Comments by "Dennis" (@Dennis-nc3vw) on "George W. Bush Was Wrong About Iraq, but He Was Right About Something Else | NYT Opinion" video.

  1. Yes, who in their right mind would care about someone saving 25 million lives?
    6
  2.  @worsethanjoerogan8061  Not to mention we still have to buy it. The US military doesn't handle resource extraction.
    4
  3.  @admiralfrancis8424  If saving 25 million lives isn't worth anything, what good could a politician ever do that's worth anything to you?
    3
  4. The left gorges itself on hate. Watching them react to this is like watching a vampire react to sunlight.
    3
  5. If they didn't juxtapose them people like you would simply be screaming "BUT OMG WAR CRIMINAL!!!" in the comments. What you really want is for them just never to mention PEPFAR at all.
    3
  6. People wonder why the world is such a mess, why people just sit back and let things like the Rwanda Genocide happen. These comments perfectly show why. If you're a leader, you know your good deeds will count for nothing, and your crimes will count for everything. Isn't it the most rational selfish decision to simply hunker down and do nothing? After all, if you do what you think are 100 good deeds, and the world perceives 1 as criminal, aren't you in a worse place than the leader who did 0, good or bad? Think about the perverse incentives you create before you complain about the way the world acts.
    3
  7. There are 15 year olds on both sides of every political issue.
    3
  8. This is why being a politician sucks. If you're only remembered for the bad, the best you can come out is neutral. You wonder why other countries hunker down and let the world burn. It's because your successes will be instantly forgotten and your mistakes will haunt you forever.
    3
  9. No, it's not even remotely equivalent to that and I find it very hard to believe you don't already realize that. We're talking about 25 million lives here. Stop pretending the magnitude of the good doesn't matter. If I rob a bank and then save someone's daughter from a burning building, that's very different than if I rob a bank and then share my curly fries with someone.
    2
  10.  @belhariry  What did Putin do that's parrallel to PEPFAR.
    2
  11. Then people like you would be in the comments crying "BUT OMG WAR CRIMINAL!!!!111"
    2
  12. If leaders are only judged for their crimes, every leader: Lincoln, FDR, Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, etc. is a terrible person. It's funny how, despite the fact that Bush saved more lives than his mistakes cost, you decide to consider talking about PEPFAR like talking about the good Hitler did, rather than saying talking about Iraq is like talking about the bad things Churchill did. How wonderfully illogical.
    2
  13. Thank you for your kind and honest words Mr. Alhasan. In a world that gorges itself on fashionable hatreds, it can be difficult to stand up for love.
    2
  14. Except you don't have shred of evidence Hitler's anti-smoking campaign saved millions of lives.
    2
  15. The left lives to hate. Comment sections like these remind me why I'm a Republican. They drink hate like water. Rage, cynicism, bitterness, etc. is the very essence of their existence.
    2
  16. "It's not like a good act eradicates an act of evil" This perverse moral paradox is why most people prefer to just sit back and let the world burn. After all, if you do 99 heroics and 1 crime, the world will hate you more than the guy who does 0 and 0.
    2
  17. It's hard to believe we live in a world where overthrowing the most brutal dictator of the 21st century makes you the most evil being to walk the planet, but saving 25 million lives counts for nothing. When someone says liberalism, I imagine a human heart: it's flesh blackened with decay, covered in sores, crawling with maggots, but still beating. You live to hate.
    2
  18.  @antlerisnotabrahminskull  Second most after Kim Jung Il, maybe. According to Human Rights Watch Saddam disappeared 10,000 people a year.
    2
  19. Hitler would have had to save about a billion lives for those headlines to be comparable. Stop with these disingenuous comparisons.
    2
  20. The left: Black Lives Matter! Also the left: How dare you concern yourself with 25 million Black lives!
    2
  21.  @MrCraigtastic  Judging Bush for 9/11 is like judging Thomas Sowell for being a former Marxist. After 9/11 Bush made major changes to his national security policies which made people like you call him a Nazi and a fascist and an imperialist.
    2
  22. If they hadn't juxtaposed them and just never mentioned Iraq, people like you would be screaming "BUT OMG WAR CRIMINAL!!!!" in the comments. They can't win.
    2
  23. The left: Black Lives Matter! Also the left: How dare you care about 25 million Black lives!
    1
  24. Did banning smoking save 30 million lives, the amount of people history considers Hitler to have killed? Because at the bare minimum everyone would agree Hitler would have needed to save a greater than or equal number of people he killed in order to be redeemed. These comments come off as so disingenuous. Whether someone's good can redeem their evil, any reasonable person can at least admit relative magnitude of both needs to be taken into account.
    1
  25. Yes, he overthrew the most brutal dictator of the 21st century and let people elect their own government. What kind of depraved monster even lets something like that cross their mind. Obviously the results of the Iraq War were awful, but if someone let's a wrongfully convicted man out of prison, and the first thing the ex-prisoner does is slip and break his neck, do you call his liberator a disgusting vermin.
    1
  26. Bush didn't "sign off on it", it was his idea. If you're going to downplay the good Bush did here because it didn't require any personal sacrifice on his part, what does that say about the other 194 countries who did nothing during the AIDS crisis?
    1
  27. "Not standing in the way." So every other country on Earth was standing the way of allowing its dedicated public servants and researchers to save 25 million lives? Because PEPFAR was chiefly an American program.
    1
  28. PEPFAR was Bush's brain child. If "anyone would have signed PEPFAR", where were the world's other 194 countries during the Africa AIDS Crisis.
    1
  29. The left is simply a hideous Wendigo of hate. Imagine your idea of the evilest man to ever walk the planet being someone who overthrew the most brutal dictator in the 21st century and let people elect their own government. Yes, the results of the Iraq War were a tragic disaster, but if someone let's a wrongfully convicted person out of prison, and the first thing that person does with his new found freedom is fall and break his neck, do you start foaming at the mouth and demanding the head of his liberator on a pike? It's not a perfect analogy but you're lying if you say you don't see my point. "This guy saved 25 million people, but I still hate him because he overthrew the most brutal dictator of the 21st century and let people elect their own government." Christ, could you just ONCE take a step back and listen to yourself?
    1
  30. Right, let's just sweep 25 million people and the most successful humanitarian aid initiative in human history under the bus.
    1
  31. Even you don't know what you mean by that first sentence. And 25 million lives is a "small part" of his legacy? I think I'm going to be sick.
    1
  32.  @belhariry  Oh right, that's totally the only time land has ever changed hands in all of human history. It's not like Mexico itself is built on land stolen from indigenuous nations, who in turn constantly stole land from each other. Nope. White people are born with a unique, biological predisposition to evil so in all 10,000+ years of human civilization, only white people ever colonized anyone or anywhere. There was no Bantu Expansionism, no aboriginal Taiwanese, no Japanese Ainu...etc.
    1
  33. And you wonder why most countries just hunker down and let the world burn. It's because only their failures will count in the eyes of the world.
    1
  34. Oh please, John Wayne Gacey killed 33 people. Whatever good he did doesn't have remotely the same absolute value as that. However, Bush certainly saved more live through PEPFAR than died in Iraq.
    1
  35.  @Unshackled.Dreamer  Only 1% of Saddam's weapons came from the US according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
    1
  36. 25 million lives is petty to you!?
    1
  37. Yes, what kind of monster overthrows the most brutal dictator of the 21st century so people can elect their own government.
    1
  38. Every Allied leader in WWII committed terrible war crimes too, so I guess we should throw their accomplishments under the bus.
    1
  39. If its "what most Presidents would have done", why did Obama reduce funding?
    1
  40.  @matthewb.7172  The world has a legacy of just leaving Africa to rot. If this was such an obvious path for Bush to take, where was the rest of the world on this? Maybe "brave" isn't the right word, but it wasn't a "no-brainer" either.
    1
  41.  @admiralfrancis8424  So then all the world's other 194 country's were led by people who lacked basic human decency.
    1
  42.  @peterlamin8363  If people like you had your day those sanctions would still be happening. (although that 600,000 number has recently been debunked as nothing but propaganda engineered by Saddam's goons)
    1
  43. Nice dogma.
    1
  44. Stop with these disingenuous comparisons. In this case the good Bush did clearly outweighed the bad if you believe in the equal value of all human life. That absolutely does not apply to Stalin or Saddam's literacy campaign. The magnitude of the good and evil matters and yet you completely ignore that in a way that seems outright disingenuous. Saying "Hitler planted some trees, so let's forgive him for the Holocaust" is very different from saying "Joe Schmoe saved a child's life, so let's forgive him for robbing a convenience store" and you know.
    1
  45. Yes, because saving 25 million people is totally the same as liking dogs.
    1
  46. The left: BLACK LIVES MATTER Also the left: HOW DARE YOU CARE ABOUT 25 MILLION BLACK PEOPLE'S LIVES!
    1
  47. All a gimmick? Barely anyone had ever heard of PEPFAR until he was out of office.
    1
  48. So Obama doesn't deserve credit for anything either. He just gave the orders and signed the bills.
    1
  49. WTF is with that narrator? Even Texasness can be overdone.
    1
  50. Did Pol Pot save 25 million people?
    1
  51.  @admiralfrancis8424  Absolves in a strong word, but it certainly counts for something. Churchill actually killed as many innocent people as Pol Pot with the Bengal Famines, but because he also saved the world from Nazis he's remembered very differently.
    1
  52.  @mbaltrusitis  Does waging a false war so you can get a little more in donations from the oil and military contractor lobby really seem like a rational election strategy, even from the most ruthlessly selfish mind? Remember Bush was a god after 9/11 and the Iraq War brought his approval ratings way down.
    1
  53. So what does that say about the other 194 countries who did nothing during the AIDS crisis? They had a chance to do something "holy" and just didn't.
    1
  54.  @admiralfrancis8424  People like you are why most countries just hunker down and let the world burn during crisis (then get movies like Hotel Rwanda made about them calling them cowards). After all, if your good deeds count for nothing, and your bad deeds count for everything, isn't the most rational selfish decision simply to be do as little as possible?
    1
  55. ​ @admiralfrancis8424  And Christ, what kind of surreal world are we living in where saving 25 million lives count for nothing, but overthrowing the most brutal dictator of the 21st century makes you a monster? Also I can only flip your logic. Just because a hero does a bad deed doesn't make them any less of a hero? Actually it does. So the reverse is true.
    1
  56. So what does that say about all the other countries who did nothing during the African AIDS crisis?
    1
  57. The Allies in WWII committed war crimes too, so I guess we should just ignore the good the did in saving us from the Nazis.
    1
  58.  @daktarioskarvannederhosen2568  The vast majority of damage to that infrastructure was done by the insurgent factions. The US had to rebuild bridges, power generators, etc. again and again and again and our enemies kept carbombings them. The Iraq War was a tragic mistake, but you can't judge someone by the results of his actions alone. If someone is wrongfully convicted of robbery, and I let them out of prison, and the first thing they do is fall and break their neck, am I an evil murdering monster who killed an innocent man?
    1
  59. This is why its best for politicians to just sit back and let the world burn. Your heroics will count for nothing, but your crimes will count for everything.
    1
  60. This moral paradox is why most countries just let the world burn when its in crisis. Your successes count for nothing, but your crimes count for everything. So it makes most sense just to do as little as possible.
    1
  61.  @fubytv731  So that makes the analogy a bad one. Bush wasn't simply "doing his job" with PEPFAR, else that means every other leader in the world was neglecting theirs. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if someone who was in jail for murdering his wife got a Presidential pardon if he averted a terrorist attack that would've killed 25 people. This isn't as easy a philosophical question as people are pretending it is.
    1
  62. I'm pretty sure when that "one thing" saved 25 million people its a big deal.
    1
  63. He recognized his flaws in leadership, and completely overhauled his national security policies, and those changes made you call him a Nazi and a fascists and an imperialist. Criticizing Bush for 9/11 is like criticizing Thomas Sowell for being a former Marxist.
    1
  64.  @heartofodds  You mean mentioning it in tandem with the Iraq War? If they hadn't mentioned the Iraq War, you'd be screaming "BUT OMG WAR CRIMINAL!!!11" in the comments. All you really want is this to be swept under the bus.
    1
  65. @Elicuu Kit Good question. We forget the Herculian heroics so easily.
    1
  66. If they had written this article without mentioning Iraq, people like you would screaming "BUT OMG WAR CRIMINAL!!!!!111" What you really want is them to just sweep PEPFAR and its 25 million beneficiaries under the rug entirely.
    1
  67. Yes, overthrowing the most brutal dictator of the 21st century and letting people elect their own government. What kind of depraved mind could come up with something like that.
    1
  68.  @wfjhDUI  I think it's surreal we live in a world where a man can be labeled as irredeemably evil for overthrowing the Middle East's Kim Jung Un.
    1
  69. Yeah, how dare they not throw 25 million lives under the bus so you can continue to gorge yourself on your hatred. What monsters.
    1
  70. Please tell me the 25 million people Bush killed to "do more harm than good."
    1
  71. 100? You're only off by 24,999,000.
    1
  72. 6 out of 7 Iraqis civilians were killed by "terrorists, miltia, and insurgents" according to Iraq Body Count's John Sloboda. In large part they were no doubt motivated by the fact they knew people like you would blame their American enemies for their atrocities, and turn their murders into propaganda victories.
    1
  73. And the world should reflect on PEPFAR if they want any help during the next disease crisis.
    1
  74. Saving 25 million lives didn't make the world better?
    1
  75. Imagine a human heart. Its flesh is blackened with decay, its festering with sores, and it's absolutely covered in maggots. Read the comments and you can see that is the left. An endless, sucking, vortex of hate. Bush saved 25 million lives, but he's still the evilest man in the world because he did the unthinkably evil deed of overthrowing the most brutal dictator of the 21st century and letting people elect their own government.
    1
  76. You know that if this video hadn't mentioned Iraq, everyone in the comments would screaming their heads off saying "What about Iraq!?" and I doubt you'd be saying "what does this have to do with the Iraq War" to those commenters.
    1
  77.  @backup_almeknassi9824  85% of Americans supported the Afghan War at its start. You Democrats were calling it "the good war" when Bush was in office, don't try to weasel out of it now. Besides, Afghanistan was already at war when the US invaded (Northern Alliance vs Taliban), and 80% of the civilians killed during the war were killed by the Taliban according to the UN. Similarly about 6 out of 7 civilians in Iraq were killed by insurgents, militia, and terrorists according to Iraq Body Count's John Sloboda. These are the people you wanted Bush to appease and hand Iraq over to. No doubt they were largely motivated by the fact they knew people like you would blame their American enemies for their atrocities. How else do you explain such bizarre events as The July Soccer Bombings, which seemed to target no group in particular?
    1
  78. Erm that's the way youtube has been for the past year.
    1
  79. It's funny the leftist hate mongers here keep comparing this to "trying to talk about the good Hitler did." Actually its more like the polar opposite. All the Allied powers in WWII committed war crimes. So if you were logically consistent, we should throw all the good they did defeating the Nazis under the bus.
    1
  80. 85% of Americans approved of this war on its outset. The rest of the Western world was cheering us on aswell.
    1