Posted on 04/27/2014 11:41:17 AM PDT by Nachum
On Meet the Press Sunday morning, host David Gregory challenged former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to defend his and former President George W Bushs decision to switch focus from the war in Afghanistan to the one in Iraq, asking if that simultaneously diverted resources from fighting the Taliban while radicalizing terrorist groups in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.
Isnt the legacy of your leadership and that of President Bush in part responsible for the reality today? Gregory asked. Did the west fail to deal with the extremism you talk about today appropriately in Afghanistan in a sustainable way?
I think we did, Blair said. But I think weve got to recognize something very, very seriously. This is a long battle
This ideology is not going to be defeated by an engagement in Afghanistan, in Iraq, or even in these individual arenas. Its going to be defeated over a long period of time.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
Oh, heck — it’s all Hoover’s fault!
And there are actually people out there who wonder why Gregory has led Meet the Press straight to the bottom of the ratings ...
Gregory’s ratings are in the tank, so he keeps doing more of the same. Hack
I would have reminded the moron about this idiot peanut farmer that was president in the latter part of the 70's that maybe had a tad more to do with all our current muslin issues than anyone since, except maybe a couple other democrats by the names of Clintoon and obamaramadingdong.
(BTW, how's that psych investigation working out...?)
“...while radicalizing terrorist groups...”
Didn’t require much ‘radicalizing’ to turn Moslems into homicidal lunatics, just as it doesn’t take much to bring a duck to water.
What I think happened was that Bush saw the long term problem in the Middle East, not just in Afghanistan, but throughout the region. He looked at the whole picture and decided that Saddam Hussein was in the strategic center of the region, not just the geographical, but ideological center. He wasn’t part of the Al Qaeda movement because the goal of Al Qaeda is an Islamic caliphate which would displace Saddam as the supreme ruler. Yet, Saddam was equally ruthless and cruel to his own people and a major financial supporter of Islamic terrorism because he hated westerners, particularly Americans and Jews.
Bush wanted to establish a long term American base in Iraq, from which the US could monitor and influence Middle Eastern threats to US interests at home. I think the idea was to try to keep putting out Islamic brush fires before they jumped the Atlantic.
What’s David’s FR nick?
Thanks Nachum.
but rules don't apply to this hack I guess.
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I think you got part of it
Bush and Blair are obviously not bound by the constraints of time. These extremists have been around a lot longer than England or the US.
Saddam may not have been responsible for 9/11 but he was pretty cozy with terrorists before 20 March 2003......and as the man said - if you're not with us, you're against us. We will go after terrorists and the countries that harbor terrorists.
After Iraq, we should've turned half of Iran into a glass factory; starting with Tehran.
As an aside, we shouldn't be worrying about Syria right now as it should've already been paved over, so Israel can have a new parking lot.
Would David care to ask the Israelis about whether Islamic extremism only became an issue after Bush and Blair?
David, are you saying it only took Bush 9 months as president to provoke al Qaeda into becoming a mass of influence peddling psychopathic mass murderers in the name of islam?
And NBC is hiring someone to figure out why people don’t like David Gregory?
They aren’t responsible for the bearded savages being subhuman primitive throwbacks to before the stone age. Their mistake was thinking that the bearded savages could somehow be brought into civilization.
Evidently Gregory isn’t quite done with his psych evaluations yet.
Dear Dave: Dubya’s been five years out of office. Tony’s been out almost seven. Like to try again?
President Bush revealed a vast misunderstanding of the Middle East problem when he referred to Islam as “a religion of peace”.
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