The Philidelphia Inquirer published my letter criticizing Stu Bykofsky's column:

According to Stu Bykofsky, Bush I did everything right. Then why are we still dealing with Iraq today? Perpetual no-fly zones. Troops in the Middle East, a common raison d'guerre from Islamic terrorists to this day. The unenforceable sanctions regime that empowered a multibillion-dollar U.N. oil-for-food corruption scheme. Bill Clinton's 1998 Operation Desert Fox campaign. All of these are but an iceberg's tip of problems that came to fruition because Bush I did everything wrong.
You may have already read this though.

Labels: 9-11, Bush 41, Clinton, Gulf War, Iraq, Oil-for-Food, UN Corruption

In a Philly.com column cited on The Drudge Report, columnist Stu Bykofsky makes a great number of childish logical errors.

Here's the worst: According to Bykofsky, "Bush I did everything right."

Really? Then why are we still dealing with Iraq today?

Perpetual no-fly zones. Troops in the middle east - a common raison d'guerre from Islamic terrorists to this day. The unenforceable sanctions regime that empowered a multi-billion dollar United Nations oil-for-food corruption scheme. Bill Clinton's 1998 Operation Desert Fox campaign (conducted on the basis that Iraq had WMD, conveniently forgotten by Bush II administration critics). All of these are but an iceberg's tip of problems that came to fruition because Bush I did everything wrong, not right.

George H. W. Bush's solution was to deal with Iraq by not actually dealing with Iraq. And it was hardly just Bush's paradigm. It was shared by foreign policy analysts on both left and right, cited to this day from both Madaline Albright to James Baker as the proper policy. But we know now it was an ignorant application of Cold War logic to new enemies. These old guard Clinton and Bush I associates were - and some still are - stuck in the past.

People may reasonably debate as to the wisdom of our current war in Iraq, "mistakes made," and all that nonsense we never discuss regarding past wars, and certainly not during them. But to label the 1991 Gulf War a success is to redefine the word in Orwellian terms. It was procrastination, nothing more.

Labels: Bush 41, Clinton, Gulf War, Iraq, Oil-for-Food, UN Corruption