11 (immediately following the attacks) no one is pointing out that he sat on his ass while we were being attacked and then took flight to unknown places. Does anyone really think that another President would not have stood upon the rubble and declared war on those responsible for 9/11? But what thinking President would have declared war on an enemy it couldn't identify and still can't?

[CBHagman]

14. How to shut that co-worker up pronto.

Here are a few questions:

Regarding FDR: "Oh, so you're IN FAVOR of the Holocaust? FDR should have done nothing while 6 million Jews were being slaughtered? You're in favor of executing pastor and teacher Dietrich Bonhoeffer? You're in favor of Mussolini?"

I despair of the sanity and morality of a co-worker like that.

Also, Clinton had no combat casualties in Kosovo and Bosnia. The Republicans are not too fond of mentioning that fact.

[Another Bill C.]

15. This deserves a kick once in a while.

No matter how much baloney this e-mail is, these are the points they are beating us on because people are buying them. If we can develop short and factual counterpoints, we can hoist them on their own petards.

[RushIsRot]

16. Thanks for all the assistance! I'll see what response I get back now.

[Ready4Change]

17. Point by point

- Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember. It was started by terrorists on 9/11. Let's look at the "worst" president and mismanagement claims.

War on terror and worst president are two points, not one. Lets clear them BOTH up.

- FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Germany and Japan were allies. FDR had wanted to enter the war, but the US public was relectant to intervene. Pearl Harbor gave FDR the opening he'd been looking for. To date there are conspiracy theories concerning whether FDR had knowlege of the impending Japanese attack which he withheld, causing the attack to be more suprising and the loss of US lives to be more shocking to the public.

- Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

North Korea started things by attacking sovereign South Korea. The US joined with NATO in the defense of South Korea.

- John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Vietnam had been in nearly continous internal conflict since the end of WWII. After French support of south vietnamese forces was removed in the mid '50s US advicement and support was all that kept communist northern forces from taking control of the country. US advisers were dying in Vietnam as early as 1959.

So JFK didn't START Vietnam. He was the one who started committing large numbers of US troops. You could just as easily say that Communists WERE attacking us, if you consider "US" to be the non-communist world.

- Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Vietnam had been a quagmire since WWII. Johnson just got us further stuck.

- Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

US involvment in Bosnia was under the auspices of NATO, not the UN. Imagine the outcry from the right had we been working with the UN?

RE: Bin Laden. More info on that is coming to light daily. Sudans offers are generally seen as toothless. Other opportunities to "get" bin Laden were hindered by the lack of an ability to act quickly enough, and the atmosphere of right wing distrust of the Clinton administration that made bold use of force politically difficult.

- In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

Afghanistan: Attacked properly, I feel. But mishandled post war. The Taliban is far from crushed, and is in fact making gains.

Iraq: Rather than being part of a war on terrorism, it actually removed resources FROM the war on terror, weakening our ability to act in Afghanistan, weakening our reputation abroad, and tieing up and fatiguing our troops. al-Qaida is still operational, bin Laden still abroad, and now has a foothold in "liberated" Iraq, where it is now allied with former secular Saddam loyalists in attacking US interests in that nation. Libya is a good point, Iran questionable, and relations with Korea are very rocky doe to Bush's arrogance. And in capturing that "terrorist" who I assume is Saddam, capturing him required an act with killed thousands of innocents, and through a nation into chaos which continues claiming more lives daily.

- We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

Iraq was not involved with the attacks on US soil. Rather than attacking, continued use of containment and santions would have resulted 0 deaths of US soldiers, for an average of 0 deaths per year. And if the past is any guide, odds are there won't be another foreign terrorist act in the US for 4-5 more years. However, due to our attack on Iraq, there is a very good chance those attacks will involve someone from Iraq.

In other words: Bush has CREATED a very real Iraqi terrorist threat. Thanks George.

- Worst president in history? Come on, get real!

Lets get some real facts:

Bush has created the largest deficits in US history.

Bush converted the governments budget from huge surpluses to the largest deficits in history in two short years, the most drastic turnaround since the Great Depression.

Bush is the first President since Hoover to preside over a net LOSS of jobs.

Bush established the first DOCTRINE of pre-emptive war in US history.

The Bush adminstration has taken war powers onto itself, without formally declaring war on any nation.

The Bush administration has imprisoned over 600 individuals, without charge or outside contact, for over 2 years, an act that violates the Geneva conventions of War and would normally result in war crimes trials.

The Bush administration has violated the rights of 2 US citizens, denying them contact with lawyers, knowlege of specific charges, or speedy trial as is their due as US citizens under our Constitution and Bill of Rights. This was after promising that the status of "enemy combatants" would not be applied to US citizens.

The Patriot Act, the first broad reduction of US citizen rights in history, is now itself under broad assault by citizens rights groups. At the same time the Bush administration is trying to get broader rights via Patriot Act 2.

Bush has launched unfunded mandates which have harmed education, fire and police forces, environmental protection, pollution controls, and the advancement of alternative energy sources. This leaves us dumber, less safe, poorer, less healthy, and more dependant on foreign oil.

The Bush administration has proposed a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, an act soley designed to deny rights to Gay citizens. If passed this would be only the second amendment in history to REDUCE rights of citizens. The first was the Prohibition Amendment, which has long since been recognized as a mistake and removed.

The Bush administration is dragging it's feet on investigations on Cheneys energy task force, in violation of court orders.

The Bush administration is dragging it's feet on investigations on pre 9/11 intelligence regarding al-Qaida, bin Laden, and terrorist hijackers and use of airliners as weapons.

The Bush administration is dragging it's feet on investigations on pre Iraq intelligence on WMDs.

Need we go on?

[JHB]

18. My take

Some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war. They complain about his prosecution of it. One person recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.

A hellova lot more than "one" have made that last observation. And millions make up the first group.

Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember. It was started by terrorists on 9/11.

That's two points, and they're both wrong:
1) the invasion of Iraq is NOT part of the war on terror. The only people connecting Saddam and Al Queda are the claque of neocon "ivory tower pointy-headed intellectuals" surrounding Bush. The consensus of all other intelligence and counterterrorism experts is that as a secular strongman who cracked down on religious extremeists, Saddam was an ENEMY of Al-Queda. By diverting their focus to iraq after a perfunctory attack on Afghanistan, the Bushies allowed most of the Al Queda leadership to escape and regroup, not to mention turning Iraq into a chaotic mess ripe for Al Queda recruiting.

2) It goes back further than that, since you conveniently forget the Millenium Bombings (easy enough to do: the Clintonites made it a high priority and was able to stop them, so there were no dramatic pictures to etch into one's memory). And Bush responded to 9/11 by...attcking someone who wan't involved. (Is that the Reagan Doctrine again, on a larger scale? If a terrorist kills 300 marines/3000 citizens, divert attention by attacking Grenada/Iraq?)

Let's look at the "worst" president and mismanagement claims.

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Germany declared war on us. THEM. It's one of history's big "what if"'s as to what might have happened if they'd turned their back on their ally, but here that's moot.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us.

...just South Korea, which North Korea's leader started, not Truman. He was hardly in a position to give the North Korean Army its marching orders. And, geopolitically, we couldn't strike directly at their Russian backers.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

He didn't start the conflict, he just got us involved in place of the French.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

...thanks to deceptively rousing support for escalation, an inability to admit error, a lack of understanding of the basic conflict, etc. Lessons the Bushies have the benefit of hindsight to learn from, yet are making many of the exact same mistakes.

You don't mention Nixon (president for most of that time), who had a "secret plan to end the war." The big secret was that there was no plan, and he let the war drag on (and expand in Cambodia and Laos), finally settling for pretty much the same terms as Johnson tried to with only half the number of American dead. Thank Nixon's "secret" for about 29000 of the names on that wall.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.

Just as part of NATO

He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing.

Says a gadfly businessman who wasn't considered reliable by intelligence sources. The people who DO consider him reliable seem to be the same people who thought convicted bank fraudster Ahmad Chalabi had accurate intelligence about Iraqi WMDs.

Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

I thought you said it started on 9/11?
And, when not hampered by the Saudis, we've put those connected with those attacks in jail, and in the process of doing so managed to collect as much intelligence about Al Queda and its operations as we have. Which was much more helpful in rooting them out and stopping other plots than bombing Baghdad woulf have been.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida,

Check the news, slim. Reports of "crushing" and "liberation" are somewhat exaggerated.

put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran

...in a "happened on his watch" sense

and North Korea

Didn't we have inspectors there BEFORE Bush started shooting his mouth off about the "Axis of Evil"?


We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year.

...and counting

Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

He didn't ALLOW? Oooooohhhh! I'm sure Osama's just wetting himself over what Bush will allow. While we're busy throwing money at Iraq, actual counterterrorism preparedness at home is being underfunded.

Worst president in history?
When you combine his adventurist foreign policy with record-smashing deficits and blatantly deceitful practices at advancing his agenda items, get real! the's the WORST!>

[BigBigBear]

19. Say what?

Terrorism started well before 9/11 - you were too busy staring at Clinton's zipper to notice, evidently.

Libya ceased being a factor in international terror or military threat well over a decade ago - they've been begging for resumption of international relations since Clinton was in office. Clinton secured the handing over of the Libyan plotters.

Germany declared war on us more or less immediately after Pearl Harbor. They had been menacing our shipping long before that.
---
1941
Jan 30. Germany announces that ships of any nationality bringing aid to Great Britain will be torpedoed.
Apr 17. Neutral Egyptian steamship Zamzam is shelled and sunk by German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis (Schiffe 16) in South Atlantic; 138 Americans (including 21 ambulance drivers) are among rescued passengers.
May 21. Unarmed U.S. freighter Robin Moor, en route to South Africa and Mozambique, is stopped and sunk by German submarine U-69 (torpedo and gunfire) about 700 miles off the west coast of Africa. First American merchantman sunk by a U-boat in World War II. Crew given food and directions by submarine.
Jun 19. Germany and Italy request closure of U.S. consulates.
Sep 7 . SS Steel Seafarer bombed and sunk in Red Sea.
Oct 17. Kearney (DD-432) escorting a convoy was attacked by U-boat off the coast of Iceland with 11 killed.
Oct 19. Unarmed U.S. freighter Lehigh is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-126 off Freetown, Sierre Leone
Oct 28. Oiler Salinas (AO-19), in convoy ON 28, is torpedoed by German submarine U-106 about 700 miles east of Newfoundland.
. Oct 31. Reuben James (DD-245), an older destroyer on convoy duty west of Iceland, was sunk by U-boat with loss of 115 men.
Oct 31. DuPont (DD-152) is attacked by U-boat, but missed.
Dec 2 . German submarine U-43 torpedos and sinks unarmed U.S. tanker Astral and her 37 man crew.
Dec 3 . Unarmed U.S. freighter Sagadahoc is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-124 in South Atlantic.
------
FDR, Churchill and Stalin probably saved the world. (Although it was largely the Russian people and Zhukov who contributed on the part of the Soviets - Stalin just took the credit.)

The Sudan "offers" are described primarily by a corrupt Sudanese financier named Mansoor Ijaz, a proven liar.

Clinton's attempts to hit back at OBL were roundly denounced by the Republicans in Congress. Wanna see their comments on it?

Most of the mass killings under Saddam's reign happened while Bush Sr and Rummy were selling him arms and helicopters, and protecting him from UN human-rights sanctions.

Johnson's actions in Vietnam were supported by most of the Republicans of the day, and barely half of the Democrats. Did YOU support that war?

At what point do we consider Iraq a "quagmire"?

[RushIsRot]

20. My co-worker just popped his head in my door...

He said "You're not gonna let me get by with a thing, are you?" He then conceded, "Good points, good points." I beckoned to him to come into the light and he strolled on down the hall.

Thanks again for your knowledge and assistance. You folks are awesome!

[globalcitizen]

21. Clarke refutes several of these in his book

Clinton started the "war on terrorism" in 1998 when he put out an executive order to kill Bin Laden.

Clarke also refutes the Sudan head-on-a-platter story. The Sudanese were in cahoots with UBL and let him sneak out of the country. Clinton was doing everything he could to "snatch" him.

He also gives the background for all of the so-called "pin prick" missle launches that Clinton sent and describes him (and Gore) as being very aggressive and that it was the pentagon that was risk-averse.

Read the book - terrific!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. Responses to this lying pile of crap...

1) We really don't know who started the "war on terror" because the FBI has never been able to connect the alleged terrorists with any evidence linking them with Al Qaeda.

2) Eisenhower sent the first "advisors" to Vietnam in 1956 shortly after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The first American casualty in Vietnam took place in 1956:

<http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/vietnam_war_casualty_lists/statistics.html#year>

JFK signed NSAM 263 on October 11, 1963, initiating the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam:

<http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html>

3) Correct on LBJ's part in the Vietnam War. First, he signed NSAM 273 just four days after JFK's assassination. Then, he used the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin Incident to escalate the war in Vietnam from 1963 until 1968:

<http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html>

But, Nixon and Ford allowed the Vietnam War to continue for another six years until 1974. See the National Archives link above.

4) The UN went to war in Bosnia, primarily using American troops and aircraft, as opposed to Junior going to war in the Middle East without UN approval.

5) The Osama-Sudan story is a complete fabrication.

6) Tens of thousands of innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians have been permanently "liberated" by the NeoCons operation to secure the oil in the Middle East. Both countries are still actively fighting U. S. occupation forces.

7) Al Qaeda is VERY far from having been "crippled". At the start of the so-called "War on Terror" we were told by the NeoCons that Al Qaeda existed in at least 60+ countries around the world. We managed to disrupt the Al Qaeda outfit in Afghanistan, but lately they have been coming back strong.

8) I wasn't aware that N. Korea had allowed any nuclear inspectors to enter their country, much less their nuclear facility. Before the bogus headlines declaring a deal with Lybia, I wasn't aware they had any more WMDs than Iraq did. Iran is still a mystery...they probably do have a nuclear program...wouldn't you if you were threatened by a super-power?

9) Although Saddam ruled in a cruel and despotic way, he was never been a terrorist. Where did the writer find that term?

10) We have lost at least 800 troops in less than two years in the Middle East, probably closer to 1500 counting those killed in Afghanistan as well as those eventually dying of wounds from either conflict at a later date. In comparison to the Vietnam War, we did not reach 600 dead until some time in 1965, nearly nine years after we began our involvement in that country in 1956.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. I forgot to respond to the FDR point...

...read "Day of Deceit" on what FDR really knew and what we allowed to happen.

<http://www.pearlharbor41.com/1.htm>

[mikey_1962]

28. Last US Troops leave Vietnam 3/29/73; Ford takes office 8/9/74

Ford takes office 15 months later.

Viet Nam was Johnson & Nixon's war

[kaitykaity]

26. Maureen Farrell has a good article on this at Buzzflash.

http://www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/04/worstpresident.html

[BigBigBear]

29. Fantastic

'I never gave them hell. I told the truth and they thought it was hell."

[hippiegranny]

27. yeah, definitely the worst!

ask your coworker what this admin has ever done that it didn't personally benefit from. including the so called "war on terror" in iraq. anyone for a side of halliburton?