Do liberals fear that Bush will become one of the greatest presidents?

Question

Do liberals fear that Bush will become one of the greatest presidents?

As the world awaits General David Petraeus’s progress report on President Bush’s troop surge, even war critics concede that deploying 30,000 additional GIs has improved Iraq’s security. Largely overlooked, however, is how increased safety has helped U.S. soldiers and contractors rebuild its physical and institutional infrastructure.

The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) has performed much of the Pentagon’s $11.4 billion in reconstruction. So far, they have concluded 3,014 of 3,387 planned projects. ACE’s website highlights most of the details and comments cited here.

While terrorists blasted holes in highways and water pipes, America has paved 38 new roads. Once 41 total projects are done, Iraqis will ride 265 miles of fresh thoroughfares. Already, 3.1 million Iraqis enjoy 142 million new gallons of purified water daily. Eventually, 300 million such gallons will flow daily to 5.2 million Iraqis, some of whom routinely fill buckets at distant wells.

ACE announced Wednesday that it completed a $266 million facility to bring drinking water to 500,000 Iraqis in southern Dhi Qar province. This should combat water-borne diseases that often kill children up to age 5.

While Islamofascists built roadside bombs, car bombs, and bomb vests, America stayed busy building or rehabilitating 77 primary healthcare centers and 16 hospitals, through August 20. Eventually, GIs will have finished work on 142 primary-care centers and 25 hospitals to serve up to 6.5 million Iraqis.

“In my opinion,” said one Iraqi project engineer who helped ACE construct four hospitals in southern Maysan province, “providing these new and additional medical services will help reduce the infant mortality rate of the area.”

While Muslim radicals deliberately machine-gunned boys and girls on school buses, U.S. troops through August 29 had renovated or built 810 schools, supplying classrooms for 324,000 students. As part of a $1 million effort, ACE last month finished rebuilding a soccer field, cafeteria, plumbing, and air conditioning at the student center of Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University, founded in 1234 A.D.

While fanatic Muslims kidnapped Iraqi women for arranged marriages, American forces have helped female Iraqis thrive in engineering, business, and law enforcement.

ACE encourages Iraqi women to participate in training and networking seminars for entrepreneurs who hope to bid on construction contracts. Among 40 companies at one such event in July, 10 were women-owned.

“Women are a part of this society and together everyone who had an unfair chance during the last regime can now take advantage of their new opportunities within our new country,” said an Iraqi businesswoman named Luma.

Meanwhile, ACE is erecting a three-story facility for female cops in An Najaf province.

“The objective for building the $134,000 female training police station is to help advise, organize, and train Iraqi female officers on basic infantry tactics, from squad to battalion level, to further enhance the Iraqi police stations,” said Army Lt. Colonel Jan Carter.

“As an Iraqi woman, I wish I could see more changes in the Iraqi community,” one female cop remarked. “I joined the Iraqi Army to participate in the noble mission of restoring security in Iraq. I want to see all the Iraqi people happy and living in peace.”

Through July, America had spent $435 million on 404 Iraqi security and justice facilities including 154 border forts, 91 police stations, 32 courthouses, and four major prisons.

Of course, these are more than just Iraqi pork-barrel projects. These concrete baby steps forward after 35 years of kleptocratic Baathist tyranny are drawing Iraqi hearts and minds toward America. U.S. efforts increasingly counteract the frustration Ahmed Raja Al Assan expressed in a Wednesday dispatch by Pentagon public-affairs specialist Sergeant Mike Pryor.

“The terrorists are trying to kill us, kill our families,” Al Assan said. “We want to fight back.”

“A key aspect of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy is to provide security, then basic services as soon as possible, while there is a strategic window in which we can prove our worth to the local public,” says Pete Hegseth, an Army reserve officer who served 11 months in Baghdad and Samarra and now leads Vets for Freedom. “It’s one thing to kick out the bad guys,” Hegseth tells me. “It’s another to prove that we are better.”

President Bush’s troop surge is helping America deliver that proof.

Answer 1

No, there's nothing to fear. Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents, if not the worst president ever.

Answer 2

Interviewers of Bush routinely report that he is indifferent to the fact that his approval rating is so low, and refuses to act on public opinion. Insiders always say that he is more concerned with his legacy than with the current moment.

If Iraq is won in the end histroy will judge him as the president that regrouped the country economically in the wake of Sep 11 and toppled the Taliban and Hussein regimes. That is a fantastic legacy.

Iraq must be won though, there can be no "peace with honor" equivilent, or else he will only be remembered for starting that war.

Answer 3

I fear World War III and US government propaganda.

In the latest twist to the ongoing saga over the Petraeus White House report, a senior military official tells the Washington Times today that there will actually be no report at all:

A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. “There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them by testimony,” the officer said.

The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus’ opening statement to Congress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use in explaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the past several months.

I guess everyone can spin the non-report now.

Answer 4

i still dont know where you cons are getting your information "war critics admitting the surge is working." It isn't and i beleive you are simply making it up. If you are not, please add a qoute into your question. I was watching real time with Bill Mahr last night, and he had a retired colonel on, who has said pretty much the opposite of which you just said. if you are intrested in watching it, a rerun will probly be on HBO sometime this week. Hopefully that will change your mind about how far the surge really is going. A couple of secure neighborhoods in Baghdad isnt going to change the course of the war, and "patreasus' report" isnt written by him, it is written by the White house. Dont expect it to say anything bad about the war...

Answer 5

I think it depends on how things turn out after wards. If the next presidents fail to follow up on his strides against Islamofascism, or worse, dismantle his strides, America will get hit so hard it will make 9-11 look like a tea party. Only if Islamofascism is allowed to become a Nazi-like cloud of terror will President Bush look like a visionary. So it's an odd thing where GWB needs a colossal failure to prove he's right about the threats of the new millennium.

Answer 6

No ROFL. No "war critics" say the surge is working as Bush claimed in would. This is a cut and paste job of an op ed that is mostly spin of context statistics, and ignores a multitutude of contrary evidence that the surge is not working as claimed --

There is no "proof" of the assertions here.

PS 38 roads! wow.

Answer 7

Since you have good access to the records of dollars spent rebuilding a country that we did most of the damage to, how about you tell us how much the United States has spent on building permanent military bases for our use in Iraq ?

I'm conservative, and yet I believe George W. Bush to be the worst President since Andrew Johnson.

:-o

Answer 8

And in Anbar, the safest provence, two suspension bridges were blown up yesterday and 7 American military were killed. Soon as these forces go home, what do you think is going to happen?

No. There is no danger of Bush being thought of as good or greatest at anything. I fear he won't leave office.

Under Saddam, Iraqis always had running water and electricity and after HOW MANY YEARS of Bush's war, they still don't .

Why is that?

Answer 9

I believe that Bush will be vindicated in the long run. It will be an uphill battle, given that most academics are liberally biased, but the truth will win out eventually. Harry Truman was despised at the end of his presidency, yet is now regarded as one of our best presidents.

Answer 10

when you consider that most of the villification of bush was used to mask the power grab of the razor thin mandate of 06 by the liberals, why not. bush has been unfairly slammed by the pelosi/reid regime in a constant attempt to make points for the failed quick fix for iraq. i think when democracy emerges, and it will if we can muzzle the liberals to finish this job, vindication seems a very disctinct possibility for george.

Answer 11

Not a worry at all. I would love to say yes, he's been a wonderful president, but this war, this economy and the lack of empathy for this citizens prove that he'll go down as one of the worse presidents we've ever had.