When you strive to become president of the United States, you should do so only with the understanding that when something goes wrong in the world, you will take the heat. Therefore, you’d better be equipped for the job.
Today, Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by an apparent terrorist who shot her twice before detonating the bomb he was wearing. One more tragic event in a long series of tragic events that have marred what should have been a relatively peaceful, productive eight years for the world, considering that they arrived on the heels of a period when the US was flush with wealth and good standing around the globe.
One might ask, why now? Why pick on poor George? Why not still during the Clinton administration, which saw years of relative calm following the first attempt to bring down the twin towers in Manhattan? Was it because the terrorist leadership (correctly) assessed that Bush would be a bungler who would play into their hands? That the terrorist leadership understood better than his own fellow citizens that George Bush was not equipped to lead the most powerful nation on earth?
Perhaps the core of the terrorist leadership does indeed hate America and all that it stands for, the democracy we hold so dear, as Bush has claimed. But not all terrorists do, or did. Most of the army of terrorists, like any army, enrolls in a cause for reasons that emerge as situations evolve. Most of the men and women who have blown themselves up over the last years might otherwise have been selling goods in shops somewhere, or attending school, or farming, or doing something with no remote connection to terrorism. And what began as a small core of fanatics, isolated in the mountains of Afghanistan years ago, has now grown to become a real threat to world peace. And all on George Bush’s watch.
Of course we will never know if 9/11 would have even happened were Al Gore president instead of Bush. We have no way of knowing that. My feeling is that it wouldn’t have happened. My feeling is that a Gore administration would have taken more seriously that August 2001 daily intelligence rief that warned of terrorist activity involving hijacked airliners. If indeed such activity would have been evolving to even inspire such a brief. Would the terrorist leadership have tested Gore, who was clearly more competent than Bush? Would they have even been motivated to attack the US at that time, considering that the Clinton administration, of which Gore was a part, was actively pushing the Israelis and Palestinians toward peace and a Palestinian state? Or that Gore’s agenda included energy independence for the US, which would mean reduced interest in Middle Eastern oil? After all, the Bush family fortune was built on oil, and while oil has meant prosperity for much of the Middle East, to the radicals it was not only the reason for exploitation but the incursion of Western ideas and habits into the Muslim lands.
President Bush is confident that history will record his presidency as a successful one, that what he began will eventually end well. He’s delusional. If things end well, it will be only because someone else fixed it. What we will have is eight years that shouldn’t have happened the way it did. But with Bush, what else could we have expected?
Liberal Buzz 