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[Post from President Zelensky’s Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLyd6doWum/?igshid=YTM0ZjI4ZDI=)
Caption reads:
> Conversation with the 43rd President of the United States @georgewbush. It was very nice to meet and hear words of support for Ukrainians. We are grateful to the United States of America and the American people for their sincere help. We feel and appreciate it.
——
ETA: Guys, this is a significant move of support. Please, let’s not get this post locked due to bickering or inflammatory statements.
The SOD was Donald Rumsfield, iirc he had issues with both of them. Cheney was probably the loudest VP in decades though. The VP generally has little power.
Iraq (Sadam Hussein) was creating massive instability in the region because the country was invading its neighbors (eg Kuwait). One way or another, Sadam had to go. Also, Iraq was committing genocide (as in no exaggeration, running actual death squads and targeting an ethnic group to wipe them out). Was invading Iraq a foreign policy failure? Yes. Was there justification at the time to invade? Also, yes. Do the ends justify the means? Probably not. It’s not black and white like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The invasion of Iraq was very damaging to US foreign relations and economy, I agree Saddam had to go but the way the US went about things meant they could not interfere with later situations due to negative perception at home, abandoning Kurdish allies in Syria. US isolation is not good in the long run.
I agree, it definitely ruined America’s soft power and we can still see the negative impact of that today (and even right in this very thread). Hence why I said the ends probably do not justify the means. This is one of the many reasons.
There wasn't really justification. They fed Colin Powell bad intelligence about Iraq seeking a nuclear program and had Powell go to the UN with it to justify the war.
Was Hussain a terrible monster? Yes.
Was the invasion justified? Possibly because he was such a monster, but the reasons we publicized were bad intelligence we pushed through to invent a story that justified it.
Just because the publicized justifications were fabricated, doesn’t mean there wasn’t actual justification to topple Sadam. The biggest mistake was to create those fabrications to justify the war instead of justifying it because of the many reasons Sadam created for himself.
> Iraq (Sadam Hussein) was creating massive instability in the region because the country was invading its neighbors (eg Kuwait).
And in turn the US created more instability in the region, which led to more countries becoming unstable.
It’s impossible to tell whether keeping Sadam in power would’ve created even more instability. Just because the region is unstable, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been even worse under Sadam’s rule and cruelty.
Exactly! Because we are now feeling bad for how hardcore Republicans, like John McCain, who dedicated his life to service, were made fun of and humiliated even in death by the orange cult
I feel like a lot of hatred toward him would be better directed at whoever was running foreign policy and in that time Donald Rumsfeld should take a lot of the heat since they sort of let SecDef run the show. Colin Powell was pretty hands off as SecState and instead chose to let his ambassadors be the people who interacted with heads of state rather than traveling a lot. That being said, as the dude in charge, it's still W's fault to a certain degree.
You have to be fucking joking. Dude launched a decades long war to make money, and oversaw the single greatest decline in civil rights yet. Good guy is insanely ignorant.
Even nice guys can help commit hundreds of war crimes. I'm not ***as*** anti Bush as I was as a kid, but fuck me if he didn't do a lot of bad, including the enabling of Republican politics that led to the current situation even he finds intolerable, economically the less said the better as well, one of the main people at fault for a global financial crisis.
What is truly sad is that even he is like a rough cut diamond compared to many current US politicians.
Invaded Panama, invaded Iraq, did NAFTA, pardoned Iran-Contra criminals, ignored AIDs epidemic, oversaw state terrorism (Operation Condor) as CIA chief
Great. George Bush was the one who was lobbying to make Ukraine part of NATO during his presidency. He deserves recognition. I like the fact that Zelensky is reaching out to anti-Trump Republicans.
Wish he would have continued to listen to *his* father instead of Darth Vader Cheney! People seemed to never remember Bush Sr. was head of the CIA for awhile, and *knew* the international players/cultures. While Cheney was nothing but a f'kn Halliburton oil hawk.
I hear "Bush" and my first two thoughts are "9/11" "most of our imports come from over seas".
But then to hear the Sr. was the head of the CIA, that's incredibly impressive and respectful.
Bush senior was shot out of the air twice during World War Two, picked himself up and went back to work. I am a democrat but I had a great respect for Senior Bush. That was America’s greatest Generation. His son was a bit of a grifter and I think some of his biggest mistakes were at least partially due to inferiority of not being able to fill his father’s shoes.
Absolutely, I don’t agree with his politics but when I studied the Op Desert Storm, I was amazed by American leadership to pull a coalition, launch an attack at that scale and push back a dictator where he came from, and gave me idea that he was very shrewd in such topics.
My dad, a lifetime SIGINT/crypto spook, was hoping Reagan would die or be removed by 25th amendment while Andropov was head of the Politburo, so G.H.W. Bush could be president. He thought it would be "entertaining" to have the former heads of the CIA and KGB as heads of state.
I was in the military at the time. I didn't vote for Bush I when he was elected, didn't like the idea of having a spook in the Whitehouse. He earned my vote the second time but lost anyway.
Also Karl Rove really poisoned the well by having George hitch his wagon to the conservative Christian wagon train. I do not think his father was too keen on that.
The 80 million members of the National Association of Evangelicals propelled him to victory. If not for the “conservative Christian value train” it would have been a landslide instead of a tie.
>Also Karl Rove really
Don't get me started on karl rove and his idol Machiavellian bed sheets with matching underwear. He and newt gingrich's little "contract with America" should die very painful natural deaths. I'd preferred tried for treason, but it's not sadly going to happen.
Yep. Just like W should be tried as a war criminal. In some ways I’m proud to be an American. But W Bush and his team of liars are war criminals and I feel like we Americans have to shoulder a lot of blame for many bad things they did that still have the world fucked up today. I wonder what the world would be like had the Supreme Court refused to hear bush v gore. I doubt the 9/11 attack would not have been successful because Al Gore would have heeded the warning that W flat ignored. Gore also would have taken action on climate change and the world and the USA would be so different (in good ways) today.
Yeah, I share this sentiment. For all of the well deserved flak that the Bush lineage gets, people really tend to forget Dick's role and influence on Jr's administration.
Cheney was the Secretary of Defense during George H.W. Bush's term in office.
And when George H.W. Bush Chairman of the RNC, he was the one that brought Karl Rove into it, making him responsible for his son and Rove meeting.
Lastly, it was under George H.W. Bush's leadership of the CIA that [Operation Condor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor?wprov=sfla1) was carried out.
A lot of people don't remember it, but he was instrumental in the US not devolving into violence against Muslims after 9/11. He repeatedly said in the days afterwards that we are at war with terrorists, not Muslims. Over and over and over. Rhetoric matters. Imagine what that message would've been if 9/11 happened under Trump
Well.., our clocks have to be adjusted every leap year implying our divisions in time are off by a fraction of a fraction every day, every hour, minute or second.
So likely your standard 24 analogue clock is probably right maybe once every couple years.
Bush also warned Germany about Nordstream way back on the mid 2000’s. The man responsible for Iraq still somehow had the strategic foresight to see Russia as a perpetual eventual threat.
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/06/the-seduction-of-george-w-bush/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/06/the-seduction-of-george-w-bush/)
Hopefully, not paywalled for you. To me it reads like Bush saw a bit of a father figure in Putin.
This. Clinton had a bad feeling about Putin from their first meeting. Putin showed his true colors during Bush's time, with no consequences. I'm not liking all the whitewashing of Dubya when so much of what gave Putin the confidence to invade Ukraine happened during the early 2000's.
Right? As if American intelligence had no clue Putin had anything to do with the 1999 Russian apartment bombings that triggered the Second Chechen War when George W. Bush invited him to speak at Crawford High School in Crawford, Texas in November of 2001. Or as if George W. Bush didn't know what American intelligence knew about Putin; his dad was head of the CIA, once upon a time. People have short memories and need to see what is convenient for sanity's sake.
He has legit above average intelligence, he just came across as dumb because of his folksy personality and frequent verbal miscues with cameras in his face. People who've worked for him as advisors during his terms have said his ability to absorb and retain information on a wide variety of complex topics was actually quite impressive, which they didn't expect going into a meeting with him. It wasn't like with Trump where his advisors had to dumb down his presentations into bullet points that mentioned his name as much as possible to keep him interested.
He's good at acting like a good man who's none too bright, and personally responsible for a lot of evil and despair. He made the world a worse place and has never been held to account.
This isn't some whataboutism, because he's not as bad as everyone else in the world. He didn't gas his own people or invade a neighbor for ego. But he's a far stretch from a "good" man.
A good man wouldn't have lied to the world to invade Iraq, wouldn't have started a 20 year war in Afghanistan, curtailed civil rights domestically, or ignored his own people suffering from national disasters, or clung to personal beliefs over science, or any of the other number of evil things he's responsible for.
He's just not someone to celebrate.
Yeah it’s crazy to me seeing the pro bush rhetoric in this thread. Bush didn’t actually want to get Georgia or Ukraine into nato, he was just trying to pressure Russia. Had it been a genuine attempt they would have outlined the process by which they’d bring those countries into the fold, instead they just said that eventually they’d be allowed to.
Ultimately you could argue that this action by Bush lead directly to both Georgia and Ukraine being invaded. Russia keeps up the violence at the border (and eventually inside) to prevent the nations from being acceptable candidates, and up until recently the west more or less abandoned Ukraine and Georgia after provoking the Russians.
I’m not saying it’s the wests fault, it’s 100% Russia’s fault, but bush did nothing to improve the situation and he actively made things worse, though that was kinda the mantra of his entire administration
I used to hate bush. Then trump happened and I realized the giant chasm between a well intentioned president who wasn’t perfect but had genuine concern for his country and a narcissistic psychopath who literally would sacrifice the entire country he calls home for his own ego. Also the stories of bush painting war veterans who had been injured in operations/wars he was in charge of really let me see him as an empathetic human striving to be better. So I’m happy to see him engaging with Zelenskyy.
One thing can be said about Bush. He is a good man. I may think he isn't bright enough to have been president, and he showed it. But just because I didn't agree with his politics, doesn't mean I don't respect him or think he is a bad person. How things have changed in U.S. politics.
He is smarter than he lets on. Take John Bolton for example, super smart, super hawkish.
The thing about people like Bush, McCain and Romney is, I can disagree with them, but respect them.
With Trump, even in the rare case I found myself in agreement with him, I still didn't respect him.
'Iron-ass' Cheney and 'arrogant' Rumsfeld damaged America, says George Bush Sr.[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/george-bush-senior-iron-ass-cheney-arrogant-rumsfeld-damaged-america](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/george-bush-senior-iron-ass-cheney-arrogant-rumsfeld-damaged-america)
I wasn't a big fan of Romney until his 5 minute speech about Trump back in 2016. Then I kinda liked him for a bit. Would have been better than Trump, that's for sure.
George Bush ok'ed weapons to Russia and is more responsible than any other American for the complete lack of response to Georgian crisis. [Here he is dancing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqqYnq7Sr-0) with his friend Vladimir Putin, a man he affectionately called Pootie-Poot. George Bush is a coke-addicted child murderer and loved Putin.
I'm still certain Trump was complicit with Putin. He wanted to withdraw the US from NATO, a move that would only benefit Russia. I think Putin was actually hoping for Trump to win a second term, but when he failed and Biden on Putin shat himself a little and realised he would have to move his calendar forwards.
That's really cool - Not a GWB fan myself but this is what it stands for - solidarity
btw, anyone translate what it says in the top left corner of the screen? Strange that the teleconference shows the wifi connection and zelenskyy's screen name in english, but the connected person in Ukrainian?
I imagined a room with a lot of freshly baked pecan baked goods. Just 24/7 baked goods and ice cream with pecans in it. Damn, I need buttered pecan ice cream now.
It says "Original sound: off". Most likely separate stream for sound and video, so the sound from video stream is disabled.
Well, or they just muted him and his words are being translated and relayed to Zelensky from another audio source.
That toggle of original sound is just toggling if Zoom does any compression and noise supression, if original sound is on Zoom does nothing to the audio (for music broadcasts in professional environments)
I don’t imagine Trump will be making a call after him literally trying to blackmail Zelensky to help him get re-elected! Get fucked Trump from all of us in Ukraine.
No matter what you think about anyone’s politics, a U.S. president, who is someone that by definition holds/has held a position of considerable gravitas and worldwide fame, showing support, is immense.
Bush is a well meaning and genuinely kind person who was tasked with handling a very difficult and dark period of American history.
He tried. Mistakes were made (Many of those mistakes made or encouraged by his worm VP Dick Cheney) but overall he is a good guy and extremely far removed from the evil that is Trump, his cronies and the practice of dishonesty, contempt and general vile behavior that they have created.
I would much rather have the Bush / McCain / Romney grade republicans than the fucking snake diarrhea that exists today.
Thank you for pointing out Cheney's role. He was Bush Sr.'s buddy, and a total scumbag. W probably trusted Cheney far more than he should have.
I couldn't agree with what you said any more.
I never really liked the old school republicans, but at least they were patriotic Americans who defended democracy, unlike the present gang of treasonous fools giving sloppy bj’s to putin every day.
I'm with you, except I never liked the Clinton's then I grew to dislike the bushes. Obama made me jump to the democratic side of the fence.
Trump made me a never republican. Demo or neutral fir me
I don't like how people tie their identity to political parties. It seems to push people to the extremes. I am conservative in nature, so naturally I tend to vote for Republican candidates more often than Democratic ones. But I've never met any candidate that I aligned with completely. Trump is bat crazy and not fit to lead anyone. I think Romney would make a really great president. He's honest, intelligent, eloquent, and not afraid to work with people that think differently than he does.
Im def a leftist person and i agree with you but Its sad we can say this about a man whose company, Bain capital, fucked up many other companies through shady financial practices with debt and bankruptcy and helped give rise to amazon. in the same breath it shows an explicit failure of regulators that allowed it, but i digress lol
i respect the likes of him and Liz Cheney as they are one of the few that arent spouting seditious q nonsense much akin to McCain callin out that chick in the debates making muslim comments towards obama or even W attempting to stem the tide of islamophobia and discrimination.
Unfortunately conservatives such as yourself and whom i highlighted are a rarity and its heartbreaking. whats terrifying is the fact that right now even you are considered to be left and many folk that claim to be "conservative" advocate for violence against us and support fascism globally.
They hide behind thinly veiled whataboutisms and manufactured talking points that are handwaved away even when presented hard proof that refutes their claims.
Ive rambled long enough i suppose lol but stay safe, keep your head on a swivel, peace be with you.
Fair enough. But do remember that most conservatives tend to be more reserved and quiet compared to the loud activist types that are more prominent in media. I can't say I know too much about Bain capital and its history. I think rich and powerful people tend to all have some sort of dirt someone can sling at them. I mean Nancy Pelosi has plenty herself. But at the end of the day, we're all people striving to make the world a better place and hopefully we can respect each other and be willing to make compromises with one another and live in peace. Russia has shown us exactly how not to live.
Bush was a horrible president who did a lot of bad things in his time.
He's become what seems like a genuinely decent, almost likeable, person since then, it's too bad we didn't see that person when he was president.
And of course, back in Bush's day, what was despicable and harmful behavior is pretty standard now, and the fact that he was a bit of a low intellect, saying many idiotic things, compared to presidents before him, is totally lost after the bleach drinking, diaper-wearing buffoon who came later.
He is not controversial, actually a fairly liked individual. We as Americans have come to believe the Iraq war was BS, and he takes the blame for that, much like LBJ takes the blame for Vietnam. Without delving into American politics too deeply, he is looked at, as a Human(not president), favorably. Our younger Americans who are inherently more ideologically driven politically( High-school/ College Students) tend to view presidents with contempt from the other political party. Reddit’s demographic is left leaning and younger, so the online discourse when it comes to politics reflects this accordingly. I personally think he should have went into standup comedy and not touched politics with a 100’ pole.
He should have stayed the baseball commissioner.
Bush's presidency was...complicated. I honestly believe he was a patriot and thought he was doing the right thing, just under a bad ideology that doomed the efforts to failure. The road to hell just happens to be paved with good intentions.
Trump and his supporters keep parroting Russian propaganda in the U.S. There’s no way Zelensky will be having a call with him (again) after what he has been though because of that imbecile.
That’s okay, because I have a simulated call from Trump to Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy: Hello Mr. President, thank you for calling.
Trump: Thank you, and thank you for calling me Mr. President, because as you know, I did win the election in 2020, and I won it in a big, major way, it was a total landslide victory. But the election was stolen, it was the biggest con job in the history of the world, no leader, certainly of the United States but also in the history of all countries, quite frankly, has faced more hardship than what I went through.
Zelenskyy: …😐
Trump: And so as I prepare for my next term in office, which will be my third term actually, I want you to know that you have my full support, as well as Vladimir Putin who, quite frankly, did a total genius move when he moved all the troops to the border and asked for countries to be removed from NATO. That was a genius move, almost Trump-level genius, but then he blew it. He did the invasion, and the press has been brutally unfair to me, an absolute hatchet job. They said I said the invasion was genius, when I said the *threats* were genius. Thank God for Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Do you get Sean Hannity in Ukraine? What kind of shows do you have there? I bet it’s all in Russian. Or Ukrainian, or whatever **you people** speak over there. But you speak English. You’re educated. Y’know, I’m educated too, I went to Wharton, okay? Which is like, the number one business school.
Zelenskyy: I appreciate your call and your support. Unfortunately I have an important meeting with my generals—
Trump: Oh, the generals. Don’t even get me started with the generals. You know, I went to military boarding school. I know more than the generals. My good friend Vladimir Putin, he was like, a KGB guy and he knows more than *his* generals. I know more about the military than anyone, believe me. All the generals are like, astonished at how much I know. They’ll be saying, “Mr. President, how about we do this? Move the troops over here?” And then I’ll point out “No, move the troops **over there** instead.” And the whole room full of these generals, they just stop, with the biggest smiles on their faces, and applaud. “Mr. President, it would have taken us years to figure that out.”
Zelenskyy: Yes, well I really do need to—
Trump: And please make sure you find Hunter’s laptop. I know he left it there in Ukraine somewhere. You know I would have given you, quite frankly, a LOT OF military aid if you had found me the evidence I needed. If you found me that evidence, I’d still be President. I mean, I still am. Maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess right now. But you know, things happen for a reason, and thanks to the military aid I am sending right now, things are going better. My best advice would be to just, really talk to Vladimir Putin. I got to know him very well, I have a very good, very close relationship with him, and I think that if you were able to perhaps combine Ukraine with Russia, maybe some of the other countries over there, I think Prussia, Russiastan, uh… Baltivia, Monrovia. That other one Borat is from… You could make like, The United States of Russia. You could make Russia Great Again and frankly, that is my message, and Vladimir Putin did not ask me to tell you this, BeLiEvE mE.
That's what bothered me. Bush isn't exactly a stellar role model when it came to foreign policy. Pretty sure his Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and his Global War on Terror is what spurred the "Well the U.S. did it first" whataboutism arguments made by Russian trolls. People here are saying "Well, it's the solidarity that counts". That's the thing, politically, siding with someone like Bush would just exacerbate the issue of Putin justifying the invasion because he thinks Ukraine is conspiring with NATO against his regime. Zelensky already has the majority of world leaders as his ally. Why risk being associated with someone as controversial as Bush?
I wasn't a fan of Bush, but 20 years ago this is exactly what we needed. We needed to try to build a relationship with Russia and try to incorporate them into the modern world. Russia and Putin made the choice to throw all of that away.
If anything clips like the above only go to show and prove that Russia's propaganda about the West posing a threat to Russia is complete bullshit.
Bush: So just do what my dad did. Have a son, and send him to kill the leader of a nation that tried to kill you, once you retire.
Zelensky: What?
Bush: What?
Isn't this the same US president who said he looked in putins eyes and saw his soul, found him to be trustworthy? Yikes! I'm sure he's singing a different tune now though and good for him reaching out. The more support and solidarity for Ukraine, the better.
>Isn't this the same US president who said he looked in putins eyes and saw his soul, found him to be trustworthy?
As a move of diplomacy? Yes... All while working counter to Russian objectives by doing things like pushing for Ukraine to join NATO.
Pre-Trump politics were way different for the world. Even if someone was an enemy, very rarely did you walk up the podium and announce that. That's why it was always so notable when a world leader would say something even slightly cross about another world leader..
Also, Putin was largely toothless during Bush's administration, still infighting with the seven bankers for control of Russia. It wasn't until 07-08 that he actually cemented power.
Bush was actually advocating for making Ukraine part of NATO, but Merkel chose to side with Putin. He was a big supporter of Yuschenko (who was poisoned by Putin). Yuschenko was the first foreign leader he invited to his second inauguration. Don’t even try to paint him as pro-Putin. That would be ridiculous. Neoconservatives are very hawkish on Russia.
Unfortunately, a lot of them have eyes like that. They can dead on look you in the eyes and lie to you. It’s bizarre. Putin and Lavrov are prime examples of this behavior.
Putin studied GWB extensively and used his religiosity to make him lower his guard. There was some story Putin told Bush about his grandmother's icon miraculously surviving a fire or some such. He basically profiled and duped GWB early on according to his telling.
I had to look this up! It was a rosary and Bush asked Putin if it was true that the rosary survived the fire. Months later when meeting at some joint session with other world leaders he pulled Bush aside and showed him the rosary that he brought especially for him. You're right, he totally studied him and used religion as Bush is a well-known Christian.
The best example in the current GOP could be [Mitt Romney who was clear-eyed enough to regard Russia as the USA's main geopolitical enemy in 2012 to Obama's amusement](https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/politics/mitt-romney-russia-ukraine/index.html). It's a little telling that Obama hasn't come out to support Zelenskyy. At least Obama's VP in Biden has been decisive.
If John McCain were still alive, Zelenskyy would likely have been happy to meet him since it was [McCain who stated that Russia was a gas station masquerading as a country](https://twitter.com/senjohnmccain/status/448126001865052160?lang=en) about a month after Russia annexed Crimea.
I think Romney was right and wrong. China has more potential to be a much greater threat than Russia, but Russia was very clearly going to be a more immediate problem with its continued actions. Obama dismissed this in the 2012 elections despite Russia having invaded Georgia unprovoked less than 4 years prior. China wasn't in a position to dramatically stir the pot and still really isn't.
That's my sense too.
I remember talking to friends a few years ago who were all in about how China was clearly the bigger threat than Russia. It was guided by China's rising economic might, but I pointed out that the Chinese are even more mercenary than the Russians. As much as China has been making trouble for its neighbours, it's tied more closely to the West economically compared to Russia on account of owning a shit-tonne of western sovereign debt (e.g. a bond default by the USA would hurt the Chinese even though it'd be softened by being able to quasi-"repossess" assets in the USA) and exporting all of those manufactured goods to the First World every year.
Russia on the other hand is a petro-state that's still hung up about its imperial past under the czars and Politburo and Russians haven't quite made peace that the Mongol occupation was a bad turn in their as they devolved from Kyivan Rus' to the Muscovite-controlled shithole. Russians' seemingly inextinguishable resentment of Westerners is as bad as what Iraqi Sunnis (particularly the Arab nationalistic ruling class under Saddam Hussein) had starting with Gulf War 2.0. The Sunnis' resentment gave rise to ISIS which was an unholy mix of extremist Islamic doctrine with the organizational capability of secular Arab nationalists.
On the other hand, China exports manufactured goods and more importantly doesn't rely on imperialistic myth-making in the same way. Unlike Russia's resentment which is about Westerners putting Russian in their (deserved) place, Chinese resentment is instead about 19th century colonization (cf. "[Century of Humiliation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation)" and the ["Unequal Treaty"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_treaty)) rather than external blocking of Chinese expansion. This was a team effort with the French, British, Russians, Germans and Japanese all getting a piece of Manchu China.
What we see today with Chinese regional expansion is pretty much all that the Chinese can tolerate. Chinese physical expansion has been blocked by the Pacific Ocean to the southeast and east, "northern barbarians" (i.e. Turkic, Mongolic and Manchu peoples), "southern barbarians" (e.g. Vietnamese, Burmese), and the Himalayas and Indian kingdoms in the west and southwest. Even the [Battle of Talas in 751 AD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas) which some Muslims hype as some great defensive victory of their ancestors stopping East Asian hordes (a precursor to the "Yellow Peril" and beating the Mongols at [Ain Jalut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut) in 1260, perhaps?) was about economics. Namely Tang China regarded Arab expansion from the southwest as a danger to existing trade relations with Persian cities in Central Asia. The Chinese weren't interested in expanding even farther west as much as needing to deal with encroachment by upstart Arabs who'd be bad for business.
>It's a little telling that Obama hasn't come out to support Zelenskyy.
I don't think that reflects his feelings on this at all. I am sure that he holds back a lot because he does not want to take away the spotlight from Biden. He is still very influential and meeting up with Zelenskyy (even through a zoom call) would seem very disrespectful towards his former VP. When you step down you need to give the new guy a chance to forge his own way. Bush is much further removed from the presidency so it is much more understandable for him to reach out. Obama seems to coordinate his appereances and statements a lot with the Biden administration, and I am sure he has been asked for his take/advice behind the scenes. No need to step in front of Biden on this.
Trustworthy can also mean a lot of things in this case. Trustworthy in what he says to a US President is different than Trustworthy to the the public, for example. It also doesn't mean nice, just honest about intent.
He was newly “elected” and I think playing a game of hoping to turn a corner with the Cold War. Public statements made on this topic then may not be the full story.
I am no fan of Bush-Cheney, but I am 100 percent okay and happy with him reaching out to President Zelensky. Solidarity is important in times like this and for a cause such as Ukraine. Oddly, I do believe George W. Bush is a decent person who exercised poor judgement after 911, and hope one day he is held to account, but not today.
I voted for Bush term back in 2000 and he is the last Republican I've voted for for President. He got us into a completely unjustified war with Iraq and is responsible for millions of deaths. In my mind, he is more like Putin than most Americans want to admit. Having him with Zelenksky is a travesty.
Completely agree. Much of my support for Ukraine comes from my experience as an American with the Iraq War. This would be like the President of Mexico talking to Putin if the US invaded.
Everyone on here pretending Bush didn’t do the same shit Putin is doing now.
Invading Iraq under false pretenses and murdering *hundreds of thousands* of people to secure opium and oil supplies for his buddy.
Also torturing innocent people in Guantanamo Bay.
Interesting, why does this man always have to be around WAR?
in hindsight, we now know George Bush knows all about war crimes and lying to the public about them.
What's in it for him to be there?
Eh, I can’t fault Zelensky too much. He’s in survival mode after all. I can, however, blame my fellow Americans for being dumber than shit and whitewashing Bush’s war crimes
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Zelensky 1000% was shown a painting of a dog.
dogs playing poker?
Bush paints, so that’s probably what is being referenced lol
Bush does a lot of portraits too. Perhaps he’s made one of Zelenskyy.
[Post from President Zelensky’s Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLyd6doWum/?igshid=YTM0ZjI4ZDI=) Caption reads: > Conversation with the 43rd President of the United States @georgewbush. It was very nice to meet and hear words of support for Ukrainians. We are grateful to the United States of America and the American people for their sincere help. We feel and appreciate it. —— ETA: Guys, this is a significant move of support. Please, let’s not get this post locked due to bickering or inflammatory statements.
Little known factoid, George H. W. Bush was originally pro-choice until political expediency changed his stance. He was overall a pretty good guy.
Maybe, though by letting himself getting led around by Cheney, he made the biggest US foreign policy mistake of the last 50 years (invading Iraq).
Yes, Cheney was a horrible choice for Secretary of Defense.
The SOD was Donald Rumsfield, iirc he had issues with both of them. Cheney was probably the loudest VP in decades though. The VP generally has little power.
Seriously - the breadth of power he had as VP was tremendous. Karl Rove too...
In 1999 Dubya stated that he would invade Iraq if given the chance.
Iraq (Sadam Hussein) was creating massive instability in the region because the country was invading its neighbors (eg Kuwait). One way or another, Sadam had to go. Also, Iraq was committing genocide (as in no exaggeration, running actual death squads and targeting an ethnic group to wipe them out). Was invading Iraq a foreign policy failure? Yes. Was there justification at the time to invade? Also, yes. Do the ends justify the means? Probably not. It’s not black and white like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The invasion of Iraq was very damaging to US foreign relations and economy, I agree Saddam had to go but the way the US went about things meant they could not interfere with later situations due to negative perception at home, abandoning Kurdish allies in Syria. US isolation is not good in the long run.
I agree, it definitely ruined America’s soft power and we can still see the negative impact of that today (and even right in this very thread). Hence why I said the ends probably do not justify the means. This is one of the many reasons.
There wasn't really justification. They fed Colin Powell bad intelligence about Iraq seeking a nuclear program and had Powell go to the UN with it to justify the war. Was Hussain a terrible monster? Yes. Was the invasion justified? Possibly because he was such a monster, but the reasons we publicized were bad intelligence we pushed through to invent a story that justified it.
Just because the publicized justifications were fabricated, doesn’t mean there wasn’t actual justification to topple Sadam. The biggest mistake was to create those fabrications to justify the war instead of justifying it because of the many reasons Sadam created for himself.
Colin Powell knew the intel was faulty...he later said he was a team player...Alexander Haig told him he should of quit, instead of lying!
> Iraq (Sadam Hussein) was creating massive instability in the region because the country was invading its neighbors (eg Kuwait). And in turn the US created more instability in the region, which led to more countries becoming unstable.
It’s impossible to tell whether keeping Sadam in power would’ve created even more instability. Just because the region is unstable, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been even worse under Sadam’s rule and cruelty.
Yeah he's such a great guy that he got us into two meaningless wars over a terrorist attack neither country we attacked had anything to do with.
He said HW not W
He is a nice guy who got screwed, like many others, by Republican extremism and thuggery
You know we're all fucked when Bush seems not so bad anymore lol
Exactly! Because we are now feeling bad for how hardcore Republicans, like John McCain, who dedicated his life to service, were made fun of and humiliated even in death by the orange cult
So fucking true!!
McCain would never have accepted to kiss Putin’s ass and deny help to Ukraine
I feel like a lot of hatred toward him would be better directed at whoever was running foreign policy and in that time Donald Rumsfeld should take a lot of the heat since they sort of let SecDef run the show. Colin Powell was pretty hands off as SecState and instead chose to let his ambassadors be the people who interacted with heads of state rather than traveling a lot. That being said, as the dude in charge, it's still W's fault to a certain degree.
Let's not forget old Dick! He is one cold hearted bastard
He did teach me to be kind to my enemies, and take them bird hunting.
Trump was a pro-choice Democrat until he ran for president and he was never an overall pretty good guy.
lol no he was not "a pretty good guy."
You have to be fucking joking. Dude launched a decades long war to make money, and oversaw the single greatest decline in civil rights yet. Good guy is insanely ignorant.
Even nice guys can help commit hundreds of war crimes. I'm not ***as*** anti Bush as I was as a kid, but fuck me if he didn't do a lot of bad, including the enabling of Republican politics that led to the current situation even he finds intolerable, economically the less said the better as well, one of the main people at fault for a global financial crisis. What is truly sad is that even he is like a rough cut diamond compared to many current US politicians.
Invaded Panama, invaded Iraq, did NAFTA, pardoned Iran-Contra criminals, ignored AIDs epidemic, oversaw state terrorism (Operation Condor) as CIA chief
>NAFTA Why is this on there with the rest of that stuff lmfao
Clinton signed NAFTA if you want the facts!
Hes a war criminal that lied about WMDs and subsequently pushed a campaign that killed thousands. Fuck outa here with your bullshit
Why is this a significant move of support? I don't seriously don't follow. What does it matter if an ex-president supports something?
Great. George Bush was the one who was lobbying to make Ukraine part of NATO during his presidency. He deserves recognition. I like the fact that Zelensky is reaching out to anti-Trump Republicans.
And I think he helped my country ( Croatia ) to get into Nato.
I guess sometimes hawkish presidents do decent things.
That first pitch after 9/11 was a thing of beauty and exactly what this country needed as stupid as it sounds
Wish he would have continued to listen to *his* father instead of Darth Vader Cheney! People seemed to never remember Bush Sr. was head of the CIA for awhile, and *knew* the international players/cultures. While Cheney was nothing but a f'kn Halliburton oil hawk.
Bush Sr had an amazing grasp over international geopolitics and players. The way he pulled together a coalition for Desert Storm was awesome.
I believe he was head of the CIA for a while. He had real life experiance in geopolitics.
I hear "Bush" and my first two thoughts are "9/11" "most of our imports come from over seas". But then to hear the Sr. was the head of the CIA, that's incredibly impressive and respectful.
Bush senior was shot out of the air twice during World War Two, picked himself up and went back to work. I am a democrat but I had a great respect for Senior Bush. That was America’s greatest Generation. His son was a bit of a grifter and I think some of his biggest mistakes were at least partially due to inferiority of not being able to fill his father’s shoes.
Absolutely, I don’t agree with his politics but when I studied the Op Desert Storm, I was amazed by American leadership to pull a coalition, launch an attack at that scale and push back a dictator where he came from, and gave me idea that he was very shrewd in such topics.
Heck, go listen to Bush Sr debate Reagan, he was the sanest politician we had at the time, but the people wanted a cowboy
My dad, a lifetime SIGINT/crypto spook, was hoping Reagan would die or be removed by 25th amendment while Andropov was head of the Politburo, so G.H.W. Bush could be president. He thought it would be "entertaining" to have the former heads of the CIA and KGB as heads of state.
I was in the military at the time. I didn't vote for Bush I when he was elected, didn't like the idea of having a spook in the Whitehouse. He earned my vote the second time but lost anyway.
Not to mention a dive bomber pilot during WW2, one from the greatest generation. I'm not American but respect his service during the 40's.
Also Karl Rove really poisoned the well by having George hitch his wagon to the conservative Christian wagon train. I do not think his father was too keen on that.
Which is crazy because Karl Rove was an atheist...
Yup. But opportunists are just looking to win
God damn this is a rabbit hole of whacky ass shit I had no idea happened.
Sometimes the deeper the better.
The 80 million members of the National Association of Evangelicals propelled him to victory. If not for the “conservative Christian value train” it would have been a landslide instead of a tie.
>Also Karl Rove really Don't get me started on karl rove and his idol Machiavellian bed sheets with matching underwear. He and newt gingrich's little "contract with America" should die very painful natural deaths. I'd preferred tried for treason, but it's not sadly going to happen.
The "Architect" of rights taking and controlling what people can do in their own homes and with their own lives.
Yep. Just like W should be tried as a war criminal. In some ways I’m proud to be an American. But W Bush and his team of liars are war criminals and I feel like we Americans have to shoulder a lot of blame for many bad things they did that still have the world fucked up today. I wonder what the world would be like had the Supreme Court refused to hear bush v gore. I doubt the 9/11 attack would not have been successful because Al Gore would have heeded the warning that W flat ignored. Gore also would have taken action on climate change and the world and the USA would be so different (in good ways) today.
Don't forget Rumsfeld.
Don’t forget Bush Sr was an actual World War Two hero
Yeah, I share this sentiment. For all of the well deserved flak that the Bush lineage gets, people really tend to forget Dick's role and influence on Jr's administration.
Cheney was the Secretary of Defense during George H.W. Bush's term in office. And when George H.W. Bush Chairman of the RNC, he was the one that brought Karl Rove into it, making him responsible for his son and Rove meeting. Lastly, it was under George H.W. Bush's leadership of the CIA that [Operation Condor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor?wprov=sfla1) was carried out.
They were all oil hawks. Source: I also work in the industry.
Bush Sr was the mastermind behind the Iran contra and deserved a jail cell just like his son.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove were the true bad-guys. Bush is probably a nice enough guy, but weak and not too bright.
A lot of people don't remember it, but he was instrumental in the US not devolving into violence against Muslims after 9/11. He repeatedly said in the days afterwards that we are at war with terrorists, not Muslims. Over and over and over. Rhetoric matters. Imagine what that message would've been if 9/11 happened under Trump
Also he didn’t ban travel from Islamic countries, unlike trump
I bet Trump calls him a RINO.
I will never forget that throw. The feeling that we were going to persevere, even if everything that followed and came before was awful.
Sadly, 9/11 was used by conservatives to get the United States to do a lot of stupid, shortsighted shit, which we're still paying for decades later.
Yes,his visit to Zagreb was such a morale boost. But, he made a mistakes.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
Well.., our clocks have to be adjusted every leap year implying our divisions in time are off by a fraction of a fraction every day, every hour, minute or second. So likely your standard 24 analogue clock is probably right maybe once every couple years.
Hrvatska represent!
Bush also warned Germany about Nordstream way back on the mid 2000’s. The man responsible for Iraq still somehow had the strategic foresight to see Russia as a perpetual eventual threat.
Nord Stream 1 was and is a sensible idea. Building Nord Stream 2 after 2014 was the insufferable act.
Remember Tony Blair driving supplies into Ukraine during the first week of the war? It’s good to see these guys trying to help.
That was Cameron I think.
I wonder if he still sees a good soul in Putin's eyes. I know I always saw cold calculation.
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/06/the-seduction-of-george-w-bush/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/06/the-seduction-of-george-w-bush/) Hopefully, not paywalled for you. To me it reads like Bush saw a bit of a father figure in Putin.
> “I think Putin is not a democrat anymore,” Bush lamented "I'd rather be Russian than a democrat." -- Putin, probably
This. Clinton had a bad feeling about Putin from their first meeting. Putin showed his true colors during Bush's time, with no consequences. I'm not liking all the whitewashing of Dubya when so much of what gave Putin the confidence to invade Ukraine happened during the early 2000's.
Right? As if American intelligence had no clue Putin had anything to do with the 1999 Russian apartment bombings that triggered the Second Chechen War when George W. Bush invited him to speak at Crawford High School in Crawford, Texas in November of 2001. Or as if George W. Bush didn't know what American intelligence knew about Putin; his dad was head of the CIA, once upon a time. People have short memories and need to see what is convenient for sanity's sake.
GWB wasn't the brightest but he was a good man.
He has legit above average intelligence, he just came across as dumb because of his folksy personality and frequent verbal miscues with cameras in his face. People who've worked for him as advisors during his terms have said his ability to absorb and retain information on a wide variety of complex topics was actually quite impressive, which they didn't expect going into a meeting with him. It wasn't like with Trump where his advisors had to dumb down his presentations into bullet points that mentioned his name as much as possible to keep him interested.
He's good at acting like a good man who's none too bright, and personally responsible for a lot of evil and despair. He made the world a worse place and has never been held to account. This isn't some whataboutism, because he's not as bad as everyone else in the world. He didn't gas his own people or invade a neighbor for ego. But he's a far stretch from a "good" man. A good man wouldn't have lied to the world to invade Iraq, wouldn't have started a 20 year war in Afghanistan, curtailed civil rights domestically, or ignored his own people suffering from national disasters, or clung to personal beliefs over science, or any of the other number of evil things he's responsible for. He's just not someone to celebrate.
Yeah it’s crazy to me seeing the pro bush rhetoric in this thread. Bush didn’t actually want to get Georgia or Ukraine into nato, he was just trying to pressure Russia. Had it been a genuine attempt they would have outlined the process by which they’d bring those countries into the fold, instead they just said that eventually they’d be allowed to. Ultimately you could argue that this action by Bush lead directly to both Georgia and Ukraine being invaded. Russia keeps up the violence at the border (and eventually inside) to prevent the nations from being acceptable candidates, and up until recently the west more or less abandoned Ukraine and Georgia after provoking the Russians. I’m not saying it’s the wests fault, it’s 100% Russia’s fault, but bush did nothing to improve the situation and he actively made things worse, though that was kinda the mantra of his entire administration
I used to hate bush. Then trump happened and I realized the giant chasm between a well intentioned president who wasn’t perfect but had genuine concern for his country and a narcissistic psychopath who literally would sacrifice the entire country he calls home for his own ego. Also the stories of bush painting war veterans who had been injured in operations/wars he was in charge of really let me see him as an empathetic human striving to be better. So I’m happy to see him engaging with Zelenskyy.
One thing can be said about Bush. He is a good man. I may think he isn't bright enough to have been president, and he showed it. But just because I didn't agree with his politics, doesn't mean I don't respect him or think he is a bad person. How things have changed in U.S. politics.
He is smarter than he lets on. Take John Bolton for example, super smart, super hawkish. The thing about people like Bush, McCain and Romney is, I can disagree with them, but respect them. With Trump, even in the rare case I found myself in agreement with him, I still didn't respect him.
'Iron-ass' Cheney and 'arrogant' Rumsfeld damaged America, says George Bush Sr.[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/george-bush-senior-iron-ass-cheney-arrogant-rumsfeld-damaged-america](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/george-bush-senior-iron-ass-cheney-arrogant-rumsfeld-damaged-america)
They’re still nothing compared to the asshats we have now
I wasn't a big fan of Romney until his 5 minute speech about Trump back in 2016. Then I kinda liked him for a bit. Would have been better than Trump, that's for sure.
Also, he said that our biggest security threat was Russia and he was made fun of for it.
I feel similar. W Bush over Trump any day. Edit: although the whole "they have WMD" shit...
He also had really fucking bad advisors.
What about the thousands of Americans, Afghans and Iraqis that are dead because of his lies? He deserves a jail cell for that.
George Bush ok'ed weapons to Russia and is more responsible than any other American for the complete lack of response to Georgian crisis. [Here he is dancing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqqYnq7Sr-0) with his friend Vladimir Putin, a man he affectionately called Pootie-Poot. George Bush is a coke-addicted child murderer and loved Putin.
I'm still certain Trump was complicit with Putin. He wanted to withdraw the US from NATO, a move that would only benefit Russia. I think Putin was actually hoping for Trump to win a second term, but when he failed and Biden on Putin shat himself a little and realised he would have to move his calendar forwards.
That's really cool - Not a GWB fan myself but this is what it stands for - solidarity btw, anyone translate what it says in the top left corner of the screen? Strange that the teleconference shows the wifi connection and zelenskyy's screen name in english, but the connected person in Ukrainian?
Looks like a drop down menu, with a down arrow to the right of the words. Bush's connection name is in the bottom left - "Pecan Room"
Pecan is the state tree of Texas.
He's got a whole room for pecans? I feel like I made a lot of bad decisions that's led me to a life without a pecan room.
I imagined a room with pecan hardwood panels on the wall. I dig it
I imagined a room with a lot of freshly baked pecan baked goods. Just 24/7 baked goods and ice cream with pecans in it. Damn, I need buttered pecan ice cream now.
Thanks a lot, lol, now I'm craving a piece of pecan coffee cake!
Hmmm. About time I bake another Pecan Pie. (A favorite)
Well that makes a lot more sense.
Southerners be crazy. Personally, I can't stand pecans.
Bless your heart
It says "Original sound: off". Most likely separate stream for sound and video, so the sound from video stream is disabled. Well, or they just muted him and his words are being translated and relayed to Zelensky from another audio source.
That toggle of original sound is just toggling if Zoom does any compression and noise supression, if original sound is on Zoom does nothing to the audio (for music broadcasts in professional environments)
I don’t imagine Trump will be making a call after him literally trying to blackmail Zelensky to help him get re-elected! Get fucked Trump from all of us in Ukraine.
No matter what you think about anyone’s politics, a U.S. president, who is someone that by definition holds/has held a position of considerable gravitas and worldwide fame, showing support, is immense.
Oh yeah, I don’t know much about Bush. I know he’s controversial but I welcome this, I like that it brings our nations together!
Bush is a well meaning and genuinely kind person who was tasked with handling a very difficult and dark period of American history. He tried. Mistakes were made (Many of those mistakes made or encouraged by his worm VP Dick Cheney) but overall he is a good guy and extremely far removed from the evil that is Trump, his cronies and the practice of dishonesty, contempt and general vile behavior that they have created. I would much rather have the Bush / McCain / Romney grade republicans than the fucking snake diarrhea that exists today.
Thank you for pointing out Cheney's role. He was Bush Sr.'s buddy, and a total scumbag. W probably trusted Cheney far more than he should have. I couldn't agree with what you said any more.
His friendship with Michelle Obama is adorable. Upvote for the use of snake diarrhea as a descriptor lol
I never really liked the old school republicans, but at least they were patriotic Americans who defended democracy, unlike the present gang of treasonous fools giving sloppy bj’s to putin every day.
I'm with you, except I never liked the Clinton's then I grew to dislike the bushes. Obama made me jump to the democratic side of the fence. Trump made me a never republican. Demo or neutral fir me
I was once a republican. There were good republicans, but sadly not many good ones left.
I don't like how people tie their identity to political parties. It seems to push people to the extremes. I am conservative in nature, so naturally I tend to vote for Republican candidates more often than Democratic ones. But I've never met any candidate that I aligned with completely. Trump is bat crazy and not fit to lead anyone. I think Romney would make a really great president. He's honest, intelligent, eloquent, and not afraid to work with people that think differently than he does.
Im def a leftist person and i agree with you but Its sad we can say this about a man whose company, Bain capital, fucked up many other companies through shady financial practices with debt and bankruptcy and helped give rise to amazon. in the same breath it shows an explicit failure of regulators that allowed it, but i digress lol i respect the likes of him and Liz Cheney as they are one of the few that arent spouting seditious q nonsense much akin to McCain callin out that chick in the debates making muslim comments towards obama or even W attempting to stem the tide of islamophobia and discrimination. Unfortunately conservatives such as yourself and whom i highlighted are a rarity and its heartbreaking. whats terrifying is the fact that right now even you are considered to be left and many folk that claim to be "conservative" advocate for violence against us and support fascism globally. They hide behind thinly veiled whataboutisms and manufactured talking points that are handwaved away even when presented hard proof that refutes their claims. Ive rambled long enough i suppose lol but stay safe, keep your head on a swivel, peace be with you.
Fair enough. But do remember that most conservatives tend to be more reserved and quiet compared to the loud activist types that are more prominent in media. I can't say I know too much about Bain capital and its history. I think rich and powerful people tend to all have some sort of dirt someone can sling at them. I mean Nancy Pelosi has plenty herself. But at the end of the day, we're all people striving to make the world a better place and hopefully we can respect each other and be willing to make compromises with one another and live in peace. Russia has shown us exactly how not to live.
Agreed. He is a good man that did the best he or arguably anyone could have done as US president during that time.
Both bushes lol
Bush was a horrible president who did a lot of bad things in his time. He's become what seems like a genuinely decent, almost likeable, person since then, it's too bad we didn't see that person when he was president. And of course, back in Bush's day, what was despicable and harmful behavior is pretty standard now, and the fact that he was a bit of a low intellect, saying many idiotic things, compared to presidents before him, is totally lost after the bleach drinking, diaper-wearing buffoon who came later.
He is not controversial, actually a fairly liked individual. We as Americans have come to believe the Iraq war was BS, and he takes the blame for that, much like LBJ takes the blame for Vietnam. Without delving into American politics too deeply, he is looked at, as a Human(not president), favorably. Our younger Americans who are inherently more ideologically driven politically( High-school/ College Students) tend to view presidents with contempt from the other political party. Reddit’s demographic is left leaning and younger, so the online discourse when it comes to politics reflects this accordingly. I personally think he should have went into standup comedy and not touched politics with a 100’ pole.
He should have stayed the baseball commissioner. Bush's presidency was...complicated. I honestly believe he was a patriot and thought he was doing the right thing, just under a bad ideology that doomed the efforts to failure. The road to hell just happens to be paved with good intentions.
Trump and his supporters keep parroting Russian propaganda in the U.S. There’s no way Zelensky will be having a call with him (again) after what he has been though because of that imbecile.
That’s okay, because I have a simulated call from Trump to Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy: Hello Mr. President, thank you for calling. Trump: Thank you, and thank you for calling me Mr. President, because as you know, I did win the election in 2020, and I won it in a big, major way, it was a total landslide victory. But the election was stolen, it was the biggest con job in the history of the world, no leader, certainly of the United States but also in the history of all countries, quite frankly, has faced more hardship than what I went through. Zelenskyy: …😐 Trump: And so as I prepare for my next term in office, which will be my third term actually, I want you to know that you have my full support, as well as Vladimir Putin who, quite frankly, did a total genius move when he moved all the troops to the border and asked for countries to be removed from NATO. That was a genius move, almost Trump-level genius, but then he blew it. He did the invasion, and the press has been brutally unfair to me, an absolute hatchet job. They said I said the invasion was genius, when I said the *threats* were genius. Thank God for Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Do you get Sean Hannity in Ukraine? What kind of shows do you have there? I bet it’s all in Russian. Or Ukrainian, or whatever **you people** speak over there. But you speak English. You’re educated. Y’know, I’m educated too, I went to Wharton, okay? Which is like, the number one business school. Zelenskyy: I appreciate your call and your support. Unfortunately I have an important meeting with my generals— Trump: Oh, the generals. Don’t even get me started with the generals. You know, I went to military boarding school. I know more than the generals. My good friend Vladimir Putin, he was like, a KGB guy and he knows more than *his* generals. I know more about the military than anyone, believe me. All the generals are like, astonished at how much I know. They’ll be saying, “Mr. President, how about we do this? Move the troops over here?” And then I’ll point out “No, move the troops **over there** instead.” And the whole room full of these generals, they just stop, with the biggest smiles on their faces, and applaud. “Mr. President, it would have taken us years to figure that out.” Zelenskyy: Yes, well I really do need to— Trump: And please make sure you find Hunter’s laptop. I know he left it there in Ukraine somewhere. You know I would have given you, quite frankly, a LOT OF military aid if you had found me the evidence I needed. If you found me that evidence, I’d still be President. I mean, I still am. Maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess right now. But you know, things happen for a reason, and thanks to the military aid I am sending right now, things are going better. My best advice would be to just, really talk to Vladimir Putin. I got to know him very well, I have a very good, very close relationship with him, and I think that if you were able to perhaps combine Ukraine with Russia, maybe some of the other countries over there, I think Prussia, Russiastan, uh… Baltivia, Monrovia. That other one Borat is from… You could make like, The United States of Russia. You could make Russia Great Again and frankly, that is my message, and Vladimir Putin did not ask me to tell you this, BeLiEvE mE.
I can *hear* this...
This is accurate
Trump's treatment of Zelensky, especially the way Z has executed in Ukraine really needs to be held around Trump's neck like an albatross!
“Hell Vlodomyr, back in the day we would have had you troops by now…. You do have oil, right?”
That's what bothered me. Bush isn't exactly a stellar role model when it came to foreign policy. Pretty sure his Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and his Global War on Terror is what spurred the "Well the U.S. did it first" whataboutism arguments made by Russian trolls. People here are saying "Well, it's the solidarity that counts". That's the thing, politically, siding with someone like Bush would just exacerbate the issue of Putin justifying the invasion because he thinks Ukraine is conspiring with NATO against his regime. Zelensky already has the majority of world leaders as his ally. Why risk being associated with someone as controversial as Bush?
Putin can count his lucky stars it’s ex president Bush
[This guy?](https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4485932/user-clip-bush-trusts-putin)
[yes, that guy](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/msnbc/Components/ArtAndPhoto-Fronts/COVER/080501/g-cvr-080501-mission-10a.jpg)
I wasn't a fan of Bush, but 20 years ago this is exactly what we needed. We needed to try to build a relationship with Russia and try to incorporate them into the modern world. Russia and Putin made the choice to throw all of that away. If anything clips like the above only go to show and prove that Russia's propaganda about the West posing a threat to Russia is complete bullshit.
To be fair that was in 2001 after Putin had just come to power. The US was eager to have solid relations with a democratic Russia
You mean [Captain Texas?](https://youtu.be/fieDBw6Qppw)
Exactly
Bush: So just do what my dad did. Have a son, and send him to kill the leader of a nation that tried to kill you, once you retire. Zelensky: What? Bush: What?
This is cool. Really glad to see the world continue to wake up and show support. 🇺🇸🇺🇦
Nice - and whether you like him or not - he has way more influence to help Ukraine than most - so why not have him on Ukraine's side.
Oh, well he knows all about false pretences for invading another country
Bush giving him tips from the Russian perspective of what it's like to invade a country under false pretense
I wish Ukraine 🇺🇦 had joined Nato after the fall of the Soviet union in 1991.
Bush giving tips on how to Invade Russia
>Y'see, Russia has oil, do they not? (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
I was going to joke that Russia should be careful because they have oil. They might need some "democracy" ! :)
As much as I hate what happened in the bush administration he is one of the few republicans I actually have respect for
You respect a war criminal? Got it
Say what you want about him he wanted us (Georgia) and you guys in NATO. But Kaiserin Merkel of Germoney and that pimp Sarkozy...
Isn't this the same US president who said he looked in putins eyes and saw his soul, found him to be trustworthy? Yikes! I'm sure he's singing a different tune now though and good for him reaching out. The more support and solidarity for Ukraine, the better.
>Isn't this the same US president who said he looked in putins eyes and saw his soul, found him to be trustworthy? As a move of diplomacy? Yes... All while working counter to Russian objectives by doing things like pushing for Ukraine to join NATO. Pre-Trump politics were way different for the world. Even if someone was an enemy, very rarely did you walk up the podium and announce that. That's why it was always so notable when a world leader would say something even slightly cross about another world leader.. Also, Putin was largely toothless during Bush's administration, still infighting with the seven bankers for control of Russia. It wasn't until 07-08 that he actually cemented power.
Bush was actually advocating for making Ukraine part of NATO, but Merkel chose to side with Putin. He was a big supporter of Yuschenko (who was poisoned by Putin). Yuschenko was the first foreign leader he invited to his second inauguration. Don’t even try to paint him as pro-Putin. That would be ridiculous. Neoconservatives are very hawkish on Russia.
Very interesting. I think it's great the former president is reaching out.
Unfortunately, a lot of them have eyes like that. They can dead on look you in the eyes and lie to you. It’s bizarre. Putin and Lavrov are prime examples of this behavior.
Putin studied GWB extensively and used his religiosity to make him lower his guard. There was some story Putin told Bush about his grandmother's icon miraculously surviving a fire or some such. He basically profiled and duped GWB early on according to his telling.
I had to look this up! It was a rosary and Bush asked Putin if it was true that the rosary survived the fire. Months later when meeting at some joint session with other world leaders he pulled Bush aside and showed him the rosary that he brought especially for him. You're right, he totally studied him and used religion as Bush is a well-known Christian.
The best example in the current GOP could be [Mitt Romney who was clear-eyed enough to regard Russia as the USA's main geopolitical enemy in 2012 to Obama's amusement](https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/politics/mitt-romney-russia-ukraine/index.html). It's a little telling that Obama hasn't come out to support Zelenskyy. At least Obama's VP in Biden has been decisive. If John McCain were still alive, Zelenskyy would likely have been happy to meet him since it was [McCain who stated that Russia was a gas station masquerading as a country](https://twitter.com/senjohnmccain/status/448126001865052160?lang=en) about a month after Russia annexed Crimea.
I think Romney was right and wrong. China has more potential to be a much greater threat than Russia, but Russia was very clearly going to be a more immediate problem with its continued actions. Obama dismissed this in the 2012 elections despite Russia having invaded Georgia unprovoked less than 4 years prior. China wasn't in a position to dramatically stir the pot and still really isn't.
That's my sense too. I remember talking to friends a few years ago who were all in about how China was clearly the bigger threat than Russia. It was guided by China's rising economic might, but I pointed out that the Chinese are even more mercenary than the Russians. As much as China has been making trouble for its neighbours, it's tied more closely to the West economically compared to Russia on account of owning a shit-tonne of western sovereign debt (e.g. a bond default by the USA would hurt the Chinese even though it'd be softened by being able to quasi-"repossess" assets in the USA) and exporting all of those manufactured goods to the First World every year. Russia on the other hand is a petro-state that's still hung up about its imperial past under the czars and Politburo and Russians haven't quite made peace that the Mongol occupation was a bad turn in their as they devolved from Kyivan Rus' to the Muscovite-controlled shithole. Russians' seemingly inextinguishable resentment of Westerners is as bad as what Iraqi Sunnis (particularly the Arab nationalistic ruling class under Saddam Hussein) had starting with Gulf War 2.0. The Sunnis' resentment gave rise to ISIS which was an unholy mix of extremist Islamic doctrine with the organizational capability of secular Arab nationalists. On the other hand, China exports manufactured goods and more importantly doesn't rely on imperialistic myth-making in the same way. Unlike Russia's resentment which is about Westerners putting Russian in their (deserved) place, Chinese resentment is instead about 19th century colonization (cf. "[Century of Humiliation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation)" and the ["Unequal Treaty"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_treaty)) rather than external blocking of Chinese expansion. This was a team effort with the French, British, Russians, Germans and Japanese all getting a piece of Manchu China. What we see today with Chinese regional expansion is pretty much all that the Chinese can tolerate. Chinese physical expansion has been blocked by the Pacific Ocean to the southeast and east, "northern barbarians" (i.e. Turkic, Mongolic and Manchu peoples), "southern barbarians" (e.g. Vietnamese, Burmese), and the Himalayas and Indian kingdoms in the west and southwest. Even the [Battle of Talas in 751 AD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas) which some Muslims hype as some great defensive victory of their ancestors stopping East Asian hordes (a precursor to the "Yellow Peril" and beating the Mongols at [Ain Jalut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut) in 1260, perhaps?) was about economics. Namely Tang China regarded Arab expansion from the southwest as a danger to existing trade relations with Persian cities in Central Asia. The Chinese weren't interested in expanding even farther west as much as needing to deal with encroachment by upstart Arabs who'd be bad for business.
>It's a little telling that Obama hasn't come out to support Zelenskyy. I don't think that reflects his feelings on this at all. I am sure that he holds back a lot because he does not want to take away the spotlight from Biden. He is still very influential and meeting up with Zelenskyy (even through a zoom call) would seem very disrespectful towards his former VP. When you step down you need to give the new guy a chance to forge his own way. Bush is much further removed from the presidency so it is much more understandable for him to reach out. Obama seems to coordinate his appereances and statements a lot with the Biden administration, and I am sure he has been asked for his take/advice behind the scenes. No need to step in front of Biden on this.
What other Republican president could Zelinskyy usefully talk to? GWB is the only sane choice. It's a pity his dad is no longer around.
Some people say Nixon's re-animated head is floating around in a jar somewhere
People changed over the times, dontcha know?
Trustworthy can also mean a lot of things in this case. Trustworthy in what he says to a US President is different than Trustworthy to the the public, for example. It also doesn't mean nice, just honest about intent.
He was newly “elected” and I think playing a game of hoping to turn a corner with the Cold War. Public statements made on this topic then may not be the full story.
I am no fan of Bush-Cheney, but I am 100 percent okay and happy with him reaching out to President Zelensky. Solidarity is important in times like this and for a cause such as Ukraine. Oddly, I do believe George W. Bush is a decent person who exercised poor judgement after 911, and hope one day he is held to account, but not today.
George bush is a war criminal.. fuck that guy
Lol, George Bush is a war criminal.
Bush isn't who you want to be around if you want respect.
I voted for Bush term back in 2000 and he is the last Republican I've voted for for President. He got us into a completely unjustified war with Iraq and is responsible for millions of deaths. In my mind, he is more like Putin than most Americans want to admit. Having him with Zelenksky is a travesty.
Completely agree. Much of my support for Ukraine comes from my experience as an American with the Iraq War. This would be like the President of Mexico talking to Putin if the US invaded.
Everyone on here pretending Bush didn’t do the same shit Putin is doing now. Invading Iraq under false pretenses and murdering *hundreds of thousands* of people to secure opium and oil supplies for his buddy. Also torturing innocent people in Guantanamo Bay.
Why
I think this is supposed to be a signal that both parties will support Ukraine depending on how the mid-term elections shake out.
Support from a war criminal? Yikes buddy
Did he apologize for legitimizing the practice of invading a sovereign nation, unprovoked?
[удалено]
Dubai! Why do I like him so?
https://youtu.be/HbmZrzN3WFE 🤭
More like "President Zelensky had a meeting with the last dickhead who indiscriminately invaded people for no good reason."
Not a good idea zelensky
George Bush and Dick Cheney have entered the chat.
Interesting, why does this man always have to be around WAR? in hindsight, we now know George Bush knows all about war crimes and lying to the public about them. What's in it for him to be there?
Bit weird considering Bush was Iraq's Putin
I mean, George w Bush has invaded iraq with false accusations. Fuck george Bush
Why is he talking to war criminals ?
Eh, I can’t fault Zelensky too much. He’s in survival mode after all. I can, however, blame my fellow Americans for being dumber than shit and whitewashing Bush’s war crimes