On Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:16:29 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:05:50 -0700, jps wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:20:27 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:25:22 -0700, jps wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:02:16 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:48:17 -0700, jps wrote:

It certainly appears to me "the Bush Doctrine" is a term made up by
the democrats and is anything they don't like about him. I have never
actually heard a concise definition.

It is also interesting that the best known "doctrine" the Monroe
Doctrine was actually named many years after he left office.
(according to the Presidents series on the History Channel)

This seems pretty concise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine

Concise would be a paragraph, not a rambling 30 page Wiki with 86
footnotes.
If the point was that Bush had a fractured foreign policy with unclear
objectives and disastrous outcomes, no argument.
Let's see how Obama does and if he will ever settle down on a policy.
So far he is just extending what Bush was doing, right down to the
date of this "camp outside the city" initiative.

That was negotiated between two "sovereign" nations before Obama took
office. The Iraqis can't wait to get rid of us.

I bet they do. (wait)
We won't leave until they are no longer a threat to Israel.
We certainly were nit out on Jan 20 as Obama started promising and he
has been stepping back from that ever since.

Sheesh. He said that during the campaign and almost immediately
backed away by saying that he wouldn't do anything that would
destabilize our responsible withdrawal.

He took one large step backwards and when he became president he
reassessed the situation and made what was a good call.

Again, the terms of our withdrawal were negotiated with Iraq when Bush
was in office. It was, in fact, on a schedule very similar to what
Obama was promoting during the latter days of the election cycle.

If he is just doing what Bush was going to do, where is the "change"?
I was excited about a candidate who was going to end this stupid 18
year war, not keep it going another 18 years.

Afghanistan is even worse. Now Obama is saying we will have the
Russians "help" us in Afghanistan.
How do you think the Afghan citizens will feel about that?
We are certainly creating terrorists far faster than we can kill them.

1. Obama is keeping his word to get us out of Iraq. Bush took a 3 day
raid and turned it into six years. Surely you understand that
withdrawing is a sensitive endeavor for many reasons.

2. Afghanistan is complicated. I didn't want to go in originally and
still would prefer we weren't there but the situation is among the
scariests on the planet. Not in Afghanistan of course, but Pakistan.
If al Qaeda and those Afghani fundamentalists team to take Pakistan,
we've got a serious problem on our hands. That's not very far afield
at this point. Our presence there is probably the best investment we
could make to ensure nuclear war doesn't break out.