As I’m sure you’ve heard, George W. Bush is helpfully publishing a book on how to run a successful economy, should Obama or Romney need some advice on what to do in 2013. As @TheOliverStone asks on twitter, one wonders if Bush will be as honest as he once was about his real economic philosophy:
Néstor Kirchner, former president of Argentina, revealed in an interview with Oliver Stone for the director’s documentary “South of the Border” that former US president George W. Bush was convinced that war was the way to grow the US economy.
Here is the transcript of Kirchner’s account of the conversation at a summit in Monterrey, Mexico, in January, 2004:
‘ Kirchner: I said that a solution to the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. And he grew angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war. And that the United States has grown stronger with war.
Stone: War, he said that?
Kirchner: He said that. Those were his exact words.
Stone: Is he suggesting that South America go to war?
Kirchner: Well, he was talking about the United States: ‘The Democrats had been wrong. All of the economic growth of the United States has been encouraged by wars.’ He said it very clearly. ‘
He’s not entirely wrong, of course. Wars often lead to riches for powerful countries like the US. (And some people believe that liberals are really the prime movers behind these wars in order advance their egalitarian agenda.) Still, it’s startling to know that a US President would openly say such a thing to another world leader. But then Bush was known to get very snippy when another country’s president said something he didn’t agree with and he’d often pop out with the truth.