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Some of you may remember my earlier posts on this issue. Well, my friends, the struggle continues. My conservative friend sent this out to about 25 of us today:
(The following appeared in the Durham, NC local paper as a letter to the Editor. Please forward to all on your list as this will put things in
perspective:)
Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war. They
complain about his execution of it. One liberal recently claimed Bush was the "Worst President in U.S history".
Let's clear up one point: President Bush didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.
Let's look at the "worst" president and mismanagement claims.
FDR led us into World War II.
Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.
Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.
John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.
Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions. Over 2,900 lives lost on 9/11.
In the two years since terrorists attacked us,
President Bush has liberated two countries, Crushed the Taliban, and crippled Al-Qaida, Put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran, and North Korea, without firing a shot, Captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people. While doing all this, We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year.
Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.
Worst president in history? Come on!
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but... It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno, a Democratic appointee, to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51 day operation.
We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick with his dead lady friend in it.
It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count, and recount, thevotes in Florida!!!!
Here's my response (I know it's long but I think it's pretty good)
That was an interesting perspective in the letter to the newspaper you sent
us. I always enjoy looking at modern issues in historical context, as I
think examining history is critical to understanding what is happening in
the world today. I'll take this all in chronological order as best I can...
Allow me to say that Bush is not the worst President in history. I think
that Herbert Hoover, Warren Harding, and possibly even John Adams (whose
authoritarian streak almost erased many gains of the Revolution) were worse
than Bush. However, I do believe that he has made many mistakes, to say the
least.
The author of the letter says that if liberals say that Bush* started the
war on terror, we must also believe that FDR started WWII etc. I don't know
what lens he's looking through, but I'd say that argument is pretty
convoluted and ignorant of history. Everyone knows that Japan attacked Pearl
Harbor. However, the United States did not declare war on Germany
immediately. In fact, Germany declared war on the United States before we
declared war on them. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but those are the
facts. I was very surprised to learn that myself several years ago. In fact,
there is a debate among historians as to weather Hitler's declaration of war
on the US was a bigger mistake than his invasion of the USSR. The author of
the letter says that if we use the same "Bush started the war on terror"
logic with FDR, then Roosevelt unfairly attacked Germany. That is not the
case, as Germany declared war on us first.
Truman did not start the war in Korea. We all know how that happened.
On to Vietnam. Clearly the US decided to get involved there by ourselves. We
didn't really have to support South Vietnam, but we decided to in light of
the Cold War struggle against communism. Now, if you believe Vietnam was a
worthy cause, then there's no reason to criticize Kennedy. If you think
Vietnam was a waste, then we should learn from past experience and not make
those mistakes again. I personally am not sure which side of that debate to
support, so I'll stay out of it.
"Clinton attacked Bosnia without UN or French support". Yeah, he did. Let's
look at that in context. The actions in Bosnia were supported by NATO, an
organization as valid and noble as the UN. The NATO alliance is comprised of
the US and our most powerful European allies. If NATO decides to take
action, then by definition all member states give their support to that
action, including France. Therefore, the United States had much more
significant international support in Bosnia than we do today in Iraq. The
same goes for Kosovo. Even the Russians sent troops to Kosovo, and the
peacekeepers there are currently lead by the Dutch and Germans. This gives
the local population the impression that they are not occupied by the US,
but rather protected by their European neighbors. That is a distinction
which cannot be underestimated.
Furthermore, the action in Bosnia took place only a few months after the
Rwandan genocide took the lives of nearly a million people while the world
stood by and did nothing. The world community was not about to let that
happen again in Bosnia, especially not in Europe's back yard.
Now on to the war on terrorism. I think that there is a distinct ideological
impasse between those who support the war in Iraq and those who don't. At
the outset of the war on terrorism, I really wanted to go get those
terrorists. Now I'm not so sure. I think that those who support the war
honestly think this is some kind of winnable conflict. I don't think we can
win. We will never be able to eliminate the terrorists without stirring up
even more anti-US sentiment. I hope you realize that the action we have
taken in Iraq play right into Osama's game plan. We are doing exactly what
he wants us to do. We have taken out an extremist regime in Afghanistan,
thereby further angering the extremists, and we have also angered moderates
by toppling Saddam's secular regime (say what you will about Saddam, he was
not an Islamic extremist). When Osama and his vile cohorts were sitting
around planning the attack on NY and the Pentagon, their primary goal was
not to kill Americans. Their main goal was to provoke us into taking actions
which would provide support to their claims that the US was an anti-Muslim
imperialist bogeyman, advancing their own mission of sparking a real "Muslim
world vs. Christian and Jew" Jihad. We know that this is not a Christian
crusade against Islam, but when people like Gen. Boykin make comments about
how "my God is bigger than your God" and Falwell goes on TV and calls
Mohammed a "terrorist", how are people in the Muslim world supposed to react
to that? How angry would some of you get if a powerful Muslim spiritual
leader and, say, the Egyptian military commander went on TV and mocked
Christianity and called Jesus a communist? I think most of you would be
pretty angry.
The point I'm trying to make is that we can't destroy the terrorists with
this war. We only make them look like the saviors of Islam to more and more
people in that region. If we worked harder to secure our own borders,
airports, seaports, and other targets for terrorist attacks we would be way
safer than we are now. If we made it look like we were ignoring Osama, I
think that would go a long way to making him far less relevant in his part
of the world. Right now he looks like a strongman for standing up to the
"big bad USA". On the more technical side of things, our efforts in Iraq
have diverted crucial funds and resources from protecting the US itself.
According to FEMA, there are 3000 chemical plants in the US at which an
accident could impact at least one million people. And that's just an
accident, not a terrorist attack. These targets are privately owned and not
protected by the police or national guard. What have we done to protect such
targets? Nothing. The same goes for nuclear power plants. The Border Patrol
is practically non-existant. The author of that letter points out that the
US has not been attacked in two years, and seems to attribute that to Bush
having made our country safer. I think we haven't been attacked because the
terrorists have already achieved their goal of getting us to provoke a great
portion of the Muslim world, and spend billions and billions of dollars
trying to achieve unattainable goals.
The author of the letter compares the invasion of Iraq to the Branch
Dividian standoff. Please, Mr. Author, don't insult our intelligence. The
standoff at Waco could have been resolved in a matter of hours with as many
National Guard troops as the Governor cared to call out. The government
didn't make a move because they hoped to get Koresh to release the women and
children inside, or even to convince everyone to surrender peaceably. In the
end, the fire there killed many women and children and angered lots of
people (Tim McVeigh). So, were we supposed to just crush them immediately or
play nice with them? You can't please everybody. Back to the Iraq anology,
nobody said that defeating Saddam's military would be the hard part.
Everyone agreed that "winning the peace" would prove the greater challenge.
The author of the letter also acts like we're still going to find WMD in
Iraq. That isn't going to happen. The cheif weapons hunter, David Kay, said
that there aren't any WMD in Iraq and that "we were all wrong".
Nuclear inspections in Iran, Libya and North Korea. Libya had been moving to
reconcile with the world community for the better part of a decade. His
motivation probably had as much to do with making an oil deal with Mr. Oil
President as it did with saving his own ass. It's not like we were on the
verge of invading him anyway. The inspections in Iran will probably be
dismissed by the Bush administration as a failure (like the ones in Iraq
were). North Korea is another story entirely. Lots of people claim that our
invasion of Iraq has intimidated dictators into complying with our wishes.
Dennis Miller, who is now something of the right wing's funny-man and
satirist, said that NK only "came to the table" with us because of Iraq.
Yeah, they came to the table allright, but not to discuss disarmament. No,
they came to the table to rant and rave and finally prove to a skeptical US
government that they really did have nukes. The inspectors were invited into
their country not to oversee disarmament, but to report to the world that NK
was fully capable of delivering at least six nuclear warheads almost
anywhere in the Pacific rim, including the west coast of the US from Seattle
to LA. This is the flip side of US preemptive policy. We may intimidate some
people, but we also show that if the US is a-knockin' at your door, you'd
better have some big guns to fight back with.
That brings me to my conclusion. Part of the reason I looked forward to
studying in Canada was to get a feel for how others view my country. I hope
to serve my country someday either as a politician, a civil servant, or both
(or perhaps even in the military, although I haven't totally decided on
that), and I wanted to know how others feel about us. I've met many
Canadians, and plenty of people from all over Asia, Europe, Africa and the
Middle East. Most of them say the same thing. They all want to know why the
US feels like it has to be such a bully all the time. I think a lot of
Americans feel like we are threatening and intimidating the rest of the
world with our displays of power. I felt that way too back during the action
in Afghanistan. I'm as guilty as anyone else. However, I've learned that we
don't look tough to the rest of the world, we look like idiots. People don't
see strength, they see desperation, fear and panic. They don't have respect
for what we have done, nor do they have fear of us. There is only
bewliderment and growing anger. If the US wants to be a strong loner on the
world stage, then we're well on our way. Just remember, a rogue nation is
only a rogue nation because everyone else disagrees with it. If everyone
turns against the US, then we are the rogue; powerful, but nonetheless a
rogue. I do not say this because I hate America, or becaue I'm one of the
"blame America first" types. I say this because it hurts me to see my
country inflicting such damage on itself. As George McGovern said, "The
highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love
of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard".
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