Powerline’s strangely abbreviated catalogue of Bush’s failures in Iraq

Responding to leftist historian Eric Foner’s claim that George W. Bush is the worst president in American history, Paul at Powerline compares Bush “to some other post-World War II presidents when it comes to waging, or not waging, war.” He mentions Truman’s leaving the Communists in control of North Korea, a disaster we’re still dealing with today; the Vietnam fiasco that cost 60,000 American lives and left Vietnam in the hands of the Communists; Carter’s betrayal of the Shah which empowered the Iranian Revolution and the beginning of modern Islamic radicalism; and Clinton’s failure to do anything about terrorism which led to the 9/11 attack. Then Paul comes to Bush and Iraq:

Although the U.S. enables the Iraqis to hold unprecedented democratic elections, enact a constitution, and elect a government of their choosing, the U.S. has not been able to quell the violence caused by the insurgency and by sectarian conflicts. So far approximately 3,000 Americans have been killed. The deaths continue at a rate of about 50 to 100 per month.

I wrote to Powerline about this:

Haven’t you left out a little detail? That Bush, by invading Iraq but failing to get control of Iraq, allowed the looting which destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure (and inter alia destroyed the physical plant of every university in Iraq); and that Bush by failing to get control of Iraq then allowed the most horrific terror war in history to take over that country, a terror war several orders of magnitude more horrible than anything that has ever taken place in Israel, with 20, 50, 100 Iraqi civilians at a time getting blown up by car bombs and suicide bombers several times a week, with different religions murdering each other, with the middle class fleeing the country, with Christians fleeing the country.

As a result of the U.S. invading Iraq but not bothering to secure order in Iraq, that country has been turned into a hell on earth, yet you failed to mention that in your modest catalogue of Bush’s failures. You only talked about American casualties, as though American casualties were the only index of the failure of a U.S. policy.

Paul didn’t reply. Neocons never reply to criticism from their right. I think it’s because they think of themselves as occupying the rightmost edge of acceptable human thought. Everyone to the right of themselves is irrelevant.

Randall Parker adds:

Even their description of U.S. casualties understates the cost for the U.S. because the percentage of severely wounded who survive is much higher now. So the number who are coming home with brain damage, missing limbs. missing jaw bones, missing teeth, missing eyes, severed nerves, damaged internal organs, and other permanent damage is much greater.

Mark G. writes:

It is hard to hold an opinion about Jorge El Presidente lower than mine.

Yes it was Jorge and Rumsfeld responsibility to secure Iraq and win the war. But no, it was not Jorge who killed thousands of Iraqis, Iraqis did it themselves. Iraqis are not kids and have free will. Please apportion the blame as appropriate.

LA replies:

I respectfully disagree. The moment we brought down the Hussein regime, we became responsible for the government of Iraq. The state of nature, which is what exists wherever there is no government exercising a monopoly on force, is the state of war of all against all. The first purpose of government is to restrain that war and protect men’s lives and property. A magistrate who allows violent chaos to occur and does nothing to stop it is responsible for that chaos. Would you say that when Mayor Dinkins in the early ‘90s did nothing to stop the Crown Heights riot from developing, that we should just blame the rioters, not the mayor who ordered the police not to interfere with the rioters?

Mark replies:

A great analogy. We should blame both, assigning blame appropriately: Mayor should have been impeached for dereliction of duty and removed from office in disgrace. Rioters should have been arrested, tried and, if convicted, sent to jail.

LA replies:

Sure, blame both. But the subject of Powerline’s article to which I was responding was: which postwar presidents had the biggest failures in foreign policy? This wasn’t about the Iraqis.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2006 05:56 PM | Send