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Re: In May 2008, I made the following comment on CT
from my point of view, USA has only moderate right and insane. There is nothing close to liberal or reasonable. Gun policy, abortion discussion, religion..really? Still debating if people should be entitled to health care..when the whole developed world already put that discussion away decades ago. It's no wonder USA is falling behind in many areas. As far as Obama goes, he didn't do any damage at the least, and did several good things. He's far from worst ..
That's a difficult question you're asking him. Conservatives in Canada and the US have been in a bit of a rut for a couple of decades.
Hard to call Mulroney or Harper "good". Clark was a good guy, but not a good leader. In the US, maybe Reagan - but he certainly wasn't the brightest bulb in that office. Clinton and Obama have been the only bright bulbs in that office, though for a long time. You have to go back to Roosevelt to find a great American leader. You didn't ask about Britain, but Churchill was a superb leader - but only until the war ended. I've always had a soft spot for Thatcher.
In Russia - the only great leader that comes to mind (in my opinion) is Gorbachev. He's a braver man than I could be. Yeltsin was brave too, but otherwise not that inspiring.
Great Canadian leaders? Mike Pearson comes first to mind. Laurier, Trudeau, and even Chretien. Not that you were asking me.
I wasn't but I did appreciate the response and I enjoyed it. I partially agree with you!
Re: In May 2008, I made the following comment on CT
I must admit I am deeply disappointed with President Obama perhaps because my expectations were unduly (and unusually) high. He will go down in my version of American history as the greatest political campaigner ever, but certainly not the most successful president.
But "one of the worst"? You must be joking. Not even close. That contest is between George W. Bush and Buchanan with Bush in the lead.:)
Re: In May 2008, I made the following comment on CT
Here's what's happening in the U.S education system currently. One large institution with over 70,000 students and approx. 10,000 staff about to close and leave the students in the lurch. A few others might not be far behind. Government pressure.
Thinking reason might prevail, I bought a lottery ticket (shares) in that one at under under the current price. Most likely I'll lose it all or some reason will prevail and I might get a 5 or 10 bagger. Yeah, sure.
In May, 2008, I also had to remind responders that I said "One of the Worst" not "The Worst." With that in mind, would you say he won't be regarded as one of the worst?
Definitely still very far from one of the worst one, at least until now, and probably somewhat better than George H.W. Bush (the father).
One thing that I find annoying, is that those that claims that Obama is one of the worst president ever almost never give a list of the other worst presidents with the reasons for choosing them, probably because when you do the exercise you quickly realize how wrong a president can go.
Here few obvious examples:
1. Buchanan: He got in war against Utah (much larger than today), had inconsistent policies about slavery and had so bad politics that he pushed many states to declare their secession from the USA (actually, at one point both the South and the North hated him). Listing everything would be too long, but he was largely responsible for putting in place the conditions for the American Civil War, so that probably makes him the worst president ever.
2. Hoover: Started his mandate with an unemployment rate of 4.4%, and left it with 23.6% (it peaked at around 25%). There was probably little hope for him to avoid a recession, but he reacted so badly that he made what should have been only a bad economy, a complete disaster. People comparing Obama to an economic disaster should try the comparison with a real master in the field. I also notice that Obama inherited of such a bad financial situation (remember the subprime?) that things could easily have gone completely out of control. Just not making things worse is probably enough to take him out of the list of the 12 worst presidents ever.
For the third place, it gets a little more difficult (not by lack of choices!), but you should try to find your list of the 3 other worst presidents and see if Obama can be compared to any of them. I can say that Obama is nowhere close to my list.
I notice that George W. Bush legacy still affect today politics, and the actual disaster happening in Iraq wouldn't have happened if Saddam Hussein would had been left in office (he hated so much the Islamists that he would never have allowed the creation of a caliphate anywhere near him, making him a natural enemy of Al Quaeda and Iran). Ironically, this Caliphate is actually built with his own past officers and generals (they were almost all discarded from the Iraqi army, which explains their lack of experience). 9/11 was already planned, but the trillions he spent on his wars against terrorism actually did the opposite and even promoted terrorism. Long term costs were estimated at 6 trillions dollars, including cares to disabled veterans, but excluding increased expenses to Homeland security (that were often not that effective, and probably hurted more the economy than any terrorist attack would have been able to do). The next thing closer to a disaster in office would be Katrina (sorry, could not resist). That said, he is not yet in my list of the 5 worst president ever, but I could change my mind.
If you search, you can find other presidents that could be arguably worse than Hoover (just try!). So I already listed 2 president with a proven track record of putting the USA in the Chaos, and you have to compare that to only claims that Obama will bring Chaos in the USA (Republicans are used to makes such attacks, and just change the subject if it turns out to work).
Last edited by Simon Valiquette; Saturday, 21st June, 2014, 04:31 AM.
Reason: typo
Re: In May 2008, I made the following comment on CT
What led you to that opinion, Ken? May/08 was six months before the election.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
Re: In May 2008, I made the following comment on CT
"I thought Truman using nuclear weapons on Japan was over the top. Crimes against humanity."
In August of 1945 Japan had a biological warfare unit 731 Here is some information on Japan's last ditch plan for a counter attack. They proposed using balloon bombs to carry disease to America and they had a plan in the summer of 1945 to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague infected fleas on San Diego.
Some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax in the United States. Other army units wanted to send cattle plague virus to wipe out the American livestock industry or grain smut to wipe out the crops. As it happened, 9,000 balloons each carried four incendiary and one antipersonnel bomb across the Pacific on the jet stream to create forest fires and terror from Oregon to Michigan.
As the end of the war approached in 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme; codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.
Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945. As it happened, the fleet of submarine seaplane carriers that assembled was assigned to launch torpedoes at the locks in the Panama canal, but that was changed to attack the US fleet at Ulith just as the war ended.
So even as late as August 1945 America was facing the horrible threat of the west coast being wiped out via biological warfare that led to the decision to attempt to end the war quickly with the dropping of the Nuclear bomb. They had hoped that one would be enough but Japan refused to surrender and the US facing the threat of biological attack like the proverbial sword of damocles hanging over the West coasts heads dropped two. Harry Truman at the time warned the Japanese leadership of Americans nuclear capabilities before they dropped any bombs but Japan thought America was bluffing and still harbored hopes of conquering America with its biological weapons.
The story is horrific for both sides but the Americans were facing the spectre of millions of disease related deaths on the west coast.
Last edited by Sid Belzberg; Sunday, 22nd June, 2014, 02:45 AM.
Re: In May 2008, I made the following comment on CT
I understand the monster Unit 731 existed. If they would have been able to carry out what has been described is hard to know.
In any case, I don't want to keep going with this in case someone tries to justify some of the other mass exterminations we've seen over the decades.
We can never know if Japan had the capabilities at that time to do what is written. We only know the result of the nuclear attack against the two cities in Japan. The death toll at least a couple of hundred thousand people.
I'm not clear what happened to Ishii or I've forgotten if he was prosecuted or got immunity. I think it's immunity but I don't know what he had to do to get that.
Even US scholars now acknowledge (see Oliver Stone's recent work) that the use of nuclear weapons on the civilian population of Japan was militarily unnecessary. Those weapons were used mainly because ...
a) due to the racist anti-Japanese views prevailing at the time and which were used in the war effort;
b) for political reasons; the US wished to dominate the Pacific in the post-war period;
Serious historians simply don't lend credence to what amounts to fairy tales.
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
Even US scholars now acknowledge (see Oliver Stone's recent work) that the use of nuclear weapons on the civilian population of Japan was militarily unnecessary. Those weapons were used mainly because ...
a) due to the racist anti-Japanese views prevailing at the time and which were used in the war effort;
b) for political reasons; the US wished to dominate the Pacific in the post-war period;
Serious historians simply don't lend credence to what amounts to fairy tales.
With all due respect to those in this thread, please consider the following:
1) Japan was very close to surrendering when the atomic weapon was dropped on Hiroshima. They would have surrendered regardless perhaps withing 48 hours; perhaps not. The Americans did not know if Japan had decided to surrender when the bomb dropped but they surely knew the Japanese were defeated and it was just a matter of time.
2) The dropping of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki constitute War Crimes as understood by today's standards. So too were the fire bombings of Dresden. So too were the attacks, by the Germans, on London. The fact is civilian populations were often and regularly targets.
3) There was undoubtedly racism against the Japanese in the United States. But anti-Japanese sentiments aren't necessarily racist. Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, without declaring war. This was considered a grave crime in itself, even by some Japanese military. Japan's Prisoner of War camps committed both war crimes and crimes against humanity.
4) The use of the atomic weapon on Hiroshima may possibly have sped up the Japanese surrender. It is clear, the second such usage on Nagasaki, sped this surrender process up. This may well have saved American lives - surely at a great cost in Japanese civilian lives. This is a prime responsibility of the American govt and it's President. A quicker ending to the war likely saved the lives of American soldiers.
5) Japan may well have had some kind of biological weapons plan - but the point is irrelevant. Japan, by this time, had no fleet, and no means of delivering such weapons onto US soil.
6) It is believed the USSR planned to invade Japan. The Americans did not want this to happen. This is an alleged other reason for the use of atomic weapons.
7) Increasingly the USSR was being seen as a big threat and not an ally. The goings on in central Europe only served to support this view, as half the contintent fell to Soviet rule. The use of atomic weapons some believe was a message to the Soviets.
Summary: The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be called "unnecessary" in the sense that surrender would have happened anyway. But leaving it at that, is simply inadequate. As I said above, when would this surrender have happened? How many more Americans would have otherwise died? Would the Soviets have invaded? Would the surrender have been as unconditional as the one Macarthur negotiated and then implemented? For all these reasons, and I'm sure many others, the case for and against the use of atomic weapons here isn't quite so black and white. Regardless, it will count as a horrible chapter in history. Let's hope such weapons aren't used again against anyone.
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