A post for reeds

[dude1394]

Reeds... I thought of you when I read this, so this buds for you.

everyone deserves redemption

A one-time Bush skeptic admits his error
By JOSHUA MURAVCHIK

George W. Bush's approval ratings are at a low. Some liberals, reports New Republic Editor Jonathan Chait, find Bush's very existence to be "a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche." Now even conservatives — such as columnists George Will, David Brooks and Robert Kagan — are pouring forth despair over the president's Iraq policies.

But my admiration for the man — for whom I refused to vote in year 2000 — grows ever higher.

A president's chief duty is to keep the nation safe in the dangerous tides of international politics. In 2000, I found candidate Bush too little engaged with this challenge. But since 9/11, he has offered the kind of leadership that ranks him with the greatest presidents of my lifetime, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.

Like them, Bush is taxed with having a weak intellect and little mastery of policy details. Maybe so. But what Bush has, as they had, is a clear-eyed recognition of a great threat to our country, the courage to face that threat and a willingness to risk his political standing for the policies he deems essential to our security.

Sept. 11 was a watershed, but it was new only in scope, not in kind. For three decades, Middle Eastern terrorists had assassinated our diplomats, brought down our airliners, blown up our servicemen in their bunks and berths. They even bombed the World Trade Center. Yet as long as they were killing us in small batches, we responded with passivity, fearing to stir up more trouble.

Even Reagan, tough as he was, decided to slink away when Hezbollah murdered 241 of our Marines in their barracks in Beirut.

On 9/11, however, the terrorists managed to kill us by thousands at a swoop, and what Bush understood was that our policy of passivity, like the West's efforts to appease Hitler in the 1930s, had only invited more audacious attacks. He saw that we had no choice but to go to war against the terrorists and their backers. If we did not destroy them, the terrorists would set their sanguinary sights higher until they succeeded in killing us by the tens or hundreds of thousands.

He saw too that this war would be, as President Kennedy described the Cold War, a "long, twilight struggle" waged on many fronts and by many means. This meant that we would fight and some of us would die on his watch, but that victory could not possibly be achieved within so short a time as to enable him to claim credit.

Has our occupation of Iraq gone smoothly? Far from it. Have mistakes been made? No doubt.

Probably we should have sent more soldiers, not disbanded the Iraqi army, planned earlier elections and not adopted an artificial deadline for transferring sovereignty.

In the occupation of Japan, we made mistakes too: trying to impose federalism, which was alien to the Japanese; purging so many collaborators with the old regime that it crippled economic recovery and stirred deep resentment.

Perhaps even the decision to take on Iraq after Afghanistan was a strategic mistake in the larger war. It might have been better to have concentrated on overthrowing Iran's mullahs or forcing Syria out of Lebanon. In World War II, Allied leaders and commanders debated fiercely which fronts to concentrate on and in what order.

But the real issue is not about tactics or even the larger strategy but whether to fight at all. The alternative is to soothe ourselves with half measures — tightening borders, tracking funds, sharing intelligence, courting unfriendly governments — hoping against hope that a disaster even bigger than 9/11 will not be visited upon us.

Are we safer now than we were before we began to fight back against the terrorists? Perhaps not, just as we were not safer when we began to resist Hitler, prompting him to declare war on us. Back then, we were not safer until we had won. And we will not be safe now until we have defeated the terrorists and their backers.

Would some other president have made the same brave choice as George Bush to shoulder this "long twilight struggle"? Not Bill Clinton, whose eye was always on the electoral calendar. Not the elder Bush, who didn't think much of "the vision thing." And surely not John Kerry, who tells us that he voted against the Iraq war of 1991 although he was really for it and voted for the Iraq war of 2003 although he was really against it. Kerry offers, in short, all the leadership of a whirling dervish. Truman? Reagan? Perhaps. But 9/11 came when George W. Bush was in office. He has risen to the challenge of a vicious enemy. I wish I could vote for him twice this time — to make up for having underestimated him so badly in 2000.

[mavsman55]

Agreed. I'd rather be alive and safe than be wasting all my tax dollars on schools that are already funded well enough. Go Bush!

[Drbio]

anyways......[img]i/expressions/rolleye.gif[/img]




Nice read. It's encouraging to see people come around.

[dude1394]

Want to keep you thinking reeds. You can't go wrong reading the great Victor Davis Hanson

......

Our Real Dilemma. We do have a grave problem in this country, but it is not the plan for Iraq, the neoconservatives, or targeting Saddam. Face it: This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor, cast around blame for the Japanese internment, sued over the light armor and guns of Sherman tanks, apologized for bombing German civilians, and recalled General Eisenhower to Washington to explain the rough treatment of Axis prisoners.

We are becoming a crazed culture of cheap criticism and pious moralizing, and in our self-absorption may well lose what we inherited from a better generation. Our groaning and hissing elite indulges itself, while better but forgotten folks risk their lives on our behalf in pretty horrible places.

Judging from our newspapers, we seem to care little about the soldiers while they are alive and fighting, but we suddenly put their names on our screens and speak up when a dozen err or die. And, in the latter case, our concern is not out of respect for their sacrifice but more likely a protest against what we don't like done in our name. So ABC's Nightline reads the names of the fallen from Iraq, but not those from the less controversial Afghanistan, because ideological purity — not remembering the departed per se — is once again the real aim.

Our very success after September 11 — perhaps because of the Patriot Act, the vigilance of domestic-security agencies, and the global reach of our military — has prevented another catastrophe of mass murder, but also allowed us to become complacent, and thus once more cynical and near suicidal. We can afford to be hypercritical and so groan at a Rudolph Giuliani at the 9/11 hearings only because brave men and women prevented more suicide bombings. We caricature our efforts in Iraq and demonize a good man like Paul Wolfowitz, even as a courageous and competent military took out Saddam in three weeks — and, in far less than the time that the occupations took in Germany and Japan (likewise both written off as failures of the times) allowed an autonomous and soon-to-be-elected government to take over.

Partisanship about the war earlier on established the present sad paradox of election-year politicking: Good news from Iraq is seen as bad news for John Kerry, and vice versa. If that seems too harsh a judgment, we should ask whether Terry McAuliffe would prefer, as would the American people, Osama bin Laden captured in June, more sarin-laced artillery shells found in July, al-Zarqawi killed in August, al-Sadr tried and convicted by Iraqi courts in September, an October sense of security and calm in Baghdad, and Syria pulling a Libya in November.

These depressing times really are much like the late 1960s, when only a few dared to plead that Hue and Tet were not abject defeats, but rare examples of American courage and skill. But now as then, the louder voice of defeatism smothers all reason, all perspective, all sense of balance — and so the war is not assessed in terms of five years but rather by the last five hours of ignorant punditry. Shame on us all.

Historic forces of the ages are in play. If we can just keep our sanity a while longer, accept our undeniable mistakes, learn from them, and press on, Iraq really will emerge as the constitutional antithesis of Saddam Hussein, and that will be a good and noble thing — impossible without America and its most amazing military.

[reeds]

Here is my question to all you republicans...answer honestly..if (and I know- its a big IF) 9/11 NEVER happened, what kind of President would Mr. Bush be right now?? Can you honestly say he would be this big into anti-terror, defense, etc??? Im thinking NO... the warnings were out there, and who knows if he would have taken any steps to make this country safer????? I think this country is jumping on his bandwagan saying he is such a great leader- Harry Truman- please!..just my thoughts

[LRB]

Originally posted by: reeds
Here is my question to all you republicans...answer honestly..if (and I know- its a big IF) 9/11 NEVER happened, what kind of President would Mr. Bush be right now?? Can you honestly say he would be this big into anti-terror, defense, etc??? Im thinking NO... the warnings were out there, and who knows if he would have taken any steps to make this country safer????? I think this country is jumping on his bandwagan saying he is such a great leader- Harry Truman- please!..just my thoughts

Reeds let me ask you this and try and answer it truthfully. Do you honestly think that Harry Truman would have been considered a great president if it wasn't for WWII and the Korean conflict? Every great president had a major crisis in which they shined. Would Bush had put the same emphasis on anti-terror if 9/11 never happened? I think not. I certainly hope that he has put MORE emphasis on it because of 9/11. I do not however believe that he would have put as little as the Clinton administration did.

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: reeds
Here is my question to all you republicans...answer honestly..if (and I know- its a big IF) 9/11 NEVER happened, what kind of President would Mr. Bush be right now?? Can you honestly say he would be this big into anti-terror, defense, etc??? Im thinking NO... the warnings were out there, and who knows if he would have taken any steps to make this country safer????? I think this country is jumping on his bandwagan saying he is such a great leader- Harry Truman- please!..just my thoughts

I think that GW would still be a great president because he is honest, has compassion and believes in accountability. His Tax-cuts, no child left behind, proposal of social security personal accounts, pushing of faith-based charities and his respect for life. He quit playing games with Kyoto, ABM treaty, silly North Korea strategy, marginalizing the terrorist arafat and moved strongly to complete missile defense. Rumsfeld was already tasked with transforming the military and was doing a strategic review of our force distribution. I'm sure there are also many others, but this is just a few. Of course few presidents are considered "great" unless they have great tasks to overcome.

As far as being "this big into anti-terror". No, I don't think so, certainly not to the point of invading afghanistan and being so aggressive. Iraq however may have been another story. Sadaam was busting out of his sanctions with the help of france/russia/etc. As the sanctions were being lifted, as they were probably going to be, then he would have certainly "re-started" his weapons programs. The only reason I'm using "" is because I've seen no proof that he got rid of his wmds.

However he WAS and DID take many steps to make this country safer and it seems obvious (imo) that he took terrorism more seriously that others. He immediately greatly increased the funding for the CIA. He removed the idiotic restrictions on recruiting CIA agents unless their record was clean?!? Like spys are going to be boy scouts, insane.

Bush was moving to step up the attacks on the Taliban and Bin Laden BEFORE the 9/11 attacks. Bin Laden Plan on Sept 10

WASHINGTON - After years of delay caused by inadequate intelligence, the U.S. government decided just one day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that it would try to overthrow the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan if a diplomatic push to expel Osama bin Laden from the country failed, the independent panel investigating the attacks reported Tuesday.

Bottom line, bush, cheney, rumsfeld, powell and rice are responsible, adults. I cannot say the same for clinton, gore, albright and reno. You might, but I cannot.

[mavsman55]

Originally posted by: reeds
Here is my question to all you republicans...answer honestly..if (and I know- its a big IF) 9/11 NEVER happened, what kind of President would Mr. Bush be right now?? Can you honestly say he would be this big into anti-terror, defense, etc??? Im thinking NO... the warnings were out there, and who knows if he would have taken any steps to make this country safer????? I think this country is jumping on his bandwagan saying he is such a great leader- Harry Truman- please!..just my thoughts

Does it matter? 9-11 happened already, there's nothing we can do about it, and George Bush made the right choice. The only bandwagon that's being jumped on is the bush-hating bandwagon that so many people like you are hopping on.

[dude1394]

Ah but reeds is trying to be a thinking liberal, I have hope for him yet. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Ah but reeds is trying to be a thinking liberal ( not like al gore, george soros, michael moore, howard dean, ted kennedy...you know the stalwarts of the democratic party), I have hope for him yet. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[dude1394]

Bottom line, bush, cheney, rumsfeld, powell and rice are responsible, adults. I cannot say the same for clinton, gore, albright and reno. You might, but I cannot.

Another example of the seriousness of these leaders (to me at least) is shown here.

The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday.

The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists -- whom he termed "zealots and despots" bent on destroying the global system of nation-states -- are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.

"It's quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this," Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.

These questions need to be asked and analyzed. It shows responsibility to me that he is willing to broach it, no matter that he could be criticised for it. It's not earth shattering, but in my experience shows a leader who is more than willing to face reality and not put their head in the sand.