[Aurel]

In a sense, one might be tempted to cut Bush a break, because his office had to face the terrible tragedy of 9/11. But in reality, he could have done much, much better. In a nutshell, he could have:

1) Listened to the intelligence reports from the french, the germans and many other allies that warned of an imminent attack.

2) During the attacks, activated the NORAD defense systems, that might have prevented the second tower and the pentagon to be hit. It is actually still a mystery why those defense systems were desactivted during the attacks.

3) He could have kept surfing the huge wave of sympathy that many countries felt for the USA after 9/11. Most supported the invasion of Afghanistan, and were providing support.

4) Avoided to behave like a bully, acting unilaterally, lying to attack Iraq and sink the domestic debt into unprecedented records, while sending young men and women getting killed for no valid reason.

All that makes a perfect recipe for a miserable failure, next to which Clinton`s underdesk affairs appears like a much less harmful attitude for this country.

Aurel