I Made Mistakes…and I’m Pleased with Myself!

Everyone who happened to watch the episode of Oprah Winfrey’s show with former U.S. President George W. Bush as the guest discovered the president’s impression of his great significance — despite all the woes and destruction that this man inflicted upon the world (a man who might even have afflicted the world with much more) and despite the fact that he bears responsibility for launching wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the responsibility both for oppressively reducing the level of cooperation after the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina and not predicting and warning of the American financial collapse.

On the occasion of the release of his book “Decision Points,” Oprah posed several questions to her guest that may have evoked some sense of regret for the haughtiest cruel ones in the world. The honorable American president, however, proceeded to answer the questions as if they came from a typical history exam: In response to the question pertaining to the measures he took and the decisions he made in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, he leaped suddenly from speaking about associations of the attacks within America to speaking about the responsibility of Saddam Hussein for arming terrorist organizations opposed to America. No mention was made of his personal confession that he made a dreadful mistake when he gave the green light to the U.S. military to launch an attack on Iraq based on mistaken intelligence regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. Nor did we hear about the fact that he charged Saddam Hussein with the responsibility of launching this attack because he gave a strong impression that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, etc. Also absent was his confession that he personally bore the responsibility for the death of 5,000 American soldiers in Iraq, far from their country and families, even insisting that he made the right decision and protected America from an additional attack that Saddam Hussein would have launched — if, of course, he had weapons of mass destruction. And in response to the question regarding the measures he took and decisions he made in light of Hurricane Katrina, which represented the greatest catastrophe in American history, the honorable president never wavered in placing the responsibility on the unfortunate state governments, which he let himself cast a glance on what he saw of the dreadful destruction through the window of his private plane, claiming that, in his personal visit, he did not want to pull the national guardsmen from their tasks and duties simply for his protection, i.e. with regard to the increased security efforts that are typically put in place for a president’s field visits.

Although his air inspection trip was four days late, he continued nevertheless to assure that he made the appropriate decisions, even though he admitted that he made a mistake in assessing the scale of losses resulting from the hurricane. As for the actions and decisions made with respect to predicting or stopping the American financial meltdown, which began during his administration, he blamed the inability of the leading experts and analysts, who gave him the impression that there was a big financial problem in the real estate sector. It did not seem to hinder the American government’s encouragement of the continuation of guaranteeing the largest contractors.

George W. Bush’s responses will leave readers with a chance to assess the level of sound judgment of a man who did not comprehend the extent of his responsibility for the death of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon and Palestine. He also never comprehended the many aspects of such terrible destruction that he caused for the peaceful coexistence among civilizations, cultures, religions and races. Nevertheless, he appeared in the interview to be of calm mind and undisturbed by such troubles.