A Historian Swandives into a Tank of Offal.

An historian named Andrew Roberts explains why he thinks Bush was a good President. 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4241865/History-will-show-that-George-W-Bush-was-right.html

Let's admit, right at the start, that there was a lot of knee-jerk dislike of Bush throughout his presidency, even when what he did was, well, what Clinton or Gore or Kerry would have done. And I've never completely bought into the complaint that the case for WMDs was merely cooked up by the Bush administration; given what was known then, it would've been crazy to think that Saddam hussein had disarmed himself of those fabukous devices. The seeds of our current economic meltdown were planted by Bush's predecesors as far back as Reagan, and a lot of the damage of the past eight years could have been avoided if the Democrats had developed spines and integrity.

But this "historian's argument" rests on a lot of wishful thinking and willful avoidance. And it closes with a breathtaking display of dishonesty and amorality worthy of David Irving.

"At the time of 9/11, which will forever rightly be regarded as the defining moment of the presidency, history will look in vain for anyone predicting that the Americans murdered that day would be the very last ones to die at the hands of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the US from that day to this." 

What this means is anyone's guess. Of course nobody would _predict_ that-- it'd be like saying that there would be no more hurricanes after Katrina. But, let's acknowledge that we've had eight years without Islamic fundamentalists working destruction within our borders. We could say the same thing on September 10, 2001, which was about eight years afer the first WTC bombing in 1993. So this guy is saying that nobody would have made a wholly unreasonable prediction. And that we've been fortunate since. What does this mean? Nothing. 

As for the failure of the Bush administration to _prevent_ the attacks? Unmentioned. 

"The decisions taken by Mr Bush in the immediate aftermath of that ghastly moment will be pored over by historians for the rest of our lifetimes. One thing they will doubtless conclude is that the measures he took to lock down America's borders, scrutinise travellers to and from the United States, eavesdrop upon terrorist suspects, work closely with international intelligence agencies and take the war to the enemy has foiled dozens, perhaps scores of would-be murderous attacks on America. There are Americans alive today who would not be if it had not been for the passing of the Patriot Act. There are 3,000 people who would have died in the August 2005 airline conspiracy if it had not been for the superb inter-agency co-operation demanded by Bush after 9/11."

Nearly all of the measures Roberts mentions would have been enacted by any President after 9-11, so it's not as if Bush deserves exceptional credit. And given the failure of his administration to _prevent_ it, I think we'd be pretty pissed if he'd failed to do these things.

But Roberts lists these only as rough principles and safeguards and general policies. He doesn't address _how_ these were implemented. It's one thing to give, say, Boss Tweed credit for building municipal buildings in New York City, but it's dishonest to _not_ fault him for making millions on kickbacks and sweetheart deals to do it. And with Bush... well, as I said, all of the above was pretty much mandated by 9-11, but hiring cronies and incompetents to run those programs really _ought_ to be considered when evaluating Bush. 

"When Abu Ghraib is mentioned, history will remind us that it was the Bush Administration that imprisoned those responsible for the horrors."

You have got to be kidding me, Roberts. The lack of oversight at Abu Ghraib was _typical_ of the Administration's handling of the Iraq invasion. Also, despite evidence that high-ranking commanders were aware of what was going on 9and are thus complicit), the only people who've been imprisoned are low-ranking soldiers. 

"The credit crunch, brought on by the Democrats in Congress insisting upon home ownership for credit-unworthy people, will initially be blamed on Bush, but the perspective of time will show that the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started with the deregulation of the Clinton era."

Oh, there's more than enough blame to go around on the regulation of our economy. And Bush was as eager a participant as anyone else; there's a reason why he found Kenneth Lay such a congenial partner in energy policy. So this "everyone else was doing it" defense really doesn't wash. 

Now for the climax, where Roberts takes a swan dive into genuine corruption. I don't know if you know the name of David Irving, a British historian and Hitler enthusiast who's spent his career trying to exonerate the Third Reich from everything, up to and including the Holocaust. Here, in his penultimate paragraph, Andrew Roberts stands alongside of Irving, as far as ethics are concerned. 

"The number of American troops killed during the eight years of the War against Terror has been fewer than those slain capturing two islands in the Second World War, and in Britain we have lost fewer soldiers than on a normal weekend on the Western Front. As for civilians, there have been fewer Iraqis killed since the invasion than in 20 conflicts since the Second World War."

In order to defend George Bush, Roberts has to compare our modern war to the _most horrific battles of the past century_. He says that the war may be bad, but it's not as bad as, say, the Battle of Passchendaele? That the fighting's been less vicious than that on Iwo Jima? Well, _no shit_, Roberts. Those were wars against _whole countries_ and their organized war apparatuses, using very different technologies and tactics. The Vietnam conflict cost the U.S. roughly 60,000 men over twelve years-- would you defend that conflict because it's less than the hundreds of thousands killed at the Somme? Apparently, yes. 

And look at that last, rotten sentence about civilian deaths. "Fewer Iraqis killed... than in 20 conflicts since the Second World War." Is that so? The Iraqi war has fewer casualties than _twenty other wars combined_? Why, merciful heavens, I had no idea!

This does beg all kinds of questions. For example... why _twenty_ conflicts? Why not nineteen? Why not ten? Or even one? Or, Mr. Roberts, did you _have_ to go to twenty conflicts before you could exceed the Iraqi civilian death toll? 

Now, I don't know how many civilians were killed in the Iraq war so far. I suspect Roberts does, because he's the one who had to go all the way up to _twenty_ to beat it. Maybe he cherry-picked his twenty, selecting wars with low body counts. 

I'd be interested to know if Roberts included Vietnam among his "twenty conflicts." It's the first one we Americans think of, when it comes to invading third-world nations and establishing governments. And in that war, in addition to the 50-60,000 American casualties, between three and four million Vietnamese were killed. Which leaves Andrew Roberts with a real problem.

If Andrew Roberts cherry picked his "twenty conflicts," then he's clearly done this to skew his argument, which makes him unscrupulous. But, if he _did_ include Vietnam in his tally... he's effectively saying that Iraqi civilian casualties have exceeded four million people. 

I don't think even the war's opponents have seriously suggested a casualty number this high. And Andrew Roberts is offering this as a _defense_ of George Bush.