George W. Bush, Hero and Pro-India President

Groan.

And then there are the other 95% percent of us.

Bush approval ratings are 33% as of last week

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

Bush confidence ratings were 55% in India

http://pewresearch.org/world-opinion-map/

Fareed Zakaria on what Bush got right

http://www.newsweek.com/id/151731?tid=relatedcl

chandra... you do realize that 33 percent is ABYSMAL, right?

Quite agree with your post Chandra.

Chandra:

just a few observations:

* this is better under satire

* a...Attack Afghanistan and eliminate the Taliban ... aren't we jumping the gun a tad?

* b....kashmir violence down?

* d: the jury is out - many say the treaty is "restrictive" and constraining

***

And then his successes (drum roll)

* dollar woes
* housing woes
* mortgages and loans crisis
* loss of US goodwill and prestige
* millions of civilians affected, dead and dying all over
* abuse of human rights globally
*..and civil rights in the US


history should not judge him ... it should impeach him

And what about the domestic spying, phone/wire tapping, all the stuff hidden under executive privilege?

What about the entire WMDs in Iraq which someone is YET to find?

What about the almost complete rule of Taliban in the afgan-pak borders?

What about debacle with Russia going on currently?

And yet Bush has done a great thing for India, by removing it from nuclear pariah status. In doing so, he has legitimized India's right to self-defence against neighbors pointing nuclear weapons at it. I dunno what the Bush-haters think they're doing for India, but they seem to be suffering from delusions of grandeur.

These same worthies always make themselves scarce whenever India is attacked. They're never there to defend India, nor do they deem such an effort to be a worthy cause. They want to cash in on the rights and freedoms that India offers while constantly carping and whining about them, and making sure not to lift a finger to uphold the country they shelter under.

It's like a bank account, where somebody is constantly trying to selfishly withdraw money for themselves, but not caring enough to make any deposits. It's like someone who is constantly driving a car and inflicting wear and tear on it in the service of their own selfish needs, without caring enough to do the maintenance that the car needs. It's like someone eating and living gluttonously without caring to do any of the exercise and nutritional requirements that the body needs to stay healthy and functional. I don't mind if such parasitic types want to run their own lives down, but why take the rest of us with them?

India has some undeniable security needs, and these involve nuclear deterrence due the fact of nuclear threats against India. India also has energy demands to fulfill the needs of its people.
Bush has helped India to meet its needs, and I don't see any of his critics having done anything similar for India. Nuff said.

chandra, thanks for the laughs. Is this post filed under "humor"?

T

You might call it humour but 55% other Indians donot feel that way. I think if Pakistanis hate somebody, that guy must surely be doing some good. I will never forget Dec 31st 1999. The ISI and the Taliban regime colluded to hijack an Indian plane. That is never going to happen again. Thanks largely to George W.

The dollar woes- (what woes?)
Housing woes- You should ask the stupid banks that lended indsicriminately, not George Bush. In fact the Govt has gone out of its way to help the private sector
Millions of civilians affected- Positively - Afghanistan and Iraq, Negatively - Iraq for 3 years, not now anymore

Abuse of human rights globally - Tell me which UN SC member does not do this?

Chandra:

you chose to overlook what i did not state unequivocally

that i agree with (c)

***

in a tunnel-visioned analysis ... bush and india...there are no qualms

***

but bush (or any US administration's impact) has a much wider reach...hence my take in #7

Looking at the comments here on Bush, it appears that some Indians believe that Bush has been good for India - particularly in that it has helped India with some of its defense needs. And there is no gainsaying the importance of that.

And then there is everybody else on the planet....

I can't argue with the Indian assessment as it affects them. But, I fall into that "everybody else" category....

I'll make two observations on the whole phenomenon and leave it at that.

1. George Bush is nothing more than the head-waiter for the ibn-Saud kings who stole Arabia. If his policies have benefited India, it has not been by his intent. It has been a backdraft of his policy - which has been confused at best, but basically one that panders to his friends in big oil....

2. Those of you in India who think George Bush has been a good president might wish to join the "coalition of the willing" - willing, that is, to chip in money for some kind of memorial center for the man when he leaves office. Aside from his corporate buddies and his daddy, you are liable to find yourselves terribly alone in this coalition.

Ruvy

I agree with your assessment to some extent. India should participate in Bush's oil wars if we can get oil in the cheap. Oil takes up a large proportion of our imports.

It does not matter who the US president is, the Saudis will always be influential.

Chandra,

I was "going to leave it at that" but I should note that just a few days ago, Jordan, which had been subsidizing gas and oil prices to the tune of 75%, cancelled those subsidies. The locals are decidedly unhappy. So, India "getting oil on the cheap" may be more problematic than it appears on first blush.

Admittedly, the cancellation of subsidies was probably more an issue of Jordanian budgetary needs (could it reflect American pressure on Jordan not to get too close to Russia?) than of oil prices per se.

Finally you say It does not matter who the US president is, the Saudis will always be influential.

This assumes that nobody has the cojones to militarily overthrow the Saud thugocracy. A bear has been making loud noises lately, and it could benefit from the removal of the Wahhabi thugocracy in Riyadh.

As we've seen in Gruzia recently, American alliances are mere reeds that fall at the least pressure.

To the EDITORS of Desicritic:

how on earth does this dribble qualify for publication on this site?

[Personal attack edited]

People with defective vision(eye sight) went on a venture to figure out what an elephant would be like. More defective the vision more confused the answer. A totally blind person can come up with almost anything. May be he managed to get a ride on it and was very happy about it. But that will not make his description of the elephant right.

Chandra,

Another US President had low approval ratings during a time of war. And he too was accused of overstepping his executive powers...Abraham Lincoln.

It seems you've upset the applecart with some inconvenient facts.

Ciao, Guido

Please, Guido,

I was once a member of the party of Lincoln. In the the north Bronx, the club I was a member of 35 years ago, they were a decent bunch. Good hard working Irishmen and Italians (the Jews were mostly Democrats). Don't stain that decent bunch of folks with fools like George W. Bush.

From an Indian perspective, Bush has been alright as a president. But when you consider the following in the Washington Post, you get a good idea why. From the article:

As the housing crisis deepened this year and losses mounted at Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac], investors began to lose faith that the companies' debts would be safe. Across the government and financial world, there was a consensus that their failure could bring the economy and financial system to its knees. In July, Paulson asked for -- and got -- authority from Congress to infuse government money in the firms if he deemed it necessary.

In the ensuing weeks, as Treasury officials, along with investment bankers they hired from Morgan Stanley and officials from other agencies, looked into the details of the companies' financial position, they didn't like what they saw.

Sources familiar with the situation said the officials accepted phone calls from stakeholders who wanted to share financial analysis, offer ideas and discuss the possible ramifications of potential solutions.

Treasury officials also have held informal conversations with leading buyers of Fannie and Freddie debt -- including the central banks of China, South Korea, India and Taiwan -- to reassure them that the mortgage companies remained viable and would receive U.S. government support. As recently as two weeks ago, according to a source close to the talks with China's central bank, Treasury officials told leaders of that central bank that a cash infusion in the companies was in the works.

chandra:

the costs (and perils) of the neoconzix tilt:

The government struck with immaculate timing just as misgivings were beginning to be voiced in India that Delhi paid a high price to get the NSG waiver.

An explicit Indian commitment not to resort to nuclear weapon-testing ever again formed the "basis" of the NSG waiver. Indeed, on Friday morning, quite out of the blue, Mukherjee made a formal statement in Delhi ostensibly regarding India's commitment to disarmament. The statement contained an innocuous reference to India's commitment to observe a moratorium on nuclear testing. At first glance, it seemed Mukherjee was only restating India's stance. But as it turned out, the resonance was directed towards Vienna and the NSG waiver was forthcoming on its "basis".

Clearly, the NSG waiver was neither "clean" nor "unconditional" as Delhi claimed but instead signified yet another surrender of national sovereignty. The waiver has converted India's voluntary moratorium on testing into a multilateral commitment. Effectively, India has now agreed that any fuel supply agreement for its imported reactors will be subject to regular NSG review, while restrictions remain on India gaining access to uranium enrichment and reprocessing technologies and India's nuclear facilities come under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] in perpetuity.

In other words, India has been virtually brought within the ambit of the CTBT and NPT. India has given an open-ended commitment to abide by all NSG guidelines, including any future changes that the body may make in its guidelines, while India cannot participate in the NSG decision-making as such. In overall terms, India's nuclear program will be brought under US monitoring and control - M K Bhadrakumar

T

I have written here before about the potential problems of the Nuclear deal and it appears you agree with some of them. However, this post looks at the same deal from a perspective of progression/movement. In that sense, we have moved forward significantly. You could argue that the Americans need us and this is not altruism. I will not disagree with that assessment. The bottmline is that there is movement forward and a lot of it due to the current President.

MK Bhadrakumar writes in Atimes and is an aggressive advocate of Indo-China cooperation. However, the conduct of the chinese in vienna was shameful. To put spanners on the deal and now pretend that they did nothing wrong was shameful. It was only after George W called the chinese that they stopped fooling around. Bhadrakumar should realise that while improving our relationship with China is critical,let us not be delusional.

I am not worried about the CTBT because we will test if we have to. We have done that before and 10 years down the line if you have $ 100 B of foreign money stuck in power plants here, nobody is going to dare imposing sanctions.

Ruvy

As compared to most countries we hold very little American Govt Debt. We donot have the kind of reserves that Asian/Arab countries and Russia have

I doubt 40% of Indians (extreme poor-poor) HAVE an opinion about Bush (I am being liberal here with 40% could be more!). Of the 60% left, I doubt half of them CARE whether Bush was a good president or not- they are busy just reaching upward, social mobility. That leaves us with Less than 30% of the Indian population who may actually have an opinion worth stating about Bush. To say that 55% of Indians approve him is stretching it- just that bit!LOL!

Stanza 4 from the rap song "Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta" by the U.S. based group "Geto Boys" aptly describes what some Americans and non-Americans feel about G.W.B. Jr.. This song was released in 1990 when his daddy G.W.B. Sr. was in the White House. Check it out: :-)

"And now, a word from the president!

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta,
Gettin' voted into the white house;
Everythin' lookin' good to the people of the world,
But the mafia family is my boss;

So every now and then I owe a favor gettin' down,
Like lettin' a big drug shipment through;
And send 'em to the poor community,
So we can bust you know who;

So voters of the world keep supportin' me,
And I promise to take you very far;
Other leaders better not upset me,
Or I'll send a million troops to die at war!

To all you republicans, that helped me win,
I sincerely like to thank you;
'Cuz now I got the world swingin' from my nuts,
And damn it feels good to be a gangsta!!"

Love and peace to all,
Ayan

# 23

Come on, I quoted a Pew study. You have quoted nothing. We will ignore your non-facts for now

#24

Is that the best you could come up with?

I am just curious - with all the military power that he has, and with all the 'righteousness' and 'justice' that he values so much, why doesn't the great saviour of the world Saint George Bush attack Zimbabwe, Sudan and Myanmar and try to "wipe out evil" and "stablize" the countries and "liberate" the people from the clutches of its evil dictators and warlords??

The US will not attack any of these countries because it is of no use. They donot have resources and are generally not a nuisance to other countries, unlike Iraq (Oil) and Afghanistan (Terrorists).

Bush did invade Africa:

"Governing Justly and Democratically ($220.3 million): To enhance stability and increase the capacity of governments to govern justly, the United States will provide support to African nations to strengthen democratic institutions, professionalize security forces, and promote key reforms."

"Investing in People ($4.1 billion): Africa is the primary focus of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which will continue to provide significant funding to African countries experiencing the most serious effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic."

"Economic Growth ($519.1 million): Africa's economic growth and fiscal balance indicators demonstrate a gap between its present stage of development and that of the average for the Developing countries category."

"Humanitarian Assistance ($376.3 million): U.S. Government programs will both prevent and respond to humanitarian crises across the continent."

"U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier -- the only American military base on the African continent --spend much of their time vaccinating livestock, repairing schools and giving medical training."

"The 1,800 U.S. troops in Djibouti spend just a fraction of their time on military tasks, such as locating and removing land mines. They conduct civil affairs operations in seven East African countries -- seen as an antidote to extremism."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/10/us.africa.mission/index.html

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/

Ciao, Guido

Thanks Guido!

The more you investigate, the more you realise Bush is not bad at all.

Chandra,

You do have a wicked sense of satirical humour! Hats off and then some!!

india should learn a lesson from pakistans 'freindship' with USA. as they say...."america se dosti bhi buri aur dushmani bhi"

what india needs to realize is that we will never enjoy the closeness with USA that the israelians enjoy. or even japan, egypt and UK.

we can only be their pawn in countering china's dominance or be the next 'base' for USA middle east 'crusades'.

india should realize that USA supporting our new 'elite' nuclear status means little in practice because status or no status....the israelians already has more nuclear weapons than north-korea, india and pakistan combined (ie the states who dont have the status). does israel needs that drama of vienna? no.

only on the pressure of USA we turned down the IPI gas pipeline and also opposed irans developing nuclear technology. and in return we get this elite nuclear status which dont mean shit in practice.

hey, since desh wants modi to be the next pm of india, and chandra presumably wants bush, how about both sharing the position?

hey, since desh wants modi to be the next pm of india, and chandra presumably wants bush, how about both sharing the position?

and CS as the official court jester :-)

Chandra,

That would be a terrific combination! Especially if Dick Cheney can be roped in too...with his permanent smirk, everybody could be fooled into believing that he's enjoying my foolish antics!

Chandra,

come to think of it, cheney's smirk would be deliciously ambiguous. nobody would be able to figure out whether he is smiling or thinking of how exactly to blow my head off while quail hunting. a dream situation for a court jester!

Chandra

"I am not worried about the CTBT because we will test if we have to. We have done that before and 10 years down the line if you have $ 100 B of foreign money stuck in power plants here, nobody is going to dare imposing sanctions."

India could test whenever it needed to because India was not part of CTBT regime, and cost of doing thumbing the nose of CTBT was not that prohibitive both politically and economically. But that was before India's unilateral surrender to CTBT regime.

But now, having signed on a dotted line like a defeated nation for a bowl of rice, the cost of Nuclear testing would be prohibitive both economically and politically, that India risks becoming an international pariah state, inviting military and economic disasters. The international sanctions in the era of global economic interdependence could be so devastating for Indian economy - that India has to be on suicide mission to even dare think about nuclear testing. The treaty raises the bar so high for India to do any kind of testing.

Yes. India can test, just as a criminal can commit murder - it is just that they have to face the punishment so severe it is no longer in their own interests to do so.

This treaty reminds me of our princely states who mortgaged their future thru one-sided treaties for short-term gains of dubious nature. They do not know what future holds, but they sure want to foreclose all their options to deal with it, now, today, they can't wait. I think Sonia is acting like an enemy foreign agent, hell bent on liquidating all political and economic bargaining positions of India for peanuts.