7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked Out About If Bush Had Done Them
Obama’s national security policy has continued some of the most controversial moves of the Bush administration. Silence from much of the left.
Democrats were overjoyed when George W. Bush left office in January of 2009.
Obama had promised to end Bush’s hawkish foreign policy and the “war on terror’s” detention and interrogation regime.
But in the beginning of his fifth year as president, Obama’s record has been surprisingly similar to his predecessor’s in those areas.
1. Democrats fought George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq in 2006.
You would think Democrats would react the same way they did to Bush’s surge policy:
2. American deaths in Afghanistan have skyrocketed since Obama took office.
Actually, the death tolls in Afghanistan under each administration look like this:
3. President Obama’s drones and special operators are working down “kill lists” of suspected terrorists.
Obama even put Anwar al-Awlaki — an American citizen — on such a list.
Al-Awlaki was killed under secret authorization from the justice department in 2011.
In 2011, a teenage American citizen, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was taken out in a drone strike without a trial.
If Bush did this, Democrats would literally hyperventilate.
5. In Pakistan alone, the administration has launched more than 300 drone strikes.
Pakistani civilian casualties due to these strikes are as high as 800 according to international estimates.
6. Obama promised to end the Bush-era torture interrogation practices.
But last year the U.N. released three damning reports detailing torture in Afghan facilities under Obama’s security watch.
7. Obama was unable to deliver on his pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which Bush had also said he would close.
“We may not be so different, you and I.”
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- texasmatt07 7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked... and thinks it’s LOL & Win
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andrewe16 2 months agoOur governments worldwide are corrupt and held at ransom by the very few who truly have the finances to effect the world. We all have to look to each other as individuals and get our lives in order. We are not so different and need to reclaim our power as people. Not as republican or democrat, which are momentary and meaningless words in the grand scheme. Knowledge, invention, and exploration is what humans should be doing; not arguing about which corrupt asshole got it slightly less wrong. The basis of our government is control, and is necessary with so many witless babies crying about everything all the time. The government is not daddy.
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Leah B. a month agoI think they may be just trying to be more bipartisan (like the bit with anti-marriage equality folks writing their reasoning) and I think there are a few legitimate points you could make here. For all of the benefits we get from them, drones are pretty morally dubious. It’s just hard to take seriously with GIFs… it was really a stupid idea to do it like that. I think by this point we’ve all just gotten worn out from the endless, morally gray War on Terror that really we can’t expect Obama to wave a magic wand and make disappear. Not really a GIF situation.
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debbiefairclothc 2 months agowhich seems to basically mean your vote won’t count and the one you least preferred will win and run our country. That is what happens in the end. You can all sit back and say “well I didn’t vote for that president. Or we have to raise enough money for guys like Ron Paul to run and actually win.
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- christelr2 7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked...
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ianr10 2 months agoPlease, for the love of Ray-Jay stop taking buzzfeed so seriously. Since your comment had phrases like “intelligent discussion” and “logic” in it, you’re probably going to make everyone stop the partisan crap and join in a giant hugging festival.
Also, anyone who claims the other party doesn’t “fact check” stop talking forever. Everyone checks “facts,” but at one point it was a “fact” according to the curricula of most schools in America that African Americans counted as 60% of a person. Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938. Your parents had sex, and that’s why you’re here. Facts are fun huh? -
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Livid Imp 2 months agoI get what you are saying. I’m basically a liberal, and I was pissed at liberals for saying little when Obama signed the NDAA. But… The suggestion that Bush only had 500 deaths under his belt conveniently ignores the 3700 friendlies, and 100,000 Iraqis that died in Iraq (most of which were civilians). Not to mention the tens of thousands of Afghan civilians that died previous to 2009. Plus you neglect to mention that the only reason we are in Afghanistan at all was a Bush decision. Obama is basically fighting his way out of Bush’s war. As far as al-Awlaki goes, this is really not much different than Benedict Arnold joining the British during the American Revolution. Although I am concerned that there is no trial (in absentia at least). And Guantanamo is less a problem then the fact that you can be “disappeared” into Guantanamo without trial (now official thanks to the NDAA). There were other scary things about Bush that rarely get a mention such as “free speech zones”. I mean, come’on, how Orwellian can you get than a “free speech zone”.
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golup 2 months ago
It is the liberal media that broke the story about the drone attacks. And the democrats have not been ‘meh’ about it. Don’t forget that Bush started the Iraq war on lies and deceit. Those numbers of casualties under Bush happened under false pretenses. Did you add to it the number of innocent Iraq citizens that were killed? Or was that ‘meh’ to the conservatives and republicans the senseless massacre of innocent people who died for Bush’s agenda?
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Freelance Spy 3 months agoOh yeah what incredible hypocrites these Democrats are. After all when Bush was president I vaguely recall a bunch of Republicans suggesting that to even question the Presidents policies in these areas in a time of war was akin to treason. So clearly insinuating some how that when Bush did things it was patriotic and when Obama does the same things it’s part of a massive Islamo, Fascist, liberal, communist, atheist, Muslim, Kenyan, homosexual, hollywood, union supported, new world order, UN conspiracy that’s plotting the downfall of America, by instituting Sharia Law, and importing illegal alien pedophiles to have legitimate rape with our children while taking away our guns is in no way hypocritical at all. You’d think that Republicans would be a calm as Hindu cows over those very same examples you give as opposed to going full on freak out if Obama doesn’t mention God enough in every single speech he gives let alone carrying out a foreign policy that would be unpatriotic to question if he was a republican president.
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solvseus 3 months ago
Well, as noted, Obama ran on surging in the ‘stans and did. People supported the Afghanistan war, Iraq not so much. Most of us were upset resources we’re pulled from the real fight to go there. We got BinLaden, the guy who actually attacked us, and now we’re winding the wars down. Counter to your point about lives lost, that’s WHY he’s increased drone kills, but actually people DO have a problem with them. ESPECIALLY the innocent lives lost and Americans killed without due process. NBC broke the most recent story, and liberals have been outraged. They’re also not happy about torture, see some resistance to Brennan. And GITMO, seriously? Name one Dem who’s ok that it’s still open. Congress blocked the funds after Obama signed off on it on his first day, then he gave up, and no one is happy about that. There is some hypocrisy here, but this is not it. Nor was it 7, you repeated yourself there a bit.
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iamerickson 3 months agoIt’s fascinating how the mudslinging starts as soon as someone insinuates that Obama may have continued certain Bush-era policies. True, there’s a bit of cherry-picking here (and the items listed are waaaaay far from the worst things Bush ever did), but by and large, yeah, Obama has indeed made extensive use of drones, killed American citizens without trial, and failed to close Guantanamo. And while (even though I didn’t vote for him in the last election), I think Obama is WORLDS more qualified to be President that Bush was (then again, a drunk hamster is more qualified to be president than Bush was), it might do Democrats and Republicans some good to consider the fact that “their guy” might not be the saint that they think he is.
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kitf3 3 months agoI’m a Democrat and while I voted for the lesser of two evils, I have been very critical of President Obama since he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for “not being President Bush”. So don’t paint me with that brush. Some of us Democrats as well as you Republicans, can think for ourselves.
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xlynx 3 months ago
I’m disappointed plenty by Obama, but this entire argument is stupid. “More americans have died in Afghanistan under Obama than Bush” It’s entirely accurate - and entirely idiotic. Bush lost 4500 soldiers in Iraq in the first year, Afghanistan wasn’t even our priority and he lost 500 there — half the damn country didn’t know we even had troops in Afghanistan. The majority of these are about drone strikes… which is stupid. Bush used drone strikes and I didn’t freak out then — I freaked out when he purposefully lied about weapons of mass destruction to initiate a war. I freaked out when he couldn’t pronounce basic words in his native tongue despite a very impressive history when he was Governor. I freaked out that he started No Child Left Behind, which coincidentally left a shit ton of children behind by cutting the school budgets and rewarding schools for how they report their data and not how their students succeed ( like the school who said 50% of their students “dropped out” to have better test scores and to make more money, despite only 1.5% dropping out). I do not hate Bush, and I do not love Obama, but you’re comparing apples and oranges. You’re trying to push that Obama had more people die under his reign in the military when the death count *over four years* is less than *a third* of *one* year under Bush. Seriously think about that. You’re trying to demonize Obama for how heavy the death count is… despite it being ~30% of the deaths *just in Iraq, just in the first year*. You wrote a piece to deliberately misinform. I have no problems with Republicans — I used to vote Republican — but this campaign trail of lying to the audience to get your point across makes me sick of the party. I’m all for criticizing Obama. But this shit is just stupid. It’s not about criticizing Obama — it’s about trying to misinform the public.
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mattc51 3 months ago“The majority of these are about drone strikes… which is stupid. Bush used drone strikes and I didn’t freak out then” Why the hell are you not concerned about drone strikes? You realize Obama assassinated two American citizens with drones in Yemen? One of them 16 years old… No trial… No due process. You’re more concerned that Bush can’t pronounce certain words than you are about a president taking executive action to murder Americans with no due process? Where the hell are your priorities?
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lancea2 3 months agoThis is cute. If you give background information on these, you will understand that half of them are direct responses to problems Bush created and the others are extensions of the previous. Telling half the story makes it look really bad and the pretty pictures sure make it convincing.
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buddersmoosh 3 months ago
Oh puhlease! Seriously so you’re now lumping everyone under on category so lame!
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radiosinmotion 3 months agoThey’re not ‘meh’ nor are they silent—they just know it could be infinitely worse. I am very much against excessive military action, and express that anger, but I don’t expect the president to enact my ideals because I know we live in a large society with a lot of opinions different than mine. There’s a big political machine full of violence-hungry people out there, and they’re more powerful & influential than nonviolent people. I notice and am angry about a lot of the policies listed, most of which were not initiated by Obama, but I also know that under a republican president things would be much much much worse than they are now.
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