Thursday, January 11, 2007

The more things change, the more they stay the same

A number of people have been comparing President George W. Bush to Abraham Lincoln. On the Daily Show last night, news clips showed pundits referring to George Bush's changing of generals to deal with Iraq in the same light as Lincoln firing generals until he got one that could win the Civil War.

On that basis, I think a closer comparison could be made between Bush and Adolph Hitler. I hasten to add that I am not about to launch into one of those "evil men" comparisons because I do not consider Bush an evil man. Indeed, I am not yet convinced there is such a thing as evil, but that is the subject for a future posting.

My comparison starts with the fact that both Bush and Hitler were (I'll use the past tense here to describe both simply to shorten the number of words) the "commanders in chief" of their respective militaries, both had very limited military experience (and not in senior ranks), both were politicians,and both ignored the advice of their existing and most knowledgeable generals and favoured those who echoed their own thoughts. Hitler lost the war in Europe and Bush lost the peace in Iraq.

The new strategy will bear no better results than the old.

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