Gary Younge (The Guardian): Misadventure alienates most of world from Bush

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Guardian Unlimited (London)
Dated Monday March 20

This misadventure has alienated most of the world from Bush
Since going to war, the president has managed to make himself almost as unpopular with US voters as he is with Iraqis
By Gary Younge

Shortly before the first Gulf war the recently retired chairman of the United States joint chiefs of staff, Admiral William Crowe, went for lunch with his successor, Colin Powell. In words that resonate today, Crowe warned Powell that "a war in the Middle East - killing thousands of Arabs for whatever noble purpose - would set back the US in the region for a long time. And that was to say nothing of the Americans who might die".

But despite his own misgivings, Crowe clearly believed military intervention was likely in the interests of presidential prestige.

"It takes two things to be a great president," he told Powell. "First you have to have a war. All the great presidents have had their wars. Two you have to find a war where you are attacked."

Six years into his presidency it is difficult to think of a single, substantial foreign policy initiative that US president George Bush has pursued that did not involve war, or the threat of it. There is good reason for this. It is the one area in which America reigns supreme, accounting alone for 40% of the global military expenditure and spending almost seven times the amount of its nearest rival, China.

Yet greatness eludes him.

Read more.

[Atman]

1. Greatness doesn't elude him

Bush will forever be known as The Greatest Failure in American presidential history. Hey, it's something!

[Demeter]

4. Elude, not Allude

[Atman]

7. LOL!

Spelling brain fart! Thanks.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. If that's how Bush goes down in history, he should count his blessings

If Bush goes down in history as simply a failed president, like Harding, he should count his blessings.

Bush is the most hated man on the planet for a good reason. Gary Younge hits on it beautifully. He wanted to be a great president, therefore he needed a war, therefore he would create one.

True, Bush did not really create the basic situation. Osama bin Laden did. Nevertheless, Bush and his neoconservative aides didn't think of the September 11 attacks so much as an outrage as an opportunity. It is said that Rumsfeld was dancing a jig at one end of the Pentagon, gleefully scheming ho0w to pin the incident on Iraq, while the other end smoldered with a jetliner embedded in it. Later, he would press for war against Iraq instead of Afghanistan (where the terrorists were) because "Afghanistan doesn't have any good targets." Perhaps the neocons sent Osama a dozen roses on September 12.

Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks and they knew it. Iraq was not a threat and they knew it. They read the intelligence reports, found them inconclusive at best, and put Doug Feith up to doctoring them while Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby went to Langley to strong-arm analysts into saying what they wanted to hear. They claimed that everything they had showed Iraq had a vast biochemical arsenal. It showed no such thing and they knew it.

The intelligence was bad because they wanted it bad. Good intelligence would not have supported a case for war and they knew it.

So they lied.

Lying to start a war of aggression? It sounds like a fit case to put before an international tribunal, doesn't it? And it is and we know it.

Censure Bush? The only things wrong with that is it's too good for him and that it's only him. Impeachment? Only as long as Cheney is included, and perhaps Rice, Rumsfeld and Gonzales, too.

These people should spend the rest of their lives in the UN prison in The Hague.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Good God. What a legacy:

"the president has managed to make himself almost as unpopular with US voters as he is with Iraqis"

[Demeter]

3. Misadventure? Is That a Weaselword For Crime of the Century?

That we should come to this--soft-shoe-ing around the most evil man since Pol Pot and Stalin went to their just rewards--it is an insult to thought and language and the human spirit!

Words fail me at the reading of this pap.

[cliss]

5. What an ass. Crowe said,

"Every great president has a war". So if there isn't a convenient war nearby, you CREATE one.

I would like to see Crowe eat Crow.