pan6467

Granted the sources are not the most reliable, but the problem I have is this is very believeable that he would say this.

Whether he said this directly or this is the impression the Palestinian leaders were given, it does not help our "war against terrorism" at all. In fact, it adds more fuel to the fire as I can see how Muslim extremists would say that is proof Bush is out to exterminate the religion.

We can not have a president saying God told him directly to invade countries. And again even if he didn't just the fact that it is feasible he could have is scary.

I wonder what else God says to him. So all this time, it wasn't WMDs, it wasn't freedom, it wasn't getting Saddam, it was because God told him to?

Very scary.

On a side note, I wonder if this is the first time Cheney and Rove have been called God?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

politicophile

It sounds like hearsay to me. I found the story on BBC News, so it's not a hoax. Even so, I find it... unimpressive, to say the least, that a Palestinian official is telling the media that Bush said God commanded him to create a Palestinian state. No conflict of interest there...

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Charlatan

If they can prove this it is probably one of the stupidest things he's ever done.

Putting out fire with gasoline is not a wise thing to do.

The problem is, even if he didn't say this, how is he going to deny it and get them to believe? His track record with God is such that it is not hard to imagine Bush saying something like this.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Redlemon

Even if the "speaking to God" thing were true, I don't think he'd be telling it to the Palestinians.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

maximusveritas

It's probably not Bush's exact words, but it is definitely close. Abbas himself recounted it similarly 2 years ago:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/S...ID=0&listSrc=Y

I think Bush's point was that God, not just his God but their God as well, told him this was what he needed to do.
That antagonizes atheists such as myself, but he probably figured it would endear himself to these Muslims and he may be right.

pan6467

You just may have a point and perhaps it worked, but....um.... it's a strange way of doing foreign affairs and could easily have backfired.

But if that is the case then why the strong denials and not just come out and admit that it was what it was?

It disturbs me more if he did say it and denies and will not come out with the thruth then if he did say it and explained himself.

And yet, it is also the BBC releasing all this just as a "special" is to be aired by them..... so it's all good publicity to raise curiousity and get people to watch.

This is definately going to go down as one of the more interesting presidencies in our history.

link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4320586.stm

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Ustwo

Oh Christ (pun intended) not this again.

*sigh* Time to start making my list for when the revolution comes.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

pan6467

Why do you post if you cannot add anything positive to a thread?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

stevo

I think the more relative question isn't whether bush has lost it, but whether he had it at all in the first place.

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

Ustwo

Because this is so damn silly. It was silly when it came out in 2003, it was silly when they tried to use it as an election issue in 2004, and its silly at its rebirth in 2005.

What is there to discuss, that someone has hand written notes in Arabic that says he was told by god?

Non-verifiable, total heresay, typical muck raking.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Lebell

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

BugLover

Hmmm, let me get this right. Bush, "leader" of the free world, says God talks to him? And tells him to go kill people (eg the war)? Sounds like a schizophrenic delusion to me. Scary!

dlish

St paul saw jesus on the way to damascus..doesnt mean he actually did see him.

for all we know could be satan talking to him..whos to say bush is right or wrong..just take everything with a grain of salt i say...even shaaths comments. always 2 sides to a story.

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

Hardknock

Whoa nelly!!!

This is Bush we're talking about.

Yet, there are people (who shall remain nameless) swallow it day after day after day. I still can't fathom why.

noodle

Exactly my thought... before I had even completely entered the thread. But, what exactly is "it"? Sanity, comprehension, grip on reality?

__________________

Hardknock

All of the above.

And more that I havent though of yet.

flstf

Maybe he was inspired by Jake and Elwood?

shakran

if indeed it is not true, and Bush did not say this, then isn't this an ironic situation. He's catching hell for it and it might just sink him even further, yet he didn't say it. This after all the atrocious things he DID do and say that he got away with scott free.

I tell ya, it just drips with irony!

pan6467

Sad but so true.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

interesting.

so one thing i can conclude from reading through this is that the house lumpenconservatives don't like the story that opened the thread.
for them, of course this is pure hearsay blah blah blah: which i originally took at simply another series of rather sad accidental confessions concerning the nature of conservative political committments---but then i noticed that white house issued a statement yesterday that argued the bushclaim that the iraq war was inspired by god had been actually made (bush said it, yes), but that it was "not to be taken literally"....
so he said it
but "it" was a metaphor

which is, if you think about it, quite a mysterious thing to argue-----how could "god told me to..." be understood metaphorically? which part is metaphorical: "god"..."told"..."me"...."to"...etc.? metaphor for what?

one thing sure, however: i doubt seriously that the rovemachine would have found itself put in the position of trying to claim "god told me to invade iraq" as some kind of metaphor if the statements themselves could have been made to go away.

perhaps you could rationalize this in the context of the fallout from the meier nomination from the xtian right--no no, see i really am one of you, god tells me to do things and i do them---

so let's move beyond the right's first and often only line of defense--denial--to the question of what the bush supporters make of this statement and the requirement that "we" think of it as a metaphor? what on earth did bush mean? i mean, it could nto be the case that the rove machine is simply trying to spin this away, could it?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

nota bene: for what it's worth, i do not think that the question is whether bush has "lost it" or not: i see no reason to go in that direction to interpret this story and its afterburn: rather, i think its timing shows that it is something of a balloon sent up to the christian right in the context of the contreversy about harriet meier. the rove squad must be really quite worried about a split within the reactionary base, so much so that they are willing to let the statement stand with the weak caveat raised above.

if bush has not "lost it"--this story would then reflect something of the tension that must dog this president who is (apparently, at least some of the time) an evangelical type who imagines that god talks directly to him and political action in a democratic context. god talks to me, so it is therefore ok to lie to an entire planet about the rationale for war...god talks to me so dissent means nothing....god talks to me so anyone who opposes me is in league with terrorists--on and on, all as a direct consequence of this blurring of systems to rationalizing action.

seems to me that this kind of action is a strong argument for pushing the seperation of church and state ever deeper.

the more difficult question is: assume that bush has not "lost it" but actually think in this way. is this kind of thinking not most dangerous for a democracy, even a shallow one like the american? but if it is dangerous for democracy, what to do about it?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Ustwo

"Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God." Dwight D. Eisenhower

" Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own. " J.F.K

"I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help-and God's." L.B.J.

"You can't divorce religious belief and public service I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other. " Jimmy Carter

" The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest." Ronald Reagan

"I thank my friend for that. I thank you for being here. I ask you to share my prayer that God will search me and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any hurtfulness in me, and lead me toward the life everlasting. I ask that God give me a clean heart, let me walk by faith and not sight." Bill Clinton

Oddly in my 7 minutes of work I could find very little on Nixon or Ford invoking gods name. I'm trying really hard to see what the issue is here, and the only issue that can be grapsed is that the left is in such denial about Bush that they believe he is following voices in his head.

Sorry guys you need to let go your hate.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

pan6467

Big difference between invoking God's name and talking belief and that of saying "God told me to do this....."

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

powerclown

Indeed.

And even if this were true, and I have no doubt it isn't, I'd prefer a guy who goes around saying God told him to do something positive in the world, to the guy who goes around saying his God told him to blow up subways, blow up nightclubs, blow up innocent civilians on the street, launch missiles into public neighborhoods, and fly jets into buildings. I'll take that first guy everytime.

hrandani

I am going to have to agree. Grandstanding and casually invoking God's name and/or blessing is just PR fluff, and it runs like water on a duck's back to most people's ears. Also, it sounds good. It is completely different from claiming to have access to a divine power's intuition.

But Bill Clinton never said that God told him to bomb that aspirin factory. Ronald Reagan never said that he was on a mission from God to destroy those heathen, pagan, infidel communists. It's a completely different order of magnitude.

shakran

Hey, so will I. Too bad that in the case of our president, God apparently told him to blow up Iraq while letting Al Qaeda and bin Laden run free for 4 years, oh and there's that small bit about God telling him to spend a shitload of money "building up" a department of homeland security that can't effectively respond to a predicted disaster until almost an entire week had gone by. I'd sure hate to see their performance should the disaster be terrorism and therefore not predicted. Yeah, too bad the guy that God told to do positive things isn't in the white house right now.

powerclown

Do you honestly believe this is all that is trying to be accomplished in Iraq?

shakran

I do not for one minute believe that Bush's purported reasons for going into Iraq were honest. Especially considering every time a reason proved to be patently false, he changed it (what? they've found out there aren't any WMD's. well, uh. . .like, um, ok ok ok I got it, Iraq wants DEMOCRACY, yeah that's it!). He went into iraq because he WANTED to, and damn the justifications. Whether he blames that on God or not, I really don't care. He's killed thousands of Americans and countless more innocent Iraqi civilians because he treats the world like it's his own personal game of GI Joe and likes to play army with his little action figures. A shame he's forgotten that his action figures are real people with real families that they're leaving behind, sometimes permanently.


And I'll tell ya - it's very difficult seeing all those young kids going off to fight and get maimed or killed for a lie.

powerclown

Fair enough. He's a terrible salesman, I'll grant you that. But look beyond the lousy sales pitch. There was a window of opportunity there that needed to be exploited - however awkwardly it was justified.

Do you not see a need for reform in the Middle East? Are lazy, corrupt monarchies, suppressive dictatorships and religious theocracies really the types of governments able to bring out the best in their people and put their natural resources to good use? Should this part of the world be offered outside assistance in establishing more productive forms of societies, or should the rest of the world continue to play dice with dictators while their countries lay in ruin, and their oil is wasted? Wouldn't strong economic development in the Middle East - and the empowerment it would bring to the average citizen - be the best weapon against hopelessness and despair, against al-Qaeda?

shakran

This is a classic example of the world police "we're right and everybody else better be just like us or we'll kick your ass" attitude that's gotten this country in so much trouble so many times in history. It's their country, not ours, and it's none of our damn business. Not only that, our actions are directly leading to a massive civil war in Iraq. Toppling Saddam destabilized the entire region. This is a quagmire your grandchildren will still be dealing with long after you and I are dead.



Sure. Offer it. Don't force it on them with tanks and bombers. Big, BIG difference.


And we get to the root reason so many support(ed) this war. Oil. It's their oil. Much as we'd like it to be, it's not our oil. Invading Iraq to secure the oil is no different than Iraq invading Kuwait to secure the oil.

K. First, where IS that strong economic development. The only strong development we've had is in al Qaeda. Second, Saudi Arabia is strongly developed economically. They're doing quite well off of their oil, thank you, and yet they still harbor and train terrorists who attack around the world, including us.

The short answer to your questions is: We do not have the right to overturn another government just because it offends our delicate sensibilities. We do not have that right even if we have the power to do it. The United States has not only made a huge blunder as far as the stability of that region, and the world, is concerned, it has also unjustly destroyed a foreign government. I don't care how bad that government was, it was not our government to destroy.

You can justify the iraq war all you want with talk of bringing democracy to the people (they didn't want it) or bringing prosperity to the people (they still don't have it), but that does not change the fact that the United States mugged Iraq just because it could.


Besides, don't you think it's rather ironic that we say "hey Iraq, we think a system in which you are free to choose your own destiny is the best system, so we're not giving you a choice - we're going to FORCE that system on you."


Sounds pretty convoluted to me.

pan6467

I tried to show where he said it and the context in which those he said it to took it.

There are good points being made here and I have only this left to add:

IF he is in fact saying, God told him to do this, in whatever context, that is between him and his God.

Personally, if I went into work and said, "God told me the way to heal all drug addicts is to start killing them and to bomb crack houses."

There is no doubt, in my mind at least, that I would be taken upstairs to Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) for evaluation and to await transport to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

But then again, I'm not president.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

powerclown

I beg to differ - it IS our business. It's our business, their business, Jordan's business, Israel's business, Saudi Arabia's business, Japan's business, China's business, Turkey's business, New Zealand's business, India's business, Brazil's business, South Africa's business, Russia's business, Canada's business - it's everyone's business. It's called Free Trade.Going from a dictatorship to a representative form of government is traumatic. Look at it as necessary, therapeutic shock therapy for the mentally ill.

Are you aware that in countries around the world, there are foreign oil companies of every nationality drilling for oil. Sweden drills for oil in Nigeria, China and Russia have oil companies in South America, Japan has oil companies in Canada, Brazil drills for oil in Angola, etc. etc...It's good for business. And it creates jobs for both countries.

This is the kind of thing I don't understand about politicians. If Bush would actually take the time and explain the situation in an honest and straightforward matter, things would go so much smoother. Everyone on the planet benefits from a healthy, flourishing Iraq. There are no healthy, flourishing dictatorships in the world that I'm aware of. This is giving credibility to Saddam Hussein that I don't believe he deserves. He wasn't the successful leader of a prosperous country seeking honest trade relations, it was armed robbery. The only thing he offered the Kuwaitis was death or enslavement.
For what its worth, Saudi Arabia ranks 69th in the world in GDP (per capita). Poland has a higher GDP. Croatia is just behind. The word "underachieve" comes to mind.Someone needs to take responsibility. I believe the rich countries of the world have a responsibility to help the poor countries of the world.8 million people voted for a say in their government. Given the chance, it appears they do want it.
Yes, the Vote was forced by removing the obstacle to Choice. In the absence of force, there would be no Vote. Therefore, in the absence of force, there would be no Choice. Return to Dictatorship.

shakran

Sorry, but IMO money should not dictate whether or not we assassinate thousands of foreign civilians.


Gee, the United States did it without being forced to by anyone. France helped us out, but only AFTER we'd decided we wanted it for ourselves. And we've lasted more than 200 years, because WE chose to do it. By contrast, how's that forced democracy doin' in Vietnam?

Yes I am aware of that. I do not believe in blood for oil. I do not believe enriching Exxon is worth the lives of our troops and their citizens.



Perhaps, but he hasn't now has he? And since he's been busy lying since he started with this whole war thing, I'm hardly in the mood to trust his motives now.


You're right! But Iraq is not healthy, it's not flourishing, and it's not going to be any time soon. You speak as though you're seeing a different Iraq than the rest of the world sees. It's nice to fantasize that Iraq is now a paradise, but the cold hard reality is that it's quite the opposite.

And Bush is not successful, and he's not seeking honest trade relations. He's seeking the annihilation of a sovereign nation and he's seeking the rebuilding of that nation in his image. That's not free trade, that's a war crime.



And I believe that those rich countries have a responsibility to let other cultures develop as they will unless those cultures ASK for help.


Fine by me. It's not our responsibility to remove all the dictators. The citizens in Iraq far outnumbered Saddam's government. If they'd REALLY wanted democracy, they'd have revolted. You know, kinda like we did when England decided to be dictatorial with us. I know this is hard for you to accept because you refuse to accept as valid any cultural viewpoint but your own, but some cultures don't WANT democracy.

powerclown

Vietnam's economy is stronger than Pakistan's, and almost equal to the Phillipines. Not bad for such a tiny country.If peace and security were to be guaranteed for the next 250 years, would the sacrifice be worth it? That's all I'm saying. If the administration had gone to the trouble to explain the geo-politics of the situation, he would enjoy more support in the States, and possibly the rest of ther world. The fact that he didn't shouldn't presuppose that it's was the wrong thing to do.Thank you. Can we sticky this?

America isn't annihilating Iraq, it's helping to rebuild it. In my opinion, it's being pretty goddamn nice about it, too. If America was tasked with anhiliating something in the Middle East, it would overrun everything between Cairo and Tehran with a three-million-strong conscript occupation force.

I don't understand this: You agree that America should not stand neutral, yet you choose to bind it's moral initiative to those who ask for help. But the problem is, how can you help a country that is silenced by its leader?

At the risk of sounding like Bush, I'll just say this: 8 million people proved you wrong back in January. Your implication is that Fascism is the preferred ideology for some. I would say Communism/Fascism is for ants, not thinking, feeling human beings.

Seaver

Actually they DID ask. They asked before the Iran/Iraq war. They asked during the Iran/Iraq war. They asked after the Kurds got gassed. They asked after the Persian Gulf war during the infandata, and afterwards when the tribes were decimated in retribution. They've been asking for 20 years, we finally decided to listen.

As already said, for a country that "doesnt want democracy", a huge percentage of the population risked property, life and limb to practice it.

Of course not everyone wants it. If you were ontop of the totem pole why would you want to give that up without a fight?

shakran

In case you hadn't noticed, vietnam is communist. So much for our ability to spread democracy by force.

No, you're flipflopping your comebacks to try and mask the fact that you don't have a leg to stand on. Either it's about oil or it's about spreading democracy. Oil doesn't have anything to do with peace and security.

The geopolitics of the situation is that Saddam was the buffer between Iran and the rest of the middle east. That's why we propped him up in the 80's. To keep that buffer. Now that we've been stupid and removed the buffer, Iran can run roughshod over everything by building up in Iraq first. And guess what, that's exactly what they're doing!

If you want to sticky the concept that Bush declined to explain the bullshit you buy into in favor of explaining the bullshit you do not buy into that is fine, but in the end, either explanation smells the same.

Tell that to the people trying to survive amongst the rubble caused by our bombs.

We were supposedly "silenced" by Brittain when France helped us in the revolutionary war. They figured it out over 200 years ago. America should be willing to help if asked, but it should not force things upon countries that do not want them. Iraq doesn't want a democracy. Because of that, democracy will not work in Iraq.


Which 8 million people would that be?

No it's not, but thanks for playing.


OK, that's your opinion. Iraq was neither communist nor fascist. Did you have a point with that line, or are you just trying to distract us from the real argument?

Nimetic

I wondered when this would hit then forums.

He hasn't denied it as far as I know, nor clarified. I find this deeply disturbing and truly hope that the more positive interpretation of the article is correct.

Ustwo

Pretty sure it hit the forums in 2003, back when this was current propaganda.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

interesting, ustwo: you can't seem to accept that bush could possibly have said that god told him to invade iraq. yet the white house merely said this time that the statement was "not to be taken literally"---they did not deny it---they did not say that bush never said it.

i think the motives for re-releasing this story are obvious

your position, from what i can derive given the inconsistent expression you have given of it in this thread, is at once bush didnt say it and then so what if he did lots of people who are president mention god--although they do not use god as bush did (he speaks to me direct and tells me to do things)---obviously the second tack is indefensable--so now you are simply in dismissal mode ("he never said it") and its tedious correlate ("i have heard this before").

so which is it?

consistently you refuse to accept **any** information that might even *start* to cast this administration in a balanced (not to mention critical) light--yet you accuse those who oppose this administration of being in denial--how does that work?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Bodyhammer86

Well, I guess it isn't true after all:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/abb...563027485.html

__________________
Pantera, Shadows Fall, Fear Factory, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Dimmu Borgir, Watch Them Die, Motorhead, Beyond the Embrace, Himsa, Black Label Society, Machine Head, In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, Children of Bodom, Norther, Nightrage, At the Gates, God Forbid, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, All That Remains, Anthrax, Mudvayne, Arch Enemy, and Old Man's Child \m/