Iraq War WMD and George Bush

This isn’t your standard defend the bush administration because I’m a conservative, type of article.  This is a: think about past decisions with reality. First of all, I didn’t see Bush as very Conservative in the first place; secondly, I can’t stand all the blame that comes down on Bush STILL.

Yesterday, President Obama made a comment in a press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister that made me cringe.  With a smirk, he made a veiled comment about Mitt Romney’s capacity to make the “trigger pull” call that Obama made in the final hours of the Osama bin laden operation (Operation Geronimo).  It was annoying at best, disturbing at least.  Forget that by all military and JSOC accounts the president made it infinitely more difficult for the operation to be carried out by not allowing certain equipment and vehicles to be used, as well as requiring extra information before starting the op.  First there were the ridiculous comments by Joe Biden, a person who himself admitted to not wanting to go in and take out bin laden (though I suspect it is being portrayed that way to make Obama look like a hero).  This was followed up quickly by the Bill Clinton ad, featuring the “important decision” Obama “made”, which call out Mitt Romney as a milquetoast/pansy.  In the same week, we saw former president George W. Bush host a wounded Warrior event which he rides alongside these heroes who he sent to war.  It showed Bush as a hero to the soldiers who bravely fought for him.  By the way, unless I’m mistaken, I don’t recall anyone going online to post on facebook (was myspace the only one around then?) how they refused to follow Bush’s orders.  In fact I remember distinctly that every military professional I talked to in the Bush era was eager to go to war for the cause, because they knew Rumsfeld and Bush would NOT back down.  I remember when Donald Rumsfeld stood up and said: we are capable of fighting and winning two wars or more at once, to chasten North Korea and Iran. We also saw the important height level reached on the new One World trade center construction project.

It was a week that could have been used to strengthen the public’s opinion on our strong military, our abhorrence of terror organizations and our achievements in that war on terror.  Instead, the Obama administration unofficially called an end to that particular war.

But I digress…

It’s easy to bash George W. Bush.  It’s even easier to blame everything on the guy.  In fact, as a staunch conservative, and “almost always” republican constituent, I can admit we were not better off at the end of the Bush administration as we were at the end of the Clinton administration.  But let’s explore this a bit.

Clinton cut military spending (which admittedly DID NOT have much to do with the 9/11 attacks) which did lead to a less effective marshalling of the threats against the United States.  Bush was bombarded inside of his first year, with the most heinous and disgusting terrorist attack in our history in the One world trade center attack.  We had enemies from every corner of the world due to a relaxed foreign policy under Bill Clinton.  Remember when he had the opportunity to take out Osama bin laden?  Yeah I remember that too; he certainly didn’t admit that in his advertisement for the Obama reelection committee.

The Iraq War/WMD situation

Bush was easy to bash because he was in protectionist mode, he made some mistakes, moved without perfect intelligence (read into that statement however you see fit) and started a war with everyone who would take up arms against us. Even the Iraq war wmd situation could have gone either way.

But did you think for a second that Bush had nothing to do with the OBL capture/kill?  Did you think for a second that the Cheney/Bush waterboarding program had nothing to do with the leads we used to find OBL?  Did you think for a moment that we could allow another 9/11 to happen?  Has it happened yet? No.  Partly because of programs and ideals put into place by George Bush.

We now sit back in our comfortable 5-way adjustable computer desk chairs and complain about how Bush ruined our futures by removing multiple threats from around the world.  Whether or not Iraq war/wmd was premature or not: it eventually led to the freeing of millions of Iraqis, the removal of one of the most vicious and dangerous men of power in the world, and shut down potential devastation from bio and chemical programs, which AS A MATTER OF FACT (yes absolute FACT) have been proven, now to exist in the middle east, and can be tied to Iraq under the Saddam Hussein regime.  We still find these Iraq war wmd relics almost weekly in the operations we run in Afghanistan and other areas.

Again, it’s easy to bash a guy who created jobs with military spending, only to lose them because we were fighting a war we couldn’t possibly win with foot soldiers.  We do forget though, that we were more united than ever before in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and despite how anyone feels about the Iraq war/wmd debacle, we removed a dangerous threat, replaced only by people in Iran and N.Korea.

Perhaps the reason things were so bad after the 9/11 events and at the end of the Bush administration was the lag effect of everything that took place within the first year of Bush’s presidency. Don’t you think, eventually we would feel the effects of the long term issues coming from the worst terrorist attack on U.S. Soil?  Don’t you think that the prolonged difficult war against EVERYONE would eventually catch up to us?  Blame bush for making an imprudent decision?  Sure, go ahead; but what would you have done?  Could you look those thousands dead in the eye, the tens of thousands of family members, or the millions of Americans in their eyes and say, no we won’t take on the pieces of trash that did this to us on 9/11?

You could not.

Would you be able to fix the unknown?  Bush did what had to be done and hindsight is 20/20.

Frankly I’m a bit bored with blaming Bush.  If Obama thought he was guaranteed 10 years (*he frequently refers to that timeline in speeches), then why even run in such a bad situation.  He knew just as anyone else, that there were signs alongside the road when he went for the presidency.  He had four years to fix the problems, but instead, he focused on green energy, jobs in the green energy sector and apologizing to countries that are just waiting for a reason to cause America a problem. Sounds like a ten year plan I could NEVER get behind. How about you?

Where does the blame end?  When will this president take blame? When will we admit that in the end (albeit a long time later) that we were right about the Iraq War WMD issue, as we see it being used now against troops in the Middle East.

Bush is a hero in my eyes for making a real tough decision, to take on the world in a time when Clinton had cut our military budget and we had to be the strong one. He is a real American, mistakes and all and at least he can admit he is imperfect.