Accidental Guerrilla, a book by Australian counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, contains at least one reference that won’t be appreciated by keepers of the George W. Bush legacy.
The bedrock of that legacy is that the Bush Administration protected America, say what you will about methodology, after the 9/11 attacks. There were no more attacks on the American homeland. How’s that for a bottom line?
According to Kilcullen, Osama bin Laden has given, not surprisingly, a contrarian rationale for backing away from future assaults on American soil. Kilcullen quotes this (2004) statement by bin Laden: “All we have to do is send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the (U.S.) generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses…so we are continuing this policy of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
Kilcullen, ironically, was so well regarded by the Bush Administration that he was asked to give a briefing on Afghanistan to aides of both Barack Obama and John McCain.
What Kilcullen didn’t say: The Bush Administration’s legacy is already seen by many as this: After 9/11 the U.S. owned the moral high ground. With the poorly rationalized, ineptly planned invasion (not liberation) and subsequent occupation of Iraq, that moral high ground turned into a geopolitical sinkhole.