Bush Leadership Principle: Go Shopping...

George Santayana:
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."



Goethe:
"Patriotism ruins history."

1/14/2003: Lead Up To War...
...The president and others in the administration began to mine the war metaphor for its political utility. Whatever the administration wanted to accomplish politically or economically it would seek justification for in the "fact" that America was "at war."
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Orwellian images and language began to appear. "War" became "restoring international peace."
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Bush did nothing to mobilize public opinion to accept the sacrifices that war implies — the first thing a leader would do. Tax cuts could go ahead as planned, and energy saving was dismissed out of hand. "Go shopping" was the administration's message.
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Letting this conflict become a broad war on "terror" has led to a loss of focus. The terrorists of Sept. 11 were criminals, pure and simple. They cannot be seen as freedom fighters struggling against injustice or occupation or for self-determination.

Read more: Confusion in America : Try clearer thinking about 'terrorists'.

George Wilhelm Hegel:
"What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles."



Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."



Ludwig von Mises:
"The essence of so-called war prosperity; it enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income."



"The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many."

Dick Cheney
Secretary of Defense
8/14/1992