Here is why the Anti-Bush choir disgusts me
martedì 20 gennaio 2009 English 1 commento
Il Giornale, 20 January 2009After September 11th he lived in difficult and new times, but he fought terror without being defeated.
Giving the welcome to Obama, surely for his qualities and for the beautiful novelty that America has a black president, permit me to be a bit disgusted by the skirt of slapdash attitudes with which it comes about at the expense of George W. Bush's exit from office. The exiting president was recently hit with a stupid shoe by an Iraqi journalist and all were happy, but that incident averts from the stage all that, which we must attribute to Bush. These include the good results brought about by General Petraeus' “Surge” in Iraq, by now recognized even by his enemy the New York Times: stigmatized overall for the War in Iraq, we can appropriate to Bush a pact of reciprocal strategic help between Washington and Baghdad. Afghanistan and atomic Pakistan have been blocked on the path toward fundamentalism. In addition, one of the worst dictators of history has been defeated, the Shiite refugees have returned home, the Sunnis have revolted against the Al Qadea Sunnis, the majority of Shiites have detached themselves from Iran and democracy peeps into communications, schools and the economy, as well as in institutions and in agreements. It is hard, errors have been made, but where is the defeat? Terror has been distanced from America for seven years; the growth, surely not attributable to Bush, but still attributed to him, of the Islamist offensive have not prevented good American relations with the entire moderate Muslim front. On the contrary, if they can ascribe to Bush an error, it is that of not only having combatted terrorism in Iraq with more military force, but also of not having closed the border with Syria.
Obama has invited to unite with him the Minister of Defense Bob Gates, the Minister of Treasury Timothy Geitner and many other men of management today. He has sent to Baghdad his vice president John Biden, who at the time had voted in favor of the War in Iraq (just as Obama did as well in 2004) and now the course for the pull out is no longer six months, but three years; of Guantanamo for now he still doesn't know; and Obama has invited for a “very useful” conversation the very bad Dick Cheney: on terrorism he has accepted his advice, he has said, of not deciding anything without having in hand all the the elements.
Bush is unpopular simply because he proposed to the Europeans the unavoidability of the war on terror, of which Europe doesn't want to hear spoken about. Bush has never been, as they say today, neither the champion of the war between civilizations nor that of unilateralism. No bad word on Islam has ever come out of his mouth. Instead, he has served a historical, and not an ideological category, which is that of dictatorship and of totalitarianism that foments terrorism for its own interests: for this, beyond that of naturally defending his country after the September 11th attack, he has promoted the idea of democratization as an antidote to terror and not surely that of a Christian ideological conquest. If one rereads Bush's speeches, they see that his democratic doctrine is an attempt - in part - to successfully stop terrorism.
Arms of mass destruction are another preferred argument made in order to make us giggle: but the reports by UN inspectors during the 1990s have described them in minute details, Saddam himself had boasted of them, Clinton took them for granted. There is much material on the argument, who wants to laugh scornfully must start from those UN reports.
As for unilateralism, Bush went to war with 46 States and worked hard to obtain the solidarity of Europe, that was and remained divided. He said more than once that alone in the world, they can't do anything good. His expression “moral clarity” has become a way of speaking, and for this we can only say thanks to him. He has lived a difficult and new time, and he has fought. And also Obama, while he crosses his fingers hoping that he won't confront similar tests, surely knows it.
translation by Amy K. Rosenthal
martedì 24 febbraio 2009 23:59:48
SHALOM FIAMMA NIRENSTEIN: YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT ANTI-BUSH CHOIR IS 100% CORRECT AND I'M WITH YOU 100% BUSH WILL-BE REMEMBERD LATER FOR WHAT HE DID AND I-HOPE THAT WE WILL SEE SOME PEOPLE WAKE-UP SOONER THAN LATER, THAY WE HAVE TO FIGHT EVIL ALL OVER THE WORLD.I-KNOW FIRST HAND SINCE I-WAS IN THECAMP OF AUSCHWITZ AS A -15-/ AND HALF YEAR OLD BOY AND I-DID SEE WHATPEOPLE CAN DO TO OTHERS, WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD IS SILENT.ALSO I-LISTEN TO YOUR INTERVIEW WITHNETANYAHU, AND I-FEEL THAT HE IS THE BEST CANDIDATE TO GIUDE ISRAEL TODAY, AND I-HOPE THAT HE WILL SUCCSEED HIS PLANS ARE CORRECT TOMAKE SURE THAT ISRAEL IS SECURE.I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO HEAR FROMYOU VIA MY E-MAIL, I-HOPE.THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO MYCOMMENTS, AND MAYBE NEXT TIME WHILE I'M IN ITALY WE CAN MEET. SINCERELY YOURS. EUGENE LEBOVITZ 305-931-2508