A great American president!
While many consider George W. Bush a very bad US president, the point is highly debatable. George W. Bush's position in history is not different from that of Robert Clive in British history. I have met many English men and women but hardly any one of them spoke unkindly about Robert Clive's activities in Bengal in 1757 and afterwards. Like Robert Clive, George Bush was an empire builder. As a shrewd politician he created facts intelligently and mobilized American people behind him to occupy Iraq. Now the long term presence of the US in Iraq in order to exploit its vast oil resources is a fact that nobody can deny. Like Robert Clive, he has set up stooges who pay lip service to the Iraqi national question while serving wholeheartedly their US masters. Without Bush, this interest of the US big business could not have been achieved. Only a little over 4,000 US soldiers had died during the last six and a half years in Iraq. More people die of car accidents in the US per year. Under certain circumstances, democracy has to be established through the barrels of gun. Bush realized it and had successfully implemented democracy in Iraq, even at the expense of more than one million Iraqi lives.
Bush's clarion call to expand America's influence into Iraq militarily, considered illegal by many experts, was supported by more than 70% of American people. Despite the subsequent news about atrocities in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, the vast majority of American people remained loyal to him and went ahead to elect him again in 2004. As a matter of fact, Bush is among the US presidents democratically elected twice by the American people.
Bush kept the financial market free from any bureaucratic manipulations and gave prosperity to the American people during 2004-2007 when the stock market doubled in its value. Intelligent people with money took advantage of Bush's economic policy free from regulation and accumulated further wealth. Sometimes bad things can happen. Economy may not be doing very well during the last few months. But that should not obscure the period of long economic prosperity that Bush gave to America.
Bush had a folksy way of communicating with his people and the world. He was a great Christian president who will be missed very badly indeed!
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