The Legacy of President George W. Bush
M. Orhan Tarhan
August 15, 2007
President Bush has been in the White House since 2001 and has relatively little time left until November 2008. I hear that he is worried about his legacy and would like to do a few more things until 2008 to correct it. I would like to review some of his doings since he was sworn in in 2001.
In his first year of presidency, George W. Bush was hit by 9/11 where he showed fairly good leadership. The natural reaction was of course to go after Osama Bin Laden who was thought to be in Afghanistan. The Taliban government there refused to deliver Bin Laden, so the United States sent some 300 special troops to Afghanistan, supported the Northern Association troops and easily defeated the Taliban troops and enabled the Northern Association to occupy the entire Afghanistan. But Bin Laden was not found. The President made a mistake of not sending more troops to Afghanistan to thoroughly eradicating the Taliban and finding Osama Bin Laden. Later, at the Tora-Bora mountains, the failure to use sufficient American troops permitted bin Laden to escape.
The U.S. formed a new state in Afghanistan. President Bush wanted to introduce democracy, but tolerated the writing of an Islamic constitution that did not make any sense. In stead of concentrating our military and political efforts in Afghanistan and finishing that job, the Bush White House started to push for an attack on Iraq beginning during the Summer of 2002. Here, the United States was breaking the Westphalia Treaty by upholding the right of preventive attack. The three reasons given for starting the Iraq War, turned out to be not true.
While we were at war with political Islam (Taliban) President Bush supported the newly elected Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdigan, another political Islam men, against our old allies the secular Turks. Erdogan promised cooperation to him in the Iraq war, but the Turkish parliament , that was dominated by Islamists, said “no”.
The Iraq War started in March 2003, U.S. forces attacked from the South with three divisions. Saddam’s forces did not fight, they let Americans occupy their country, but then began attacking them with guerilla forces, that is still going on. U.S. Army fought the guerillas with conventional forces and could not win. The discovery by Israelis in Lebanon, that guerillas cannot be defeated by conventional forces was never learned by the Pentagon. President Bush is still insisting in prolonging that impossible war in spite of what he should have learned from Lebanon.
Saddam’s Iraq was a secular state. President Bush wanted to make Iraq democratic, the democratic Iraqis wrote a typical Islamic constitution. He did what Bin Laden could not do. No wonder, he is worried about his legacy!
The United States has been calling the war against the Political Islam “The War on Terror”. In Northern Iraq live Turkish-Kurdish so-called “PKK” terrorists, who are recognized by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union as terrorists. They enter Turkish territory and kill Turkish soldiers and terrorize people. President Bush’s military forces do not permit the Turkish Army to enter North Iraq in hot pursuit. Every time a flag-draped soldier’s coffin comes to a Turkish village, raging anti-Americanism flares up. Thanks to President Bush, Turkey has become the most anti-American “Ally” of the United States.
He can truly be proud of his legacy, can’t he?
President Bush has a “Greater Middle East Initiative” that includes Turkey and several Muslim Arab countries. He and his entourage, who probably never took foreign history in their high school years, want to change a part of the world they do not understand, and don’t know that they do not understand. They want to make these countries democratic, just like Turkey, without knowing or taking in consideration, how Turkey became democratic in the first place. They do not know that there can be no democracy without secularism. But since the Arab countries would not want to give up any part of their Islam, the U.S. wants Turkey to become “a mildly Moslem state”. But just as there is no mild pregnancy, there can be no partial secularism or partial Islam. These concepts are mutually exclusive. Secularism was the catalyst to Turkish modernization. Turks do not want to go back the way of the Arabs. Thus. Mr. Bush supports the AKP party who wants to Islamize Turkey, something patently antagonistic to our war against political Islam. Again, as in the case of Iraq, he has been getting results contrary to our war aims.
That is indeed a hard legacy to mend at the last moment. There are surely more subjects related to President Bush’s legacy to be discussed. But I think, this much is perfectly enough to come to a conclusion. He seems to have done enough wrongs for one president.
In his first year of presidency, George W. Bush was hit by 9/11 where he showed fairly good leadership. The natural reaction was of course to go after Osama Bin Laden who was thought to be in Afghanistan. The Taliban government there refused to deliver Bin Laden, so the United States sent some 300 special troops to Afghanistan, supported the Northern Association troops and easily defeated the Taliban troops and enabled the Northern Association to occupy the entire Afghanistan. But Bin Laden was not found. The President made a mistake of not sending more troops to Afghanistan to thoroughly eradicating the Taliban and finding Osama Bin Laden. Later, at the Tora-Bora mountains, the failure to use sufficient American troops permitted bin Laden to escape.
The U.S. formed a new state in Afghanistan. President Bush wanted to introduce democracy, but tolerated the writing of an Islamic constitution that did not make any sense. In stead of concentrating our military and political efforts in Afghanistan and finishing that job, the Bush White House started to push for an attack on Iraq beginning during the Summer of 2002. Here, the United States was breaking the Westphalia Treaty by upholding the right of preventive attack. The three reasons given for starting the Iraq War, turned out to be not true.
While we were at war with political Islam (Taliban) President Bush supported the newly elected Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdigan, another political Islam men, against our old allies the secular Turks. Erdogan promised cooperation to him in the Iraq war, but the Turkish parliament , that was dominated by Islamists, said “no”.
The Iraq War started in March 2003, U.S. forces attacked from the South with three divisions. Saddam’s forces did not fight, they let Americans occupy their country, but then began attacking them with guerilla forces, that is still going on. U.S. Army fought the guerillas with conventional forces and could not win. The discovery by Israelis in Lebanon, that guerillas cannot be defeated by conventional forces was never learned by the Pentagon. President Bush is still insisting in prolonging that impossible war in spite of what he should have learned from Lebanon.
Saddam’s Iraq was a secular state. President Bush wanted to make Iraq democratic, the democratic Iraqis wrote a typical Islamic constitution. He did what Bin Laden could not do. No wonder, he is worried about his legacy!
The United States has been calling the war against the Political Islam “The War on Terror”. In Northern Iraq live Turkish-Kurdish so-called “PKK” terrorists, who are recognized by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union as terrorists. They enter Turkish territory and kill Turkish soldiers and terrorize people. President Bush’s military forces do not permit the Turkish Army to enter North Iraq in hot pursuit. Every time a flag-draped soldier’s coffin comes to a Turkish village, raging anti-Americanism flares up. Thanks to President Bush, Turkey has become the most anti-American “Ally” of the United States.
He can truly be proud of his legacy, can’t he?
President Bush has a “Greater Middle East Initiative” that includes Turkey and several Muslim Arab countries. He and his entourage, who probably never took foreign history in their high school years, want to change a part of the world they do not understand, and don’t know that they do not understand. They want to make these countries democratic, just like Turkey, without knowing or taking in consideration, how Turkey became democratic in the first place. They do not know that there can be no democracy without secularism. But since the Arab countries would not want to give up any part of their Islam, the U.S. wants Turkey to become “a mildly Moslem state”. But just as there is no mild pregnancy, there can be no partial secularism or partial Islam. These concepts are mutually exclusive. Secularism was the catalyst to Turkish modernization. Turks do not want to go back the way of the Arabs. Thus. Mr. Bush supports the AKP party who wants to Islamize Turkey, something patently antagonistic to our war against political Islam. Again, as in the case of Iraq, he has been getting results contrary to our war aims.
That is indeed a hard legacy to mend at the last moment. There are surely more subjects related to President Bush’s legacy to be discussed. But I think, this much is perfectly enough to come to a conclusion. He seems to have done enough wrongs for one president.
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