What did Bush, or any of us, get from stealing sovereignty from the people of Iraq and Afghanistan? Global terrorism deaths increased 4,000% from 2002 to 2014 (from 725 to 32,727). The Taliban now hold more ground in Afghanistan than at any point since the invasion of 2001. TSA airport screenings fail to detect mock weapons in 95% of tests. The U.S.-friendly client regime established in Iraq looted billions of dollars in American aid. And that's just to start down a long, long list. As journalist Patrick Cockburn wrote, "The invasion and occupation of Iraq by the U.S.... destroyed Iraq as a united country and nobody has been able to put it back together again. It opened up a period when Iraq's three great communities -- Shia, Sunni and Kurds -- are in a permanent state of confrontation, a situation that has had a deeply destabilising impact on all of Iraq's neighbours."
Bush leveraged the future prosperity of America into trillions of dollars of debt, an intergenerational heist meant to give him the appearance of being "tough on terror." That's a reality that should be unappealing to members of both political parties. For fiscally conservative Republicans, it bloats the budget; for Democrats, it diverts precious funding that might otherwise have gone into crucial social programs. In short, the honored former president stole from American citizens a chance to deal adequately with climate change, infrastructure needs, education, and healthcare.
And it's difficult to discuss stealing without recalling Bush's illegal mass surveillance program. It's hard to imagine how spying on one's own citizens without a warrant could be emblematic of what the Thayer Award stands for.
... Or Tolerate Those Who Do
When cadets, soldiers, and other servicemen swear an oath, they trust that the president will be guided by sound principles. By sending us to fight his bogus war on terror, George W. Bush betrayed that commitment. In giving the Thayer Award to him, West Point and its graduates not only put their stamp of approval on a president who broke with their stated values, they glorified and cleansed him. This award, in Dubya's hands, is distinctly stolen valor.
There are many Americans who exemplify the very best of what our country -- and West Point -- could be. As graduates of the academy, none of us should have difficulty finding deserving Thayer Award recipients. George W. Bush's terror wars, however, were not just a tragedy but also a crime. It's now a secondary tragedy that West Point lacked both the honor and conviction to say so.
The former president deserves a cold metal bench in a stockade awaiting trial, not an award and a warm round of applause from the academy. No coffee table books featuring his paintings -- a perverse form of macabre exhibitionism -- will atone for his actions. If West Point and its Association of Graduates want to maintain any credible pretense of adhering to the values they claim to espouse, they should revoke the most recent Thayer Award immediately.
Erik Edstrom is a graduate of the West Point class of 2007. He was an infantry officer, Army Ranger, and Bronze Star Medal recipient who deployed to direct combat in Afghanistan.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, as well as John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands, Nick Turse's Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2017 Erik Edstrom
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