http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...was-right.html

History's Verdict


The American lady who called to see if I would appear on her radio
programme was specific. "We're setting up a debate," she said sweetly,
"and we want to know from your perspective as a historian whether George
W Bush was the worst president of the 20th century, or might he be the
worst president in American history?"


By Andrew Roberts

"I think he's a good president," I told her, which seemed to dumbfound
her, and wreck my chances of appearing on her show.

In the avalanche of abuse and ridicule that we are witnessing in the
media assessments of President Bush's legacy, there are factors that
need to be borne in mind if we are to come to a judgment that is not
warped by the kind of partisan hysteria that has characterised this
issue on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first is that history, by looking at the key facts rather than being
distracted by the loud ambient noise of the
24-hour news cycle, will probably hand down a far more positive judgment
on Mr Bush's presidency than the immediate, knee-jerk loathing of the
American and European elites.

At the time of 9/11, which will forever rightly be regarded as the
defining moment of the presidency, history will look in vain for anyone
predicting that the Americans murdered that day would be the very last
ones to die at the hands of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the US
from that day to this.

The decisions taken by Mr Bush in the immediate aftermath of that
ghastly moment will be pored over by historians for the rest of our
lifetimes. One thing they will doubtless conclude is that the measures
he took to lock down America's borders, scrutinise travellers to and
from the United States, eavesdrop upon terrorist suspects, work closely
with international intelligence agencies and take the war to the enemy
has foiled dozens, perhaps scores of would-be murderous attacks on
America. There are Americans alive today who would not be if it had not
been for the passing of the Patriot Act. There are 3,000 people who
would have died in the August 2005 airline conspiracy if it had not been
for the superb inter-agency co-operation demanded by Bush
after 9/11.

The next factor that will be seen in its proper historical context in
years to come will be the true reasons for invading Afghanistan in
October 2001 and Iraq in April 2003. The conspiracy theories believed by
many (generally, but not always) stupid people – that it was "all about
oil", or the securing of contracts for the US-based Halliburton
corporation, etc – will slip into the obscurity from which they should
never have emerged had it not been for comedian-filmmakers such as
Michael Moore.

Instead, the obvious fact that there was a good case for invading Iraq
based on 14 spurned UN resolutions, massive human rights abuses and
unfinished business following the interrupted invasion of 1991 will be
recalled.

Similarly, the cold light of history will absolve Bush of the worst
conspiracy-theory accusation: that he knew there were no WMDs in Iraq.
History will show that, in common with the rest of his administration,
the British Government, Saddam's own generals, the French, Chinese,
Israeli and Russian intelligence agencies, and of course SIS and the
CIA, everyone assumed that a murderous dictator does not voluntarily
destroy the WMD arsenal he has used against his own people. And if he
does, he does not then expel the UN weapons inspectorate looking for
proof of it, as he did in 1998 and again in 2001.

Mr Bush assumed that the Coalition forces would find mass graves,
torture chambers, evidence for the gross abuse of the UN's food-for-oil
programme, but also WMDs. He was right about each but the last, and
history will place him in the mainstream of Western, Eastern and Arab
thinking on the matter.

History will probably, assuming it is researched and written
objectively, congratulate Mr Bush on the fact that whereas in 2000 Libya
was an active and vicious member of what he was accurately to describe
as an "axis of evil" of rogue states willing to employ terrorism to gain
its ends, four years later Colonel Gaddafi's WMD programme was sitting
behind glass in a museum in Oakridge, Tennessee.

With his characteristic openness and at times almost self-defeating
honesty, Mr Bush has been the first to acknowledge his mistakes – for
example, tardiness over Hurricane Katrina – but there are some he made
not because he was a ranting Right-winger, but because he was too keen
to win bipartisan support. The invasion of Iraq should probably have
taken place months earlier, but was held up by the attempt to find
support from UN security council members, such as Jacques Chirac's
France, that had ties to Iraq and hostility towards the Anglo-Americans.

History will also take Mr Bush's verbal fumbling into account, reminding
us that Ronald Reagan also mis-spoke regularly, but was still a fine
president. The first
MBA president, who had a higher grade-point average at Yale than John
Kerry, Mr Bush's supposed lack of intellect will be seen to be a myth
once the papers in his Presidential Library in the Southern Methodist
University in Dallas are available.

Films such as Oliver Stone's W, which portray him as a spitting, oafish
frat boy who eats with his mouth open and is rude to servants, will be
revealed by the diaries and correspondence of those around him to be
absurd travesties, of this charming, interesting, beautifully mannered
history buff who, were he not the most powerful man in the world, would
be a fine person to have as a pal.

Instead of Al Franken, history will listen to Bob Geldof praising Mr
Bush's efforts over Aids and malaria in Africa; or to Manmohan Singh,
the prime minister of India, who told him last week: "The people of
India deeply love you." And certainly to the women of Afghanistan
thanking him for saving them from Taliban abuse, degradation and tyranny.

When Abu Ghraib is mentioned, history will remind us that it was the
Bush Administration that imprisoned those responsible for the horrors.
When water-boarding is brought up, we will see that it was only used on
three suspects, one of whom was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda's chief
of operational planning, who divulged vast amounts of information that
saved hundreds of innocent lives. When extraordinary renditions are
queried, historians will ask how else the world's most dangerous
terrorists should have been transported. On scheduled flights?

The credit crunch, brought on by the Democrats in Congress insisting
upon home ownership for credit-unworthy people, will initially be blamed
on Bush, but the perspective of time will show that the problems at
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started with the deregulation of the Clinton
era. Instead Bush's very
un-ideological but vast rescue package of $700 billion (£480 billion)
might well be seen as lessening the impact of the squeeze, and putting
America in position to be the first country out of recession, helped
along by his huge tax-cut packages since 2000.

Sneered at for being "simplistic" in his reaction to 9/11, Bush's
visceral responses to the attacks of a fascistic, totalitarian death
cult will be seen as having been substantially the right ones.

Mistakes are made in every war, but when virtually the entire military,
diplomatic and political establishment in the West opposed it, Bush
insisted on the surge in Iraq that has been seen to have brought the war
around, and set Iraq on the right path. Today its GDP is 30 per cent
higher than under Saddam, and it is free of a brutal dictator and his
rapist sons.

The number of American troops killed during the eight years of the War
against Terror has been fewer than those slain capturing two islands in
the Second World War, and in Britain we have lost fewer soldiers than on
a normal weekend on the Western Front. As for civilians, there have been
fewer Iraqis killed since the invasion than in 20 conflicts since the
Second World War.

Iraq has been a victory for the US-led coalition, a fact that the
Bush-haters will have to deal with when perspective finally – perhaps
years from now – lends objectivity to this fine man's record.

On Jan 15, 11:00*pm, RB wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...5/History-will...

History's Verdict

That's overly optimistic. Does Nixon get credit for ending the Cold
War and nuclear threat from China, or Reagan for Russia?
jw

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
On Jan 15, 11:00 pm, RB wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...5/History-will...

History's Verdict

That's overly optimistic. Does Nixon get credit for ending the Cold
War and nuclear threat from China, or Reagan for Russia?
jw

They do in Andrew Roberts' world. A self-described extreme rightist, Roberts
is known for extensive historical scholarship of the crackpot kind. His
writing has been used to justify mass killings of civilians. He's the
historian that liberals the world over love to hate.

He's a little loose with his facts and a little sloppy with his scholarship.
All in all, he's considered to be a useful revisionist. People read his work
to get an extreme view, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you
don't know the mainstream scholarship on a subject and you just read
Roberts, you'll wind up as wacky as he is.

--
Ed Huntress