We were safer in the Reagan days because Reagan was an intelligent man and handled the problem accordingly. Mr Reagan was very good at Foreign policy. He did not sink us up to our necks in a war that did not need to be fought. And I am not even a big fan of Reagans but I give credit where credit is due and and Bush deserves very little credit for anything except bumbling from one screw up to the next.
Rest assured regardless of what Bush says "If I could do all over again I would do it the same way" is nothing but BS. Nothing went the way they planned. They thought it was going to be a cake walk. Heck before the Iraq ground war was even over they were already threatening Syria and Iran with your next. They totally underestimated the entire situation. We stayed because we couldn't leave. We screwed the pooch so bad and the entire world was blaming us for the daily deaths and civil unrest.
Moe
Moe, you seem to forgetting your history.
The Democrats, and there are scores of them on record pre 9-11 (on Clinton's watch) waxing eloquent about the need to remove Saddam. Their words of how threatening he and his weapons programs are came from their mouths as easily as oil from a can. It flowed.
Remember "Connect-the-dots"?
Remember the UN?
Remember the support from Congress? Far more support than GHW Bush received for Gulf War 1.
I can understand he would do it again to protect the people.
Same circumstances, same knowledge, same "it's a slam dunk" from the CIA chief, same obfuscation by Saddam, same last chance given... I understand why he would do the same thing again... clearly.
He would have been pilloried by the traitors on the left had he not done something. "Connect-the-dots".
He did something, and that was free 50 million Muslims.
How did Clinton do? He had 8-years of opportunity to put an end to the victory we achieved in Gulf War 1.
HE DID NOTHING. He pushed the problem aside. I think Obama spoke about Clinton when he said it's no longer time to push tough decisions aside.
OK, under Clinton's watch 1 million Iraqi's died, and Albright thought it was "worth the price".
It's easy to bash Bush on Iraq... if you don't think and put it all into context.
What I found disgusting are the Democrats that voted to authorize action, and then when things got tough began pissing on the President and the troops... during a war they voted in favor of. These people are the lowest scum on the planet. They turned a war vote into a political vote, and then turned on their very own votes for political gain a second time.
Have they no conscience? Morals?
It does not get any lower.