March 18, 2008
Cometh the hour
Some people are good in a crisis. Unfortunately, President Bush isn’t one of them. His comments on the global financial crisis yesterday were the opposite of reassuring. The simian furrowing of the brow suggested deep confusion. The bland assertion that “our financial institutions are strong” defied credulity. He even thanked Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, for “working over the weekend”. Yes, that’s really going the extra mile, isn’t it?
Bush’s congratulations for Paulson have a nasty echo of his comments to the head of FEMA, Michael Brown, at the height of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco/tragedy - “Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job.”
Hurricane Katrina probably showcased Bush at his very worst. But, let’s face it, he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory on 9/11. It may have been the fault of the Secret Service, but the fact that the president simply disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the attack was pretty poor. True, Bush’s subsequent appearance with the New York firemen was effective. But, generally, this is not a man who exudes competence and leadership in a crisis.
As for the president’s legacy - what can one say? He was already likely to go down in history as one of the most ill-starred occupants of the Oval Office, because of the Iraq war. Now he risks having the next “great depression” on his watch. To combine the worst legacies of LBJ and Herbert Hoover - now that would be something.
Well, in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression folks harkened back to the Panic of 1907 and thought it was just a repeat and markets would steady up quickly. It went on for three more years.
Anyway, IMO this time–and history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes (Mark Twain is supposed to have said that, but I think he was quoting someone else)–seems to have more in common with the 1968-1970 problems, especially a war fought without any rise in taxes; by 1967 Johnson was raising them, but the inflation genie was out of the bag. Commodities were going crazy, gold shares were running, and there was the beginning of a run on the dollar. Breton Woods had about 5 more years to go.
George W. Bush actually fought a war and *lowered* taxes.(He lost the war too, how’s that for incompetence?) With predictable results…that giant flapping sound is the sound of chickens–no turkeys!–coming home to roost. I’d say look out below, but–I know forecasting is useless–I think this phase of the credit crises is just about over. We’ve had a bank failure (well, two if you count Northern Rock)and a run on the dollar.
Bush is irrelevant now.
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pm | Report this commentGR”Some people are good in a crisis. Unfortunately, President Bush isn’t one of them”
No he is not good in crisis!…and we have 10 months go and many a crisis around the world !…Kosovo could lead to Balkans unraveling …Pakistan is under seige by militant bombings daily, there is a report today of an Israeli war ship was seen in Lebanon waters (US war ships are there also just attempting a lower profile) Cheney is in the Middle East…agenda? well, that remains murky…security and obligation agreements with Iraq are being crafted by this Administration that go thus far unvetted by US congress…Gates is in Russia for talks on Nato and US defense missiles in Eastern Europe…we are facing a possible “Black Swan” situation in the global economy …Bush still has the power and unfortunately the time to leave yet a bigger negative historical imprint…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 18th, 2008 at 2:50 pm | Report this comment“The simian furrowing of the brow suggested deep confusion”
Perfect! Exectly the lasting image of Bush that shall remain long after he is gone.
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm | Report this commentIsn’t it wierd that Gordon Brown has done even more damage to the UK economy and yet he is only just being recognized as the incompetent he is. GWB managed to sidestep the collapse of a major investment bank whilst limiting the government’s exposure to 15bnGBP, Brown doesn’t halt the collapse of a minor retail bank whilst having an exposure of well in excess of 50bnGBP.
As for the nonsense about the rest of the world, there were “militant” attacks long before Bush in Pakistan - except when the militants were in power - Kosovo is a holdover from Clinton, “secret obligations” from Iraq are lies (really how long do you think these “obligations” would remain secret?).
Remember when Clinton left, he had overseen an asset bubble which makes the current one in Fixed income seem like peanuts - anyone remember when you couldn’t trust any company’s accounts? Halving of the FTSE or Dow? Nasdaq down to less than a third. Lets not forget LTCM when the world financial system nearly collapsed and on the foreign affairs frontier Clinton bequeathed the second intifada, Al-Qaeda, a Iran, Libya and North Korea with tacit nuclear programmes, unresolved issues in Kosovo, Sudan and Somalia. How’s that for grand incompetence?
Posted by: danny | March 18th, 2008 at 4:40 pm | Report this commentI don’t really mind that Bush “isn’t good in a crisis.” What I do mind is Bush *causing* said crises. And there is the differences with Clinton who “presided over” most of danny’s bad examples.
Bush acted “forcefully”–a preemptive war or simple aggression call it what you will combined with tax cuts, oh! very smart–with terrible consequences. Not for nothing is he going out with the worst approval ratings of any president..(OK maybe Hoover and Buchanan’s would have been worse but there was no polling at the time.)
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 18th, 2008 at 6:20 pm | Report this commentPS The financial position of the consumer and the government was also in much better shape during the Clinton years (the corporate sector had some leverage problems). Bush has broken the bank. This one is going to take a long time to put right.
Singular incompetence.
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 18th, 2008 at 6:24 pm | Report this commentHow exactly did GWB **cause** the sub-prime crisis? Why was the Clinton administration **not **responsible at all for the Internet bubble? - remember Al Gore was boasting about the technological revolution right up until the burst. Or corporate malfeasance? Or cutting and running from Somalia or failing to deal with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda etc etc etc etc? Rather like Brown, Clinton literally left just in time to leave his problems for his successor. Again the markets simply do not back up your claims - the FTSE halved, the Dow halved, the Nasdaq was down more than 70%. The LTCM crisis led to a complete freezing of the market. Major companies weren’t “overleveraged” rather they had LIED about their earnings.
Oh and PS, your comment about approval ratings is wrong too. Since WW2, Truman, Johnson and Carter all had (substantially) worse ratings. But hey, who cares about facts?
Posted by: danny | March 18th, 2008 at 6:49 pm | Report this commentoh and the great depression started in 1931 - not 1930 - and the world started to come out of it in 1933.
Posted by: danny | March 18th, 2008 at 6:52 pm | Report this commentMust be hard being a GOP man in 2008, but your historical facts could be better. Just because you say so doesn’t mean it was so. Take a look at the course of Industrial Production:
http://orion.oac.uci.edu/~garyr/papers/causes_of_suspensions_3aug2005_final_named.pdf
“Bank Distress During the Great Contraction:1929-1933″
How about link to the approval ratings?.
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm | Report this commentMore precisely,peak Aug. 1929, trough March 1933.
http://www.nber.org/cycles.html
Regarding the last recession: the problems were in corporate balance sheets, not “lies”. The consumer was in good shape and the gov’t in surplus. (Well, that didn’t last!) You can see what happened when the Fed eased to alleviate distress in the corporate sector–the mother of all bubbles in housing!
LTCM was trigered by the Russian default which was a domino effect of the 1997 Asian credit crisis. I don’t how you can blame that on Clinton.
In contrast, the US is at the epicentre of the current credit bust and I for one very much hold Bush accountable.
Anything else?
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 18th, 2008 at 7:43 pm | Report this commentThose of you who like GR’s ’simian brow’ line will probably be amused by www.bushorchimp.com
Posted by: Elk | March 18th, 2008 at 8:05 pm | Report this commentGideon Rachman ’s piece is the epitome of what is wrong with contemporary jornalism today. Start with a faulty premise ( this is Bush’s fault) , Be extremely shallow (make fun of off handed mimor comments), embellish with bogus yet attractive assertion (Katrina was Bush’s fault), and yet convey literally no information with all those words. Could he even be voting for Mr Obama?
9th grade history is not what readers read the FT for. Shoddy politics isn’t either. And you call yourselves a business paper……. Lazy, meanspirited banter and gossip was a prerequisite for all the great social evils throughout history… It is not comforting to see where the FT might play its part….. What we want and need is something we all respect - real information and salient facts not finger pointing and inuendo.There is more blame to go around than fingers and chances are you people are looking for scape goats rather than solutions if you are handling your copy this way.
thank you for the airing.
Victor Psoras
Victor Psoras
Posted by: Victor Psoras | March 18th, 2008 at 8:06 pm | Report this commentVictor, Victor,
It’s a *blog* for goodness sake. And what’s wrong with a little gossip? Can’t do serious all the time. Spice of life and all that.
Bush is so completely insulated from public sentiment he still thinks he’s going to be campaigning actively for McCain (Please God, yes!)so he’ll never know.
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 18th, 2008 at 8:27 pm | Report this commentWhat an, arrogant and pompous attitude! I have recently registered as an FT reader and this is one of the first editorial articles I have read and probably the last, thanks to this author … It’s a shame, as I was expecting a lot more from a prestigious publication like the FT!
Posted by: Cristian | March 18th, 2008 at 9:04 pm | Report this commentMary, This is not funny! Viciously attacking for the sake of cheap political shots is not worthy of a business publication. I would urge serious readers to check out the Wall Street Journal!
Posted by: Cristian | March 18th, 2008 at 9:09 pm | Report this commentHmm…I seem to be getting an unusual amount of intemperate abuse today, from people who have never cropped up on the blog before.
Posted by: Gideon Rachman | March 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm | Report this commentI don’t wish to sound paranoid, but I wonder whether this could be co-ordinated? Friends of Jonah Goldberg, perhaps?
Oh come now, I thought it was rather good.
D.
Posted by: David | March 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm | Report this commentMr. Rachman, taking shots at Bush? How could anyone dislike the man that tricked and lied our country into a war costing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. As for you Bush supporters, you do not have the facts nor did you ever. You fell for the facts George W. fed you, and you choose to live within those insulating lies and call yourselves patriots. Well, I am a patriot and I support our troops. That is why I want them home, alive!
As for Mr. Bush’s direction of the economy I do not blame him nor is it his responsibility to bail out Wall Street. If people would accept responsibility for their actions, recognize that a housing and credit market correction was in order things would be alot better. Bush’s administration attempts to prop up home values will unfortunately secure his position as an unsuccesful failure because he simply can not succeed.
Posted by: Brent H. | March 18th, 2008 at 9:34 pm | Report this commentDem and Rep Partisan screech owls. How tedious. Question Bush’s ability to lead, his decisions, his policies and immediately the silly neo-con boy-men swing into gear attacking Clinton. Where is the logic in that making an argument for a lesser Clinton (or a lesser Brown for that matter) makes a greater Bush!?!?….it’s really quite pathetic, but that is what being ideologically driven does to you…whether on the left or the right …
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 18th, 2008 at 10:29 pm | Report this commentDear Mr. Rachman, first of all allow me to say that it is a simple coincidence that several new readers were not enjoying your cheap political shots (factually inaccurate also!) … Nothing coordinated here, although I dare say that many of those who disagreed with your distortions of reality would find the National Review contributors quite interesting and certainly more fair.
Back to the subject of Mr. Bush - remember just a couple of things: a) he inherited a recession in the making, the effects of which were exacerbated by the attacks of 911. His economic policy, his quick and appropriate tax cuts have saved the US from an economic disaster; b)after 911, based on the information provided by the many intelligence agencies around the world, he started a military campaign that, however difficult (and with a heavy human life price) has kept the homeland safe for the last 7 years or so … Did the government make any mistakes? I am sure they did, but a little credit where credit is due (rather than pure venom) would be much more courteous and worthy to be published in a reputable business journal. I am indeed a new reader of the FT blogs section. I am continuously searching for credible sources of world-wide economic information, but this is not much better than one would find on the bbc website.
Posted by: Cristian | March 18th, 2008 at 10:55 pm | Report this commentHi Gideon: Depression, eh? Don’t scare me…
Posted by: Asp | March 19th, 2008 at 1:42 am | Report this commentp.s. Speaking of good in a crisis, did you read or see Obama’s speech today? Still think his rhetoric is empty?
Posted by: Asp | March 19th, 2008 at 1:44 am | Report this commentHere’s the presidential ratings:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-presapp0605-31.html
It is hit and miss if you say Truman and Carter had lower ratings but Nixon is clearly lower.
I am not entirely sure what your NBER link is meant to prove, that we are both wrong and it all went pear-shaped in 1929, not 1930 or 1931?
You obviously have a short memory, I remember talking to the equity guys at Goldmans after Worldcom and we were joking about shorting every single company audited by Andersens. Thats WHY we have SOX legislation.
Clinton got out literally at the top - if he had been in power a mere six months longer virtually all of Bush’s problems would have happened on his watch. By the time Bush was in power, the Dotcom bubble was bursting and Mohammed Atta et al were on their way and Enron, Global Crossing and others were well on their way to crisis. Is leaving economic and national security timebombs what is considered being a “good president” in DOP terms? With some of the problems he wasn’t quite as lucky - “Middle East Peace”, ie the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was in full swing when he left and as we know now AQ Khan was selling nuclear technology to everyone, Libya nearly had a nuclear weapon, DPRK was on it’s way and Iran had a covert nuclear programme.
LTCM was not “caused” by the Russian crisis, that was the proximate trigger rather like two hedge funds investing in a certain tranche of sub-prime was a trigger for this one. LTCM was caused by a relatively small firm being allowed to excessively overleverage itself - rather like Bear Stearns and if one compares GWB’s reaction to Bear Stearns insolvency it is an order of magnitude better than Brown’s reaction to Northern Rocks but I suggest it will be a cold day in hell before Mr GR claims GWB to be better than Brown.
PS I am not american and I am not a Bush supporter and it is clear he has made a large number of dumb calls - just not the ones you or GR or anyone else of your ilk have pointed out.
Posted by: danny | March 19th, 2008 at 3:22 am | Report this commentWe cannot blame George W. Bush for everything.
As Hans Werner, ther Presidente of the German economic institute IFO, said yesterday in “The Japan Times”:
“In Europe, particularly Germany, a mortgage-backed security (Pfandbrief) is an ultra-safe asset, as normally banks finance no more than 60% of a house value. By contrast, such US securities are like a lottery ticket…”
So the behavior of American and British Banks have been clearly negligent as we all know.
On the other side, the US and the UK have gone directly to two expensive Wars of conquest, and probably an attack against Iran is close after the resignation of Fallon, but all this trap was guided by the rabidly militarist Israeli gang called Neocons…even if it is true GWB should have learnt from his father George Bush to work for American interests rather than for foreign interests.
Posted by: Enrique | March 19th, 2008 at 4:39 am | Report this commentGo Enrique go, don’t let any facts get in your way.
Though it has only been whispered, the ECB and Germany had to step in to shore up a number of German state banks. Of course these banks have nowhere near the impact of Bear Stearns and Germany isn’t 1/3 of the world’s economy.
As for Afghanistan - are you serious? A war of conquest? Also in case you didn’t notice it was NATO who intervened in Afghanistan, although the French and Germans have always been negliable contributors. Fallon in the interview that - allegedly - brought about his downfall, claimed Iran was an ant that could be swatted and boasted about forcing his way into closed Chinese airspace to visit an airbase that the Chinese had refused entry for. Sound like someone you want dealing with all the delicate situations in the Middle East?
As for the lie about Israel somehow having dragged the US and UK into a war in Iraq, I don’t think that is even worthy of a response. Everyone knows Israelis(read Jews) are too busy manipulating the world’s interest rates, poisoning wells and bleeding christian babies to make matzeh to bother with such trivialities.
Posted by: Danny | March 19th, 2008 at 8:25 am | Report this commentGideon,
You skipped a mention of the Bush quote that “capital markets are operating efficiently”.
I thought that took the biscuit. Either for brazen lying or irredeemable ignorance. It’s never easy to tell with politicians.
Posted by: Ed | March 19th, 2008 at 8:54 am | Report this commentdanny or Danny, I won’t go any further than this and I’ll let you have the last word, which naturally you’ll take. We are arguing about facts–bad enough–and, as well, you are deliberately misquoting. It’s a rhetorical technique called a strawman. I’ve never liked much, it’s a cheap trick: first deliberately misquoting and then objecting to the misquote! Doesn’t work in a small blog like this when the ‘offending’ word is just a few posts up.
Re LTCM: I said “trigger” (OK I misspelled it) not cause.
Trigger: small lever that fires a gun
Cause: what makes something happen
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 19th, 2008 at 9:01 am | Report this commentAnyway, let me reframe my assertion that Bush should be held accountable for today’s credit crunch (although, as I wrote earlier IMO the worst is over for at least a year–or at least until the US Nov. election).
Firstly: if the economy was bouyant the admin would take the credit. If things are deteriorating why shift the blame to the ‘general economy’? In any case, in times of economic hardship the electorate will blame whichever party is in power, so it’s a mute question.
Secondly: the Bush admin. was set on “going it alone” in Iraq and was unable to persuade any of the other rich democracies to shoulder the financial burden.
Thirdly: even in the light of the spending on the war the Bush admin. persisted in cutting taxes and increasing non-military spending. And cutting more taxes. Crazy! Not just guns and butter, but guns, butter and a whole lot of pork.
What is disturbing about today’s credit problems is that its epicentre is not in the periphery of the world’s economic system–although emerging markets really are not peripheral to the global system anymore–but in the world;s dominant power: the US. That is why IMO we have about a year’s grace before the thing hits us again.
But until then…
Posted by: MaryCunningham | March 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am | Report this commentFirst, I’ve got to apologise I misread your post and mentally read “trigger” as “caused”. The fact is that it was a far more serious crisis than the one right now and to say Bush is in any way responsible for what is happening now in the markets is like saying Clinton is responsible for what happened in LTCM, or Mexico in 1994 or Asia in 1997. He WAS responsible for the stock option legislation which directly led to the collapse of confidence in corporate america in 2002 - which under some prodding was fixed on GWB’s watch.
The fact is the markets have these liquidity crunches as a result of the complexity of the system. Everyone piles in when the going is good and everyone rushes out when it is going south. Nothing Bush - or Brown - could have done to stop it happening except maybe mitigate the effects. I am not sure Bush was trying to claim the economy was buoyant simply because of him nor that the fact it is deteriorating is nothing to do with him - that sounds more like what Gordon Brown is doing.
As for getting other rich countries to shoulder the burden one only has to look at the efforts they made in Afghanistan where they DID promise…. or France’s initial contribution to the utterly useless UNIFIL. Apparently storming the actual high ground is less fun than storming it’s moral equivalent.
Posted by: Danny | March 19th, 2008 at 10:51 am | Report this commentMarycunnigham: “It’s a rhetorical technique called a strawman”. You’re not by any chance related to P are you? He likes to attack people on this blog with the same rhetorical technique.
Enrique, I think the Spanish have also been affected by their fair share of greed. How’s the real estate market there doing? And as to your comments on Afghanistan etc, as has been pointed out on this blog as nauseam, Afghanistan has a direct link to the safety and well-being of the residents of other countries in world, including Spain; the Israelis were against the invasion of Iraq; Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, controlled by a cult who believe the world can only be saved after its near destruction in a war between ‘good’ and ‘evil’; and the US has common interests with all true democracies around the world.
Posted by: AYC | March 19th, 2008 at 10:57 am | Report this commentYes, AYC, to be more precise we can say the attack on Afghanistan was Defensive after 911 while the attack on Iraq was a colonial War of conquest.
Posted by: Enrique | March 19th, 2008 at 11:52 am | Report this commentCristian, the WSJ?
The paper itself is quite good (though not quite up to the standard of the FT), but one loses intelligence just by thinking about reading its editorial pages.
As an aside, for anyone who remains unclear, the point of the post was that the Bush administration’s response to a plethora of crises has been inadequate at the highest level, and has often been coupled with an inexplicable public denial that the crises even exist.
The point was not that the hot air emerging from the White House affected the weather enough to cause Hurricane Katrina or whatnot…
Posted by: Andrei Timoshenko | March 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm | Report this commentEnrique: “the attack on Iraq was a colonial War of conquest”…as opposed to a poorly executed attempt to free the Iraqis from a murderous, psychopathic tyrant? You might like to read Nick Cohen’s book, “What’s left?”. And before you say it, you can’t imply anything from his surname, nor is he a raving Israeli neocon.
One of the interesting facts in this book is that Saddam was chiefly armed by the USSR and I think the Chinese during the 1980s, as opposed to the received wisdom regularly aired here and elsewhere. In fact the UK and the US had supplied him with very little, other than a short period of diplomatic support during the Iran / Iraq war.
Posted by: AYC | March 19th, 2008 at 1:05 pm | Report this commentFor Christians, and particularly Catholics, Saddam Hussein was a Protector. In fact the Baaz Party was founded by Christian Arabs. Now the Christian Iraqis are victim of the American colonial War and are been expelled and murdered by Zionist allies as never before.
Posted by: Enrique | March 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pm | Report this commentEnrique, as usual complete and utter toss. Saddam Hussein was a protector of no one except his close family and even then erratically. He ranks as one of the greatest mass murderers of the Modern Middle East, even Hafez Al-Assad was not in his league. Michel Aflaq - the christian you refer to - was the founder of the SYRIAN baath party, which if you had the slightest clue you’d know hates the Iraqi baath party. You’d also know most of the Christians are being killed by Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Shia militia, neither of which are “Zionist”.
AYC, actually it was the USSR and the French. In terms of military sales the US ranked behind Denmark. By a billion to one coincidence, Russia and France were the two largest sovereign creditors of Saddams regime and the two largest trading partners as well as the two most vocal countries opposing Saddam’s overthrow. Sure it was just their moral objection to “colonial wars” and interference, just ask the Rwandan and Congo Tutsis and the Ukrainians and Estonians.
Posted by: danny | March 19th, 2008 at 2:15 pm | Report this commentDanny, of course the Russians and the French did not oppose intervention in Iraq because they opposed colonialism. Just as the US did not promote the intervention because it lamented the the plight of the oppressed Iraqis. All countries do little but pursue their own economic interests (I would argue security interests are economic as well - it is not security for its own sake), and a significant component of diplomacy is to put a more palatable face on this fact.
Personally, I see little wrong with this situation - while imperfect it is still better than all the other options we have so far come up with.
On a side note, I would like to note that the ideologies of one administration are free to be independent of the ideologies of all other administrations within any given country. A country whose government supported colonialist policies 15 years ago is perfectly capable of having a present government that opposes such policies without being hypocritical.
Posted by: Andrei Timoshenko | March 19th, 2008 at 2:41 pm | Report this commentActually Andrei if you look at some of the key proponents “the the plight of the oppressed Iraqis” was EXACTLY why this proposed the overthrow of Saddam - I am think here of Wolfowitz, Ajami and Kaniya.
As for the issue of 15 years ago, it isn’t much reported - presumably because it doesn’t involve people with oil, jews or the US - but the Tutsi/Hutu fighting is still going on and the french were still supporting the Hutus under Chirac. But hey who cares, only five million dead….
Posted by: danny | March 19th, 2008 at 3:14 pm | Report this commentDanny, if saying something publicly is evidence of what a person actually thinks, then the French were opposing colonialism.
There are, of course, rabid idealists, but thankfully no one allows them to have even a whiff of control over public policy.
Even assuming that Wolfie&Co. genuinely lacked the foresight to see that the massive power vacuum created by an external removal of Saddam would be pretty awful for the Iraqis for a long while to come, there were (and remain) plenty of places in this world far crummier than Baathist Iraq. Of course, they do not much affect US economic interests.
Posted by: Andrei Timoshenko | March 19th, 2008 at 3:24 pm | Report this comment“far crummier than Baathist Iraq” - really? Where? DPRK?
Posted by: danny | March 19th, 2008 at 3:39 pm | Report this commentAndrei, Wolfie and co were saying this long, long, long before the invasion of Iraq. Makiyah and Ajami were saying it back in 1980s when Saddam was gassing his own people and Wolfowitz throughout the 90s when he had zero political influence.
The French “discovered” their opposition to “colonialism” when it involved a country that gave them cheap oil, bought expensive military equipment and owed them several billions of dollars. Wierd that at EXACTLY the same time they felt free to interfere in Congo.
Posted by: danny | March 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm | Report this commentThe U.S. just stole European colonies after WWII (for Spain it started in 1898 with the invasion and annexation of the Spanish provinces of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Phillipines and Guam)
The Roosvelt Administration, with the support of the Communists and Winston Churchill, led to the collapse of the British Empire opening their previously European markets to the U.S. and the USSR.
Winston Churchill will pass to History as the man who did end the British Empire as we all know.
Posted by: Enrique | March 19th, 2008 at 3:57 pm | Report this commentAndrei, I think you are also missing a key element in your economic theory argument - the role of ideology. You might, or might not, have heard GWB talk about the influence Natan Sharansky and his book on democracy had on him. The point being that GWB bought into the freedom story in a big way and hoped that the spread of democracy would bring some semblance of stability to the middle east, and security to the rest of the world. Clearly this has not happened through a variety of reasons, not least being the role of Iran, who some commentators persist in calling a democracy.
Enrique: “Winston Churchill will pass to History as the man who did end the British Empire as we all know.” Rubbish. The British empire had been on the wane since the 1870s. The domestic reaction against the repression of subject peoples, first manifested in the battles over the slave trade, destroyed the edifice from within.
Posted by: AYC | March 19th, 2008 at 4:08 pm | Report this commentA bit late, I know, but may I still comment?
GR, you say: “But, let’s face it, (GW BUSH) didn’t exactly cover himself in glory on 9/11. It may have been the fault of the Secret Service, but the fact that the president simply disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the attack was pretty poor.”
GW Bush did not disappear. He showed up exactly where he was supposed to be. And this was a clear message to a few dozen people in this world, despite the perception that the “Great Father Figure” was not holding our collective hand, boo-hoo.
I differ greatly with the Bush Administration on many things. But Pres. Bush is not at fault for following the national “command plan” for an attack on the soil of the USA. Getting into AF1 and flying to a nuclear command center, like Barksdale or Offut, has been standard “Day 1″ procedure for many decades.
Back in the era of the Cold War (remember?), all these things were gamed out extensively. An “out of the blue” attack could begin in many ways, from a massive series of launches from you-know-where, to “fractional orbital bombardment” attacks that involved southerly launches by land or sea that hit the USA from the south (not north). And then there were the attacks preceded by disruptive events like large-scale terrorism.
The initial 9/11 intelligence led some people to believe that there were as many as 30 to 50 rogue aircraft burning holes in the US skies, all destined for some city or other target, including crashing into nuclear plants.
GW Bush boarded the big, blue Boeing and flew to US nuclear command centers where he gave his talks to the nation. What better place to be on the day of attack, than next to the fellows with the highly trained fingers who puch the buttons. I can hear the words even now, “OK general, launch ‘em.” Yes, exactly. Launch ‘em.
That was the message to the world. And I am glad that Bush followed the plan, and sent that message to the people who need to hear it.
Posted by: Byron King | March 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm | Report this commentGWB has proven himself incompetent, dishonest and cruel. Incompetent with respect to Iraq, Al Qaeda and the Budget deficit. Dishonest on the war aims in Iraq, his position on torture and more recently the Iranian nuclear program. Cruel because of sending a consistent message to his troops and security services that the gloves are off and that the Geneva convention does not apply.
In an ideal, or even remotely just, world, the only thing that he would be in charge of from now on would be his own defence in a trial.
Posted by: Oscar D | March 22nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm | Report this commentWierd you think that in a “just” world, GWB should be toppled and on trial but you are adamantly against the same being done to Sadam. I can only assume GWB didn’t gas enough people to be worthy of your support. If Bush really was half as vicious and brutal as people here seem to be making him out then Galloway would have been on the first private jet out saluting his “indefatigablity”[almost certainly spelt wrong but I not entirely sure it is a real word].
BTW, if GWB was strictly applying the Geneva convention then he would be executing each and every single “insurgent” found as “saboteurs”. You see the insurgents are meant to wear uniforms and distinguish themselves from the civilian population, but as of course terrorists only have rights not responsibilities.
Posted by: danny | March 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 am | Report this commentGR: “Some people are good in a crisis. Unfortunately, President Bush isn’t one of them”
well COMETH THE HOUR for yet another crisis…
Basra is in total chaos. Iraqi security troops are refusing to fight the Mehdi Army militants, (per the Saudi Web site Elaph 3/28) according the Elap source militants now control many of the police stations in Basra and havestolen dozens of military vehicles belonging to the Iraqi army…in addition, the source claims that Iraqi army generals “ordered troops to fight militants without any preparations other than recalling reinforcements from nearby provinces, including Karbala.”
Let’s hope not only Petraeus testifies in April but that he is also joined by Fallon….
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 28th, 2008 at 11:21 pm | Report this commentDear L-H L,
Petraeus is a political general and the whole Fallon removal saga makes more sense every time that Petraeus opens his mouth and proves himself a glove puppet of the NeoCons, hell-bent on starting a war on Iran.
The mess created in Basra was entirely forseeable and will simply entrench those Shias who feel threatened by the stupid American policy of funding and arming tribal Sunnis. It is simply another misadventure by Uncle Sam to add to a litany of missteps since 2003.
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 29th, 2008 at 11:19 pm | Report this commentFT”President George W. Bush called the Iraqi offensive in Basra a “defining moment” on Friday as violence continued to spread across the country. …“This happens to be one of the provinces where the Iraqis are in the lead…and this is a good test for them,” Mr Bush said.”
Hi P,
I agree with much of what you say…but do not think there will be a strike in Iran any time soon…hopefully never…above is an amazing statement by the President Bush especially as his intel must have already told him exactly what is going on there…if not…someone at DOD should start reading Elaph … and I think more and more Fallon left over Iraq policy than Iran …as he was arguing that the surge was not the great success that Administration is touting it to be and that there should be some Iraq exit strategy….
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 30th, 2008 at 2:00 am | Report this commentIran and Saudi Arabia need NOW to work togther and come to some pragmatic balance of power agreement on Iraq to stabilize it…the more the chaos there the more the neo-cons who have captured Republican foreign policy will be able to sell their argument that there is a real need for US to occupy Iraq…what’s disturbing is that the Saudis and Iranians may not now have much influence over Iraq Sunni and Shia populations…that time may have passed…
and that is not good…
Hi,
I think the administration has been claiming that its war is against Al Qaeda. Leaving aside the fact that Al Qaeda is more of a concept and not, in any serious sense of the word, an organisation, one has to ask Washington where the support and personnel for Al Qaeda-type activities comes from. The answer is that they are chiefly financed and manned from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, the UAE and Morocco, i.e., countries with pro-US governments, many of which won’t last a year without active US support.
Therefore, one has to conclude that the war against “Al Qaeda” is simply a cover for waging war and subduing or destroying the bits of Middle East that are not already run by US satraps (mainly Iraq, Iran and Syria) and everything else is propaganda. They have destroyed Iraq and now they want to do the same to Iran.
All the best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 30th, 2008 at 10:44 am | Report this commentP”The answer is that they are chiefly financed and manned from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, the UAE and Morocco,”
I dont believe that regarding finances …and if there is funding it is not sanctioned by regimes but rogue types in these countries….Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah is proving to be a very wise, even a visionary Arab ruler…he may yet prove to be a very GREAT Arab ruler…sadly, I have to say I don’t see anyone in Iran in present regime that could even come close to stepping into his shoes. If would be an entirely different Middle East if he had a counterpart in Iran to work with….
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 31st, 2008 at 4:01 am | Report this commentHi,
I agree that the funding does ot form part of the official national budgets of those nations. Nevertheless, it is clear that it is coming from those nations and they have done little to stop it. As fot arms, personnel and training, the involvement of certain security services is common knowledge.
King Abdullah….what has he done really, so far? How long will he last (he is in his mid eighties). What will replace him? (The crown prince is another of the “Sudairi” brothers with a reputation that I cannot mention because the FT will delete my post. He is the father of Prince Bandar and you could read up on him for yourself.)
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | March 31st, 2008 at 10:21 am | Report this commentP”King Abdullah….what has he done really, so far? How long will he last (he is in his mid eighties).”
He is making a serious attempt to diversify the economy, he is behind a new law allowing student unions to form at the kingdom’s universities. This year his budget allocated $1.87 billion to judicial reforms and $2.93 billion to reform the education system. A co-education University of science and technology will be built..basically he is setting up the infrastructure and socially re-organizing the society so that the Saudi private sector will grow and attract greater foreign investmenthe leading to more jobs for Saudis, both men and women,…women in the workforce will help solve many of the social inequalities …this will be a slow process but it really has to be for it to succeed… and he has demanded that his internal security and intelligence apparatuses aggressively go after militants -terrorists,
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 31st, 2008 at 4:36 pm | Report this commentHe has tried to bring unity to Palestinians factions and his hardline (and snubbing at the recent Damascus conference) on Syria’s role in destroying Lebanon is showing real leadership for the region..He has reached out to Iran and I think come up with the best solution for ending the battle over Iran’s nuclear program (i.e., the consortium for the region/plant in Switzerland) and just recently he said he wants to lead an interfaith (Muslim, Christian and Jew ) dialogue/conference…this is really amazing and should be applauded and encouraged…I am not worried about his age…whoever follows him will be his choice and someone WHO can step into his shoes…