Post-Bush Bush

Color me disenchanted. At the most critical juncture in American history, we had it all (the White House, Senate and House) and we squandered it on goodwill to snakes (Democraps) and savages (Islam.) There is no excuse for the utter abandonment of the Bush Doctrine or  Bush's complete capitulation to neo State Arabist mentality. He has moved the bar so low that anyone one center or right of him is labeled a right wing extremist. There is no difference between him and the Dhimmicrats.

Caroline Glick in today's Jerusalem Post nails it;

ECHOES OF 1919

Both critics and supporters of US President George W. Bush's post-September 11 vision of a new, freedom-loving Middle East have noted the strong similarities between the president and his predecessor Woodrow Wilson.

In 1917, the 28th president brought US forces into World War I with the promise that an allied victory against Germany and its allies would make the world "safe for democracy." Wilson's vision of a postwar world was a bit out of place in the war being fought on the killing fields of Belgium and France. Neither the Allies nor the Central Powers were fighting the war for ideological gain. Rather, the war was being fought to restore or upset the balance of power between European empires in Europe and beyond.

Yet Wilson had his vision. As he sent 1,200,000 American soldiers to war, he appointed a committee of 150 academics to prepare the peace. In 1918, he announced his 14-point plan for the postwar era. The last point, which called for the establishment of an international government with the power to guarantee each nation's sovereignty and independence, was the one that Wilson held to most strongly.
[...]
THERE ARE many differences between the Bush and Wilson administrations, but three stand out in particular. First, by ignoring the real interests of the US and its allies in favor of utopian peace, Wilson's vision of postwar peace was a flight of fancy predicated on a rejection of reality. In contrast, by recognizing the threat that the global jihad constitutes for the Free World, Bush sought to shake the US and its allies out of their collective flight from reality in the 1990s and force them to contend with the world as it is.

But while Wilson's vision was unrealistic, he has to be credited for his unstinting devotion to it. In contrast, Bush never completely matched his visionary rhetoric to his actual policies. And today, increasingly abandoned by his supporters and undermined by his own advisers who reject his vision and insist on returning to fantasyland, Bush has apparently abandoned his own doctrine of war and peace.

OVER THE weekend, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that the administration stands united around her policy of appeasing the Iranian regime which is guiding the terror wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, and beyond. In Rice's words, "The President of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course [with Iran]. That policy is supported by all members of the cabinet and by the Vice President of the United States."

Rice's statement cannot be aligned with Bush's statement at his 2002 State of the Union Address and subsequent speeches, where he announced that one of the principal aims of the US war against the global jihad is to deny rogue regimes, specifically Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

As the president put it then, "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

But then, since the September 11 attacks, for every rhetorical step the President has taken towards reality, he has taken two policy steps back to delusion.

WHILE UPHOLDING Islam as a religion of peace, the administration courted Islamic preachers of war. So it was that at the post-September 11 memorial service at the National Cathedral, the administration invited Muzammil Siddiqi to speak for Muslims. Siddiqi, who heads one of the largest mosques in North America, was the man who converted Adam Gadahn, the American Taliban, to Islam. As head of the Wahabist Islamic Circle of North America, on October 28, 2000 Sidiqi participated along with Abdulrahman Alamoudi - now in jail on terrorism charges - in a rally outside the Israeli embassy. There he proclaimed, "America has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come."

Until his arrest, Alamoudi presided over the training of Muslim chaplains in the US military. In 2004 Congress initiated a probe into ISNA's suspected links to terror groups. Several members of its board of directors were arrested and convicted of involvement with terror cells.

In embracing radical Muslim religious leaders and pro-jihadist Muslim organizations in the US rather than embracing and strengthening anti-jihadist Muslim activists and leaders, the Bush administration followed a pattern that has remained consistent worldwide. Rather than embrace liberal, pro-American and pro-democracy Muslims, the administration embraces America's enemies. In Iraq, leaders like Mithal al-Alousi and Ahmed Chalabi were spurned in favor of Ba'athists like former prime minister Iyad Allawi and Iranian puppets like current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

AS FOR THE Palestinians, Bush has opted to ignore Fatah's involvement in terrorism, its jihadist indoctrination of Palestinian society and its strategic collaboration with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, Iran and Syria. By upholding Fatah, Bush blocked all possibility that an alternative, liberal and democratic Palestinian leadership could emerge. The same pattern has held in Egypt.

Whereas Bush's commitment to advancing his stated strategic aim has been far weaker than Wilson's was, the danger of abandoning the fight today in favor of isolationism and appeasement is far greater than it was in the 1920s. While Great Britain's embrace of isolationism and appeasement under the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments was a disaster for the British, who were high on Germany's target list, it is possible to argue that isolationism was a sensible policy for America. There was no German threat to the US in the 1920s and 1930s. Today the situation is different.

[...]

Historical hindsight has judged the feckless appeasement and irresponsible isolationism of the 1920s and 1930s responsible for the catastrophe of World War II. Bush's doctrine of war and peace was aimed at preventing just such a reenactment of history.

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaims that the countdown to the next Holocaust has begun while actively waging war against the US and its allies on all available fronts, the catastrophe that will follow an American relapse into isolationism and appeasement is undeniable.

Read all of it: go here

Comments

[EJO]

Dear Pamela;
Thank you for this article.
And thanks to Caroline Glick as well.
I have been very disappointed with several of the things that Mr. Bush has done. And this article points out one of them.
Sincerely;
EJO

[Athos]

Good post and catch on Caroline's excellent article.

In addition to his appeasement / surrender to the Defeatocrats, the Islamofascists, and their allies in Foggy Bottom, let's not forget the important and influentual role played by the MSM.

Without the open hostility and repetitive message from the US MSM - and the President's misguided attempts to mollify / appease these pinheads - when nothing short of capitulation would be acceptable is just another reason why 43 may be hard pressed to be a higher ranked President than 41 in history books 50 years from now.

[john jay]

friends:

as per usual, it is pretty hard to turn one's mind away from the persuasion and reason in a caroline glick article.

if she is not the most brilliant essayist in the world, she is darn close. put her in the top five of persons who write so well that they motivate by pure logic and reason.

my admiration knows no bounds.

and, she scores some well deserved points with her keen observation, and well ordered thought processes.

but, .... .

in this, as in almost all things critical of george bush, i am reminded of carl sandburg's biography of abraham lincoln, perhaps the greatest work of prose i have ever read.

in this, i am reminded of pogo, the erstwhile alter ego of walt kelly.

a constant theme of sandburg's protrait of lincoln, penned with a sure a stroke and technique as any rembrandt, was lincoln's observation that a leader can only lead so far as his population will let him.

in the battle of the clouds, a union army charged up a hill, outside of chattanooga, if my memory serves me, and defeated an enemy which held a seemingly impregnable redoubt. their officers were astounded, and tried to hold their men back, but they would have none of it, and against all odds they redeemed themselves. from what? from an enemy which had thoroughly humiliated them on the battlefield, mere short weeks before.

in short, the union army was angry. it had been spanked horribly, and no rhetoric, mine or others, can substitute for the carnage that had been earlier experienced by them, and was on their minds. the union army was angry, and it wanted revenge. the union army was angry, their pride and honor stung by the ignomy of their earlier defeat, and so they left their officers in the wake of their charge, and they had their revenge.

do you know anyone genuinely angry about 9/11, except maybe for pamela, who is, trust me, still white hot about this craven attack which we, as a populace, have never moved to avenge.

how can george bush lead such a craven lot. more people died on that day than at normandy, yet we have jerks and twerps who protest and call for bush's impeachment. news casters who piss and moan about this and that. ex-military officers, for god's sake, who criticize their fellow for what they piously intone are professional lapses in the war, while we fight the fucking war. nancy pelosi. harry reid. traitors.

lincoln had these jerks, too. journalists who said he was stupide, and looked like a monkey. cabinet members who plotted. a wastrel for a wife. mcclellan, fremont, and others, who "served" him, yet sought his presidency, at no end of mendacity in their attacks on him.

so, forgive george bush if he is not quite the man that abraham lincoln was, under similar circumstances. to fall short of lincoln, is not to be indicted by history.

george tried. he tried to lead. no one followed.

to finish with pogo. in perhaps the best comic ever written, pogo steps from the boat with churchy, wearing his tri-corned hat, and tells his fellow swamp dwellers, "we have met the enemy, and he is us."

well, caroline glick had it mostly right, but she left out a most salient point in any analysis. it is not that we are so ill led by george bush.

it is that george bush has been so ill followed by us.

john jay

[john jay]

friends:

ignominy portrait stupid "...penned w/ as sure a stroke ...."

sorry for the typo's. wish typepad had a spellchecker.

john jay

[x_dhimmi]

Bravo, JJ! Most excellent.

Forgive me for adding (I know I told you five minutes ago not to change a word, but this is really a p.s.), but something just popped into my head. I stated at the time, and will repeat, everyone who stayed home last election to teach them danged republicans a lesson -- well, you can't say it helped shore up Bush's support in congress. Enough said about that. Water under the bridge. But I've read a few times lately people saying (typing) the same damned thing. Good grief. I despair when people withhold support, see the situation deteriorate, and think withholding support again will bring things back to an upswing. Very steep learning curve there. Hope it levels out soon.

[Mega]

John Jay - nice post, and eloquent.

Bush eased this reluctant, fat and happy country of ours into war with a big fib (the al qaeda-Iraq connection). The cost of that fib is turning out to be astronomically high, but it could've gone the other way and he would have seemed a genius. Unfortunately, what we've got here, at this point, is an American public that has been told "Religion of Peace" and War on "Terror" so many times that they have no idea who the enemy is, and who or why we're fighting. The Fib has been a monstrous mistake in hindsight, but a lot of smart people (I count myself one) thought at the time, hmmm pretty clever, this Mr. Bush, for starting the swamp-draining process in a manner that the public could swallow. Bush has made a million mistakes, but the origin of the problem is in a complacent, reality-avioding public that wants to talk about No Child Left Behind and health care reform and two Americas and Hardball while fanatically enraged Moslems gradually colonize the west and kill us for god and sport. The American public is going to pretend this new world war doesn't exist until we either lose or wake up. A president can only do so much without backing. That said, the Bush administration is as lame a duck as has ever existed, and the next election cannot come soon enough.

[john jay]

mega:

i do not think that either al queda/iraq or wmd were "fibs." and, neither did congressional democrats and the u.n. types at the votes authorizing military force, nor did billy clinton when he lobbed the cruise missiles in several times, in "dessert fox" in a very heavy sustained attack.

i do agree that the rationale for the war has not been well set forth, and we have a public which is thoroughly muddled in understanding what is going on, and very set against ever understanding why we do what we do.

i also agree that the bush administration has made mistakes in the conduct of the wars. that does not particularly disturb me, as war is a setting in which large and small mistakes are made all of the time. practicing for d-day, an allied troop ship went down with the loss of 800+ lives, and the english shut down the coast as the dead bodies washed ashore, and the press was muzzled, to keep the extent of the disaster from the public. anybody know how to spell dieppe? an unmitigated disaster.

of all the campaigns of the war, only the naval war in the pacific by the u.s. navy and united states marines/army can be said to have been brilliantly fought, and even there, the carnage was terrible.

war is wasteful. it is seldom conducted with much wisdom. people, and soldiers, do not go unpunished for the mistakes of their leaders, or for their own errors. a very high price is paid for this, in lives.

in wwii, the war on the eastern front was simply a meatgrinder, and millions of men fought it out toe to toe, and the only rule was last man standing. between them, hitler and stalin accounted for 30-35 million lives? who will ever know.

we have lost 3,500 killed in four years in iraq, the secret being kept from the public, this figure being not too far removed from the peace time casuality rate "enjoy" by the u.s. and the soviet armies. you can look it up. it is dangerous at any time, being in the military.

mistakes, bumbling, wonderful young men and women getting killed and maimed. it is the nature of war.

to be avoided, if possible.

but, here is the poop in the stew for those who think that we can walk away from it.

we cannot.

the other side will not let us. and they will pursue us in our homelands if we fight, or if we don't fight, and they will kill and conquer us if they can. with the knife, with the bomb, and with birthrate and immigration if we are stupid enough to allow them.

and, this ultimately serves the chief reason for war. it cannot be avoided. there is no way around it. and, by trying to avoid it, you inflict more horrible loss on yourself, perhaps to the point of extinction or annihilation, then if you simply bow to the inevitable and fight.

so, no, george bush may not be abraham lincoln. or, winston churchill. or, charlemagne.

but, he is our president, and we are at war, and we must realize it, and we must do the best we can. anything else makes us traitors to our heritage, or civilization, or religious convictions.

and we better do everything we can to ensure another wartime president, if we are to survive this historical epoch. we don't have to worry about making it pretty, or eloquent, we just have to survive.

and, this, the american public refuses to grasp.

where would we be without the likes of pamela and other conservative blogges? shit house ignorant, walking to the executioner's block, is my guess. but, i tend to be a bit pessimistic.

john jay

[--mdd--]

Thanks Jay,
"you simply bow to the inevitable and fight"

That'll be me right next to ya'.

[backhoe]

As one who was ( search, if you have the obsession, my all too public posts on Free Republic and Free Dominion ) a reluctant supporter in 2000, an enthusiastic supporter after 9-11, and an increasingly wary supporter after 2004...

...I can't wait for this Administration to become History.

A pity.

A thousand pities.

So much potential, squandered...

[jpm100]

I never voted for Bush in 2000. I did a write-in in protest since he seemed like too much of a liberal.

Then 9/11 happened. I think the shock of it made him a conservative but only for a few years.

If Iraq is a mess in the occupation phase, its because he ran it like a Democrat would. Like someone afraid of the Media.

Things like Al Sadr in the beginning should have been captured or killed.

The fact Bush has had to dial back the rules of engagement for this surge. How can you almost voluntarily tie our troops hands like that. If anything we need a Reagan who probably would have gotten flak for rules of engagement that the media felt were too lax, but Reagan would have politely told the media to go blow.

Himself and his officials convicting troops in the Press before they had their trial.

Then there's the social spending and illegal immigration. As well as risking another Souter type appointment in Harriet Myers.

Take away the first few years of his use of the military after 9/11 and I see a President that has been for all intents and purposes one of our most liberal Presidents.

Handcuffed by a Republican congress and public backlash, Bill Clinton wasn't this liberal when you get away from the 9/11 response and first year or so of the Iraq War.

[tazzerman2000]

Awesome discussion! John Jay, well said in all respects....

The only thing I would had and/or focus more on is the media culpability in all of this.

They have been against Bush from the beginning. The drumbeat has been non-stop since 2000... They've willingly offered a platform for every kook and leftist nut, every conspiracy theorist and liar available. Just look at the case of Joe Wilson.. Need I say more?

The ip so facto case that Bush lied, people died is so engrained in our national mindset and has been from the start, that there's no way to turn it back now. It's a false truisim. If there is such a thing.

All of which has been fostered, abetted and framed by the media. ABC, CBS, NBC are the main protagonists but it goes much deeper.. Hollywood, every ad in newspapers, tv, radio etc, magazines the likes of Time and Newsweek along with musicians of all stripes, movies and virtually everything have reenforced the notion, bombard us with the complete and udder fantasy that we KNEW there were no WMDs, that we knew there was no linkage between Iraq and Al-Quieda, that we knew Iraq was not looking for yellowcake etc etc...

Blood for oil, world domination, empire building... These things are ALL taken as truisims and fact in this age of mass media and mass delusionment.

The notion that Bush could only lead as far as the population was willing to go is a) VERY close to the truth of it, b) caused primarly by the MSM and it's proxies.

In that respect, I place the blame squarely at the feet of the MSM.. Who's freakin side are they on anyway?

They continue to foster their world view in regards to the Israeli/Pali and Iran situations..

Just this morning, I'm watching Matt Lauer broadcasting from Cuba. Completely swallowing the so called 'facts' distributed by the Cuban government regarding literacy rates etc.

It continues.....

[x_dhimmi]

Bush successfully managed to have two conservatives appointed to the Supreme Court, the results of which will make an enormous impact today and in the future provided Roberts and Alito remain committed to the Constitution as the founders intended instead of some happy-happy-joy-joy distorted version of it. Unfortunately, Bush would not be able to accomplish that a third time should the opportunity arise.

[wxjames]

tazzerman2000, I conmpletely agree, the MSM is our primary enemy. They have caused many deaths of out soldiers and many miscalculations of our leaders. However, the fact that Bush has done nothing to counter the MSM again falls on his shoulders.
To this day, he allows his media enemies into the White House briefing room every day. If I were pres, they would be strip searched and turned away just for showing up. I would treat them like the rodents they are, and make no secret of it. After 6 years, such a president could get any story he wanted on page one. Bush is an alter boy. The next time, we need a prick with balls. Someone who can throw body punches at Islam for 14 rounds, and then go to the head for the knockout.

[JewishOdysseus]

JohnJay, dittoes to you, bro!

We are all upset because Bush isn't Winston Churchill...WE KNEW THAT.

He has been beaten down for 5+ years, he HAS refused to go medieval on their asses in Iraq, but after the capture of Baghdad, how effective wd carpet bombing have been? By avoiding excessive casualties you DO minimize unneccesary grudges/resentment (big factors in Mideast).

I DO fault him and Rummy for not expanding the military...it seems pathetic we are scraping for 1-2 divisions with a home population of ~300 million, and the mil reduced ~50% from what it was in 1986.

But one thing we need to always keep in mind: Bush has been confronted with not one, but **2** Fifth Columns INSIDE HIS OWN NATIONAL SECURITY APPARATUS--the CIA and the State Dept.

They are cunning, slow-moving, patient enemies, and they all work closely w/the MSM and the NGOs, all using that Hive-style communication code. They are all cozy w/the Dem permanent Washington govt, and they play a kind of tag-team to help one another. They are very Leninist/Muslim in ther approach, patiently conspiring in the shadows, feigning loyalty, relentlessly keeping their eyes on the goal (expanding the freedom of maneuver for Aemrica's enemies, and diminishing the freedom of America's citizens), and ALWAYS quick to pull a dirty trick to ruin their principled enemies ("neo-cons," Dick Cheney, Zionists, border ranchers sick of drug smugglers roaring thru their ranches, and all normal patriotic Americans).

Think of what a handicap this was to Bush...Not just their active sabotage of his policies, but the sheer incompetence of bad information, bad analysis and bad advice. Even the spies/traitors under Churchill weren't conspiring TO HELP HITLER, but Stalin, Churchill's ally.

Imagine if the only spies/traitors in the State Dept were trying to help...Israel?! How much wd that hurt our war effort?

The decline of the CIA is truly shocking. The OSS's Bill Donovan had more guts and will-to-win in his little office as he smoked a cigar w/his deputy than the entire modern CIA's thousands of "agents" [resume careerists] combined.

Had Val Plame and Joe Wilson tried to pull any a that shit back in the old days--hell as recently as the 80's under the late great Bill Casey, another OSS star-- the Director wd have had her and him executed as traitors, and he and his top staff wd have taken a long satisfying piss on their unmarked graves.

Which is a long way of saying:

I think Bush did the best he could, with what he had.

He is human, he made mistakes along the way, but his larger objectives and heart and courage were always true.

We WOULD have done a lot worse w/either Gore or Kerry, and we'd be in far worse trouble now.