The Immorality of Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan

Obama is a traitor and should be impeached, tried, and executed for war crimes against the American people...T

On every level and from every perspective — from pure national interest to the purely moral — the decision by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party to withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan is indefensibleLet’s begin with Iraq.

Here is how the front-page article in yesterday’s edition of USA Today began:

"When the last U.S. combat troops departed Iraq in December 2011, they left behind a defeated al-Qaida and an Iraq where traditional rivals Sunni and Shiite Muslims were sharing power in the world’s only Arab democracy.

"Two years later, al-Qaida has seized major cities where hundreds of U.S. troops died while fighting alongside their Iraqi brethren. The population once freed by the U.S.-Iraqi alliance has now watched those same jihadist insurgents return to command the streets and impose their will."

As a result of the United States withdrawing its troops at the end of 2011:

In 2013, 7,818 Iraqi civilians were killed, higher than the 2008 toll of 6,787 (United Nations figures). In 2010, there were approximately 10 car bombs per month; in 2013, there was an average of 71.

At great expenditure in money, lives and limbs, the United States had defeated al-Qaida in Iraq. American troops had turned such terrorist dominated cities as Fallujah and Ramadi into relatively peaceful cities governed by pro-government, anti-al-Qaida Sunnis. And al-Qaida had been handed its greatest defeat.
In 2008, the American people elected as president a man dedicated to bringing the troops home.

Discussing Iraq last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "The president made a commitment to end the war in Iraq. He fulfilled that commitment." The language Carney used is instructive. The president made a commitment "to end the war."

That is how Democrats see abandoning countries to mass death: the "war ends."

That is the amoral and provincial perspective of the Democrats. All the death, torture and fighting that takes place because Americans have withdrawn don’t really matter. For the Democrats and others on the left — the self-proclaimed compassionate folks — the amount of suffering caused by America withdrawing its troops is just not important.

This began with the withdrawal from Vietnam. By 1972, when the Democratic Party nominated George McGovern, it had, for the first time, ceased being a liberal party. It had been taken over by the left, and remains so until this day.
 
Forced by the Democrat-controlled Congress, the United States abandoned Vietnam in 1975. On April 30 of that year, the last American helicopter left Saigon, leaving our Vietnamese allies to be "re-educated," tortured and murdered — and all the Vietnamese to be enslaved by a Stalinist Communist regime.

After America left Vietnam, about two million South Vietnamese were sent to re-education camps, of whom about 165,000 died, between 100,000 and 200,000 were executed, 50,000 died performing hard labor in "New Economic Zones," and another 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese died fleeing Vietnam (the "Boat People").

The same month the last American left Vietnam, the Communist Khmer Rouge ("Red Cambodians") under Pol Pot took over Cambodia and proceeded to murder about two million, or about one out of every three or four Cambodians.

Eight months after the Americans left Vietnam, Communists took over Laos who then proceeded — with the help of the Vietnamese Communists — to engage in genocide against the Hmong population.
Meanwhile about three million additional people fled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

But for the left, the "war ended."

Having lived through all that, I recall only silence from previously vociferous anti-war protestors about the mass murders that followed the American withdrawal from Vietnam. The campuses were quiet, the intellectuals were quiet, the Democratic Party was quiet.

We are reliving that now as the left and its political party abandon Iraq and soon Afghanistan. The amount of death and human suffering that will follow in each country mean nothing to the left and the Democratic Party (and, to be fair, to the Libertarian Party as well) — so long as there is no American involvement.

And the most amazing aspect of all this is that the left and the Democrats are certain that they are the moral and compassionate ones.

But there is one difference this time: In all the previous abandonments of allies, only the benighted allies suffered the consequences. This time, with a victorious al-Qaida in Iraq and Taliban in Afghanistan, we will, too.

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McCain: Iraq 'Unraveling' Under Obama Pullout

As I have previously stated: Obama is a traitor for what he has done, with his shameful sacrifice of the lives of all those brave men and women who gave their lives to defeat Islamo-fascism in the region and give Iraq it's freedom. He should be impeached and removed from office. His successor will be forced to AGAIN re-fight both wars...T

Arizona Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain says President Obama has placed the United States in “great peril” with his policy on troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCain charges in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV that the pullout of all U.S. troops from Iraq was politically motivated to please his liberal base.

“Our Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said we always envisioned a residual force of some 20,000 people. They played the duplicitous game of never telling the Iraqis the number of troops we wanted to keep there until it got down to the negligible number of 3,000,” McCain says.

“He claimed Iraq is a stable and democratic situation and obviously it’s unraveling, because he refused to try to keep a residential force in Iraq.

“In Afghanistan, over the objections of his generals — who he appointed — he has put Americans in greater risk, and the chances of succeeding in Afghanistan are greatly diminished, because we needed the second fighting season.

“This is all leading from behind, and in my view it places this country in the greatest peril since the presidency of James Earl Carter.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: McCain: Iraq 'Unraveling' Under Obama Pullout
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
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U.S. exit from Iraq leaves a power void - And ensures Obama's Place in History as Worst U.S. President

Image via WikipediaNever before in US History has an American president surrendered to a foreign power. Never before have we lost a war. Never before has a president surrendered after victory was final, total, complete, and a resounding success for all sides involved.

Barack Hussein Obama has ensured his status as the worst president in the history of the United States of America. All that remains is to watch, helplessly, as Iraq descends into chaos, anarchy, and either an Al Queda haven or an Iranian puppet state - or both...T

The Iraqi government lost more than a fighting ally when the last U.S. troops left the country Sunday.

Since the 2003 invasion, U.S. service members had woven themselves into the fabric of Iraq’s power structure - its politicians, soldiers, village elders and tribal sheiks.

Army and Marine Corps officers acted as small-town mayors. They had authority to spend nearly $4 billion over seven years on local construction and humanitarian projects via the Commanders Emergency Response Program.

U.S. military personnel - whether sergeants, platoon leaders or brigade commanders - helped settle major political disputes in Baghdad and brokered talks at local levels among various tribal chiefs.

Their power base: as many as 170,000 U.S. troops, M1 tanks, advanced jet fighters and the American military uniform.

Now all that persuasive power is gone. Left to fill the void are the State Department and a limited diplomatic presence at the U.S. Embassy and two stations outside Baghdad.

It took only one day after the U.S. exit for Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority to move against the highest-ranking Sunni, accusing the country’s vice president of terrorism and provoking a government crisis in the process.

“Our pullout is not just the number of brigades, it’s not about the numbers,” said retired ArmyMaj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, who has been to Iraq as an independent adviser and has interviewed returning soldiers.

“The Army had a postgraduate course in how to kill insurgents and work with the people,” he said. “They became toward the end the glue that tied together these factions in Iraq whose natural condition is to spiral apart.

“The Iraqis relied on us not just to kill insurgents and train the Iraqi army or do nation-building; they relied on us as an excuse to stay together.”

The Pentagon’s counterinsurgency strategy embodied more than killing. Protecting and winning over the population stood as a major goal, particularly after 2006, when Gen. David H. Petraeus rewrote the doctrine and took command in Baghdad.

It put emphasis on the commanders’ pocket money through the emergency response program. Officers could make spot decisions to build or fix a building, start electric power or make a condolence payment - without a lot of red tape.

In one town, cash on the spot enabled the Army to build a sports/community center, renovate a fruit-and-vegetable stand and complete a water-sewage treatment plant.

Then there was the pivotal 2004 battle to defeat Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr’s marauding militia in southern Iraq, a beating that told the fiery cleric that he would not rule Iraq by force. The militia had taken over several towns - including Karbala, Najaf, Kufa and Diwaniyah - and imposed harsh Islamic law with terrorism and executions.

The Army’s 1st Armored Division executed Operation Iron Saber in stages, first destroying the enemy, then shifting to people-to-people programs that made soldiers part of the town’s leadership.

“I’ve got to think this was a watershed operation in terms of how to do things as part of a counterinsurgency,” Brig. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, an assistant division commander at the time, told The Washington Times.

The battle over, the Army began hiring local Iraqis for construction projects and reassembling the security forces who had fled.

“We crossed over from bullets to money,” Gen. Hertling said.

Gen. Scales told The Times that Iraqis no longer will have U.S. soldiers at the ready to make sure the local security forces fulfill their missions.

“Those in uniform maintain their cohesion based on their associations with us,” he said. “There still is value in being around a cohesive Western power that is essentially an army of a democracy.

“You know the old adage ‘leading by example.’ The Iraqis’ natural tendency is to break apart, especially at the midlevel management of the army in the past, was often assuaged by the moral presence of a respected U.S. Army.”

By 2011, lieutenant colonels who had been to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 are generals and have made as many as five tours to the country. “They had built long-standing friendships with Iraqis,” Gen. Scales said.

One such player is Army Col. John Paul Digiambattista, who did three tours, the last as a brigade commander.

He spoke with Talkingwithheroes.com about the noncombat chores his brigade carried out in 2010 as it worked within a provincial reconstruction team to improve local governments.

“There are still efforts we can make to improve the government, improve what the government does for the people,” he said. “Democracy does not come easy.”

It is this intangible that the Iraqis will miss - the presence of Americans in the background who can step in to prod the government or help settle disputes.

“For those forces in Iraq whose aim was to keep the state together and rely on the U.S. Army for being a builder of the state, there was real trepidation about the American military leaving so precipitously,” Gen. Scales said. “A residual force is not just a bunch of privates sitting around Camp Victory eating hamburgers. A small residual force, had it remained in Iraq, would really have punched above its weight because of who it was by that time.”
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Who lost Iraq?

This may not be an impeachable offense: But it should be. The worst president, in terms of competance, ever to serve (and yes, that includes Jimmy Carter)...T

Barack Obama was a principled opponent of the Iraq war from its beginning. But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that was won. The surge had succeeded. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed, driven to humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side-by-side with the infidel Americans. Even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with U.S. backing, by the forces of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They crushed the Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City.

Al-Qaeda decimated. A Shiite prime minister taking a decisively nationalist line. Iraqi Sunnis ready to integrate into a new national government. U.S. casualties at their lowest ebb in the entire war. Elections approaching. Obama was left with but a single task: Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world’s only democracy.

He blew it. Negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed last month. There is no agreement, no partnership. As of Dec. 31, the U.S. military presence in Iraq will be liquidated.

And it’s not as if that deadline snuck up on Obama. He had three years to prepare for it. Everyone involved, Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA calling for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated. And all major parties but one (the Sadr faction) had an interest in some residual stabilizing U.S. force, like the postwar deployments in Japan, Germany and Korea.

Three years, two abject failures. The first was the administration’s inability, at the height of American post-surge power, to broker a centrist nationalist coalition governed by the major blocs — one predominantly Shiite (Maliki’s), one predominantly Sunni (Ayad Allawi’s), one Kurdish — that among them won a large majority (69 percent) of seats in the 2010 election.

Vice President Biden was given the job. He failed utterly. The government ended up effectively being run by a narrow sectarian coalition where the balance of power is held by the relatively small (12 percent) Iranian-client Sadr faction.

The second failure was the SOFA itself. U.S. commanders recommended nearly 20,000 troops, considerably fewer than our 28,500 in Korea, 40,000 in Japan and 54,000 in Germany. The president rejected those proposals, choosing instead a level of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.

A deployment so risibly small would have to expend all its energies simply protecting itself — the fate of our tragic, missionless 1982 Lebanon deployment — with no real capability to train the Iraqis, build their U.S.-equipped air force, mediate ethnic disputes (as we have successfully done, for example, between local Arabs and Kurds), operate surveillance and special-ops bases, and establish the kind of close military-to-military relations that undergird our strongest alliances.

The Obama proposal was an unmistakable signal of unseriousness. It became clear that he simply wanted out, leaving any Iraqi foolish enough to maintain a pro-American orientation exposed to Iranian influence, now unopposed and potentially lethal. Message received. Just this past week, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurds — for two decades the staunchest of U.S. allies — visited Tehran to bend a knee to both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It didn’t have to be this way. Our friends did not have to be left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection. Three years and a won war had given Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world’s second most important power.

He failed, though he hardly tried very hard. The excuse is Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces. But the Bush administration encountered the same problem and overcame it. Obama had little desire to. Indeed, he portrays the evacuation as a success, the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

But surely the obligation to defend the security and the interests of the nation supersede personal vindication. Obama opposed the war, but when he became commander in chief the terrible price had already been paid in blood and treasure. His obligation was to make something of that sacrifice, to secure the strategic gains that sacrifice had already achieved.

He did not, failing at precisely what this administration so flatters itself for doing so well: diplomacy. After years of allegedly clumsy brutish force, Obama was to usher in an era of not hard power, not soft power, but smart power.

Which turns out in Iraq to be . . . no power. Years from now, we will be asking not “Who lost Iraq?” — that already is clear — but “Why?”
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Truths We Dare Not Speak

The incomparable VDH revisits our so called disastrous war in Iraq. We never hear about Iraq anymore do we? How strange! The state run media won't say it, so here goes. The most successful campaign, in the shortest time, with the fewest losses, in the history of warfare. Iran will be the next to fall. God bless George Bush...T

We are tired of Iraq and have Trotskyized it out of our existence, given the huge cost and 4,000 dead.

But consider: not a single America died in Iraq in December (38 murdered in Chicago during that period); three have been lost this month (24 murdered so far this month in Chicago).

Some random thoughts. The surge was a brilliant success.

The heroes are relatively ignored. They are U.S. forces who served in Iraq, of course; Gens. Odierno and Petraeus (recall what he endured from Hillary Clinton and MoveOn.org in his Senate inquisition); civilian analysts like Fred Kagan and retired Gen. Keane; and, of course, a demonized George Bush—attacked by most of his former supporters, the majority of pundits and columnists, those Democrats who had voted to authorize the war, many of the Iraq Study Group members; and by a cadre of retired “revolt of the generals” officers.

Yet for some reason, very few senators (cf. the You Tube videos of the debates of October 11-12, 2002) who gave impassioned pleas, authorizing 23 writs to go to war, have ever quite explained why they flipped—and what they think now of both their original support, and their subsequent opposition.

A Harry Reid (“the war is lost”) or Barack Obama (out of Iraq by March 2008 and the surge “is not working”) have never subsequently suggested that they were wrong at a time when our troops desperately were trying against all odds to save the fragile country.

Nor has anyone questioned the conventional dogma that Iraq empowered Iran, supposedly by removing the demonic Saddam. (Yet consider the liberal logic: we were wrong to remove a monster because he was a useful balance-of-power monster [ignore the genocide of the Kurds, Marsh Arabs, etc]; yet we deplore prior administrations for giving the same monster some aid in his war against Iran.)

In fact, mass demonstrations and unrest now take place in an isolated Iran, not so much in a democratic Iraq. The latter is proving more destabilizing by its open broadcasting and word of mouth freedom to Iran than Iran is to Iraq by its savage use of terrorism. (What will happen to conventional wisdom, if there comes a day when Iran is constitutional, along with Iraq and Lebanon?)

No one has officially said they were wrong in alleging “No Blood for Oil.” But we got no oil from Iraq. The price rose after we invaded. The Chinese, Russians, and Europeans got the contracts in free and fair bidding.

(Contrast Saddam’s rigged pre-war, quid-pro-quo oil concessions to the corrupt French). There was no Halliburton conspiracy to steal resources. The left often now, mirabile dictu, accuses us of being naïve in bleeding to give others the resources that they once accused us of wishing to steal. Barack Obama still talks of Iraq as a mistake, even as he quietly ignores his own prescriptions to have gotten out by early 2008, and to have stopped the surge—and continues to follow the Petraeus/Bush plan.
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Question of the Day for Osama

Question of the day: If Col. Hasan found himself in a room, alone, with president Osama, would he:

- A: Shoot him

- B: plot strategy together?

It's a fair question, if you think about it...T

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Snake Oil Salesman, mmm, mmm, mmm

1st Barney Fag openly proclaiming the governments intention to take over everything, and actually KILL people who resist the takeover, and now B. Insane Osama cowering out of Afghanistan. One wonders if our republic will last till the 2010 electoral landslide?!...T

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Little Hope, Less Change

It's been awhile since VDH hit the ball out of the park like he does here. He really gets the nature of this Bourbon-esque monarchy that team Obama sees in the mirror. Well they had lots of mirrors at Versailles, as well.

United States of America does not possess the Guillotine. We have only impeachment and removal from office.

... Pity...T

Consider: The 120,000 troops in “the surge is not working” Iraq are now complaining of ennui —while the White House is paralyzed over whether to send more troops to the new escalating front in Afghanistan. How odd the present perceptions: Bush’s bad optional war became good in the public mind, and Obama’s necessary good war became bad. (Careful study of the history of both countries, the existing challenges, and the topography might have suggested to candidate Obama to be careful about demonizing the surge while chest-thumping a war he never wished to finish. Did Obama really think he would be elected, hailed as the anti-war laureate, simply summon home the troops from the “quagmire” in Iraq, and then fly over to Kabul to do a Victory Column speech?).

The Russian gambit failed; Putin humiliated the Eastern Europeans and then rubbed it in by lecturing us about “hands off Iran.” The July threat to Iran of comply—or “face consequences” by September—morphed into September’s comply—or “face consequences by the October head-to-head meetings—which, in turn, morphed into October’s comply—or some day soon face consequences.

Sorta, Kinda, Maybe Diplomacy

Soon we will get everything on the official transcripts and websites scrubbed down to read: Guantanamo really will close on March 1, 2010; Iran must comply this time by June 1, 2010; all combat brigades will be out by March 2008, 2009, 2010; health care must pass by August, September, October, November.

Oil is climbing back over $80 a barrel; the dollar is falling against the Euro to 1.50. The annual deficit is already over $1.6 trillion and may go well over that. The tab for health care will hit right under $1 trillion. Unemployment may be headed over 10%. The people who voted for Obama were mad over Bush’s bailouts, unemployment, deficits, and supposed divisiveness. And?

They got greater bailouts, higher unemployment, larger deficits, and Chicago politics.

Please, please

Right now to save America we need some steady leadership that reassures businesses of lower taxes, less government spending, no new regulations, educational reform to improve the work force, and confident expansionary energy exploration and development. Instead, we get a prescription to terrify private enterprise: Mr. President, every time you besmirch someone as greedy, lying, and unduly rich, some business, somewhere, pulls in its horns.

Uncertainty Everywhere

Full recovery is uncertain, given (1) oil prices have been low and are now climbing, boosting the import tab higher and higher (what happened to candidate Obama’s promises of more drilling?); (2) interest rates are historically low, meaning the price of servicing the mega-deficits hasn’t hit yet; but they too will climb, further taxing the hocus-pocus borrowing; (3) so far higher taxes are just talk; but soon the income rates will climb at a time when many of the states have already increased their sales and income rates. Remember the promised end to the FICA caps on higher incomes; note the promised health care surcharge taxes. And keep in mind that 55% of those in the cross-hairs who make over $200,000 voted for Obama.

And You Get in Return?

I believe that even the soon-to-be murderously taxed upper brackets would patriotically hand over their money to a grasping government—IF it went to debt reduction.

But it won’t. Far worse. Millions will work from January to September to pay for Acorn-like subsidies, more NEA politicized grants, nationalized health care, canceling mortgage, credit card, and student loan debt of those who may well have been less than careful with their expenditures. In short, consider: the more you will be taxed, the more you will be demonized as deserving it, the more your money will be wasted, the more your country will borrow, the greater you country will become the world’s laughing stock debtor.

And that depressing fact is beginning to infuriate millions. If Obama needs a mop to clean up after Bush, someone will need a fleet of street sweepers for his financial detritus.

So I expect Obama’s ratings to dip well below 50%, and that will be something to fear, given his unfamiliarity with the notion that over 1 out 2 Americans thinks he is failing.

But imagine that you are a small business owner, and just consider—why expand now or rehire? since (a) I have no idea what the new taxes will be; (b) I have no idea about what all these new regulations, cap and trade, card check; etc will cost me; (c) I am beginning to think all this trash talk about bad doctors, insurance companies, the Chamber of Commerce, CEOs, the wealthy, etc. suggests this administration does not like me or what I do; (d) the government is everywhere: Ford now must compete against Government Motors; Banks against government-affiliated Citibank; Blue Cross against the public option; and so on. If I have a business, somewhere down the line there is going to be a government-run rival, sort of like your local can’t go broke PBS station in every avenue of commerce. Why insist on ensuring hustling employees when the rival, overpaid DMV-like work force can’t go broke whatever they do?

Meanwhile…

YouTube videos play 24/7 of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn—now that Van Jones yielded center stage—either idolizing the greatest mass murderer in civilization’s history or boasting about how Team Obama took the obsequious media to the cleaners. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod—apparently worried that the public thinks this two-headed Cerebus is too nice and meek—swarm the talk shows to blame Fox News. That’s the equivalent of a Bush around 2007 whining about MSNBC not being a news organization and the meanness of a Chris Matthews is hurting the war in Iraq. Sending creepy people out to say creepy things does not make sense, when a hit network loves showing Americans how these creepy people say creepy things.

And the Problem?

Obama’s agenda polls less than 50% on almost every element. What keeps him viable is that the public still likes him and his family personally, and takes him at his unity/no blue state-no red state/can’t we all get along? 2008 rhetoric.

Don’t they get the obvious: In reaction to that Olympian, above-the-fray brand, what does Obama do? He sends out two of the most unlikable, mean-spirited attack hounds to go after a news organization in Nixonian fashion, which only erodes the precious image of a kinder, gentler Obama—right now the administration’s only asset.

One almost gets the feeling that Time, Newsweek, the NY Times, the LA Times, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, the Huffington Post, etc. are all not quite enough to balance right-wing talk radio and Fox News.

The problem is that (1) it is always harder to defend a president than criticize him (as the liberals can attest from their 8 years of demonizing Bush); (2) those in the right-wing media are more populist and grass-roots than those in the staid left-wing elite media establishment. So Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck can caricature Obama far more effectively than can a Rachel Madow or Brian Williams bow to him; (3) the traditional left’s homage to dissent, protest, free-wheeling media outbursts, demonstrations, and over-the-top commentary is now, to use a Nixon term, “inoperative.”

Somehow we went from revolutionary fervor to the boring Ministry of Truth in nine months.

Personally I found the left far more interesting when they were suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome than Obamophilia.

Bottom Line: Code Pink and Moveon.org have been Gergenized.
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Presidential Poison - His invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama's Presidency.

The most dangerous, radical extremist ever to occupy a position of high executive authority in the history of the United States of America. The man is a National Socialist in the arena of economics - we already knew that - Now if these show trials occur he will duplicate the excess's of Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler.

"Oh that's too far!" you say? What will stop the cycle once our 250 year tradition of not criminalizing policy differences ends? What is it, really, that separates us from tinpot Latin dictatorships? They do, after all, all have constitutions, do they not? Indeed it is our tradition of the rule of law which will be inevitably broken in the process of these NAZI show trials.

Pelosi, Reid, Leahy, Obama himself - they were all briefed on these methods - indeed, they all concurred and wished for even more strenuous techniques to be used. They are traitors to America ladies and gentlemen - nothing less.

The WSJ lays it out, excerpted below...T

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret...

...at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

"Your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level of 'chatter' equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks," wrote Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, in his August 1, 2002 memo. "In light of the information you believe [detainee Abu] Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an 'increased pressure phase.'"

So the CIA requests a legal review at a moment of heightened danger, the Justice Department obliges with an exceedingly detailed analysis of the law and interrogation practices -- and, seven years later, Mr. Obama says only the legal advisers who are no longer in government should be investigated. The political convenience of this distinction for Mr. Obama betrays its basic injustice. And by the way, everyone agrees that senior officials, including President Bush, approved these interrogations. Is this President going to put his predecessor in the dock too?

...(the only thing that has) changed (since Obama's earlier hesitancy) is that Mr. Obama's decision last week to release the interrogation memos unleashed a revenge lust on the political left that he refuses to resist.

...Those officials won't be the only ones who suffer if all of this goes forward. Congress will face questions about what the Members knew and when, especially Nancy Pelosi when she was on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002. The Speaker now says she remembers hearing about waterboarding, though not that it would actually be used. Does anyone believe that? Porter Goss, her GOP counterpart at the time, says he knew exactly what he was hearing and that, if anything, Ms. Pelosi worried the CIA wasn't doing enough to stop another attack. By all means, put her under oath.

Mr. Obama may think he can soar above all of this, but he'll soon learn otherwise. The Beltway's political energy will focus more on the spectacle of revenge, and less on his agenda. The CIA will have its reputation smeared, and its agents second-guessing themselves. And if there is another terror attack against Americans, Mr. Obama will have set himself up for the argument that his campaign against the Bush policies is partly to blame...

...Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, due in part to his personal charm and his seeming goodwill. By indulging his party's desire to criminalize policy advice, he has unleashed furies that will haunt his Presidency.
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Dreaming of a Giuliani/Petraeus Ticket in 2012 and an American Surge

Image by genetew via Flickr

I think as part of a Giuliani/Petraeus ticket this could be unbeatable. Really it is unlikely that one with no political experience can capture the presidency. (unless, of course, you are a communist community organizer and radical with no public record, and with the slobbering, drooling support of the drive-by media...)

By 2012 republican divisions should be gone thanks to Osama, Pelosi, and Reid, oh my! Yes, and Giuliani would be a great president in his own right. He is much more conservative than given credit for, even on social issues, where he has pledged a strict constructionist court, and especially an economics and libertarian issues. Yes, and he is the only American Pol with the intellectual stamina to tame the executive branch and impose his will on congress.

So it's early, I know! Here, anyway, is to Rudy/David in 2012!...T

Signs of our collective weakness emerged after 9/11 when only part of the American population took seriously that we were at war with an evil and motivated enemy determined to destroy our way of life. Since then, al Qaeda has refused to quit despite debilitating losses.

Clearly, our national will is wilting away.

Following the tragic lead of Europe, too many Americans no longer want to engage our external threats head-on. And on the domestic front, we are confronting the economic crisis of our lifetime with the same full-steam-ahead spending-spree mind-set that got us into the mess to begin with.

We say: Let's create more government dependency, reward the incompetent and print more money.

That's doubling down on stupidity.

We are a trust-fund nation (picture Tori Spelling in the Lifetime Channel role of her career) whose BMW has run out of gas in the middle of the Mojave Desert after a pointless 115-miles-per-hour joy ride. The credit cards are maxed out. We're out of cell phone range. And dad, who just got taken by Uncle Bernie Madoff, wouldn't take the call anyway.

The silent generation, which learned valuable lessons from the Depression and World War II, is not here to guide us through these difficult times. The narcissistic baby boomers, who probably think this song is about them, are now firmly in charge. And that's the rub.

What is scaring us - even though many of us won't admit it - is that we elected a president who wants more than anything to be liked. What else explains his headlong rush to persuade foreign governments - even enemy regimes - to embrace us? And what else justifies his infatuation with Hollywood?

And even that he doesn't quite get right. I still can't believe that the president of the United States traveled across the country - without his teleprompter crutch - and made fun of the Special Olympics on national television.

When the going gets tough, the weak go on Leno.

I can't get out of my head that the leader of the free world gave the British prime minister 25 films on DVD that don't even work in U.K. machines.

I can't wrap my head around the fact that the commander in chief tried (for a minute anyway) to require injured warriors to pay to have private insurers take care of their treatment.

I can't believe the president would allow the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to dictate the terms of his budget - and Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, the symbols of government kowtowing to Wall Street - to be spokesmen for his financial bailout.

And did President Obama really produce a YouTube video to appease President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs of Iran?
Yes, he did.

These aren't beginner's mistakes. These are his core incompetencies.

The media that got him elected knows it is responsible for the gathering debacle, and so Jon Stewart, a so-called comedian and exemplar of the groupthink of the governing elite, is desperately hunting for scapegoats. Now that their secular savior is in charge, the "Dissent is Patriotic" bumper-sticker crowd is figuring out ways to stamp out criticism.

I admit, I am now officially freaking out.

The last time I felt this hopeless was when the Democratic Party and its cohorts in the media sold us on the false premise that we lost the war in Iraq. In the process, they also sought to demonize the very man that led us out of our peril.

His name is Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Less than two months into the Obama presidency, which appears to be lost somewhere in the Mojave Desert, I have decided to try to soothe my anxieties by placing my hope in a political surge.

In the election of 2010, Republicans should run heroic veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom who exhibited the will and fortitude to defeat the enemy and to rebuild a torn nation, even while too many of their fellow countrymen wrote them off.

And in 2012, the man President Obama's staunchest allies called "General Betray Us" should come in with guns blazing and defeat the man whose only weapon to lead us to victory is a teleprompter.
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Janet Napolitano: Islamic Terrorism Not Politically Correct; Prefers To Call It "Man-Caused Disaster"

Note: re-posted from "Transylvania Phoenix" - see link at bottom -

This development is stunningly ignorant, yet entirely predictable. Any of you go to university in the last 15 years? When I did, I wasn't allowed to use the term "Frontier" because it implied, oh yes my friends, that people beyond said frontier were not as civilized as people behind said frontier.

When challenged to give me an example of a nomadic civilization that has absorbed a static one (with the temporary yet significant exception of the Mongols), the teacher could not do so, and the students never looked at her, or me, the same way ever again. That is, metaphorically, what we need to do to Osama and his socialist brown shirts - in force. To arms!...T - Thanks to Shallow Kitty for the link -

George Orwell was not only a brilliant author -- he was a true prophet.

INTERVIEW WITH HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY JANET NAPOLITANO

"Away From the Politics of Fear"

Janet Napolitano, 51, is President Obama's new Homeland Security Secretary. She spoke with a reporter from the German newspaper DER SPIEGEL about immigration, the continued threat of terrorism and the changing tone in Washington.

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur. The complete interview here

Say "Liberal" and flush the toilet. Man-made disasters do exist: like the American sheeple electing a super-majority of corrupt socialist liberals in the Legislative, then electing a disciple of Saul Alinsky and friend of the domestic terrorist Bill Ayers as President of the United States of America.
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Bush Was Right, Again

Against all odds this author thought possible, this ignorant paean of a president is even MORE narcissistic that Bill Clinton. He is, as the author wryly, but aptly, puts it - "a man who would run over his grandmother to get in front of a camera". His press conference today was an orgy of "I" "Me" and "Mine" that would have made Ol' Bubba cringe.

Bush has left him a powerful legacy to squander. Let's hope his vanity prevails over his colossal ignorance and fanaticism, as it did the Clinton's...T

You’d never know it from listening to the lamestream media this weekend, but Iraqis went to the polls in nationwide provincial elections. Turnout was strong, and there was not a single major act of violence.

The early returns show a repudiation of the Islamist and other religious parties which had been in large part dominated by Iran. Secular parties, and in particular, the party of the current Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, appear to have gained position. This is a huge step toward a secular, stable representative democracy in Iraq.

“I just voted and I’m very happy,” said one Iraqi man.

“I want the political leaders to listen to us. I think this will begin the change,” said another.
“A great day,” said yet another.

The BBC reported that there was “a holiday atmosphere” among voters walking to the polling places.
A female Baghdad medical student said, “People here are so excited by the feeling that their vote can make a difference.”

Exhilaration over voting? Excitement? A holiday atmosphere?

The lamestream media, invested for years in the narrative that Iraq was a failure, only begrudgingly reported any of this, and made sure to counter it with erroneous reports about light turnout and confusing voting procedures.

Seriously?

Iraq had more effective and efficient candidate selection than we did.

Exhibit A: the Illinois Senate seat.

Exhibit B: the New York Senate seat.

Exhibit C: the Minnesota Senate seat (pending).

Exhibit D: ACORN, anyone?

We should have Iraqi election monitors watching us during our next elections. They ran a better show than we did.

Most disgracefully, our new president—-a man who would run over his grandmother to get in front of a camera—-could only manage a lame written statement “congratulating” the Iraqi people on holding elections. He’s got no problem holding press conferences about such pressing issues as the choice of White House puppy. But a presser on the landmark Iraq elections? Why, that’s a bridge too far.

President Bush stuck with Iraq. Against all political pressure and advice to the contrary, he went ahead with the surge and allowed the generals and the troops the latitude to see the engagement to victory. In the process, he liberated 28 million people from tyranny’s grip and gave them a shot at freedom.

Something tells me there was a “holiday atmosphere” at the former president’s Texas home this weekend.

Bush was right. Again.
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What Really Happened In The Middle East

Great recap here, showing the fantasy reality that the western press has made of the Arab-Israeli conflict. View this video, then check out a summation of the real history of "Palestine" here:

http://navitor.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-it-israel-or-palestine-whats-truth.html

Why post this now? Well, glad you asked! The point to garner from this factual history, and from what we see on NBC and the Clinton News Network, is exactly that: They don't make mistakes. They willingly distort, lie, fabricate, and straight out attempt to control and indoctrinate the American public to their socialistic worldview...T

College Students: Terror is, like, the New Communism

Like, like, like! Marcia Marcia Marcia! Another whole generation that has lost the lessons of the 70's and 80's (and 30's and 40's). Appeasement NEVER works. Thank you, leftist college profs/aged 60's radicals!...T

"These poor souls have no memorial. Least of all at an American university."

I spoke for a few minutes to the 20-year-old woman seated across the aisle from me.


She: What brings you to Denver?"

Me: I am giving a speech.

She: What do you do?

Me: I'm a radio talk show host.

She: Who did you vote for?

Me: McCain

She: Why?

Me: Smaller government and the war on terror.

She: Terror is the new communism.

Me: Communism killed about a hundred million people. And who do you think attacked and killed 3,000 of us on Sept. 11?

She: The government.

For the record, as I believe this to be essential to understanding this young woman's views, she is a student attending the University of California Santa Barbara.

Truth is she had to be a student at a major university. She would never have come up with "Terror is the new Communism" on her own. It is a moral obscenity that one has to learn.

Of course, there is an irony to this statement. Meant in the opposite way she meant it, I could largely assent to the proposition that terror is the new communism. Communism was an enslaving and murderous threat in its time and the Jihadism is such a threat in our lifetime.

But that is not how this young woman meant the statement. As she has learned history and the contemporary world, communism was a bogeyman in its time and terror is a bogeyman in our time.

When I told her that communism had killed 100 million people, I could not tell if she even processed the words. It was as if had I uttered a series of nonsense syllables. She either didn't believe me or didn't care.

On the assumption that I had met a person with a normal conscience, the only rational explanation for her non-reaction is that she didn't believe me and regarded what I said as right-wing propaganda (just as the belief in that Islamist terror threatens us).

In her belief that neither communism nor terror were/are real threats, I suspect this young woman represents many college students. If one wants to understand what left-wing dominance in university social sciences departments produces, one merely had to meet this young woman.

At most universities, communism is a non-evil, indeed, largely a non-issue. The most enslaving and murderous movement in history is almost never taught as such. When communism is mentioned at all, it is usually solely in order to show how vile anti-communists were. Thus, as little as students may know about McCarthyism, most students far more readily identify it with evil than they do communism. Indeed, more could probably identify Joseph McCarthy than Joseph Stalin.

Nor is this a matter of students not being taught to label anything as evil. They have no problem labeling Nazism, Fascism, George W. Bush, slavery, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and tobacco companies as evil. It's just that they won't label communism as such.

Does one in 10.000 students know of the communist terror-famine that took about 6 million Ukarainian lives. How many know about the communist Pol Pot, who butchered nearly one-third of his fellow Cambodians? Or how many innocents were murdered in the Gulag Archipelago (or could even identify it)? Or that China's communist tyrant Mao Zedong killed about 60 million of his fellow Chinese? Or that Communist North Korea is essentially a concentration camp in the guise of a country?

The answer to all these questions is very few.

And that, quite frankly, breaks my heart. I am currently reading "Mao: The Secret Life," almost universally regarded, even in the mainstream media, as the most important book on Mao ever written.

According to the authors, in 1930-31 alone, Mao and his gang developed 120 types of torture for use on innocent people he wanted to force into phony confessions so as to rule by terror. They included burning the vaginas of wives of opponents and pulling wires through men's penises, which were then attached to their ears and plucked.

These poor souls have no memorial. Least of all at an American university.
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Exit Bush, Shoes Flying

"The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right"

Absolutely sums it up! President Bush will be fondly remembered in the history books, as Truman was. He will get there much quicker though. As described below, the process has already begun. What is the fanatical left going to say now, eh?!...T

Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman leaves office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama.

Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Secretary of Defense Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the last year. It's the continuity of policy.

It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status of forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned.

It is the great care Obama is taking in not pre-emptively abandoning the anti-terror infrastructure that the Bush administration leaves behind. While still a candidate, Obama voted for the expanded presidential wiretapping (FISA) powers that Bush had fervently pursued. And while Obama opposes waterboarding (already banned, by the way, by Bush's CIA in 2006), he declined George Stephanopoulos' invitation (on ABC's "This Week") to outlaw all interrogation not permitted by the Army Field Manual. Explained Obama: "Dick Cheney's advice was good, which is let's make sure we know everything that's being done," i.e., before throwing out methods simply because Obama campaigned against them.

Obama still disagrees with Cheney's view of the acceptability of some of these techniques. But citing as sage the advice offered by "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" (according to Joe Biden) -- advice paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" -- is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.

Not from any change of heart. But from simple reality. The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these last seven years.

Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must now make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power."

Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.

Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.

In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the U.S. and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size-10 shoes for his pains.

Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.

Which is why I suspect Bush showed such equanimity during a private farewell interview at the White House a few weeks ago. He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right.
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Is it Israel? or Palestine? What's the Truth?

Is it Israel or Palestine? What about the west bank and Gaza? Obviously the Drive-By's care not a whit about history (or the truth...) so here's some facts - not from this author, but straight from the encyclopedia. Facts, not passions:
- 1: Palestine was an ancestral name given Israel by the Roman Empire, as it's province, and entirely Jewish in nature
- 2: There has NEVER been any such thing as a "Palestinian"
- 3: The name Palestine disappeared from History for thousands of years - until Winston Churchill brought it back as the new name for the conquered regions of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire - to be used as the new homeland for the Jews. Yes, ALL OF IT: Modern day Israel, the west bank and Gaza, and ALL of Jordan...T

From Drop Box

History of Jordan 1920s to 1930s
With the break-up of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the League of Nations and the occupying powers were required to redraw the borders of the Middle East. The ensuing decisions, most notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement gave birth to the French Mandate of Syria and British Mandate of Palestine. More than 70% of the British Mandate of Palestine was east of the Jordan river and was known as "Transjordan". Until 1921, the land was supposed to be part of the Jewish National Homeland, the land designated by the League of Nations to be the future Jewish State of Israel. In 1921, the British gave semi-autonomous control of Transjordan to the future King Abdullah I of Jordan, of the Hashemite family, after his failed attempt to take control of Syria when his brother King Faisal I became king of Iraq. This partitian was in breach of the British Empire's undertaking to make Palestine a Jewish state as was required under the terms of the mandate, and as such outraged the Jewish population, but pressure from the Arabs caused the British to acquiesce to the Hashemites' demands.

[edit] 1940s
Main articles: 1940s in Jordan, 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and 1949 Armistice Agreements
The mandate over Transjordan ended on May 22, 1946; on May 25, the country became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Transjordan was one of the Arab states opposed to the second partition of Palestine and creation of Israel in May 1948. It participated in the war between the Arab states and the newly founded State of Israel. The Armistice Agreements of April 3, 1949 left Jordan in control of the West Bank and provided that the armistice demarcation lines were without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines.

In March 1949, Transjordan announced its annexation of what is now commonly known as the West Bank, renaming it the West Bank, a reference to its location west of the Jordan River. Only two countries, however recognized this annexation: Britain and Pakistan. It is unknown why Pakistan recognized this annexation.
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Bush Legacy?

God bless the author for this thoughtful look ahead, and behind, to assess GW's legacy. I cannot agree more. As I have been writing in this page for years now, he will be fondly remembered, and soon...T


President George W. Bush departs with low approval ratings. Appraisals of presidents sometimes change over time, and sometimes they don’t. Harry Truman was deeply unpopular in his time but is now revered. James Buchanan let the country slide toward civil war and is still considered our worst president. How will Bush’s legacy fare? Politico asked the experts to consider his place in history.

George W. Bush, like Harry Truman, was president when an unexpected attack inflicted a terrible defeat on the United States. Unlike the far-away launch of the Korean War, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, savaged the heart of Manhattan and came close to crippling the national government in Washington.

Bush quickly rallied the country’s confidence at Yankee Stadium, spoke to its sorrows at the National Cathedral and announced its firm resolve to the world in his address to the Congress. He then directed the takedown of the Taliban and, with it, the support structure and command-and-control capabilities of Al Qaeda, which began the complete overhaul of the national security apparatus of the United States.

This reorientation of America’s defenses toward the long conflict with radical and networked Islamist jihadists has been both remarkable and remarkably successful, and it has been begun in such a way as to avoid obscuring the growing competition with China and the threats posed by rogue states such as North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Iran.

The change from Cold War to no war to the long war ahead is far from complete. “You only get eight years,” Vice President Dick Cheney coolly remarked, conveying that part of a presidential legacy is a mature understanding that you cannot play to win just the matches in which you are captain.

Bush led the world to remove one of its most dangerous (and, thanks to Oil-for-Food, corrupting) dictators, devised a joint containment strategy of the despot of the Far East and completely but quietly disarmed Muammar Khaddafi of his massive stocks of weapons of mass destruction and his A.Q. Khan-supplied nuclear technology in the aftermath of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

When Iran attempted to exploit the American intervention into Iraq, Bush countered that thrust with the surge, and as he leaves office, that counteroffensive is succeeding. New alliances with the states of the former Soviet Union are deepening as a result of the 43rd president’s strategic direction, especially in Poland and Bulgaria. A genuine missile shield has been deployed, and an archaic treaty that crippled America’s ability to defend itself has dissolved.

Our alliance with Israel is as strong as it has ever been, and our commitment to helping Israel repulse any thrusts by its enemies in Gaza and Lebanon is strong. Lebanon is better off than it was but not as free of Syrian influence as it should be. Hezbollah remains the cat’s paw of the Iranian theocracy, but the world does not doubt its true nature, and clarity is a valuable thing. There is clarity about Hamas, as well, and about many other networked jihadists. Even as Bush prepares to leave office, Israel is relying on the unwavering support of the president in its latest clashes with Hamas.

Bush’s much criticized communications strategy — I am one of the most frequent critics here — pushed key themes again and again. A relentless, though often ineloquent, focus on the evildoers has left no one in doubt about the central challenge of our time, and the Bush Doctrine is one of only three options in dealing with the combination of Islamist fanaticism and operational ability to deliver massive blows to our homeland.

The alternatives — fecklessness and appeasement (eloquent or not, it doesn’t matter) — may return to Washington, but if they do, the consequences will be at least as staggering as those of Sept. 11. Bush’s clarity about not waiting to be struck again and about the need to move decisively against rogue regimes that are believed to possess WMD is a model for future presidents that will be ignored at their and our peril.

Removal of the threat can be by force of arms, as with Iraq, or by force of will, as with Libya, but there is no safe alternative to the Bush Doctrine if the regime is a menace with the means to strike the U.S. directly or through proxies. Bush’s doctrines have defined the choices ahead, and will be used to evaluate his successors’ policies via the jihadists and their ambitions for WMD.

The complete overhaul of the strategic posture of the United States in the seven years since Sept. 11 is half of the central legacy of George Bush. The domestic accomplishments of this center-right president are large and interesting — No Child Left Behind and prescription drug legislation, to name two — and his failures were ambitious and politically significant, Social Security reform and immigration overhaul most prominent among them.

Bush’s grand achievement on the domestic side was the most recent turn of a triple play of tax cuts — John F. Kennedy’s, Ronald Reagan’s and his own — all of which prove the incredible economic wisdom of allowing people to keep more of the money they make. It is unfortunately a lesson that is as quickly unlearned as it is productive when relearned. We are watching its unlearning now. Someone down the road will make it four for four.

The long run of economic growth that ended with the subprime crisis was the product of low marginal tax rates. The bubbles that burst did not destroy that truth any more than their explosions undermined the wisdom of free trade, for which Bush was a tireless campaigner. The appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will play out over decades and cannot possibly be evaluated now.

The other part of Bush’s central legacy will be the example of the correct temperament of a commander in chief in wartime. Though relentlessly attacked by a domestic left wing deranged by fear or hate, Bush refused the temptation to return in kind the abuse he received. The campaign of 2004 was tough, but there was nothing in it or in Bush’s administration remotely approaching the scale of dirty tricks that marked many episodes in the years from Kennedy through Bill Clinton regarding the treatment of political enemies. Bush’s reserve when it came to political hardball is a standard of crucial significance for the long war ahead.

The Plame affair was a burlesque from start to finish, signifying nothing except the crazed nature of the president’s opponents. Like the charges of “Bush lied, people died” and of Bush-led massive assaults on civil liberties, historians will mock such absurd indictments.

Throughout this political hysteria, Bush stayed calm and governed with an eye toward protecting the whole country, which he did. Whether competent state and local authorities might have prevented the Hurricane Katrina chaos we will never know, but it won’t be more than a relatively small chapter in the histories written about Bush. His refusal to snarl back will be part of that chapter and part of a much larger theme about dignity and grace in the exercise of power.


Estimable temperament has marked Bush’s management of the war, as well — mistakes and all. Like Lincoln, he picked commanders and followed their recommendations until overwhelming evidence of failure could no longer allow him to do so, and then he changed commanders. As with Lincoln, this approach to command led to some defeats on the battlefield. But unlike Lyndon B. Johnson’s meddling, it did not lead to a strategic defeat. Bush’s deep love for the troops he has commanded is obvious; his sorrow for those who have lost a spouse, a child or a parent is profound; and his concern for the wounded has set a standard that should be matched by all future presidents. Bush is deeply loved by the military. In wartime, that is among the most important measures.

Bush’s greatest failing was a surprising one given his skill as a politician. Combined with his two wins as governor and his transformation of Texas politics, Bush won five of six great political battles, including the off-year contests of 2002 — a rare accomplishment. But he could not provide a path for a successor. The success of the surge and the defense of the U.S. homeland against another terrorist attack turned the battle to succeed Bush into one of the strangest campaigns ever, one in which the most important issue — the war — was rarely discussed. Bush’s immediate move to smooth the president-elect’s path to power is a part of his admirable record as an American president with uniquely American traditions to uphold.

No doubt the Internet dervishes will pepper this and other assessments of Bush with their standard displays of anonymous ferocity. There are a lot of 14-year-olds with Internet connections. But when the Jon Meacham of 150 years from now goes about his task with Bush, that historian will have as much material and more, as did the author of “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.” And the verdict will be nearly the same: Here was an extraordinary and controversial man who accomplished a great deal, lost many battles, stood by his friends sometimes too long and could be stubborn beyond political calculation but who accomplished his most urgent task of protecting the union against its many enemies. The successful completion of that task is what all great presidents have in common.

Bush’s great legacy is the peaceful transition of power in an age of terror, a legacy made possible by his courage and his resolve to take the battle to our enemies, confront and defeat them wherever they could be found, contain them when they could not be attacked, and demand of the world a seriousness about the threat that remains real and deadly in its intentions. He has modeled how to act as president in this new media age of virulent venom at home and of fanatical violence and hatred abroad — with detachment toward the former and courage toward the latter.

Count me among the 30 percent, which will soon be 40 percent — and then more than 50 percent much sooner than most of the chattering class can conceive. Bush is deeply loved and respected in places as diverse as remote villages in Africa and booming tech centers in India and, despite the noise from a left still trying to diminish his character, among tens of millions of Americans grateful for the care he has taken to protect them and their families.

But his greatest admirers will be Americans, and perhaps Afghans, Iraqis, Israelis, Indians and Africans a century or more from now who read about his record and resolve in so many efforts will marvel at his restraint and credit his faith and his family for a remarkable service to freedom.
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