Why I'm Thankful for George W. Bush

American Thinker ^ | 7-9-09 | Ken Russell - Commentary

[smoothsailing]

July 09, 2009

Why I'm Thankful for George W. Bush

By Ken Russell

On October 23, 1983 the Marine Corps Battalion Landing Team (BLT) building located at the Beirut International Airport was blown up.  Two hundred twenty Marines, 18 Sailors and 3 Soldiers were killed in a split second by a suicide bomber.  I wasn't there at the time.  I was participating in Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada.  I was a squadron CH-46E helicopter co-pilot in Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 261 (HMM-261) and also the squadron classified materials officer.  Being the one who set up the squadron classified messages, I read about it before most others.  It was an unbelievable gut punch and breathtaking in a bad way.

I did arrive in Lebanon with the rest of HMM-261 about two weeks later to relieve the aviation combat element for the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, HMM-162.  My first day landing in LZ S-Bird, located directly besides the now destroyed BLT building was quite sobering.  Twisted metal spikes of rebar jutted out of the concrete wreckage in no particular recognizable fashion.  Bits of boot leather, t-shirts and camouflage utility shreds dangled from the several feet long ragged rebar.  Indications of human occupation in the flattened mass demanded no comments about what happened and how.  Silence and reverence was the only response we could muster every time we saw it, every day we landed there for the next few months.

We did all ask each other and comment with each other about this new and wildly evil enemy that knew no boundaries, no uniforms, no flags, no geographical limits and no respect whatsoever for human life.  They were the new head of the food chain; the great white shark killing machine with no intentions of killing for survival.  Theirs was to kill for ideology and for effect, terrifying effect.

How do you fight this enemy?  How do you fight such a stealth and taunting ideology who uses all of your assets and all of your weaknesses against all of your decency and love for freedom?  When was there an enemy in history like this, whose object of passionate faith was in a sick, self destructive ideology?  What the hell is this thing and how do we meet and engage this enemy on the battlefields or locations on which we are trained?

It was all new to all of us and we knew it.  We talked about it and then quickly changed the subject.  Marines aren't used to being in a place where we couldn't seek and destroy the enemy.  It was strange ground.  This new threat was going to require new school books, new manuals, unknown training and above all leaders who could figure it all out.  We kept busy occupying ourselves with the task at hand, international peace keeping -- whatever the hell that meant -- but the eerie new enemy never left our deeper thoughts.

Fast forward years later and that enemy became active again like a gurgling volcano.  The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Kobar Towers, African embassies, USS Cole all went unanswered like the '83 BLT bombing.  I was off active duty, had inter-service transferred into the Navy Reserves and working a civilian job in the aerospace industry when the first WTC bombing took place.  Obviously no one figured out how or still didn't have the moral courage to close with and engage the enemy even after the USS Cole was bombed several years later.  Terrorism, the exact same kind from the exact group of ideologies in 1983, was slowly defeating us and we acted like a nation locked out of a motel room, standing in the rain, naked.

Then, the worst terror attack in world history took place on our shores.  We all know it.  We all felt that same gut punch, but this time we had a leader who had his clothes on, the room key, an umbrella and a reassuring smile on his face.  Why so many hated him for that can only be explained by unbridled pettiness but there was no time to focus on destroying his life.  This enemy had now engaged us in our house and we had to close with him, borders or no borders, uniforms or no uniforms, battlefields or no battlefields.  George W Bush was that leader -- but how was he going to defeat these guys?

General Tommy Franks told us precisely how on Day One of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Few caught it.  It was so very simple and so very brilliant and almost everyone thought it only applied to one objective; overthrowing Saddam Hussein.  Remember what he said? 

"We will close with and engage the enemy at a time and place of our choosing." 

It was genius and anyone in the United States who thought it only meant Saddam Hussein were rope-a-doped along with the new enemy.  The American rope-a-dopers whose occupation it was to destroy George W Bush, unknowingly helped severely weaken the most difficult enemy faced by any state or alliance in human history.

Now how did we win and cripple for life this new enemy?  Using their ideology against them, we lured them into a location in which we could engage them using our superior capabilities on a battlefield with which we were quite familiar.  This enemy is a worldwide cancer and occupies not merely Afghanistan (an extremely difficult theater to say the least) but also the entire globe.  It would have been impossible to go to several nations, cross their sovereign borders, find the terrorist hideouts then close with and engage them.

Imagine the worldwide hair lighting on fire had that happened.  It was bad enough when yellow cake was hidden by glasses of mint tea in Niger from one of the Bush hating torches.  Barney Frank would have gone straight, found his false teeth, worn them and lit his hair on fire if we invaded several nations.  We didn't.  We drew them into Iraq and we killed them there.  Simple and genius.

Even Barack Obama admitted it -- and as usual, was clueless when he did so.  Remember his pre-election interview on Fox News with Bill O'Reilly?  Bill asked him if George W Bush was right about the surge and defeating al Qaeda in Iraq.  Remember what Obama said? 

"Before Bush invaded, there was no al Qaeda in Iraq." 

You got it Sun Tzu, er, I mean Mr. President.  The strategery worked as planned, just like Tommy Franks said it would "at a time and place of OUR choosing."

The enemy's ideology drew him to attack American forces in Iraq with the intention to force an American loss.  The more the mainstream media and Democrats celebrated each thousand American deaths, the more terrorists from all over the globe flocked to Iraq.  Each worked with the other to further their own set of agendas and ideologies; one for political power and the other for twisted religious ideology.  While doing so, we destroyed the enemy and their leaders, most going completely unreported.  It was brilliant.  So much so that they still haven't figured it out because they simply do not have the ability to do so.  The domestic opposition did however have the ability to take credit for W's win last week, celebrating Iraqi victory over terrorism.

That is why I want to thank George W Bush and the military leaders who finally, finally after all the lost friends, lost Marines, lost three thousand plus Americans, had the courage and temerity to close with and engage this new enemy and defeat them in so many ways, crippling them to the point of near extinction.  You also taught our new president how to authorize a surge like the one now taking place in Afghanistan.  Leftist pettiness would never allow them to call it that, but that is exactly what it is patterned after, General Petraeus. 

Thank you President Bush.  I know it doesn't mean much coming from some former Marine in Missouri but I appreciate what you did and I'll never forget it.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/why_im_thankful_for_george_w_b.html at July 09, 2009 - 01:19:05 AM EDT

[liliesgrandpa]

Yea, Bush did engage the terrorist, for which I am glad, but he handed the country over to the Democrats on a silver platter. He helped to destroy this country’s economy, opened our borders, gave us McCain, no child left behind, etc.

All in all, no thanks from me to Bush.

[Crolis]

Thanks for posting this article.

[jaycee]

I sure did enjoy these quotes by our President. Oh, how he loved America and our Military! The one in there now loves only himself “reading speeches”.

[Kaslin]

Thanks for the ping.

Thanks for posting this great editorial

[ohioWfan]

Where did this blame President Bush for Obama tripe come from? Who started it? It's absurd, and ignores all the real factors that led to the election of Obama.

You should be thanking the LORD for George W. Bush and what he gave you, and what he did to keep this country safe from the most dangerous enemy we've ever faced.

[ohioWfan]

GREAT article, smoothsailing! I'm printing and keeping this one.

Thanks for the ping, STARWISE. Brilliant article, indeed!

[jaycee]

Thank you, Starwise! I love that piece “The Leader” by Anonymous! Could I borrow (steal) that? LOL!

[ohioWfan]

Great post. You nailed it.

Look at all that President Bush had to deal with in fighting terrorism every single day, here at home, in two hot wars abroad, and in places we never heard about.

And yet, there are those who gripe and complain that he didn't follow THEIR foreign policy plan.

I think it's ego, Berlin_Freeper. Most of these guys would collapse in a puddle on the floor from fear if they had to deal with what President Bush dealt with.

It's easy to be "tough" sitting at their keyboards at home.

[jaycee]

Thank you so much for the article and this thread, smoothsailing! Enjoyed it so much! Anything about our wonderful President Bush brings a smile to my face!

[ohioWfan]

General Tommy Franks told us precisely how on Day One of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Few caught it. It was so very simple and so very brilliant and almost everyone thought it only applied to one objective; overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Remember what he said?

"We will close with and engage the enemy at a time and place of our choosing."

Just a note. Tommy Franks was quoting President Bush who used this phrase in his September 14, 2001 address at the National Cathedral (IIRC)

It was President Bush's strategy all along to engage the enemy on OUR terms and not on theirs.

[jch10]

Newby, It pains me to see posters try to ruin an obviously positive article by posting their ire more than once. Most of us here wouldn’t go to another site and do that. Perhaps you haven’t been here long enough to learn that.

[Theodore R.]

Even if we were to concede that GWB “fought” terrorists effectively, he left his political house in such disorder that socialism seemed the replacement choice to a majority of his “fellow Americans”.

[ohioWfan]

Even if we were to concede??? Are you that ignorant that you don't KNOW that we weren't hit by terrorists because of the vigilance of George W. Bush? Yikes!

The political argument you take is sheer nonsense as well. The leftist media lied incessantly about Bush, about the war, about our military, about the economy and forced his approval down with their lies. The Republicans, wanting to be popular boys, stayed away from the "unpopular" one, and also abandoned our troops in battle. The media lied through their teeth about Obama, slobbered all over him and covered his campaign entirely postively. Our culture and leftist educational systems have created a white guilt that caused a lot of the voters to want to be cool and vote for the first black President. McCain ran a stinky campaign and was a weak candidate. And there was a Democrat created economic crash that everyone stupidly blamed on the President.

Blaming George W. Bush for socialism is ludicrous. You have to ignore 95% of the facts to believe as you do.

[Jacksonian Grouch]

Veritas Vos Liberabit

[STARWISE]

Absolutely .. it’s not my creation .. it says so much.

[Jacksonian Grouch]

let’s not forget the fraud chosen1’s campaign committed regarding financing. Shutting down the ID verification check for all those online contributions meant that the 200 dollar limit on contributions could be bypassed, and with no ID associated with previous contributions, there was also no limit on how much a given account could contribute. Just perfect for the Soros’ of the world to provide funds to chosen1.

Imagine, having 1000 separate accounts setup, each one going through the ka-ching! routine approximately every 10 minutes (time it takes to process one of these); day in and day out, starting months before. Chosen1 had almost 3 quarters of a BILLION dollars to spend this last election, and only went through about 1/2 of it. Do the math, even for a month’s worth of “contributions”.

President Bush didn’t do this, Theodore...

JG

[ohioWfan]

An excellent point, Jacksonian. Obama had unlimited, illegal, international funds coming in to his campaign.

Even if McCain had run a good campaign, there was no way to compete with 80% negative media coverage and unlimited money coming in on the other side.

Again.......blaming President Bush for Obama's win is ludicrous and any argument for it unsustainable.

[dervish]

Thank you Pres GW Bush for keeping us safe. Pres Bush was the real deal.

[crazycat]

Tks great post.

The whole World will soon be missing GW, especially at the rate of idiocy that O’Bummer is showing.

[SuziQ]

Thank you President Bush. I know it doesn't mean much coming from some former Marine in Missouri but I appreciate what you did and I'll never forget it.

Oh, I think it will probably mean more to President Bush than Mr. Russell will ever know. Or, come to think of it, he might find out, because President Bush might just give him a call to let him know!