Tag Archives: George W. Bush

national news

Some ex-POTUSes get it; others, well …

A note came from a social media friend, a fellow who happens to be a former judge in the Texas Panhandle.

He writes: Our former presidents have different agendas tomorrow. George W. Bush is giving keynote remarks at Flight 93 National Memorial. Barack Obama will be at the remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero. Donald Trump is giving commentary for a boxing match in Florida. I guess he couldn’t find a way to make money off of it.

I haven’t heard how former President Bill Clinton will commemorate the event. I don’t expect former President Jimmy Carter to venture far, given his increasingly frail health.

But my friend does offer a fascinating critique on how POTUS 45 is spending the day tomorrow to mark the 20th year since the terrorists changed our country forever.

Yep. No doubt about it. POTUS 45 is a miserable piece of sh**.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

9/11 stands alone

Americans are getting ready to commemorate one of the nation’s darkest days that, ironically, unfolded before us under cloudless sunny skies.

It was 20 years ago that two jets flew into the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City, while a third jet plowed into the Pentagon and as a fourth jetliner plummeted into a Pennsylvania field as passengers grappled with terrorists in an effort to retake control of the aircraft.

The day is now known simply as “9/11.” You say those numbers and everyone on Earth knows what you mean.

The terrorists awakened us to a threat we all knew instinctively was out there. The pain of watching the towers collapse, of knowing that the plane had damaged the Pentagon and of recalling the bravery of the passengers on that jetliner battling with the terrorists remains burned indelibly.

The monsters acted in the name of a religion. They weren’t practitioners of Islam. They were religious perverts. President Bush told us days later that we would not go to war against Islam, but against the monsters who perverted a great religion for their own demented cause.

We sought to eliminate the threat in Afghanistan by launching a war against al-Qaeda in October 2001. The war continued until just the other day, when President Biden called a halt to a “forever war.” Along the way we managed to kill thousands of terrorists. We disrupted al-Qaeda’s network.

And, yes, we managed to find and kill the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden.

I want us all to recall the heroes who rose to the challenge on 9/11. They sought to rescue those trapped in the WTC rubble, and at the Pentagon. We should honor the men and women who suited up for military duty to fight the terrorists abroad. We always must honor the memories of those lost in that horrific act of hatred.

Even though we have ended our fight in Afghanistan, we also should know that the fight against international terror must continue. The monsters won’t go away all by themselves. Our intelligence network must remain on the highest alert levels imaginable … 24/7. Our military must be prepared to act proactively to stem future attacks.

Twenty years later, our hearts still hurt at what we saw and heard.

May we never forget the pain.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Pledge for the ages

Rhetoric uttered in anger and pain, while we are grieving, does at times develop a certain staying power.

Right after 9/11, President Bush stood amid the rubble of what once were the Twin Towers in New York City, draped his arm around a firefighter and told the world through a bullhorn: “I hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

Twenty years later, 13 American servicemen and women died when an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at Kabul airport where the United States has been conducting an evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies.

President Biden looked sternly straight ahead and said: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

And so, there you have yet another statement for the ages born out of extreme anguish and pain.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Historical perspective in order

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While we waste our breath, our emotional energy and valuable time bashing President Biden over the end of the Afghan War, I want to offer this bit of perspective for y’all to ponder.

Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked us on 9/11. They had safe haven in Afghanistan. The Taliban sheltered them and kept them hidden from view. President Bush then led a united country into war in Afghanistan.

It was a conflict doomed more than likely from the very beginning.

For 20 years we fought the Taliban. Our special forces killed the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who we found hiding in Pakistan. Yet the fight continued. It was going to go on forever had we allowed it to happen.

President Biden said, in effect, “Enough of this!” He ended the war. Just as he said he would do.

Let’s understand that Joe Biden took control of our military as it was drawing down its presence in Afghanistan. He merely finished an unwinnable task begun two decades ago by George W. Bush.

Let’s also be clear. The war did produce some victories for our side. We degraded al-Qaeda, killing many of the organization’s leaders. Our national attention was yanked away from the Afghan fight when we went to war in Iraq for reasons that stand as an example of supreme deception.

The Afghan War had to end. President Biden ended a conflict that President Bush launched.

International news, military news

Confused and frightened

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The pending withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has me confused and frightened.

The frightening aspect comes with the advance of Taliban forces that are taking city after city in their march toward reasserting control over a country we thought we had “liberated” when we invaded it shortly after 9/11 … which was nearly 20 years ago.

The Taliban are set to take control of Kabul, the capital city of the embattled nation perhaps in the next few weeks.

The Taliban is about as evil and vile as any group on Earth. Thus, it frightens me in the extreme to see what might happen to Afghanistan if the Taliban retake control of the country.

My confusion stems from the fact that we went through three presidential administrations overseeing our combat role in Afghanistan. From George W. Bush, to Barack H. Obama and then to Donald J. Trump our forces were thought to be helping prepare the Afghan forces to defend their country against the Taliban. Joe Biden took office in January and declared our intention to pull out before the 20th year commemorating the 9/11 attacks that precipitated our involvement in our longest war.

Did we waste all that time, money, effort and blood by failing to train and equip the Afghan forces adequately?

To be brutally candid, I am wondering if the Biden administration truly understood the gravity of the Taliban’s military capability when it decided to end our involvement in this drawn-out fight.

I want our troops to come home. I also had hoped we could leave Afghanistan in a position to defend itself. My first wish is about to come true. The second wish makes me wonder about the wisdom of what we were doing there in the first place.

national news

Protect DACA recipients

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The young men and women who reside in the United States need not be kicked around in a political skirmish that involves a decision made by their elders.

I refer to those who live here under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals provision that was enacted through executive order by President Obama, but has been ruled unlawful by a federal judge in Texas.

DACA recipients comprise several hundred thousand U.S. residents who were brought here illegally by their parents. They grew up as Americans; they came of age as Americans; the U.S. is the only country they know; many of them have flourished.

President Obama sought to give them some sanctuary from deportation by enacting the DACA program. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen — nominated for the federal bench by President George W. Bush — declared the DACA program to be illegal.

President Biden vows to appeal the ruling. I will take the president at his word. He should appeal it.

DACA is a humane and effective policy that should be codified  under law. Congress has the power to do that. My hope would be that enough fair-minded Republicans could join their Democratic colleagues in ensuring that these men and women — who came here as children and who have grown into responsible U.S. residents — can receive a clearer path to citizenship or permanent residency status.

Oh, but wait! That might require comprehensive immigration reform, which Republicans in Congress are unable or unwilling to enact. Why? Well, beats the hell out of me!

DACA recipients have been kicked around for too long already. Two former Texas governors — George W. Bush and Rick Perry, both Republicans — have spoken in favor of allowing so-called “Dreamers” to attend Texas colleges and universities; moreover, they have supported allowing them to attend under in-state tuition rules, given that they have been Texas residents of long standing. I consider that to be a fair and decent public policy.

The federal judiciary has intervened, though, in the effort to help these folks assimilate more completely into the society they adopted as their own when they came of age.

For the life of me I cannot understand why some politicians prefer to punish these individuals because of something their parents did when they were too young to fend for themselves.

national news

‘W’ weighs in on immigration

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

George W. Bush has come alive, urging Congress to enact a policy he sought during his two terms as president of the United States.

The 43rd president wants a comprehensive immigration reform policy to be placed on the books.

I happen to be wholly in favor of the strategy that President Bush is seeking to enact.

Bush wrote an op-ed essay that the Washington Post published on Friday. According to Politico.com: “Over the years, our instincts have always tended toward fairness and generosity. The reward has been generations of grateful, hard-working, self-reliant, patriotic Americans who came here by choice,” Bush wrote. “If we trust those instincts in the current debate, then bipartisan reform is possible. And we will again see immigration for what it is: not a problem and source of discord, but a great and defining asset of the United States.”

... In his piece, Bush called for a path to citizenship for “Dreamers,” increased border security, working with other countries to stem the root causes of migration as well a “modernized” asylum system and higher levels of legal immigration, “focused on employment and skills.”

Bush pushes immigration reform as GOP sidesteps a deal on it – POLITICO

To be sure, President Bush is getting resistance from fellow Republicans, particularly those who might seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. They adhere to the Donald Trump doctrine of “round ’em up deport all” of those who are here illegally. That includes the “Dreamers,” who were brought here as children when their parents sneaked into the country without proper immigration documents.

Bush has kept a low profile since leaving office in 2009. He told CBS News over the weekend that he doesn’t expect his public call for immigration reform to change many minds. He said he’s fine with that. However, the former president does lend an important voice to a critical issue.

As for Congress’s paralysis on immigration reform, Bush notes that Barack Obama and Donald Trump relied on executive action to seek movement on immigration. CBS’s Norah O’Donnell asked him what that means, to which President Bush responded: “All that means is that Congress isn’t doing its job,”

military news

Declaring victory?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President George W. Bush responded with strength and resolve nearly 20 years ago when terrorists declared war on this country.

He ordered the military into Afghanistan  to overthrow the government that had given the monsters safe haven. The war against international terror had begun.

I said at the time that I wondered how in the world we could declare victory. How could we ever know when we have defeated this enemy? I likened it a bit to the semi-cavalier approach espoused by the late, great Republican U.S. Sen. George Aiken of Vermont who said during the Vietnam War that we should “just declare victory and go home.”

President Biden has in a sense declared victory against the terrorists. He is bringing home the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan no later than Sept. 11, the 20th year since the beginning of the longest war in U.S. history.

We didn’t start this conflict, but today Biden declared that we are about to finish this particular phase of it.

My fervent hope is that we remain on the highest alert possible for any future evil intent. I heard the president say that it is time for us to look forward, that the terrorist movement has “metastasized” and moved into many other areas of the world. It is time, he said, for us to focus our efforts beyond the Afghan battlefield.

Joe Biden is not wild-eyed. He does not strike me as being prone to making decisions based on hunches and gut feelings. The president is a studied creature of the government he now leads.

I do hope with all that I can muster that he can remove the relative handful of troops from the field of battle while ensuring that we can remain focused sharply on danger when it presents itself. That we can take a proactive posture against threats to our nation.

We do possess the nation’s strongest military apparatus. A first-rate intelligence service complements that force with seasoned and dedicated professionals. We also have a commander in chief who listens and acts on the advice and counsel he receives from the pros who are trained to deliver it.

Can we truly declare victory on the Afghan killing fields? I hope that is the case.

national news

DACA may be victim of surge

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This surge of underage migrants coming across our southern border might produce a casualty that many of us don’t want to see occur.

That casualty well could be a push toward comprehensive immigration reform.

Republicans are suing President Biden over what they contend is a failed immigration policy. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants the Biden team to do more to prevent this surge in undocumented, unaccompanied children coming into Texas. Everyone is focused on the crisis of the moment.

My fear is that the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals — aka DACA — is going to get caught up in the sausage grinder of recrimination. DACA is an act restored by President Biden that allows those who were brought here illegally as children by their parents to remain as U.S. residents. Biden wants to give them a faster track toward legal residency or citizenship.

DACA is part of a comprehensive immigration reform effort that was thought essential by President Bush, a Republican and by President Obama, a Democrat. Donald Trump wasn’t interested in reforming the immigration protocol, other than to deport all illegal immigrants immediately back to their country of origin.

That included DACA recipients, who were here because their parents brought them here when they were youngsters. They grew up in the United States, they have paid their taxes, many of them have excelled academically, professionally and have raised their families here.

DACA might be on the bubble as the nation struggles with this surge and as President Biden tries to find firm footing on which to move the administration forward.

I don’t want to see DACA disappear again.

local news

Waiting for library to reopen

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

George W. Bush ran five times for public office.

Twice for Texas governor in 1994 and 1998. Twice for president of the United States in 2000 and 2004. I voted for his opponents every time. I hadn’t moved to Texas yet when Bush ran in 1978 for a West Texas seat in Congress, which he lost. There, I got that out of the way.

Still, I am saddened to read that the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is still “temporarily closed.” The damn COVID-19 virus has shuttered the doors of the library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

My wife and I moved to Collin County in 2018, which puts us within a brief drive to W’s library in Big D. I have been there three times already and I had planned on taking a family member who’s coming to visit at the end of next week.

I want to mention this because I have grown more respectful of the former president as time has moved on. He looks quite good to me these days, given the most recent Republican president with whom the nation has contended for the past four years. Plus, President Bush was among the first prominent GOP politicians to recognize publicly the election of President Biden in 2020, calling him an honorable and decent man. Indeed, the men did work well together when Bush was president and Biden was a U.S. Senate icon.

Moreover, it was the Bush White House team that worked so seamlessly after the 2008 election to ensure a smooth transition to an administration led by Barack Obama and, oh yeah, Joe Biden.

I am left now to hope for a reopening of the library, which I find quite compelling whenever I visit it.