If you need any proof of that, there's this: Jeb Bush, brother to George W. Bush, and son to George H. W. Bush, as well as the presumptive frontrunner for the GOP nomination for the White House in 2016, just revealed that he would indeed have authorized the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003, even knowing what we know now.
That is to say that despite no proof whatsoever to the claims justifying that invasion, Jeb would go ahead with the Iraq war anyway. We should remember all of the claims, that Saddam had that mass arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD's), or that he was actively seeking nuclear weapons, or that his regime had a 45-minute response time to launch a highly destructive counterattack,
Yes, many people were disgusted when the WMD's were not discovered, and yet George W. Bush made light of it in a video, looking under some furniture with caption reading:
"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"
What a hoot. Especially when you consider that those WMD's that he was making light of not finding were the stated justification for the invasion, that Saddam Hussein posed such an serious and immediate threat, that Bush could not wait to invade the sovereign nation, and engage in a war that cost over 100,000 Iraqis and over 4,000 American troops their lives, and countless tens of thousands of others seriously injured.
George W. Bush, and most members of his administration, also conducted themselves in a swaggering, arrogant manner that disgraced the United States, and made it perhaps the most hated country in the world. And again, he seemed to take this news lightly, even mocking the world community at times, such as when he suggested that the United States did not need a permission slip by the United Nations in order to invade Iraq against the world's wishes.
So, when you have Jeb Bush basically giving his unconditional seal of approval for that whole fiasco, when you have possibly the next President of the United States promising, in effect, more of the same that we saw under the administration that very likely can justifiably be viewed as the worst presidency in American history, then we know exactly what kind of nonsense we are in for if this country foolishly allows themselves to be fooled by the Bush family not once, not twice, and not even three times, but four times now (remember, the Bush family technically won the 1988, 2000, and 2004 elections).
Jeb sometimes appears more serious than his famous brother. He looks and sounds more serious, more intelligent (not that the bar is set that high, mind you). But in the end, he is beholden to the same corporate interests that finance his campaign and, thus, essentially pull the strings behind the scenes, much like they did with his brother and father before him. Remember, both Bushes got the nation engaged in a war against Iraq, and we recently had a majority of Americans favoring war in Iraq once again, this time against ISIS.
I would perhaps mention that George W. Bush perhaps had the excuse of being given faulty information, although I suspect - strongly suspect - that that is bullshit. Bush knew that what he was claiming simply could not be. After all, if his administration knew, as they claimed that they did, that Saddam had the mass arsenal of WMD's like they claimed, then they would not have so arrogantly presumed that the war would last mere days, or possibly weeks, but would not stretch into months or years.
But here, more than a decade later, knowing just how much of a fiasco that war was, and knowing that the stated premise for justification of the war was on false grounds, and knowing that the casualty list on both sides was intolerably high, and knowing that the war cost the American taxpayer of $3 trillion, Jeb Bush is basically saying that he would repeat this huge mistake - a mistake that some argue was the biggest mistake in the history of American foreign policy.
If this is the kind of "leadership" that we can expect from the man that some have already crowned "the next President of the United States," then we as a nation have undeniably lost our way.
We need to understand that when Jeb Bush says that he is different than his brother, and when they both seem to define what it is to be a chicken-hawk, we are not going to get better results. We are going to get the level of mediocrity that we had to endure for those eight long years.
It happened once, but hopefully, we are not so stubborn as a nation that we cannot learn from past mistakes. I pray that the nation ultimately goes another direction than bringing in yet another Bush (or another Clinton, for that matter). Let us progress as a nation, rather than regress and try to relive a past that was certainly not worth going through in the first place.
Jeb Bush Would Have Authorized Iraq War — Even Knowing What We Know Now by Jessica Taylor, May 11, 2015:
Bush takes heat for WMD jokes McAuliffe: 'Should not be making light of the situation.' by CNN, May 6, 2004:
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