Bush: Hungarian Revolt Should Inspire Iraq

[MrBenchley]

"Fifty years after Hungary's revolt against communism, President Bush said Thursday that war-weary Iraqis can learn from this country's long and bloody struggle against tyranny."

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/06/22/ap2834074.html

Let's see: 50 years ago, the Hungarians stood up against the army occupying their homeland under false pretenses, and launched a bloody fight.

Jeeze, does Chimpy have no one on his staff who knows anything about history?

[Sanity Claws]

1. Totally lacking in insight and irony.

This was not the first time that Bush was really talking about himself without even knowing it.

[MrBenchley]

4. I know....

I saw the headline and my mouth just hung open for about ten seconds....

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Ken Burch]

27. If you want to put me on "ignore" It's no skin off my nose.

And it you really didn't care about what I say in these forums, why do you bother insulting me?
Other than the fact that you know that the antiwar Dems were right and you militarists were wrong.

[MrBenchley]

30. And lose the comedy of your pouty, whiny posts?

[Name removed]

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[Xipe Totec]

2. The Entire White House Staff underwent a historectomy

it's required for the job.

Plus, they get a lobotomy thrown in for free!

[MadMaddie]

3. Bwah...haw..haw that's so true...a historectomy...

[MrBenchley]

5. LOL!

By the way, Eisenhower stabbed the Hungarians in the back, as I recall--he hinted that he would support the uprising and then did nothing. Somebody with a clearer memory of those days htan I might recall the details.

[Xipe Totec]

9. Gee, there's a pattern here...

We did it to the Cubans during Bay of Pigs,

Then Bush senior did it to the Kurds during Gulf War I,

Guess it will be Dimson doing it to the Shia this time.

And to the Mayor of Kabul; Hamid Karsai in Afghanistan.

Y'all on Y'own! See ya!

Oh well, history burps.

[ladjf]

13. And you forgot to mention that a couple of weeks prior to the

Desert Storm, Bush's representatives more or less assured Saddam that we wouldn't interfere in their
quarrel with Kuwait. That emboldened Saddam to make his move.

[Missy M]

10. That is right, the US left the Hungarians on their own...

after hinting they would help and left the Hungarians with a false hope. I had relatives still in Hungary then and now.

[MrBenchley]

17. That's what I remembered

but I didn't trust my memory.

I see from Froomkin's column that the Hungarians are none too pleased with Chimpy's remarks....

[kskiska]

22. Absolutely.

The US used Radio Free Europe to instigate the uprising, then once the Hungarians got the Russians out of Budapest, the US didn't make a move to keep them out. They moved back in. Half my family is Hungarian, and my cousin's husband-to-be came over as a refugee in '56.

[CBHagman]

16. Yeah, did you see Charles Gati's op-ed piece?

Conveniently, Charles Gati published this piece BEFORE Bush got to Budapest. The GOP can read it and weep:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001442.html

"The truth is that at a critical juncture in the Cold War, when Hungarians rose against their Soviet oppressors, the United States abandoned them. After 13 days of high drama, hope and despair, the mighty Soviet army prevailed. For its part, Washington offered a sad variation on 'NATO': no action, talk only. The Eisenhower administration's policy of 'liberation' and 'rollback' turned out to be a hoax -- hypocrisy mitigated only by self-delusion. The more evident, if unstated, goal was to roll back the Democrats from Capitol Hill rather than liberate Central and Eastern Europe from Soviet tyranny.

(SNIP)

"Instead, Washington offered only hope, no help. 'Poor fellows, poor fellows,' President Dwight Eisenhower said privately as he campaigned for reelection. 'I wish there were some way of helping them.'"

Gati has a book coming out in the fall.

[Doctor_J]

6. It should inspire the US,

but won't :-(

[ladjf]

14. I can see no possibility that any sort of revolution could be

possible in the U.S. other than mass street demonstrations and work stoppages. How could that overthrow the government? They would just slap hundreds of thousands into prison at will. Unlike the Iraqi, we didn't spend ten years hiding tons and tons of arms under the sand all over the country in anticipation of being invaded.

Americans have no significant ownership of arms of any sort. Further, they have been so tied up in the slave existence, they wouldn't know what to do with a weapon if they had one. We have grown soft and complacent. We are like animals in a zoo, waiting for our next meal to be given to us by our slave masters. If they cut of the food, we die.

[NYC]

7. From earlier:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2350836

[MrBenchley]

18. Can't say it better than Javaman did there....

"god damn, that moron dumb fuck* never ceases to amaze me"

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Next thing you know,

bu$h'll be telling them about the Prague Spring, and the Polish labor movement, and maybe even the Algerian Revolution

[lumpy]

11. Bush's skewed view of history.

I'm sure the Iraqis are more worried about their very survival and couldn't care less about Hungarian history.

[Botany]

12. bush truly is a clueless fucktard

In High School an older friend told me about fighting the Communists in Hungary and then
trying to fight the Russian tanks ..... his family was shot and he fled across the border ....

So who are the Iraqis gonna fight?

[MrBenchley]

19. The foreign power occupying them, of course.....

Oh, wait....

[NYC]

20. Picture of the Russian tanks:

[Mikimouse]

15. Yeah, right on! "If you start a revolution, we'll be right there to help".

Which is why Yuri Andropov had such a field day rolling his tanks down Attila Utcza in Budapest, machine-gunning the people watching from their balconies. Thanks for the help, bastards! And as for using the Hungarians as an example for the Iraqis, perhaps you should have actually learned something while you were in college, Mr. BA in History. Asshole!:evilfrown:

[Monk06]

21. The Hungarians revolted against an invasion by a foreign country.

[MrBenchley]

26. Chimpy seems to be the only one who doesn't know that....

[Crunchy Frog]

24. When the Hungarians realized that violent resistance

against the Soviet occupation was completely futile, they settled down peacefully for the next 3 decades. I'm sure that Bush is hoping for the same thing from the Iraqis, but I'm not holding my breath that it's going to happen.

When Communism finally fell in Hungary in 1989, it was entirely peaceful, and was largely at the instigation of reformist forces within the Hungarian Communist party itself. It was forces within Hungarian society that brought about a democratic transformation, not Americans bombing the shit out of them.

The real lessons of post-soviet political developments is that democratic forces have to come from within a society. That's why you have some countries like Hungary that are democratic, and others like Uzbekistan that are the complete opposite.

[Sopianae]

29. Bingo!

I grew up in Hungary and I couldn't have said it better.

[KoKo]

28. Hmpht! It should inspire us US Citizens

to revolt against his rule...sheesh...he doesn't have a clue. He made a mess of his whole trip. If we had a FREE PRESS here they would have reported his idiocy. He stomped around like an angry troll, mispeaking and lecturing and waving his arms and acting like a bar boy who had "one too many."

What an idiot. The Press did report on his fool father...but the spawn makes the father look Presidential by comparison...

[MrBenchley]

31. So who are you going to shoot first?

Judgiung from your other posts, it would probably be Democrats...

[KoKo]

32. Is that you BOB? Come outta that trailor did ya...with the gun....

Hey...I'm good pickin's 'cause I don't own one of them things. Afraid I'd shoot myself in the foot with one.

But, good to hear you are out there pickin' off those Dems ...one at a time.

Don't want you to give up too soon ...heah?

;-)'s