In America, much of the media is biased against George W. Bush and against the republican party. If George W. Bush says anything, the anti-Bush media twist the meaning into something else. So George W. Bush says nothing, the anti-Bush media spread lies about George W. Bush, and George W. Bush's supporters ignore the lies in the anti-Bush media and vote for George W. Bush. George W. Bush's political strategy is to say very little. This works because most of the media is against George W. Bush, while most of the people support George W. Bush.
I think that it is bad for America for the president to be so secretive, and I think the anti-Bush media deserves as much blame for the situation as George W. Bush.
The policy of secrecy does not work in Iraq because George W. Bush has little popular support in Iraq.
Stupid imperialists in the american government believe that if other nations are defenceless, then there is less likely to be another war, and the nations will be dependent on America for defense, and therefore can be easily controlled by America. That is why America required Germany and Japan to disarm after World War II, which is why Germany and Japan are still defended by America instead of defending themselves.
America required South Korea and South Vietnam to be defenceless, and so North Korea and North Vietnam thought invasions of the south would be easy, and so America had to send the american army to defend South Korea and South Vietnam. The defenceless of South Korea and South Vietnam made war more likely. If America had encouraged South Korea and South Vietnam to build up their armies in the beginning, the Korean and Vietnam wars might never have happened.
It is stupid for America to demand that other nations disarm because that makes war more likely because other nations are encouraged to invade the defenceless nations, because that costs America money because America has to defend the defenceless nations, and because that is an obvious ploy to control other nations and encourages anti-americanism.
The american army captured a lot of military equipment in Iraq, and made an enormous effort to destroy all the military equipment. And then the new Iraq army had no equipment. Why did the american army go to so much trouble to destroy all those weapons and weapon production facilities? All the captured military equipment should have been turned over to the new Iraq army, not destroyed. The George W. Bush administration is trying to make a new Iraq army which is too small and too poorly equiped. The George W. Bush administration should not have tried to disarm Iraq.
The George W. Bush administration is too enamored of the cult of the ceo. In Iraq, the George W. Bush administration has focused on the people at the top while assuming that the people and the issues facing the people at the middle and bottom are unimportant.
Paul Bremer thought his reconstruction of Iraq should be based on a "big idea", and he chose debaathification, based on the american denazification of Germany after World War II. However, the american denazification of Germany was full of loopholes. Many members of the nazi party were exempt from denazification. For example, Werner von Braun and the other scientists and engineers who developed the V2 missiles were given american citizenship, high paying american government jobs, and immunity from prosecution for war crimes, despite the fact that they had been members of the nazi party and the fact that the V2 rockets had been built by forced labor. In practice, the american denazification of Germany punished the most extreme nazis, and the moderate nazis were not punished, even while american press releases claimed that every member of the nazi party was being punished. American denazification of Germany was successful because it was partial and incomplete. It was a mistake for Paul Bremer to attempt the total debaathification of Iraq.
If Paul Bremer wanted a "big idea" from the american reconstruction of Germany, he should have chosen shock therapy, the rapid and extensive deregulation of the german economy. Instead Paul Bremer and the rest of the George W. Bush administration continued Saddam Hussein's communist economic policies, which suggests that the George W. Bush administration is a bunch of communists.
Nazi Germany had only recently banned opposition politics, so the american occupation authorities could easily revive the old opposition political parties. Konrad Adenauer, the postwar chancellor of West Germany, was mayor of Cologne when the nazis took over Germany. Konrad Adenauer was dismissed as mayor of Cologne in 1933. From then until the end of the war, Konrad Adenauer repeatedly met with opposition politicians, plotted against the nazis, then changed his mind and withdrew from the plot. Meanwhile the nazis repeatedly charged Konrad Adenauer with various crimes, then changed their minds and dropped the charges. So at the end of the war, Konrad Adenauer was known to be an opponent of the nazis, knew and was known by other opposition politicians, and had experience in governing and in election campaigns. This made it easy to establish elective government in postwar Germany.
The american experience in postwar Japan is more relevant to Iraq. The cultural differences between America and Japan are greater then the cultural differences between American and Germany. Japan, like Iraq, lacked the tradition and experience of free, multiparty elections.
Konrad Adenauer was not imprisoned by the nazis until 1944
Some people say that it was a mistake for the George W. Bush administration to not send more soldiers to Iraq. I disagree. If the George W. Bush administration had encouraged the people of Iraq to solve their own problems, then the number of american soldiers in Iraq could have been reduced to 20,000 very soon after Saddam Hussein's army stopped fighting.