Honesly, GWB has been a disaster as CINC. We came this close to losing Iraq because he listened to Rumsfeld and gave our commanders enough troops to hold Iraq, but not to win. The surge made things better, but we’ll see how it pans out longer term. This was the guy who SHRUNK the military after 9/11, of all things and told young men to go shopping instead of enlisting.
On immigration, spending, prescription drugs for seniors and a whole host of other issues, GWB screwed up. The $890B Wall Street bailout was the icing on the cake. The only thing I think he did right was to improve Homeland Security—at least there hasn’t been another 9/11.
Honestly, I think the GOP is destined to be a weak sister party going forward. The Dems and their allies in the MSM and Academica will make it all but impossible for Republicans to be in the majority again. Their weapons will be unrestricted immigration, socialism, judicial activism, and control of the media and educations sytems. Except for some Internet blogs and forums like FR, we are done.
Sorry for the pessimism, but tonight our country drank the liberal kool-aid. We are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.
You have no clue what you are talking about when it comes to Iraq or as to GWB as CinC - The man has been one hell of a CinC and the shooters throughout by and large love the man. Would serve under him any day, any where.
The "surge" did not win Iraq. The timing of the surge took great advantage of the successes in killing / routing of AQ (mimics and JAM forces) in all of 05/06. Yes, the surge was correctly timed, but it is not what won Iraq. That took place in the rough days of 05/06, when OP tempos were through the roof.
As for the military shrinking after 9-11. Full BS. Not in terms of actually shooters (sans dead weight) it has not. Not by a long shot.
Regarding SECDEF Rumsfeld, again, you're clueless about what you're saying....Here are some realities regarding SecDef Rumsfeld. It was Rumsfeld who shoved, pushed and dragged the Big Green (Army) into modernization and we're not talking simply Stryker's and new hats...
It was SecDef Rumsfeld who demanded an alternative Op plan for Stan (after Sept 11th) instead of the ridiculous Op plan demanded by Gen. Shinzeki and the Big Green. As they declared as the only way to be successful...Which called for 5 Divisions and a 6-8 month build up before we would be able to deal with removing the Taliban and al-Qeade from Stan...(and don't forget the 82nd's demand for bowling alley's before they wanted to play)...
It was SecDef Rumsfeld who demanded for all services to integrate and push the priority of CAS (which has saved thousands of U.S. lives to date...and killed thousands more of the enemy)..
It was also SecDef Rumsfeld who has turned our Shooters from SOCOM loose like never before.....and allowed them to rid themselves of risk-adverse OGAs for their own Intel gathering.....It was SecDef Rumsfeld who got SOCOM authorized as its own war-fighting command.....(which of course hurt many feelings in the Big Green...as now they are often tasked as "support" for SOCOM...and not the other way around). It was through these changes that we saw the gutting of AQ throughtout Iraq in 05/06...
SecDef Rumsfeld supported a light footprint doctrine when it made sense. Both in Stan and for the original phase of OIF it made sense to go with the numbers we went with (and many conveniently leave out the fact that the 4th ID sat off shore because State couldn't pull its d*ck out of its own pants once again and make Turkey cooperate).
The reality of what was accomplished throughout this WOT over the last 7 years is historically amazing by most reasonable measures.....on a macro-sense. And hell if WWII would have been judged how the war today is....we've lost a long time ago. The case can easily be made (micro) that WWII was one blunder after another....right up until we won.
The world is safer today (without question) because of the leadership and changes demanded by SecDef Rumsfeld.