The Long View on a Failed Presidency
History always takes the long view. But that only happens years later when the people involved are no longer around and there is nothing to lose by open and frank discussion about the events of the past. That doesn’t prevent people from reshaping historical events in their own image to tell the story as they want it to be told. Christian Evangelicals and Progressive Liberals do this all the time. The type of historical perspective I am talking about is really only something that a committed few can do. It requires objectivity and that is something so few of us have.
My prediction is that the long historical view of George W. Bush’s presidency will be one of failure. I believe that historians of U.S. History will look upon him as a widely controversial and unpopular president who put his nation at great risk during his 8 short years in the Oval Office.
I am hardly objective concerning this president. I don’t like him. I never have. I didn’t vote for him either time. However, I don’t think I will be off base on my thoughts. Even all but the most die hard, religious or neo-conservative seems to be taking this view on our current president. Let’s face it…he sucks big donkey rocks!
He did not win by any large majority in either election and if it weren’t for the Supreme Court decision in his favor he may not have actually been president in the first place. His 2000 election is an example of a shortcoming in our electoral system by which a candidate can be elected president despite the popular vote.
Future historians are going to be asking how a one time centrist became such a dysfunctional president. Certainly they will be looking at the events of the past 8 years and see how the war on terror became an excuse to push the envelope when it came to civil rights. They will want to know how a supposed Christian president could have the balls to attempt to get exceptions made in terms of the Geneva Convention. He may well seem unscrupulous when it comes to torture and how prisoners were detained.
Another question these future historians will ask is how did a man who managed to avoid active duty during the Vietnam war not only become the commander and chief of the United States Military but put them in harms way by sending them on Quixotic windmill chase in Iraq? Historians are going to wonder how he managed to persuade so many of our congressmen and women to go along with him at first.
The problem with Iraq is that initially it wasn’t about the war on terror. I am not sure what it is about. I think perhaps, greed and a vendetta against Saddam Hussein. If nothing else it was an attempt to show the Middle East and the rest of the world that if we can’t get Osama Bin Laden then we will just pick another target.
In fairness September 11, 2001 came early on in his first term and it is the type of event that tends to derail everything else and demands all of the intention. I believe history will reflect kindly on Bush the weeks following the tragedy. He handled it as well as could be expected.
Our military strike against the Taliban was fine! It took us a little too long to get there. Afghanistan should have been a smoking crater within 48-72 hours of the World Trade Center attacks. But on the subject of Iraq historians are going to have a field day. They will be amazed that Bush’s main advisors such as Rumsfield and his VP, Dick Cheney were actually fired by Reagan because their cold war views of the world were obsolete. Yet these were the men who helped engineer and shape our occupation of Iraq.
History will exonerate him of the charges leveled by the conspiracy theorists who claim that Bush engineered the 9/11 attacks and such. Most of these theories are ridiculous. However, he will be accused of using the tragedy as an opportunity to put into play some rather unjust and obsolete foreign policies that had been on the books perhaps even before Reagan was president.
History may even reveal that some of his top military advisors strongly advised him to not engage in a ground war in Iraq. Certainly our president should have been aware of the former Soviet Union’s failed war against the Taliban and other insurgents in the 1980’s and historians of the future will wonder why he didn’t seem to recall those lessons. Perhaps because the U.S. was on the side of the Taliban during those years he didn’t feel the lessons applied to him.
However, with all of these black marks on his record history may grant him one positive for his legacy. George W. Bush may well be one of the few men or women willing to see terrorism for what it is and to understand that it must be dealt with directly and even forcefully in some cases. It’s his methods of fighting this battle on terrorism that will be questioned.
The challenge of dealing with terrorists is that they are single minded in their causes and this makes them unreasonable. There is no way that a stubborn and irascible man such as George W. Bush could effectively lead the fight against such individuals. Even when it was clear that this approach was no longer working he still refused to change gears and try something different.
Our troops and advisors are now doing nothing more than propping up a near failed government that will surely be supplanted if not completely overthrown once we are gone. The so-called coalition is less of a joint effort of allied nations and more a single handed effort of US troops alone as more and more of our “friends” withdraw their troops and flee the scene.
Madeline Albright, in a recent interview, stated that our next president not only has to put an end to the war he or she has to find an effective method of dealing with Iran. Animosity between the United States and Iran started with the deposing of the Shah and now fueled by increasing US unpopularity Iran is starting to shake a big stick at us. Despite UN investigators and US intelligence assertions about Iran’s nuclear programs they still have aspirations that include nuclear weapons. The recent Iranian intimidation of US Warships in the gulf is proof that Iran can easily become out of control.
The Iranian government is not afraid of the US attacking them. They want it! They will try to provoke it in some way. This is the nature of the jihads. They want war! Remember the current president of Iran has sanctioned parades in Tehran that include missiles with the names of Israeli cities on them. The next president will have to have a steady hand to ensure we don’t give them what they want…unless absolutely necessary.
Iran and other terrorist groups are like a more dangerous form of the school yard bully who provokes others to fight and then acts indignant and outraged when they get what’s coming to them.
The new president will be facing a new brand of Islamic militant. This militant will have been trained in the battle fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. After all we are dealing with people who not only have no qualms about killing innocent bystanders but are quite willing to kill themselves in the process. It’s hard to fight this type of mentality with diplomacy.
I have heard Mrs. Bush tell interviewers that her husband and Cheney have kept America safe and they seem to think that history will take a different view of the war on Terror. But history, will most likely ask, “Safe but at what cost?”
I can’t help but throw in Benjamin Franklin’s statement that, “those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.”
I am not sure we are safer. We may be safe from imminent attack on U.S. Soil (for the moment) but if so might it not be at the cost of our civil liberties. Illegal wire tapping, torture of suspected terrorists, illegal detention and the downright denial of due process to some individuals simply because we “are at war” are going to be seen for what they truly are…destruction of the principals this country was founded on.
Yes terrorists are dangerous. But I would still rather live in a free and open society and that, unfortunately, requires a certain amount of risk…including that my enemies may kill because of it. But I would rather die free than live under tyranny.
No…I don’t think Bush is a tyrant nor is he a dictator, fascist or a Nazi. But he has certainly set some dangerous precedents. Any marginally awake observer will note that once a government has made it possible for certain actions to be taken it is hard to get those reversed.
Finally, how do we successfully end the war in Iraq? The question is a lot harder than most people seem to believe. While many want immediate withdrawal I believe our next president will quickly learn that will create problems not only for us, strategically but also humanitarian problems as the insurgents will most surely attempt to topple the Iraqi government.