RE: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,182861,00.html

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It's not just by chance that there hasn't been another terrorist strike here at home since the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the skies over Pennsylvania -- more than seven years ago now. While far from perfect in execution, the Bush administration pulled out the stops in fighting terror at home and abroad, which, prior to 9/11, had been considered by many to be little more than a law enforcement problem.

Considering the hit parade of screw-ups by this administration, the lack of a successful attack on the US is vastly more likely DESPITE the Bush Administration - not because of it. In fact, as Mr. Brooks ignores, according to the NIE, the United States is now vastly more at risk because of this administrations efforts, not less. Elevating terrorism to anything more than a crime, has legitimized terrorism to far more people than it has deterred, because one man's terrorist is anothers "freedom fighter".

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President Bush also took the fight to the enemy overseas in places like Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda had set up shop in the years prior to 9/11, plotting the destruction of the United States and the establishment of a global Islamist caliphate.

And then screwed up all the global good will we acquired via 9/11 massively (with the support of the so-called "Heritage Foundation" and their brain dead neocon/facist ideology). For example:
- The Iranians were the first nation to offer condolences, support, and assistence on 9/11. They helped us go into Afganistan by giving us intelligence abd offering use of their facilities and hospitals. The Iranians also made it clear that they were ready to open discussions aimed at burying the hatchet, putting all topics on the table, to get back into normal/cooperative relations with the United States. The Bush administration responded by adding Iran to the so-called 'axis of evil'.
- Regardless of how well (IMO it is far too early to judge) things may be going in Iraq, the Bush administration made itself (and the US) massively unpopular by invading that country. It is considered to be a collassal foreign policy disaster by virtually every country on the planet, regardless of being friend or foe.
- The House of Faud, after this president went begging hat in hand to get them to pump more oil (they sent him packing), published an article in the family owned newspaper that said in effect, that every policy of this administration, whether foreign or domestic, has "turned into dust", and that "nothing in the middle east will improve until this administration leaves office" (and this is what the Bush family friends are saying!).
- By removing Saddam Hussien from power, we shifted the balance of power in the middle east over to Iran by removing thier ememy for them.

This does not constitute success.

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Fortunately, the Bushies caught North Korea cheating on its 1994 nuclear agreement with the United States. While progress has been glacial, Washington did get Pyongyang to agree to end all its nuke programs.

And got us a deal that was no better than the Clinton Administration - and this is what Brooks considers a success? He certainly has set the bar mighty low! Note also, that the Bush administration was the first to cease cooperation with the N. Koreans w/r/t the Clinton agreement, apparently, the logic being "Everything Clinton Did = Bad" - hence - no surprise that the N. Koreans started doing their own thing again (i.e. cheating on the accord).

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Today, Afghanistan is a lot better off: more than 30 million Afghans no longer labor under terrorist Taliban rule. Healthcare access is up; child mortality is down. Six million kids go to school, including nearly 2 million girls who would not otherwise be allowed to.

Apparently, Mr. Brooks has not been reading the news lately. The Taliban is in control of more and more of the nation, and the situation even according to our own commanders is deteriorating. Again, the bar is set mighty low.

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The Bush White House also oversaw Kosovo's transition to independence from Serbia, helping to start to close a chapter in the Balkan's long, bloody history.

Leave to Brooks to give credit to the Bush adminsitration when the hard work was done by others.

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The surge of American troops into Iraq has left al Qaeda there battered, bewildered and in retreat in what Osama bin Laden said would be the decisive battle in its global jihad. While still dangerous, al Qaeda has suffered a stinging blow.

This was only a partial reason for improvement in Iraq. The Iraqis did happen to decide that they simply hate Al Queda more than they hated us - so they joined the new governments (or therefore our) side - a major contribution to ridding Iraq of Al Queda. Plus, the US also started paying the Sunnis and Shia to stop killing each other, and is still paying them. When this payroll stops, the civil war could restart with a vengence in a heartbeat. It is FAR to early to call Iraq a success, and nothing can change that.

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The Merida Initiative in Mexico to fight the drug lords, which are battling each other and the central government in a low-grade civil war, is also a positive development -- one which will enhance security north of the border, too.

Perhaps Mr. Brooks hasn't been reading the news on how well this has been going. It can hardly be considered "positive" by even the most generous criteria.

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In Africa, President Bush spent more on fighting HIV/AIDS than any previous American president. As a result, medicine is reaching more than 2 million African HIV/AIDS patients. Anti-malaria programs have gained traction, too.

Here is one that is actually true (Congratulations, Peter!!!). This is something that the Bush administration did do that was truely constructive.

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In a shocker, Libya's Colonel Qaddafi renounced terrorism and gave up his weapons of mass destruction programs, including one for nukes. We now have a Tripoli embassy for the first time in three and a half decades.

Its a shocker because the Bush Administration had almost NOTHING to do with it. It is far more of a shocker that Mr. Brooks would claim the Bush adminsitration had anything of real signifigance to do with it.

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President Bush also kept his campaign promise of fielding a missile defense system to protect the American people from the threat of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction from the likes of North Korea and Iran.

Hence one of the greatest examples of corporate welfare and greed for the smallest amount of protection from a potential threat.

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First, Bush withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; then in a 2002 agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, both sides agreed to reduce the size of their strategic nuclear forces by two-thirds. Then the military began to field missile defense systems in California and Alaska and at sea aboard US navy destroyers for dealing with North Korea, which joined the once-exclusive nuclear club in 2006

Pulling out the 1972 ABM Treaty was premature at best, and served to anger the Russians for little gain. Pitifully few of the tests of the ground based system have been successful, and those few that have have been largely rigged. The Aegis system deployed by the Navy has been vastly more successful.

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The Bush administration also signed pacts with Poland and the Czech Republic -- with NATO's endorsement -- for the building of a missile defense system in Europe, focused on the growing Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile threat.

If you consider causing the Russians to decide to deploy a whole new class of missiles that can easily outwit the shiney new BMD system we're installing a success (which is vastly cheaper/easier to do), then this is a resounding success. Especially since we drove the Iranians away and to radically increase their efforts w/r/t nuclear research (etc) by adding them to the 'axis of evil' (a double success!!)

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It also uncovered and took apart the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network, an international smuggling ring that had been selling nuclear know-how and equipment to North Korea, Iran and Libya -- and to who knows who else.

Lamentably, Richard B. Cheney knew about this when he was overseeing the deal to sell F-16 fighters to the Pakistani (he was informed by both the CIA and the DIA on Mr. Khan's activities), long before the GW Bush administration. He failed to inform the President of this development because it would've obviously aborted the sale of those fighters - and therefore is a direct cause of many of the serious security issues we face today. This represents a massive failure - hardly a success.

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The President also expanded international commerce, concluding more than 10 free-trade agreements (FTA) around the world. (Three additional FTAs are sitting with Congress, awaiting approval.) Trade with Africa doubled.

And we have watched our high-paying jobs get either exported overseas or taken by cheap labor (via huge increases in H1B visas) faster than ever before in return for short-term profit!!! Isn't that GREAT? (hint: NO).

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The fact is international relations is a tough business -- and will continue to be. Countries pursue their national interests -- often at others' expense, including ours. But the Bush administration has made real progress in advancing our interests during its tenure, especially in preventing another terror attack right here at home -- no small feat.

The Bush Administration has made real progress, assuming that you hate the United States of America. By having our forces tied up in Iraq, exhausted, equipment in dire need of overhaul/replacement/repair, we have discovered the limits of American power, and showed it to everyone else on the planet. Our ground forces are at their lowest state of readiness in decades. And we have yet to pay for it - and we borrowed the money from a communist dictatorship to finance all this success.

We have a phyrric victory in Iraq (if there is victory at all). And if the rest of this is "success" I hope I never live to see what Mr. Brooks considers failure.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PolicyWonk,

Keep drinking the kool-aid. You're a good candidate for Columbia and then off for a treasonous career supporting a UN lobbyist group...

Snarky? Apparently the RENDON Group's money is being used to spin the Bushies "glowing" results.

This Ghostwriter apparently tried to make money on this piece while simultaneously submitting a spec piece to Jay Leno, for who else would offer up this classic attempt to re-write the truth:



"...It's not just by chance that there hasn't been another terrorist strike here at home since the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the skies over Pennsylvania -- more than seven years ago now..."


Uhhhh, what about the fact Bush didn't get it right the first time. For the propaganda lives on, who could have anticipated 911 is not the question the Bushies love to preface their spin with. Why wasn't more done with evidence at the time? What was obvious is that a comprehensive review of readily available data would have undoubtedly aided in uncovering the 911 plot.

To begin with, take the President Bush's intel Daily Brief (PBD) titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" dated 06 August 2001 No, convening of work groups or task forces, no resulting one on one talks with the FBI, instead it was time to clear brush for Bush, all despite the increasing uneasiness of Tenet and others like Richard Clarke that Al Qaeda was planning to strike.

For one, in that very same month of the vacationing President's chilling PBD, August 2001, there was a guy, Zacarias Moussaoui, arrested on immigration charges after he aroused the suspicions of a 747 flight training academy. The FBI HQ was notified by French Intel on August 26th that Moussaoui had ties to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. Note, prior to this the FBI HQ refused to let the local Minneapolis FBI agents secure a search warrant for Moussaoui's computer. Too late you say? Well a month earlier, July, an FBI agent from the Phoenix office informed headquarters that 8 Bin Laden followers were training at local flight schools.

Most glaringly, the CIA knew two of the future 911 pilots had attended an Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia January 5-8, 2000. NOT 2001 , people, 2000. and the CIA knew one of these sinister terrorists had a visa listing his dates of planned entry to the United States. From Malaysia the pair returned to the United States...the CIA didn't even think of handing them off to the local FBI anti-terror group, so these two 911 terrorists lived in San Diego---and went to flight school using their same names, on all their documents, bank accounts, etc,---they didn't hide.

Simultaneously and against this backdrop, you had other countries informing the USA look up Ali Soufan who as an FBI agent was investigating the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and requested from the CIA 3 times the names of the participants in Malaysia, all were ignored, in fact when Soufan was given the Malaysia info, he realized that the CIA had known about this for over a year and half, and had ignored his efforts.

The biggest fact---the CIA knew Al Qaeda was living in the United States for more than a year. Both Freeh, head of the FBI and the CIA's Tenet were aware of the Malaysian meeting. However it wasn't until late August that some of the 911 terrorists made the terrorist watch list, however that list was used only for international flights, not domestic flights.

Ultimately we can readily answer the straw man question effectively in two ways: One, why wasn't more done based on the Aug PBD memo, or NSC Clarke's briefings to Condoleeza Rice in January of 2001 and most importantly, our allies the Brits WERE attacked in the London bombings, the Spaniards in the Madrid bombings, and as for the London bombings the bombers trained and planned in the Wazaristan sanctuary WE let them reside in, so the attacks on our allies serve as a perfect testimony of our unwillingness to fight the war against Al Qaeda properly either before---or after. The fact Osama is walking this earth after we've lost nearly half of a division in lost combat capability from the deaths of our brave forces, and over 30,000 wounded and over 3 trillion in debt for one big goose egg on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's sanctuary is a great stain on the Bushies, deal with it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rockriver04,

After looking at this article again, the thought just hit me: The remaining Bushies/Neocons have all resorted to "Baghdad Bob-ing" the history of the Bush Administration!

I'm unconvinced that this is the model to follow

In spite of what is being said here by these grandstand Qtr-backs, I think it will be very interesting to wait for the picture that history will paint of the Bush Years. You may not like his job performance but you must ask yourself, could you have done better? You must not forget that you, nor I, have the all facts as were presented to President Bush. I find it hard to be critical of a man until I walk a mile in his shoes. Please do not get me wrong, I am not defending Present Bush or his actions of late, I am just saying perhaps it would be best to withhold the character assignations and let history in time paint the picture that will be recorded.

Right, wrong or indifferent, I feel President Bush cared and tried in a no win situation. We all have a bit of 20/20 hindsight but could the job of President of the United States been done better by YOU?

quote:

Originally posted by F22Flighttester:
In spite of what is being said here by these grandstand Qtr-backs, I think it will be very interesting to wait for the picture that history will paint of the Bush Years. You may not like his job performance but you must ask yourself, could you have done better? You must not forget that you, nor I, have the all facts as were presented to President Bush. I find it hard to be critical of a man until I walk a mile in his shoes. Please do not get me wrong, I am not defending Present Bush or his actions of late, I am just saying perhaps it would be best to withhold the character assignations and let history in time paint the picture that will be recorded.

Right, wrong or indifferent, I feel President Bush cared and tried in a no win situation. We all have a bit of 20/20 hindsight but could the job of President of the United States been done better by YOU?

I wasn't the one running for POTUS, and there were a large number of obvious and serious errors made by this administration, of which few were fixed even when it became clear that things had gone horribly wrong (or if it was, it was long after huge damage had been done).

For example, one sign of a horrible error in the making was when this president, when repeatedly queried by a reporter for reasons justifying going to war with Iraq, blurted out: "he tried to kill my daddy..."

I knew at that point that we were in trouble. The president is supposed to be above this sort of nonsense (or at least, should be smart enough to not say something like this on camera even if it IS his reason for going to war).

There were so many other collassal errors of judgement that could've been avoided had he heeded the opinions/advice of the many professionals/advisors working for the government (and other governments), or otherwise taken them into account with some understanding of foreign policy, basic history, or the local culture. Rather, this administration infamously and repeatedly assasinated the character of or otherwise destroyed the careers of professionals who tried to get them to understand the realities of what would happen (and then claimed surprise afterwards when whatever it was went south). And this administration is most notable for thier constant boasting about not using facts when determining policy or courses of action (though, this has quieted down more recently, when the evidence became so overwhelming that even they couldn't ignore it any further - hence - now negotiating with the Syrians, Iranians, and N. Koreans, amongst other issues/areas).

But this is far too little and too late. So many (documented and) advanced warnings ignored, from before the terrorist attacks on 9/11, to going into Iraq, and the current financial disaster (which they received warnings on soon after taking office and repeatedly constantly ever since)...

The office of the president has access to vast information resources that we as citizens (or for that matter - most of the government) do not, and this administration made numerous decisions with that information that even without the advantage of hindsight defied common sense. And for those that claim that (in the case of Iraq) he was failed by the intelligence given him: that is simply not true. If the reasons for going to war were so clear, it would not have been necessary for them to knowingly tell 935 lies to our allies, both houses of congress, and our allies prior to doing so. Nor would it have been necessary to doctor up the intelligence reports, hand them out to everyone, and then claim that they made the decision to go into Iraq based on the same information everyone else had.

You are correct that it will be interesting to see what historians write about GWB. But the documentation trail is long and ultimately harsh w/r/t cause and effect. Will GWB be vindicated?

I cannot see how - no matter how much I would prefer otherwise.

I agree with F22 Flighttester. No one, including the author is trying to say Bush didn't screw a lot of this up. The point is he actually got a lot of things right WRT foreign policy that were overshadowed by his foul-ups due to the fact that the MSM would much rather report on these foul-ups than successes. After all, foul-ups (not successes) get ratings, and ratings make money. All you people who are writing in panning the author for pointing out things you probably didn't know (or chose to ignore) had your viewpoints manipulated by a liberal MSM just like the rest of us. Remember that.

The measure isn't whether a person cared, the standard is whether he got the job done--clearly Bush did not. Absolutely I could have done better, you could have done better, the threshold is not that high. Take for example this nebulous term "history" bandied about by people who cannot accept their horrendous legacy called reality that at every angle undermines their political philosophy. Five years is plenty enough history to digest, how utterly ridiculous to have to wait for anything substantial, the die has been cast, the verdict is in---the shoes have fallen, size 10 anyone?

quote:

Originally posted by F22Flighttester:
In spite of what is being said here by these grandstand Qtr-backs, I think it will be very interesting to wait for the picture that history will paint of the Bush Years. You may not like his job performance but you must ask yourself, could you have done better? You must not forget that you, nor I, have the all facts as were presented to President Bush. I find it hard to be critical of a man until I walk a mile in his shoes. Please do not get me wrong, I am not defending Present Bush or his actions of late, I am just saying perhaps it would be best to withhold the character assignations and let history in time paint the picture that will be recorded.

Right, wrong or indifferent, I feel President Bush cared and tried in a no win situation. We all have a bit of 20/20 hindsight but could the job of President of the United States been done better by YOU?

"President Bush also took the fight to the enemy overseas in places like Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda had set up shop in the years prior to 9/11, plotting the destruction of the United States and the establishment of a global Islamist caliphate."



And they are still there, whats your point? The Bush administration tried to do a lot of things, but screwed all of em up. Attemping to do something and actually doing it is two different things. And another thing, Bush wrote his own history and it's recorded as such, it's a little to late to try and rewrite it now, the damage is already done. At best he and you can try and justify the things he(the former President)did, to be truthful, you can't even do that, that would be like admitting his whole term in office was one dabacle after another, and that is something he will never do.