BioDefenseGrad
Banned
Problem is you let very stupid people become President, Bush was clearly stupid and showed clearly he didn't have a clue about foreign affairs even before he got voted in, sadly I think Americans vote on charisma, style over substance. We might have had unpopular prime ministers here in the UK but they are normally highly educated even if not the most likeable. In the US the candidates that seem the most popular are the ones that thank God the most, European politicians very rarely attribute anything to religion, the public would never accept it. Didn't Bush imply that God told him to invade Afghanistan/Iraq or did I just imagine it as I hate Bush so much :dunno:
It wasn't charisma. Americans were thinking about domestic reforms. If you remember Bush's campaign it was on domestic issues. Remember "compassionate conservative?" That was about education reform, help for small business, tax reform, he threw in money for faith based programs (that was all religions mind you) stuff having to do with law enforcement all sorts of domestic issues.
He was even campaigning on reforming the post cold-war military. Donald Rumsfeld was hired to find a way to slim down the military budget and take on the M.I.C. interests that wanted us to keep a cold-war era tanks/bombers military. Rumsfeld was supposed to take us into the light/fast network military era. You can see traces of that philosophy in the Iraq war planning. It was also one of the reasons why Rumsfeld and Bush ignored "Big Army" tank generals like Eric Shinseki when he said we were going in too lean.
It was the defense equivalent of the Pope telling Martin Luther he was about to make a huge mistake.
It sounds hard to believe but that's the real deal. 9/11 totally fucked Bushs agenda the same way the financial crisis fucked Obama's presidency and the Oil Crisis fucked Jimmy Carter's presidency (along with the Iran contra affair but at the macro level it was the Oil Crisis) in the ass.
Presidents only have so much power and their agendas can get wrecked by things that are beyond their control like an extraordinary financial collapse or an attack that necessitates a military response.