George H.W. Bush and Warmongering
Dec. 1st, 2018 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreFormer President George H.W. Bush has died. While I disagreed with him on many things, I respected him. I even met him once, while in the Army. The looks on the faces of my chain of command as the Republican Vice-President of the United States stopped to chat with the unabashed Marx-quoting liberal were pretty amazing.
For the record, we just chatted about hometowns, how I like being stationed in Hawaii (I lied) and the like for about a minute.
OK, I must rant.
Yes, George H.W. Bush was not the greatest president in our history, but he was far from the worst. So could people manage to be human and hold their complaints for one fucking day? We have the rest of our lives to discuss the failings of our 41st Chief Executive. For the moment, just sit on your hands if all you have to contribute is bile.
Secondly, I'm seeing a lot of whiners crying about Desert Shield/Desert Storm. For those too young, or too old for that matter, to remember, Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. As Kuwait was a friendly nation, we told Iraq to leave. Saddam Hussein said no.
President Bush then organized a 30-nation coalition (including a Czechoslovakian chemical defense battalion!), a UN Resolution calling for an Iraq pullback and authorizing force to remove Iraqi forces, and moved close to 500,000 US personnel to the Saudi Desert.
This all took about four months, and during that time diplomatic efforts never ceased. We gave the Iraqis a clear deadline. For whatever reason, they ignored it. So we began a month-long air campaign, followed by the now legendary "left hook" ground assault and the 100-hour war.
Then we stopped. All mission goals had been met. Bush resisted calls to roll VIIth Corps north to Bagdad and topple Hussein because he knew that wasn't our mandate. Instead, the US packed up and returned home.
Let us all remember that as a young Naval aviator, Lt. George H.W. Bush saw two friends killed and ended up floating in the water not knowing if he would live another day. He gave Iraq every chance to back down. He practically shouted, "I am building this huge juggernaut which I will unleash on you unless I see you start making moves out of Kuwait."
George H.W. Bush, for all his flaws, had seen war's gruesome face close up. He knew the terrible cost that could be paid by both sides, and that his actions were going to create widows and orphans.
This was not warmongering. This was the very last resort.
For the record, we just chatted about hometowns, how I like being stationed in Hawaii (I lied) and the like for about a minute.
OK, I must rant.
Yes, George H.W. Bush was not the greatest president in our history, but he was far from the worst. So could people manage to be human and hold their complaints for one fucking day? We have the rest of our lives to discuss the failings of our 41st Chief Executive. For the moment, just sit on your hands if all you have to contribute is bile.
Secondly, I'm seeing a lot of whiners crying about Desert Shield/Desert Storm. For those too young, or too old for that matter, to remember, Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. As Kuwait was a friendly nation, we told Iraq to leave. Saddam Hussein said no.
President Bush then organized a 30-nation coalition (including a Czechoslovakian chemical defense battalion!), a UN Resolution calling for an Iraq pullback and authorizing force to remove Iraqi forces, and moved close to 500,000 US personnel to the Saudi Desert.
This all took about four months, and during that time diplomatic efforts never ceased. We gave the Iraqis a clear deadline. For whatever reason, they ignored it. So we began a month-long air campaign, followed by the now legendary "left hook" ground assault and the 100-hour war.
Then we stopped. All mission goals had been met. Bush resisted calls to roll VIIth Corps north to Bagdad and topple Hussein because he knew that wasn't our mandate. Instead, the US packed up and returned home.
Let us all remember that as a young Naval aviator, Lt. George H.W. Bush saw two friends killed and ended up floating in the water not knowing if he would live another day. He gave Iraq every chance to back down. He practically shouted, "I am building this huge juggernaut which I will unleash on you unless I see you start making moves out of Kuwait."
George H.W. Bush, for all his flaws, had seen war's gruesome face close up. He knew the terrible cost that could be paid by both sides, and that his actions were going to create widows and orphans.
This was not warmongering. This was the very last resort.
The Next Day
Date: 3 Dec 2018 02:32 (UTC)So now I will apologize, because what I meant to be agreement with you somehow came across as the opposite. Diplomacy Fail.
My father had a regrettable habit of voting straight party ticket, uncritically accepting any candidate regardless - so long as he was running as a Republican. Just so, the people I was speaking of hate Republicans just as uncritically. (The demagogues were tooling up to oppose anyone Trump nominated to the SCUS, literally had mob placards protesting “XX” - name to be written in. Anyone Trump nominated - the individual’s qualifications were irrelevant.)
These are the people you were warning against, and to whom I was referring. They don’t care whether GHWB was a good man or a good President. He was a Republican. Republicans are evil.
That’s all they need to know.
[Ironically, the idea that as the bearer of future citizens a woman’s body must be considered the responsibility and therefore the property of the government, was the Progressive view back in the 1920s. “Liberal Fascism” is a thing. ]