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Bush = Napoleon

Here, for your reading pleasure, is one of those truly idiotic essays that demonstrates how accomplished academics with clever ideas about how current events compare to their particular historic specialty can be utterly ignorant of the realities of the present, which of course calls into question how well they possibly can understand the realities of the past.

Columbia U. dolt Richard Bulliet compares Bush to Napoleon, determines bolting like a defeated Napoleon did is the right idea.   

What does George W. Bush share with Napoleon Bonaparte? Perhaps only one thing. Both men launched spectacular attacks on Arab countries, won stunning initial victories, and then became bogged down in a hopeless military occupations.

If Bush has the wisdom to do what Napoleon did, he may yet be remembered as a leader of historic stature.

All he has to do is cut and run.

Times have changed. Someone needs to explain the genocide thing to Richard Builliet. Maybe the terrorism, WMD, Saddam preying on his people and surrounding nations, oil wealth, etc., assorted other developments.  Someone needs to explain that Napoleon was an a colonial, wealth-grabbing venture, as opposed to an effort to limit actual threats to the United States.

His initial war plan a shambles, Napoleon, like Bush, still had a pseudo-rationale for war to fall back on. In an Arabic propaganda broadside printed aboard ship while his army crossed the Mediterranean, he proclaimed his intention of liberating the Egyptians from their Mamluk oppressors. And he brought an army of scholars and advisers with him to make the occupation of Egypt a model of European benevolence.

“O people of Egypt, should they say to you that I have only come hither to defile your religion, this is but an utter lie that you must not believe. Say to my accusers that I have only come to rescue your rights from the hands of tyrants, and that I am a better servant of God - May He be praised and exalted - and that I revere His Prophet Muhammad and the grand Koran more than [the Mamluks] do.”

Not surprisingly, the Egyptians and Syrians found Napoleon’s claims of liberation and esteem for Islam as nonsensical as Bush’s vision of saving the Iraqis from Saddam and destroying their country in the process. Guerrilla resistance grew. Cut off from their naval supply train, the French Army had no hope of imposing permanent rule over Egypt.

Here’s my suggestion for Bulliet.  Go embed.  I’m sure the Army will take you. Embedded historian. That would be something new. But it is a great opportunity to see real, actual history happening.  See an actual army of occupation in the Middle east, just like Napoleon’s. Very messy. Hot. Bloody. Dangerous. Filthy. Irksome and annoying, too. Not, according to a growing number of people who have been there, so easily dismissed as a pointless failure, nor so easy to exit. Complicated and not readily put in a box. A matter of life and death, as it happens, maybe even one’s own.

But a great opportunity to discuss theories with soldiers, with Iraqis, those who live and die by their practical application, and to get a sense of how ridiculous the abovementioned statements are.  Statements that, really, should be an embarrassment for a serious historian, who presumeably has to be able to document  every word he writes about what happened in the 18th century but would be hard-pressed to back up the absurd statements he makes here about the sitting president of the United States and the military and political situation in Iraq.   

Topics: academia, history

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:40 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2007

20 Responses to “Bush = Napoleon”

1. blogagog Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 am

   Bush is more like Hansel and Gretel. Remember in the story where the evil witch tries to stuff Hansel into the oven, and Gretel calls in both artillery and airstrikes to flatten the house? And then, when the witch is attempting to strangle Gretel and that F/A 18 drops a 10 lb jdam on her with no warhead which kills her yet leaves Gretel unharmed?

   Bush is like that.

2. alphie Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 2:08 am

   I thought this was about Victor “Raisins” Hanson until I read below the fold.

3. Maharlika Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 3:17 am

   What did you find below the fold, Alphie?

   Why, your very own a_ _ , Alphie!

   “Cause that’s where your head is up, Alphie!

4. alphie Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 3:30 am

   *sniff*

   Its always touching to see a young neocon try out her first ad hominem attack.

   What say we bronze it?

5. Maharlika Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 3:32 am

   Ah, now we know what it’s all about with you, Alphie ….

   Bronzing it’s the only way the flag goes up?

6. Ed Driscoll.com Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 5:09 am

   Through a Mirror, Darkly

   Ace explores where politique-sans-frontières can lead. (Pretentious but utterly needless French translation courtesy Babel Fish Translations. And speaking of pretentious but utterly needless French translations, Jules Crittenden spots a Columbia profes…

7. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 am

   Yep, another “intellectual” demonstrates the gap between “academics” and reality.

   Nice fisking, Jules. And a good idea…..I’d love to see one of these “intellectuals” get their hands dirty.

8. El Cid Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 am

   http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/1AaronMorse/asshead.jpg

   For those who may not know what you are dealing with, when one sees the typing of a certain creature, that posts here.

9. Jeffersonian Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 10:25 am

   What’s Bulliet saying here….that we should wait for Gordon Brown’s guys to kick our butts out of Iraq?

10. The Thunder Run Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 10:59 am

    Web Reconnaissance for 08/03/2007

    A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

11. Dave Surls Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 12:24 pm

    “Cut off from their naval supply train, the French Army had no hope of imposing permanent rule over Egypt.”

    Luckily, we’re not facing the British Empire and the most powerful navy in the world, unlike Napoleon. Nor do we have to worry about hostile continental enemies like the French did in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars. Canada and Mexico probably aren’t going to form a coalition against us while we’re busy in Iraq.

    IOW, we’re not in anything like the situation the French were in in Egypt/The Levant.

    The aricle is idiotic.

12. J.M. Heinrichs Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    I wonder why the article lists Mr Bulliet as a “historian”. He doesn’t appear to have much expertise in the field of study. Unless his qualifications are “Fine Arts vice “Arts”.

    Cheers

13. corndog Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 1:19 pm

    Let’s see:

    Napoleon Bush

    Military genius Watched F-Troop during Vietnam War

    Rallied ragtag army into Ran world’s mightiest army ragged
    world’s mightiest army

    Wrote Napoleonic Code Called the Constitution “a piece of paper”
    that still stands today

    Crowned self Emperor No comment

    “Able was I ere I saw Elba” “Was I ever able?”

14. corndog Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    Darn, my chart format was corrupted. It was pretty funny before I sent it, though.

15. RebeccaH Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 1:35 pm

    Bulliet embed in Iraq? Ick. Too hot, too dusty, too many rough, sweaty men, too far outside the comfort of the Ivory Tower. Better to fix the world while having tea from china cups.

16. Right Truth Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    CAIR is bad, bad, bad, bad I tell you.

    We don’t really need any more evidence that CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is anti-American, anti-free speech, anti-freedom of religion, and actively working with terror organizations. But, it seems each day more evidence comes to li…

17. 4iraqisfuture Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    Great link El Cid,

    and everyone is a “historian” nowadays, JM, just as being a “war critic” or “military affairs analylist” is so in vogue. Just ask Frank Rich (theatre critic) or NBC’s William Arkin (formerly of greenpeace and Human Rights Watch).

    This dovetails nicely with today’s post “genocide’s percentage”.

    This “historian” uses a ludicrous historical parallel to come back to the tired, old line “Bush wants to stay the course” and very telling “Bush has already made history, now if he would just get out of way and let it happen”. Let what happen? Genocide–not your father’s genocide.

    Bush is clearly not “staying the course”. The strategy is totally different from a year ago. This “historian” put as much skill into his steaming pile of a historical parallel as he did in choosing his BDS quote.

    As for “getting out of the way and letting history happen”. That is a “historians” veiled plea for withdrawal or “redeployment”. Which would lead to what? Genocide. What is the point of this–Darwinian statecraft? Let’s see if they can stand on their own. If not, well, it was not meant to be, the stronger states won out.

    There are an seemingly endless string of absurdities but among the best would be:

    “So long as the United States continues to pull the strings that make his puppet Iraqi authorities in the Green Zone dance, neighbors like Saudi Arabia and Iran will hold their applause and plot their strategies for when the puppet-master departs.

    Iran will be applauding our success?

    And Iran has not been plot thus far, they are waiting for us to leave? How out of touch could a person be?

    The Saudis have completely unhelpful, calling the occupation “unlawful”, letting Mosques churning out terrorists headed to Iraq. They are going applaud a democratic pluralist society with transparent oil laws?

18. MikeH Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm

    Hey I’m a historian, I can prove it cause I just stole a quote from some guy named Orwell, “Some things are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.” It might apply here. For Dr. Builliet though, not al-Phie.

19. saltydog Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:10 pm

    This historian needs to stick to rewriting history. Even his evaluation of Napoleon’s Egyptian adventure is full of holes. Even if that were correct, he utterly fails to take notice of the difference in contexts. America isn’t stuck in Iraq with no hope of reinforcements, food and other concerns of logistics, a way home, or dealing with the mass death of our troops by disease.

    I won’t even begin to address the Napoleonic Code or Napoleon’s contribution to the decline and fall of France as a world power. (That ought to set Corndog’s fingers twitching. Heh.)

20. wf Says:
    August 5th, 2007 at 11:45 am

    I´m telling you, the Iraq war was lost - LOST - the moment the enemy surprised our fleet at anchor and burned it!

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