The Bush Burden (tremendous article)

[WilliamPitt]

The Bush Burden
By Timothy Egan
The New York Times

He’s there in every corner of Congress where a microphone fronts a politician, there in Russia and the British Parliament and the Vatican. You may think George W. Bush is at home in his bathtub, painting pictures of his toenails, but in fact he’s the biggest presence in the debate over what to do in Syria.

His legacy is paralysis, hypocrisy and uncertainty practiced in varying degrees by those who want to learn from history and those who deny it. Let’s grant some validity to the waffling, though none of it is coming from the architects of the worst global fiasco in a generation.

Time should not soften what President George W. Bush, and his apologists, did in an eight-year war costing the United States more than a trillion dollars, 4,400 American soldiers dead and the displacement of two million Iraqis. The years should not gauze over how the world was conned into an awful conflict. History should hold him accountable for the current muddy debate over what to do in the face of a state-sanctioned mass killer.

Blame Bush? Of course, President Obama has to lead; it’s his superpower now, his armies to move, his stage. But the prior president gave every world leader, every member of Congress a reason to keep the dogs of war on a leash. The isolationists in the Republican Party are a direct result of the Bush foreign policy. A war-weary public that can turn an eye from children being gassed — or express doubt that it happened — is another poisoned fruit of the Bush years. And for the nearly 200 members of both houses of Congress who voted on the Iraq war in 2002 and are still in office and facing a vote this month, Bush shadows them like Scrooge’s ghost.

The rest: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/the-bush-burden/?_r=1&

[spanone]

1. k&r...

[Tippy]

5. Kick

[bemildred]

2. Oh my. nt

[blm]

3. I said this last week - Bush is STILL the most powerful person in the world.

His legacy of lies will paralyze future presidents who will be unable to stop the slaughter of innocents by tyrants who will quietly hail Bush as their god of war, who made it possible for them to carry out their slaughters with no expectation of being held accountable.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. And that indicates that the current President erred greatly in refusing to hold Bushco accountable

in any way. He could have cured the nation of that Bush toxin, but instead he ordered us to 'turn the page and look forward not back' as if he did not understand that when we turned from the page that said 'Bush fucked us' the next page said 'Barack Obama is in charge'.
Any burden Obama carries from Bush is a burden he asked to carry when he declared Bush and company to be heroic innocents. When you put that choice in the context of stopping tyrants, it seems like a hugely selfish choice to make, this absolution of great war crimes.

[blm]

18. I agree. Want to bet who advised him to do that, 'for the good of the country'?

Same guy considered a most 'successful president' by many DUers here, who also advised Blair to do whatever Bush wanted in Iraq.

The same guy who turned the page on IranContra, BCCI, and CIA drug running.

Obama SHOULD have had the room and the ability to make a decision that sides with protecting humanity from monsters. That will NEVER happen anymore. Not from a Democratic president. Bush made certain of that.

[Half-Century Man]

22. Nothing has hurt our beloved country more than...

...our inability, as a nation, to admit we make mistakes.
The reputation (some use the word "sanctity, giving a bureaucratic function, a religious connotation) of our public office is not upheld if we allow any temporary holder of that office to walk away from the consequences of criminal actions. The vile taint of someone's personal actions becomes the offices permanent corruption if we do not publicly separate the two. With an accompanying punishment for both the criminal act itself and the compounding betrayal of public trust.

If we have legislation which was enacted on false or racist reasons, we need to be able to admit this to ourselves. We did this with the repeal of the prohibition of alcohol.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Kick!

[carolinayellowdog]

6. "post-Bush presidency" has a ghastly ring to it now

In 2009 it gave me a huge sense of relief, but now it means "forever cursed by bipartisan complicity in Bush/Cheney's crimes"

[niyad]

7. k and r

[Pleidianfriend723]

8. but in the case of war, I think this is a good thing

all war claims need extra scrutiny.

[ColesCountyDem]

9. George Bush damaged the presidency more than Nixon ever did. n/t

[bigtree]

10. I kind of blanch when I read that someone opposing strikes might take the chemical attacks lightly

I don't think questioning the information coming from the government and military is some fault. If anything, it's a positive legacy from that period which should be the rule in any of these questions of military intervention.

I don't think it yet is for many Americans, judging from the number of Democrats who seem willing to wage just a little war in sharp contrast to their objections when Bush exercised his own autocratic decisions to press ahead with whatever militarism he could as he challenged Congress to withhold funding from the troops he already dedicated to battle.

I don't think that we've observed enough of the cautions from that era to be sanguine, for example, about promises from an administration that has already declared they have the authority to attack at will based on their own subjective standard of what constitutes 'national security' and a threat to our nation.

The response to the chemical attacks is being posed as a mere question of whether we will attack Syria in response. Yet, there are certainly other options short of military action that can be equally considered and invested in. I'd think that if we were truly carrying the legacy of the Bush wars with us as we consider Syria, we'd exercise as much caution toward warring as we could manage or engineer through our legislators.

[intersectionality]

11. It is unfortunate that the author chose to include the line...

"...though none of it is coming from the architects of the worst global fiasco in a generation" as it denies the reality of the Obama's Secretaries of Defense, who are all either holdovers or might as well be; even when not using Rethugs the mixing of spies & military has been truly disturbing to experience, particularly in lieu of the Snowden revelations.

[onyourleft]

12. I disagree that...

...we are ignoring the gassing of children. Those of us who do not want a war with Syria think that killing more people is the wrong approach. Empathy for those children and those parents is ever present, but more deaths cannot right that wrong. Enough with bombs being the solution to every problem.

[Nay]

14. Thank you. I hate that accusation as well. We should discuss how Syria got that gas --

from one of our staunchest allies, the UK. And why, if it is so forbidden, was the stuff being sold to Syria?

It is perfectly possible to be against the gassing of children and be against a war to avenge it, for just the reason you give. More dead people don't solve the problem.

[prairierose]

27. Thank you for saying that. I do not think bombs are a solution....

to killing. Why is no one talking about how to help the civilians caught in the conflict or forced to flee? Why aren't we talking about humanitarian aid? Why is there only talk of bombs? Why is there no talk about somehow forcing Assad and the rebels to talks instead of bombing them? Why is there no talk about blockading arms shipments into Syria? Why is there no talk about somehow trying to end the conflict instead of adding to it?

Why is the talk always about war instead of trying to find a way to help the people who need help and find a way to peace?

[onyourleft]

28. Some of your...

...questions have been mine as well, along with the one posed by Nay above regarding chemicals sold to Syria.

[JayhawkSD]

15. Bombing Syria is a bad idea in its own right.

It's not a bad idea because of what Bush did or did not do. It would still be a bad idea if Bush had never existed.

It is a bad policy and a bad idea on the merits, or lack thereof, of the action itself; on the illegality of making an act of war against a nation which has not attacked and is not an imminent threat to us; on the risk on incurring retaliation fom any number of sources; on the sheer stupidity of this country bombing yet another Islamic nation.

It's time to let go of the past and stop blaming Obama's problems on what previous presidents did. He is on his own, and he can make his own decisions. He has made some good ones, and he has made some god-awful bad ones like this.

The "isolationists" in the Republican Party are not isolationists, any more than are the Democrats who want no part of military intervention in a seventh Islamic nation, nor are they are "a direct result of the Bush foreign policy" any more than are their counterparts in the Democratic Party. Being against unprovoked and illegal military action does not make a person an "isolationist," it makes them reasonable.

We called a strike against two buildings in our country an "act of war" and retailited by invading, destroying, and occupying two countries and slaughtering tens of thousands of their citizens, and now we are prepared to say that attacking Syria with hundreds of cruise missiles is not an act of war and both should not and will not invite retaliation. That is utterly insane.

[CJCRANE]

29. Well said.

The article was good but your comment was better.

[heaven05]

16. thank you

for showing where the blame for the start of these tragedies of Iraq and Afghanistan began. Now we're just waiting for the next attack by our country's military, at the behest of a POTUS I voted for, on a sovereign nation fighting a CIVIL WAR. I feel we're digging a hole for ourselves that we can NEVER crawl out of. How can we stop this travesty if our 'leaders' don't care what we think about or want in foreign policy? Blame bush? Yes! If this next military adventure gets off the ground. Blame this administration for the consequences? Unequivocally yes!

[whatchamacallit]

17. Sorry, I don't buy it

He seems to be legitimizing Obama's illegal misadventure by claiming opposition is purely Bush fatigue. That may be why we're wary, but it's a bad idea with or without Bush's taint.

[blm]

20. Yeah - those Geneva conventions were getting obsolete anyway.

Who cares if a chemical weapon here a chemical weapon there gets dropped on innocent people - as long as it's not in my backyard, eh?

[whatchamacallit]

21. Not a pass to act unilaterally

Let's confirm the allegations and let the UN weigh in before we run off to war. You seem oblivious to our history of double standards and complicity when it comes to use of these weapons.

[blm]

26. You couldn't be more wrong. My history here shows consistent focus on the illegal dealings

that BushInc has made throughout the world. I would NEVER let anyone forget what they have done and are doing still today.

To someone like me it is apparent YOU are unversed in these matters, because if you were, you wouldn't be targeting Kerry so fecklessly.

[mountain grammy]

19. This really is a tremendous article; thoughtful and well said..

Like the Reagan legacy of supply side economics, the Bush legacy of preemptive war will haunt us as long as Fox and right wing radio are around to spread the lies and keep people stupid.

[pansypoo53219]

23. we have zombie W now, to stumble w/ zombie reagan, + still here, zombie mccarthy.

why can't we have zombie clinton? oh right. THAT would be smart.

[Adam-Bomb]

24. Oh, Man....

Blaming Bush for Syria seems to be quite a stretch to me.

Taking this a bit further, the Obama Administration and Congress is filled
with folks who KNEW Saddam Hussein had huge stockpiles of WMD and
supported bombing the ever-loving hell out of Iraq back in the 90's. So,
by the author's reasoning, Clinton and Democrats are as much to blame
for the Iraq war as Bush and Republicans. Am I right or am I wrong?

Syria came about because of the 'Arab Spring' movement, NOT Iraq and Afghanistan.

The author of that article should've done a LITTLE more homework.

[Berlum]

25. "Smirk" - xCommander AWOL (R)

[kentuck]

30. Amen to that.

Like Scrooge's ghost...

[Electric Monk]

31. k&r