George W. Bush’s Father Complex

Here's an interesting article from Thousandreasons.org comparing George Bush Sr. and his son, George W. Bush. Believe me there is a HUGE contrast.

Gerald Rellick writes:

There are many troubling facts about the Iraq war, the worst being that it was unnecessary and sold to the American people through lies and deception -– an unforgivable breech of faith by the president of the United States with the American people. Also troubling is that the reasons for the war are still unclear. Historians will struggle with this for years, probably inconclusively. But if there'’s a pathway into Bush'’s small and troubled brain that might explain his obsession with Iraq and his subsequent invasion, I’m convinced it lies in an understanding of the relationship of the younger Bush with his father, who also faced down Saddam Hussein, although under very different circumstances.

When we compare father and son, we see stark contrast. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Bush senior ruled out plans for college and entered Navy flight school on his 18th birthday. At age 19 he became the youngest combat pilot in the Navy and was assigned to a torpedo bomber squadron in the Pacific. Bush flew 58 combat missions, was shot down once, and was decorated for heroism. Later at Yale he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was also a fine athlete, the first baseman and captain of the Yale baseball team.

Compare this to the younger Bush. He also went to Yale, but as a "legacy" student, a product of his father'’s status (and hard work) as a Yale alumnus. Lacking athletic talent or any real competitive instincts, the younger Bush became a cheerleader, just as he had been at Andover Prep. When graduation came and he was faced with military service in 1968, he used his family name and influence to secure a safe spot in the Texas Air National Guard. Thus, he was able to avoid service in Vietnam although he had professed a belief in the merits of the war.

Following Saddam Hussein'’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the first President Bush assembled a strong international coalition, including the Arab countries of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to forcibly expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. But Bush stopped short of sending U.S. troops into Baghdad to remove Hussein from power. As Bush explained in his book, "A World Transformed,"” coauthored with Brent Scowcroft, toppling Saddam Hussein would have made the U.S. “an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land... The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well."” In looking back at the first Gulf War, one can'’t help but appreciate now the elder Bush'’s much-maligned "“nuanced thinking"” as his administration carefully weighed the long-term consequences of its actions. In a Time Magazine article of March 1998, Bush and Scowcroft explained their thinking:

"“The Gulf War had far greater significance to the emerging post-cold war world than simply reversing Iraqi aggression and restoring Kuwait. Its magnitude and significance impelled us from the outset to extend our strategic vision beyond the crisis to the kind of precedent we should lay down for the future. From an American foreign-policymaking perspective, we sought to respond in a manner which would win broad domestic support and which could be applied universally to other crises. In international terms, we tried to establish a model for the use of force."” [my italics]

The article goes on to attack Bush. I wish I had more room to add all of it but my posts have been getting long winded lately. Be sure to check out the link to the article at the bottom of the post.

America, once the land of the proud and the brave, can no longer claim such title. After 9/11 we became America the Afraid and turned our wills and our lives over to "a closet weakling who seizes on inflexibility as a way to show America that he is strong,"” as Norman Mailer once described George W. Bush. Added Mailer, "“[Bush], left on his own, might have become a successful movie actor... He has been impersonating men more manly than himself for many years."” Bush'’s father perhaps?

Nevertheless, slightly more than half of the voting public fell for this machismo ruse, and as a result our young men (and women) in Iraq are paying the price -– more than 2,200 dead and 15,000 more wounded. And the end of the human carnage is not in sight, for as George Bush told the nation recently, "We will stay the course."

Here is the link to the full article:
One Thousand Reasons