The other day, former president George W. Bush was on the Ellen Show. He was promoting a book containing portraits of American veterans that he had painted. Apparently, he took up painting as a past time some five years ago. Ellen Dejeneres is a friend of the Bush family, including Bush senior. President Bush stated his admiration for vets, particularly those wounded in battle. As always, he displayed his known sense of humour during Ellen’s polite interview, noting that historians will inevitably judge his presidency.
Having lived through the period of his presidency, nine-eleven and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have mixed feelings about the former president. I remember seeing him standing at the site of the destroyed twin towers in New York, giving warm thanks to first responders and those who aided them. The event was to change the direction of his presidency toward a commitment to wage war on terrorism. Indeed, this was to be his legacy to the American people.
However, after that tragic event, a number of wrong turns were taken by President Bush and his administration. Remember that this was an administration that included the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell — the first two who were definitely ‘hawks’. Suddenly, the U.S. was to take on the so-called axis of evil, unfortunately including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. The administration perpetuated the belief that Hussein had ‘weapons of mass destruction’, which of course was never true. I firmly believe that President Bush was goaded into accepting this assertion by his immediate advisors – despite intelligence to the contrary. However, no one in the administration had a viable ‘exit’ strategy once the Iraq occupation was over — something even George H. W. Bush had warned his son was a crucial consideration. Following the speedy fall of Hussein’s regime, Bush junior declared ‘mission accomplished’ aboard an American aircraft carrier. The rest is the sad history of over a decade of American military actions in Iraq, amid corrupt and incompetent Iraqi governments and sectarian fighting among various religious factions. Thousands of Americans and many more Iraqis loss their lives or became refugees during the decade. Once U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq, this led to the re-emergence of Al Qaeda and eventually the spin-off terrorists who formed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Otherwise, the whole region became a bigger mess with even more explosive potential among the warring factions.
President Bush was the puppet on a string for a hawkish administration that used American military might for all the wrong reasons. Subsequent presidents have and will have to deal with the consequences of such tragic mistakes. American troops returned home from Iraq as amputees, many having incurred the loss of limbs, brain trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. Iraq continues to be embroiled in ugly urban guerrilla warfare, this time involving ISIS. Sorry President Bush, although you may be a somewhat likeable person, the heartbreaking outcome of your administration’s decisions is no laughing matter. I believe that history will judge it so.
FROLITICKS 