Bush Needs a History Lesson

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”


by Gil Villagrán, MSW El Observador, San Jose, Jan. 26, 2007

The early 1900s Spanish philosopher, Harvard graduate and professor George Santayana wisely coined this often quoted proverb: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” as he reflected on World War I, the “war to end all wars;” a war of choice whose peace treaty led to World War II just 21 years later with twice the deaths at 50 million. Then came Korea, Vietnam, the killing fields of Cambodia, civil wars and death squads in Latin America, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, a frenzy of ethnic killing in Rwanda, and countless brutalities in countless locations. The 20th century’s death toll from war is unmatched in human history—so far.

Curiously, another Harvard graduate named George, with a degree in history (from Yale University) is President George W. Bush. Unfortunately for our nation and our nation’s victims, he seems to have not learned from the history of America’s
so-called “military adventures.” As a university professor, I would love to engage George W. in a pop quiz on our nation’s role in the deposing of Iran’s prime minister in 1953, the military coup in Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, our three decade intervention in Vietnam, U.S. sponsored death squads in El Salvador and Contras in Nicaragua, and the other 9-11 (in 1973) in Chile where the presidential palace was bombed and President Allende killed.

My one question would be: what is the common denominator of all these military actions? The answer, of course, is the Central Intelligence Agency, Pentagon and U.S. presidents, who colluded with their counterparts against their own people to terminate these nations’ desperate efforts to climb out of poverty and oligarchy.
Tragically, millions of people have been tortured, imprisoned, or killed by military actions that are not “adventures,” but grotesque violence against students and workers, burning of villages, invasions and occupations of foreign lands. And what has President Bush learned from the disgraceful history of U.S. interventions? Absolutely Nothing!

He can still go to bed at 9 pm to safely sleep in the White House, Camp David or his ranch. While in Iraq no one is safe: not our 140,000 soldiers, not the Iraqis, not even the 100,000 U.S. contracted mercenaries. And of the president’s new plan, the so-called surge to pacify Baghdad? Because George W. did not learn from history, he has doomed all Americans and all Iraqis to re-live the Vietnam war in Iraq. 58,000 young American soldiers and 2-3 million Vietnamese died in that lost war, and now he is sending 21,500 more “targets” for the suicide bombers in their sectarian civil war. Let us hope that Congress does not join Bush in failing to learn from history.