A Huffington Post headline contains a word that requires a correction.
It says, “Jeb Bush won’t talk about wars his brother started.”
The operative word here is “wars.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/14/jeb-bush-iraq-afghanistan_n_6683970.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013
The Huffington Post is no friend of Jeb Bush or of his brother, former President George W. Bush. Having stipulated the obvious, I now shall make a crucial point.
The “wars” referenced in the article are the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hereby submit that George W. Bush didn’t start the Afghan War. The first shot — if you want to call it that — was fired on 9/11 when two jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, another one plowed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field as passengers fought to retake the aircraft that had been hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists.
Nearly 3,000 innocent victims died on that terrible day.
President Bush responded to an act of war against the United States. The war began because terrorists headquartered in the Afghan wilderness plotted the dastardly deed and were plotting to do even more damage to this country and to others around the world.
Our military response was in retaliation for what the monstrous murderers did on 9/11.
As for the Iraq War, yes, Bush started that war. The Bush administration relied on bad intelligence — or perhaps fabricated a weapons of mass destruction scenario to justify a military invasion of a sovereign country. Whatever the cause, the Iraq War was ill-conceived and then sold to the public dishonestly as a relatively simple mission.
The world would then learn that Iraq didn’t possess WMD, which only worsened the public perception that President Bush was out to settle a score with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
That is the war the former president’s brother, Jeb — who’s considering a presidential campaign in 2016 — should keep hidden in the closet for as long as he can.
The Afghan War? That one was justified.
It’s an open question about whether the effort in Afghanistan was worth it. The U.S. combat mission there is over and the Afghans will be left to defend their country against the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists who are seeking to retake the country.
Jeb Bush, though, will have his hands full trying to justify the Iraq War and whether the cost of that bloody conflict — more than 4,400 American lives — was worth the fight.
The problem with the USA is they seem to have a terribly limited foreign policy toolkit. After 911 the Taliban in Afghanistan said they would be willing to turn over any criminals responsible but they wanted to see some proof or evidence first. It is a hallmark of true justice to assume people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Every person should be able to defend himself against an accusation. If the American government was so certain they knew who was responsible they could have attenpted to seek justice through an international war crimes trial. Instead, they turned to a policy of vengeance and the use of excessive force. The terrible suffering inflicted on innocents turned ordinary people who were moderates or even apolitical into radicals. Afterall, wouldn’t you defend your country against an invader? Children were orphaned, innocents were killed and maimed, countless homes and businesses were destroyed. Great numbers of people became refugees. The legacy of that stupid response is a heartbreaking endless diffuse war. The policy of using violence to ‘solve’ problems involved far more than Afghanistan and Iraq. By the end of his presidency, G.W. Bush had deployed special forces to nearly 60 countries across the globe.