Bush gave a speech the other day to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in which he mentioned various incidents in history. I didn't see or hear all of this speech (of course, I have to protect my health) but I saw some video shots of it. There was Bush seriously (or at least pretending to be serious) quoting history as if he knew what he was talking about. It was hard to keep from laughing out loud because you know damn well he doesn't know any more about history than he does about anything else (which is pitifully little). He desperately needs a new speechwriter. One that will not try to allow him to portray himself as knowledgeable about things he knows nothing about. I suspect the speechwriter him or herself doesn't know much about history as the comments about Japan and Iraq, for example, were simply absurd. And of course his references to Vietnam were pathetically wrong. If Bush is to have any credibility for his speechmaking they should be written more along the lines of Dick and Jane or My Pet Goat.
There's nothing like having your act together. General Petraeus says we will need to keep our troops in Iraq indefinitely. General Pace is rumored to favor withdrawing up to fifty percent of them in order to maintain our military strength. Warner says we should bring at least 5000 home by Christmas to "send a message to the Iraqis." Ron Paul thinks we should bring them all home as they shouldn't be there in the first place. On the democratic side Obama says we shouldn't ever use nukes, Hillary says he shouldn't say that. All of the democratic candidates want to maintain troops in Iraq presumably forever, except Kucinich and Richardson who want them all home now. One might think that a competent leader, claiming to be managing a "war," would somehow have consulted everyone and created a plan that most everyone would agree on. Bush, however, has no plan. Has never had a plan other than his endlessly repeated "stay the course" plan (I guess that might qualify as a plan). It is common knowledge at the moment, among sentient beings at least, that the "surge" is not working, at least not in the way it was intended to work (to give Iraqis time to get their political act together). So why shouldn't we bring our troops home? The magic word that no one seems to dare utter is OIL. We want Iraqi oil to profit the huge oil corporations and the Iraqis (stubbornly) want it for themselves. How is it that the single most important variable in this Iraqi disaster is almost never mentioned? Why does virtually everyone insist we have to leave troops in Iraq "to protect our interests" but they don't mention oil which is our interest. Aside, that is, from our heartfelt desire to bring peace and democracy to the area (at the point of a gun). Bush is apparently hoping that historians of the future will not recognize crime and incompetence when they read about it. Can he be deluded enough to believe that history will somehow exonerate him? I fear he might.
LKBIQ:
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose that is unattainable."
Howard Zinn
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David Halberstam's last article before dying was called "The History Boys." He levels some of those same criticisms at the administration that you do here.
In short, Bush is grasping at straws to explain his failed policy in Iraq. First it was WMDs. Then when there were no WMDs to be found, it was about bringing peace and democracy to the Iraqi people. Now that no peace or democracy can be found, he has no choice but to claim that history will exonerate him from his current unpopularity.
He even compares himself to Teddy Roosevelt, who was wildly unpopular when he left office but is now considered one of our greatest presidents.
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