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Forget Oliver Stone and politics for a minute, and just watch this clip. Stone is interviewing former President of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner. He relates a personal conversation with GW from Monterrey, Mexico in January of 2004.
Anyone needing any more proof regarding the ingrained power of the military-industrial complex is advised to contact the Bushes in Crawford, Texas. And then call on fellow war-monger Deficit Obama, who has long since broken his promise for a quick pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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President George W. Bush argued in 2004 that the best way to grow the U.S. economy was by waging war, according to former Argentine Prime Minister Néstor Kirchner.
Kirchner, in a meeting with Bush, suggested that the United States replicate the successful nation-building strategy it implemented at the end of World War II.
"And he stood up from his chair and got angry. He told me, 'A Marshall plan! No! That's a crazy idea from the Democrats. What needs to be done here, and the best way to revitalize the economy is -- the United States has grown based on wars,' he told me. That's what he told me," Kirchner recounted.
Bush added, said Kirchner, that "all the economic growth that the U.S. had had, had been based on the different wars it had waged."
Kirchner held a 50-minute meeting in Monterrey, Mexico with Bush in January, 2004.
"War? He said that?" Stone asked Kirchner, who was among a wave of progressive leaders elected in Latin America over the last decade.
"He said that, word for word," Kirchner assured Stone.
Stone followed up: "Is he suggesting that Latin America should go to war?"
No, said Kirchner. "Well, he was talking about the United States, never said South America. That the United States -- that it was a misunderstanding of the Democrats, that all the economic growth that the U.S. had had, had been based on the different wars it had waged."
The Kirchner interview is done through a translator and the subtitles on the screen don't exactly match what Kirchner was saying, but more closely reflect how his comments were being translated at the time. The Huffington Post had three separate native Spanish speakers translate Kirchner's remarks. His comments above are the result of those translations.
If Kirchner is accurately relaying the comments, that would make Bush the highest-ranking public official to state outright that war is and has been good for the American economy.
Bush with Kirchner in 2004 when the discussion allegedly took place...
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