Bush, Part One

I originally started this post not very long after the election. However, I knew that I would need to step away and come back to it. It’s a good thing that I did as the country and the world overall has changed dramatically over the last two months. That is obviously not good news but I was amazed to see one thing that I thought I would never see. What that is, you ask? Read on…

Those who know me would assume correctly that I voted for George W. Bush neither in what I affectionately call The Court Appointment Of 2000 nor when he actually won the popular vote in 2004, albeit not by a landslide. Nonetheless, after September 11th I looked to Bush for leadership like most every other American and trusted that he knew what was best for the country when he chose to go after Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq.

Meanwhile, I was certainly not feeling his domestic agenda. Granted, with both Congress and the Supreme Court leaning to the right, one could not blame Bush for attempting to establish a long-lasting legacy of conservative social and fiscal policies. In fact, I would have expected no less. Thankfully he came no closer to instituting a deregulated theocracy than the secular socialist state that some fear President-Elect Obama will foist onto the country with the legislative branch on his side. Politics and jokes about his perceived intelligence aside, I bet I could have a casual, friendly conversation with him about sports and other light topics. That said, as far as his tenure as President goes, I truly, deeply and honestly dislike him for one simple reason.

We should not have gone to Iraq.

It was a grave mistake for which I believe we will be paying, literally and figuratively, long after our lifetimes.

Not only was the connection between Hussein and Al Qaeda found to be tentative at best, but Bush conceded in his last press conference that the “weapons of mass destruction” – the main premise for going to Iraq - did not even exist. The upshot now is that after underestimating - or at least not revealing to the public - how receptive the Iraqi people would be and how entrenched we would become in their country, we’ve lost over perhaps trillions of dollars and more importantly, the lives of over four thousand soldiers.

“But Saddam was an evil, dangerous man!” some may say. Yes, he was a horrible person who even committed genocide on his own citizens. He may have even threatened his neighbors again one day, most notably Israel. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of oppressive governments in the world. Ironically, one of the most oppressive is the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Not only is that country the birthplace of the vast majority of September 11st hijackers but the Saudi royal family itself has more than a passing relationship with the Bushes.

If Bush would have had more overwhelming support from our country for ignoring the United Nations, it would have been to focus on getting the people who actually claimed responsibility for attacking us, dead or alive, whether or not we were welcome in the countries where he was suspected of hiding. But if we couldn’t somehow stay focused on rooting Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda henchmen out of the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, then why did we not choose to assist those fighting for their interpretation of freedom in, say, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia, Chechnya or Russian Georgia?

Even with the absence of WMDs, ridding Iraq of Saddam and helping establish it as a beacon of democracy for the Middle East while theoretically intimidating the other Axes sounds like a logical if aggressive foreign policy. Unfortunately, I feel that there are two underlying reasons that, if not officially acknowledged, are an open secret nonetheless.