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I could post links to books that say just the opposite....but to what avail?
The reality is, Iraq is what it is today because GWB/Cheney/Rumsfield completely miscalculated the invasion and what the aftermath would be. Sorry....that's just the facts.
If we go by miscalculation or misjudging enemy response to a military action, what President escapes unscathed from that kind of criticism?
FDR and Truman administrations cost millions of American lives via miscalculations in WWII and Korea. Eisenhower sent the first military advisors to Vietnam, Kennedy greatly escalated that effort and opened the door for greater US military involvement, Johnson moved us into full blown war that would cost more than 58,000 American lives, Nixon and Ford managed to disentangle us from that war but did so by abandoning our allies. Carter had the Iranian hostage situation to contend with. Reagan had the terrorist attack on our forces in Beirut. GHWB was successful with Desert Storm but has been criticized forever since for 'not finishing the job' when he could have. Clinton deal with multiple terrorist attacks including the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, the Cole et al plus the terrible misfire in Somalia that saw the bodies of our Rangers dragged through the streets. The GW Bush Administration has accepted full responsibility and freely admits they misjudged Saddam's Republican Guard when they chose not to disarm them following our initial victory in Iraq. That same Republican Guard reformed into the insurgency that opened the door to infiltration of more terrorists. And Obama's military record? Not exactly stellar.
So criticism for everybody. But disqualifying if they don't get everything right? Then nobody is qualified.
Amongst current presidential scholars, Obama is viewed quite favorably; a better than average President, about on par with Reagan.
Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bush, OTH, not so much....
If we go by miscalculation or misjudging enemy response to a military action, what President escapes unscathed from that kind of criticism?
FDR and Truman administrations cost millions of American lives via miscalculations in WWII and Korea. Eisenhower sent the first military advisors to Vietnam, Kennedy greatly escalated that effort and opened the door for greater US military involvement, Johnson moved us into full blown war that would cost more than 58,000 American lives, Nixon and Ford managed to disentangle us from that war but did so by abandoning our allies. Carter had the Iranian hostage situation to contend with. Reagan had the terrorist attack on our forces in Beirut. GHWB was successful with Desert Storm but has been criticized forever since for 'not finishing the job' when he could have. Clinton deal with multiple terrorist attacks including the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, the Cole et al plus the terrible misfire in Somalia that saw the bodies of our Rangers dragged through the streets. The GW Bush Administration has accepted full responsibility and freely admits they misjudged Saddam's Republican Guard when they chose not to disarm them following our initial victory in Iraq. That same Republican Guard reformed into the insurgency that opened the door to infiltration of more terrorists. And Obama's military record? Not exactly stellar.
So criticism for everybody. But disqualifying if they don't get everything right? Then nobody is qualified.
What you are trying to argue is that every miscalculation and error is the same. Iraq was a major blunder of epic proportions, unlike the errors that you speak of. If Cheney/Rumsfield had done their homework we would not have the mess that we have today. They expected that we would be treated as liberators and expected to be in an out in under 6 months.Iraq is probably one of the worst blunders of foreign policy in our history.
I know its an asinine question. It would like like asking if Ryan leaf is good qb or if lebron james is the worst player in NBA history. He failed at ever aspect of his presidency and to think otherwise would be to completely ignore the results of his presidency. I don't know how anyone can objectively conclude after looking at the results of his presidency that he is anything but a bad president. Despite his presidency being a unmitigated disaster he seems to have a loyal following here.
Diehard GWB supporters will always be found especially if you're going to compare him to the current occupant, President Barack Obama. There are some Americans who would rather have Bush several times over than to ever have an Obama, whom they believe possess no legitimate right to the US presidency.
I do believe GWB's presidency was one of the worse in history if only because so many US military died (4,500) for the wrong reason, the illegal invasion of Iraq. Also, the dismantling of the Iraqi structure which Saddam Hussein had in place to keep Iraqi ethnic factions from warring against each other which they are currently now doing. Not to elaborate on the many innocent Iraqis killed, the displaced people still going on today.
Yet, ironically, I do not blame GWB himself but his handlers...the architechs of the Iraq invasion, namely the neocons headed by the de Facto president, Dick Cheney, whose sole purpose was control of the oil well contracts and profiteering for Halliburton. George W Bush was completely unqualified to be president of the US. His family's money and powerful influential friends along with a partisan United States Supreme Court stole the election from Gore, giving it to Bush. Bush, for all intent and purposes, did not fully understand what was going on in his own administration until the middle of his second term. Condoleezza Rice, his Security Council advisor in the first term, fell down on the job, and it was written by Richard Clarke, the GWB's Terrorist Czar, that the position was just too much for her and that she was a follower as opposed to being a leader. Any good the W administration did has been outweighted by the resulting ongoing fighting amid innocent lost lives which continues to this day. ISI is a consequence of a failed Iraq. Yet there are some in the congress who want our Military to return as fodder in Iraq, to be killed fighting a senseless war. But one must not dismiss the reality that America broke Iraq,(General Colin Powell) and in a sense they are responsible for the eventual outcome, to making sure Iraq becomes stable once again.
What you are trying to argue is that every miscalculation and error is the same. Iraq was a major blunder of epic proportions, unlike the errors that you speak of. If Cheney/Rumsfield had done their homework we would not have the mess that we have today. They expected that we would be treated as liberators and expected to be in an out in under 6 months. Iraq is probably one of the worst blunders of foreign policy in our history.
We were treated like liberators. In fact even the leftwing press admitted that it was working for awhile and was having positive effect on other ME countries. How short a memory the American people have. What they didn't figure on was the rise and persistence of the Islamic terrorist organizations. Miscalculation? Absolutely. Worst foreign policy blunder? Not by a long shot.
Greetings, AlbqOwl. :2wave:
I hope I am recalling correctly, but I seem to remember the photos showing how proud women were to show their purple fingers after they were once again permitted to vote - a privilege Saddam had apparently taken away from them! :thumbs:
Greetings, AlbqOwl. :2wave:
I hope I am recalling correctly, but I seem to remember the photos showing how proud women were to show their purple fingers after they were once again permitted to vote - a privilege Saddam had apparently taken away from them! :thumbs:
From here in the cheap seats, I'd say George W. Bush was a good President. He is/was an honest man, a fine attribute to have following the Clinton administration. He also served, from the very beginning, in very trying times for the United States and for the most part managed that well. He came into office as the Clinton tech boom was going bust, quickly found the country attacked on 9/11, worked to bring calm and strength to the American people after the fact, introduced economic policies that helped the country's economy recover quickly and move to virtual full employment and when the housing bubble burst, another matter not of his making, his administration pushed for the TARP relief that brought the country back from the brink. Add to this his attempts, from the White House, to move the issues of immigration reform and social security reform, and he can be seen as a strong man of principle who wasn't always successful in bring the country along with him - that's not necessarily a bad thing - and it brought both those issues into the consciousness of Americans.
On balance, all things considered, he is a fine man and a fine President and has been a brilliant example of a former President since he left office.
And as for his press both here at home and in Iraq immediately following the war, had things not gone so sour in the years to come, there would be little to fault President Bush on re Iraq:
I'm a constitutionalist, i.e. a true republican; as such, I necessarily aligned with conservatives against the obviously vile liberals and Democratic Party.
That said, conservatives have really gone off the reservation and morphed almost fully into neocons. As neocons, they are committed to war, war, and more war; and to building up the domestic police state - not to mention conveniently handing over victory after victory to the progressives as they bankrupt our country and build up their version of the nanny state.
Those are the acceptable parameters within which each of the Establishment parties operates as they enslave us (for our own good) under a fascist police/nanny state.
For those of us who love liberty and freedom - there is nowhere left to turn.
Those things said, George Bush was a terrible President. As is Obama, as was Clinton, and so on...
The only decent President we've had since Howard Taft (only b/c he resisted the Money Trust to whatever extent) was Kennedy; and, when he defied the Establishment he paid for it with his life.
America is broke, our Constitution is in tatters, the citizens have been dumbed down into morons... America is all-but dead.
Good afternoon AO - hope all is well,
And you're absolutely right. Many forget that America and the "coalition of the willing" were welcomed as liberators in Iraq following the surrender of Baghdad. However, what is also forgotten and conflated as "losing the war" or Iraqis not supporting the US is the disastrous job Paul Bremer, the US head of state in Iraq following the war, who totally botched the victory. He not only sent home, with their guns, the entire Iraqi military, but he also allowed roving bands of the lawless to loot and destroy much of the city's and the country's treasures and he thus lost complete control of the situation. There were hundreds of thousands of armed soldiers, with no work and no prospects, left to fend for themselves without any organization or guidance and thus the country devolved into chaos and sectarian violence. Rumsfield put Bremer in place, so I blame his inattention and poor planning as well. But ultimately it has to rest on Bush's shoulders although I don't blame him personally. His Secretary of Defense and his Secretary of State both failed him when it mattered most.
I know its an asinine question. It would like like asking if Ryan leaf is good qb or if lebron james is the worst player in NBA history. He failed at ever aspect of his presidency and to think otherwise would be to completely ignore the results of his presidency. I don't know how anyone can objectively conclude after looking at the results of his presidency that he is anything but a bad president. Despite his presidency being a unmitigated disaster he seems to have a loyal following here.
We were treated like liberators. In fact even the leftwing press admitted that it was working for awhile and was having positive effect on other ME countries. How short a memory the American people have. What they didn't figure on was the rise and persistence of the Islamic terrorist organizations. Miscalculation? Absolutely. Worst foreign policy blunder? Not by a long shot.
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