OpEd:

Time To Leave George Bush Alone

November 17, 2009 by Kyle Brady
Tags: America, Bush, Obama, September 11th, Torture, Waterboarding
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George W. Bush was not the best President the United States has ever had.

Regardless of individual political stance, or even opinion on the current Obama Administration, this is a generally accepted fact – what varies is whether former President George W. Bush was a “failure”, “success”, or just average. Once again, however, political opinions on the validity or incompetence of Bush’s Presidency are not important, because what’s occurring around his Terms of Office, right now, that is.

Without the September 11th attacks, Bush would have arguably just been a generic President that wasn’t remembered for being particularly great or horrible, similar to historically unrecognizable names such as Martin van Buren, Millard Fillmore, or Benjamin Harrison, and without any significant policy impact. For the substantially worse, however, the 9/11 events did occur, and they changed America forever. Following the events of September 2001, George W. Bush morphed from a amicable Texas man into a policy hardliner that wished to bring severe pain to those that had attacked the nation – and some that hadn’t.

Over the following years, and two Terms of Office, Bush’s legacy swung unpredictably from success to disaster, and back again, on an almost daily basis, resulting in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, unstable situations in both North Korea and Iran, and domestic policies that would lead to both scientific regression and economic collapse. Inevitably, accusations of torture arose during and after the Administration, with regards to those held at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, specifically focusing on waterboarding.

In the months since President Obama’s ascendancy to the White House, liberals throughout America, and many people in the world at large, have called for high-level investigations into the former President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense for their alleged involvement in torture, with the accusers’ intentions to find them guilty in a sympathetic court. This, however, simply cannot happen.

The investigations of both Nixon and Clinton were devastating to the United States and its people, tarnishing the world’s perspective of the country and dividing that nation into vicious politics, and yet neither of them were accused with such heavy-hearted allegations as would Bush. America’s image has vastly improved as President Obama has worked to reestablish a formidable presence on the world stage, and trials for war crimes of a former President barely out of office would likely erase any progress that has been made. Even more important, however, is that prosecuting George W. Bush for said accusations would set a dangerous precedent that would likely result in a greater Presidential disinterest to act as they feel is necessary, not to mention indicate to the world that the country is willing to submit to the political whims of those outside its borders.

Modern politics, the Age of Obama, does not need any additional help to divide the nation or bring out the worst in American citizens – fringe Republicans and FOX “News” have done enough damage. Now is a time to look forward, and push onward, rather than dwell on the intellectual and ethical Dark Ages that recent history may very well have been. As healthcare reform, economic recovery, financial sector regulation, and numerous other issues hold the attention of both the President and Congress, the United States seems to be heading in the direction of progress and self-improvement, despite the massive effort and time investments apparently necessary to accomplish these goals.

Former President George W. Bush is just that – a former President. As a man from Texas that’s not known for his eloquence or brilliance, he managed to change the country over his eight-year reign in a way that hasn’t been seen for decades, but it’s time to let him fade into the political ether as is only inevitable. The media, liberals, and high-minded individuals nationwide must relinquish the idea of prosecuting the previous Administration for alleged crimes, and understand that it’s in the best interest of both the country and the world to leave George Bush alone.

OpEd pieces are published on Mondays and Thursdays, and usually have to do with politics or other pressing and relevant issues in America.
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Adam

Hey Kyle. In case you actually want to talk about this with anyone, there's a lively discussion going on over at the Diary on Daily Kos that you posted. If you care to comment over there, I'll keep the Diary open for a while so we can actually talk about this. Either way, here's what I posted in response to this diary.

But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him...

--Harry Frankfurt

Bush would have arguably just been a generic President that wasn’t remembered for being particularly great or horrible ...

What do you base this on Kyle? You can claim it's "arguable", but then you have to make the argument, so go ahead.

George W. Bush morphed from a amicable Texas man into a policy hardliner that wished to bring severe pain to those that had attacked the nation – and some that hadn’t.
(Emphasis mine)

Just a few innocent dead brown people over there. Nothing to concern yourselves with. If those darned terrorists hadn't made us do it, they'd probably still be alive. Who knows. Who cares. Moving right along.

Over the following years, and two Terms of Office, Bush’s legacy swung unpredictably from success to disaster

You name quite a few disasters Kyle. Care to name at least one or two of the successes you mention? Or was that word just thrown in there because balance comes first?

The investigations of both Nixon and Clinton were devastating to the United States and its people, tarnishing the world’s perspective of the country...

America’s image has vastly improved as President Obama has worked to reestablish a formidable presence on the world stage, and trials for war crimes of a former President barely out of office would likely erase any progress that has been made.

Based on what polls or even anecdotal evidence do you claim that the world would look down on the US if it decided to prosecute Mr Bush?

...prosecuting George W. Bush for said accusations would set a dangerous precedent that would likely result in a greater Presidential disinterest to act as they feel is necessary, not to mention indicate to the world that the country is willing to submit to the political whims of those outside its borders.

So we'd stop people from contemplating torture or illegal wars. Any good things you can cite that we'd stop our leaders from doing? And hey, is that some baseless fear-mongering I see at the end of that statement, claiming we'd be submitting ourselves to the "whims" of a bunch of foreigners? But Kyle! I thought prosecutions would make us look bad to foreigners! And what about all those "liberals throughout America" you mentioned before? Just foreigners in disguise?

Modern politics, the Age of Obama, does not need any additional help to divide the nation or bring out the worst in American citizens – fringe Republicans and FOX "News" have done enough damage.

This one isn't so much bullshit as idiocy. It makes the claim that because Fox pisses people off, and prosecuting Mr Bush might piss people off, we're basically doing the same thing. And since Fox isn't gonna stop, it's up to us to keep things civil. Got it?

Kyle Brady

I've more-or-less stopped following comment threads on DailyKos, because anything that steps outside the ultraliberal line is immediately and immensely criticized, so I hadn't planned on dealing with any of the extremely predictable and expected reactions to this over there - or even reading them.

I just took a peek, and they're almost all knee-jerk reactions to this, rather than anything even approaching intelligent discussion. "OMG WUT ABOUT NUREMBERG THEN" is not an appropriate response or comparison, and the moronic, sarcastic, "holier than thou" attitude that prevails on comment threads for topics such as these is not something I'm going to respond to.

I will, however, briefly respond to your comment, even though it's not much better in tone or methodology than the rest of them.

In almost all of your critiques of my post, you ask for proof that something is "arguable" or such, and the answer is easy: in the minds of many Americans, Bush was a decent President. That, alone, makes it arguable.

I personally don't like the policies of Bush, but this post was not about my personal political preferences - trying to find a middleground between outraged liberals and defensive conservatives is difficult at best when trying to communicate an idea like this, and it's best to not get too detailed on minutiae. That's why I avoided delving into his policies, and focused on the overall legacy and longview-perspective.

Bush was successful in a few senses, not the least of which was an effective handling of 9/11 itself in the days that followed. He may have not been bright or politically great, but he proved on a few different occasions that he knew how to guide, or manipulate, great masses of people.

Prosecuting the leader of a country is destructive, no matter where or why. Russia continues to fall into this problem in almost every decade - we don't need that at the moment. Bush wasn't always right, but keep his actions in perspective with the Hitler and Stalin that you and the rest of DailyKos like to so fervently mention. Bush was not a mass murderer, and his actions were not rooted in any sort of hatred for another people, culture, or religion - he may have authorized waterboarding, but many people, including some big name journalists, have argued that waterboarding isn't torture... after experiencing it themselves. Again, my personal opinion doesn't matter - the fact that Bush authorized the simulation of drowning is not at all the same as removing fingers, toes, or limbs, using electrification, scarification, or other massively inhumane techniques. Compare "waterboarding as torture" to what is actually considered torture - North Korea, Vietnam, Russia, and parts of the Middle East will all be able to help you on that point.

Next time why don't you try for a more civil discussion rather than being a kneejerk reactionist with an asshole attitude? Got it?

--Kyle

SuperBowlXX

Kyle,

You do realize that a long time ago, the United States prosecuted Japanese war criminals who waterboarded American soldiers during WWII, right? If you really believe that we shouldn't prosecute the Bush Administration for authorizing waterboarding, then supposedly you think those Japanese war criminals should have gone scot-free.

I can also name a number of journalists and pundits who underwent voluntary, controlled waterboarding, and immediately described it as torture, the most well-known in my opinion being Christopher Hitchens and the conservative shock jock Mancow, both of whom didn't believe it was torture and then changed their minds very quickly when it was over. Even Jesse Ventura underwent waterboarding when he was a NAVY Seal as part of his training, and he called it torture too. And again, that was under controlled circumstances -- nothing like what the prisoners at Guantanamo and Bagram experienced.

As for you claim that waterboarding is "not at all the same as removing fingers, toes, or limbs, using electrification, scarification, or other massively inhumane techniques," well....I'm not exactly sure what experience you have on any of those techniques to back up that claim, and you don't seem to provide any evidence that it doesn't cause extreme pain or mental stress like other torture techniques, which -- by the way -- is exactly what the Red Cross determined that waterboarding does when they released a report on the practice about five or six months ago.

But the bottom line, for me, is this: If you don't support prosecution of government officials in this country who authorized waterboarding, then you don't have the right to complain if an enemy military captures an American soldier and does the same thing to him, because doing so would be hypocritical. If American soldiers were captured by, say, the Taliban, and tortured in the same way that we did to several prisoners in the war on terror, then you have no right to demand that Taliban officials who authorized torture face any punishment or justice, because we should just "move on" and it's "destructive" to prosecute them.

If you can respond to any of these points, and do so without referring to them as "reactionary," "kneejerk," or "inflammatory" with an "asshole attitude," I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

Adam

As for your ignoring comments on Daily Kos: then please stop posting there. Daily Kos is not meant as a place to simply promote what you have written elsewhere, it is a place to discuss your thoughts with a group of people who share progressive goals. If that doesn't sound like something you want to do, then you might want to find other places to post your essays.

I get that people can be mean on Daily Kos, but it is seen as poor form to 'hit and run'. There will always be people who say inappropriate things in any forum. If you want real conversation, then your job as someone who cares about honest discussion is to look past those mean things that some people say and find the group of people that do in fact want to debate you. There were a number of people tonight who would have debated you if you had brought facts and good arguments, and your snubbing of them, after writing a diary on a community-based website was not (in my opinion) in good taste.

Kyle Brady

I don't care if it's "poor form" to ignore the comments... that was not my original intention. But post after post is full of nothing but derision and knee-jerk reactions, which I have neither the time nor interest in. If someone's interested in real discussion, it can happen - but it has yet to come from within DK.

Maybe you and your trolling ilk should step up the game to something that actually doesn't involve rhetoric, posturing, and brow-beating.

--Kyle

Adam

How exactly am I a troll, Kyle? What have I done here to indicate to you that I am a troll? And if you see the people who belong to the community called Daily Kos as a mass of trolls, then why do you communicate to them, when you post diaries on the site?

I've tried to offer you my honest thoughts here tonight. I don't see how it's fair or helpful to write me off as a troll just because there are a few people who comment on Daily Kos who say mean things.

Kyle Brady

It's not that everyone on DK is a troll - the trolls just come out en masse if you say something that's not the partyline. Which I do alot. "Mean things" don't bother me, I simply feel no obligation to pay attention to them.

As for you, you're only a half-baked troll. And being a troll has alot to do with the tone and presentation of an argument, not the lack of one - I suggest you re-read your original comment above.

--Kyle

Adam

I was simply pointing out that all of your throw-away (rather, non-minutiae) comments actually mean something. I read your diary and I responded to much of what you said.

Kyle, I'm not trying to troll. I'm trying to point out that your argument is based on a number of statements that do not hold up to scrutiny. I'm trying to discuss your essay and saying I disagree with you. I haven't called you a hack, troll, or anything of the sort. I just disagree with you, and I think the underpinnings of your argument deserve re-examination. Is that not acceptable?

Kyle Brady

Fine. I'm in the process of getting ready to leave, and I'll address this fully later.

Will that pacify you?

--Kyle

Adam

Pacify? I don't need to be pacified Kyle. If you don't want to talk to me, then don't. I'm looking for honest discussion.

Kyle Brady

I've got news for you - I wrote something to the effect that I stopped paying attention to comments in response to someone on DailyKos, and guess what happened?

A few hours later it was removed. Censored.

Now try and explain to me how that, combined with the explosive and unsavory nature of most commenters, is not full-on trolling.

Got an opinion they don't like? Fine! The mods will just delete it.

I had a long day, and I'll get to responding to your longer comment midday tomorrow.

--Kyle

Adam

That wasn't "the mods" deleting anything. No comments are deleted at Daily Kos. That was other community members hiding your comment, saying you don't have the right to come to Daily Kos and make such baseless, blanket comments about the *entire* community without engaging in a discussion. Read the Daily Kos FAQ if you want to know more about how a person's comments get hidden.

First, you were accusing the whole of the Daily Kos community of using childish and foul language without citing any particular sources that you'd encountered. You painted the entirety of the site with a broad brush, and that was uncalled for. Plenty of people had just spent a good deal of time laying out why they disagreed with you. When you finally came back to respond, you only wanted to talk about how a bunch of people had said mean things to you a few months ago, so you didn't care to talk to any of us.

You're not required to 'buy the ultra-liberal partyline', but it is most certainly not knee-jerk to tell you why you are wrong. If you don't want to talk to liberals and insist on labeling anything they say to you as "knee-jerk", you're likely to get rated as a troll.

Second, you were telling everyone that you make a habit of posting potentially inflammatory material (you can call yourself reasonable and blame the entire community for getting pissed, or you can read through some of the comments and consider other people's point of view) and running before anyone can discuss that material with you. People consider that to be troll-like behavior, and it is not welcome on the site.

Throughout the comments, I made a number of attempts to defend you when people made cruel attacks against you personally, and I got plenty of crap for it. But I did not defend you when you posted that comment, because you made it completely clear that you couldn't care less about the four hours of back and forth that had gone on in the comments.

Adam

I look forward to reading your response tomorrow. Hope all is well and the day was a good one. I for one had wretched insomnia last night and slept way too long into today. Did not make for a very productive Tuesday...

--Adam

Adam

And it would mean a lot to me if you'd 'approve' the comment that I've now twice tried to enter here. Either that, or please make some attempt to respond to it. I didn't sit around for 20 minutes trying to think about what I wanted to say to you, just so I could get shut out. I was trying to engage in a discussion.

Kyle Brady

Nothing here is marked for approval by me... it's automatic, and I only remove SPAM comments. I usually leave even the most epic of trolls because it's funny and I sometimes respond.

So I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I count five comments from you, including this one.

--Kyle

Adam

Kyle,

I think it is absolutely necessary to get into the minutiae. Just because the Op-Eds that you appear to be modeling your essay on generally ignore the need for sources and careful wording doesn't mean you'll have an easy time going to a site like Daily Kos and doing the same.

If everything is arguable just because a large group of people think it, then why even write about it? Even Stalin, who is one of your examples of an obvious bad guy, does well in Russian polls. Isn't our work as writers to pull together *facts* and specifics for a wider audience? Otherwise, we're just telling everyone what they already know. You state in your own editorial policy that "Sources will be given to claims, facts, and figures, referencing valid and legitimate data, rather than expecting readers to take all non-opinion content as truth by default." Saying that many Americans think something (without even citing a poll) does not count as a reference to valid and legitimate data. For a long time, many Americans thought Iraq was connected to 9/11 - does that make it arguable or worthy of citation? Many Americans also favored slavery and the disenfranchisement of women. Are those now also 'arguable' viewpoints? Seems extreme, but if that's our only metric for what's arguable, then where exactly is the end-point?

Adam

If you're looking for a job at the Washington Post editorial page, then this kind of generalized "some people say" writing will work. But folks over at Daily Kos expect sources and detailed minutiae. It's what they thrive on. And I think the general public deserves it. Plenty of bad arguments make their way into public discourse because nobody is insisting on good sources and focus on details.

Adam

On the substance of your argument (and I really would like if you had specific answers for each or any question.): a) What does this have to do with Russia? b) Please cite one author who has undergone waterboarding and came out claiming that it is not torture. I can cite both Christopher Hitchens and Erich "Mancow" Muller as men who changed their minds after having it done to them in very controlled circumstances. c) Tell me of a hypothetical situation in which you think an American President should be prosecuted for war crimes. Laws can't just apply to other countries, they have to apply to everyone. So please tell me of a situation in which an American President would meet the criteria. d) Why is it necessary to chart a course between defensive conservatives and outraged liberals? If I say my house is burning down and my neighbor says it isn't, is it your job, as an outside observer, to find a way to split the difference? Sometimes, the facts are the facts. It is not always necessary to find a middleground. Harvard (and a bunch of liberals) says 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health coverage. But some Republicans say we all have health care. So should we find a middle ground and say only 22,500 Americans die from lack of coverage every year?

Adam

there we go. looks like your software just has a word limit that kicks in and requires some sorta moderator approval. feel free to respond or not. totally up to you.

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Time To Leave George Bush Alone

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