Former US President George W. Bush answers questions at a Michigan event.
For the first time since leaving office in January, former US President George W. Bush has addressed the ongoing debate over Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), noting that they saved American lives.
“I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you,” Bush told a crowd of nearly 2,500 members the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan. “The first thing you do is ask, what’s legal? What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, ‘I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.’”
“I can tell you that the information we got saved lives.”
The former President also took steps to not engage in the heated tones of the current debate sparked after Barack Obama released confidential memos on EITs. “Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor,” Bush said. “There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it firsthand. I didn’t like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best.”
“I know there are news people here, and they love conflict,” Bush said.
After his opening comments, Bush engaged in an hour-long question-and-answer session with the audience, where he addressed increasing tensions over North Korea (“A lot of times people want to give out the carrots. My attitude is, you give out the carrots when the behavior changes.”), the economy (Bush remains “a free market guy”) and whether Barack Obama is a socialist (“I think the verdict is out. I think people are waiting to see what all this means.”)
Former president Bush recieved a standing ovation when asked what he wants the legacy of his presidency to be.
“Well, I hope it is this: The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to compromise his soul for the sake of popularity,” he said.
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To those who are short on memory especially the Democrats (demorats) regarding the enemy, below is a grim reminder.
Also notice where and who admitted to this barbaric act.
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. At the time of his kidnapping, Pearl served as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, and was based in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Al Qaeda and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He was subsequently beheaded by his captors.
In July 2002, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl's abduction and murder.
In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that he had personally beheaded Pearl.
GREAT blog, my friend! This is a phenomenal synposis!
under Bush, the US manufacturing sector was literally parted out to every crony and crook who payed for the priviledge, shipped across the globe, and the legitimate citizens of the nation thrown under a bus… a bus that they had to pay for..
not only is bush a failed disgrace as a conservative.. so is the media coverage of this garbage speech..
what Bush cant/wont understand, is that you can ACTUALLY MEASURE a policies desireablity by its RESULTS.. this nonsense of how our economy is going to really take off.. Bush can stick it in his rear exit..
that piece of human debris presided over deliberately dismantling the economy/ jobs/communites of millions of americans, while trying to simultaneously force through amnesty for those here illegally… Bush covered for the corrupt and illegal, made them whole after their schemes collapsed, and lauched a EIGHT YEAR LONG attack on middle class americans.. Osama Bin Laden was our enemy, but in actual RESULTS (once again Bush) he cant hold a candle to what BUSH did to working americans..
Get lost Bush, that is the kindest thing I can resort to suggesting for him.. for a man who never filled out a single job application in his life, we could expect only a disaster from this soft-handed, silver spoon traitor who speaks of ''freedom''.. freedom for WHO george?
Im not a torture/waterboarding fan, but frankly Im sick of hearing about it from a bunch of liberals without any priorities in order…
BUSH SINGLE HANDEDLY DESTROYED OUR ECONOMY,
parcelled it out to his global investor buddies,
gave away 30 % of our best paying manufacturing jobs through his ''free trade'',
and then threw open the doors of our treasury to his global crook buddies on his way out the door,…
and the best you can assail him for is… waterboarding????
Ideology+corrupt enron pals+lobbyists / result oriented logic = BUSH
As we moved farther away from 9/11, and the foreign criticism of WOT became more and more of an issue, I admit I was pushed towards the middle and then even began to explore the validity of the issues the Left posited.
But then this whole thing with Nancy Pelosi came out. Not only did Pelosi know from the beginning about what what was going on, but many other top-level Democrats did, too – Jane Harmon, Rockerfeller, etc, etc, etc. Not only did the Democrats know, they kept silent until it was politically advantageous for them to use “torture” as an issue to win back the Congress and then the presdiency.
The Democrat establishment does not care about what happened to the people who underwent EITs, nor do they care about how their politicking made America look in the eyes of the world, nor how that image affected the men and women working in the field to keep America safe – and they certainly didn’t care about how their BS affected American citizens living abroad who had to go through endless bullshit from cheese-eating European socialists who simply didn’t like Americans because a Republican was in office. All the Democrats cared about was winning back poltical power by any means necessary.
Meanwhile, EITs DID save lives. How do I know? Because Obama suddenly will not release those memos proving that they did – he only released the memos that made Bush and Cheney look bad.
Old George is just trying to save his sorry ass. He knows that we executed the Japanese for water-boarding US and British soldiers in WW2. He deserves the same brand of good old American justice. Hang him high!
Well NewsGuy, thank God we did not lose you to the left…
And let me tell you something – there are quite a few Brits reasonably fed-up with socialist Europeans.
@ Tom:
At least the man has backbone and doesn’t bow down to the heathens.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Sir Winston Churchill
@ Johann: VOTE BNP!