Bush Speaks Tonight From Fort Bragg- Oooh-Rah!

Thanks for the link to the transcript, Revel.

Now, THIS is interesting.

Quote:

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

Look at the supposed words of Osama. When this speech was spoken, it all flowed together. But look at it in the transcript from the White House. The quote marks stop and start again after Bush inserts "in Iraq." If that was a direct quote, it all would have had quotes around it, but it doesn't. One wouldn't know that unless they saw the script and happened to notice.

How frickin' misleading is that???

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This administation's pretexts for the war are paradoxical.

We're fighting this war as a humanitarian gift for the people of Iraq.

We're fighting this war for realpolitik reasons, so that we don't have to fight this war on US soil.

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Bush is now like an old 78 RPM record with a scratch across the face. Kabump, kabumb, kabump. Someone save us from the terminal boredom of his adminstration and its consequences.

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it seemed to me that george was off his game. he's not a great speaker, but he has had a couple of effective affectations (?) in the past. not tonight.

it came of to me as if his heart just wasn't in it.

the 11 pm news here in california said that he dropped five points in the polls between one taken yesterday and the one today. that can't be a good sign.

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I think we ought to expect that, if the polls continue to slide, Rove will do much more of what he did the other day...suggest that the country is being undercut and damaged and made less safe by 'liberalism'.

This is, after all, the fundamental premise the conservative movement has been pushing now for thirty years and which is also the fundamental premise of many of the folks here at a2k, even if they cannot define the term other than in the ready-made and unthinking cliches.

The premise is false, of course, and in the main it is really quite stupid and deeply anti-American but it has served as a successful means of dividing citizens and pushing the attention away from the folks who really do run the show (and who want very much to have impediments done away with). When is the last time you read about Ken Lay?

Imagine, for a moment, what would turn up if the huge machinations of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act and the CIA and FBI were turned away from profiling dissenters and animal rights activists and turned instead towards fraud and corruption between the House, the administration, the Pentagon and the corporations who gain from war?

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I don't know if it will work or not, but the new twist in the 9/11-Iraq thing was not just mentioning them both often, but to say specifically that the terrorist that we are fighting there now are of the same breed that committed 9/11. That line might work somewhat.

To me the problem with this line of reasoning is numerous.

One is that before the war there were no "breed of 9/11 terrorist" in large numbers, nor were the small terrorist group organized. After we went to war they started coming over the borders which we should have controlled better.

Two is that Iraqi lives are no more expendable than our lives and it is no better to fight the terrorist there than on our streets. It is not better for a bomb to go off in Baghdad than New Jersey or some other city.

Three we should have stayed the course in going after Bin Laden and his terrorist group who still remains free today. The Afghanistan situation is not finished, the Taliban are regrouping and there seems to be renewed violence.

Four, now the terrorist groups are training disgruntled Iraqis such as the minority Sunni and the remains of the Saddam regime to become terrorist so we have more terrorist than we did before. These new terrorist can easily slip across the borders to go out to commit terrorist acts the same way the other terrorist slip across the borders to come in.

Bush should listen to Biden; we should take advantage of the help that is being offered so that some of the burden is lifted off our shoulders and so that this is not seen as just an American effort.

I think this connection and wording of saying "the same breed of terrorist of 9/11" though a cheap shot will work for a time in bringing up bush's numbers. But only for a time, if the situation remains the same through the summer, Bush can forget it. IMO

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After listening to this "tired old record" of a speech last night, it seems to me that this Govt allowed GW to get us into a catch - 22.

A cynical point of view would be this was the intended result. The alternative theory is we have a very dumb group of legislators in Washington DC. I have reached to point of cynicism...yet.

Bush is correct in that we can not cut and run today. That will only lead to a disaster in Iraq by either Iran invading or the present govt being over-run by the insurgency. Yet, to stay and work on security issues and infrastructure only puts out soldiers at risk.

When the Gulf War 1 stratagy was being developed, I recall Congress and the Executive Branch understnding exactly how we got in and how we got out. Both branches worked together and the plan was executed flawlessly.

That did not happen in this situation. Congress gave GW a blank check without demanding to have a clear plan. It is too late now for the pin heads like John Kerry to bitch and complain about this current situation now. Congress should have demanded this information BEFORE giving authorization.

I can only hope the handcuff are taken off our soldiers and they are allowed to begin to process of eliminating the insurgents quickly while to "politico's" complete the installation of Iraqi Govt.

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Bush's motives pure

Brandon9000 wrote:

Whether it was a correct judgement or not, the "cause," as has been often stated by Bush, was deep concern about what would happen should Hussein be secretly continuing with WMD development. Even if you don't agree with Bush's calculus on the subject, it was out of concern for our safety.

I agree that Bush's intent was to remove what he preceived as a threat. All the "war for oil" stuff is misplaced. Might be true for others, but I doubt GWB thinks that way. I think his mistake was that there was a fair amount of evidence to contradict his concerns but he wasn't able to get away from his pre-conceived notions of what was happening in Iraq. That said, now that we are in the pit, I agree we can't cut and run. It's an ugly situation, but it is one we made and now we have to see it through.

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revel wrote:

I don't know if it will work or not, but the new twist in the 9/11-Iraq thing was not just mentioning them both often, but to say specifically that the terrorist that we are fighting there now are of the same breed that committed 9/11. That line might work somewhat.

To me the problem with this line of reasoning is numerous.

One is that before the war there were no "breed of 9/11 terrorist" in large numbers, nor were the small terrorist group organized. After we went to war they started coming over the borders which we should have controlled better.

Two is that Iraqi lives are no more expendable than our lives and it is no better to fight the terrorist there than on our streets. It is not better for a bomb to go off in Baghdad than New Jersey or some other city.

Three we should have stayed the course in going after Bin Laden and his terrorist group who still remains free today. The Afghanistan situation is not finished, the Taliban are regrouping and there seems to be renewed violence.

Four, now the terrorist groups are training disgruntled Iraqis such as the minority Sunni and the remains of the Saddam regime to become terrorist so we have more terrorist than we did before. These new terrorist can easily slip across the borders to go out to commit terrorist acts the same way the other terrorist slip across the borders to come in.

Bush should listen to Biden; we should take advantage of the help that is being offered so that some of the burden is lifted off our shoulders and so that this is not seen as just an American effort.

I think this connection and wording of saying "the same breed of terrorist of 9/11" though a cheap shot will work for a time in bringing up bush's numbers. But only for a time, if the situation remains the same through the summer, Bush can forget it. IMO

Good morning, revel.

I appreciate your posts. You rarely have the same opinion as I do, but I like the fact that you allow us to see what you're thinking. Your mind is rarely pre-fixed. When you started posting to Politics threads, you admitted you didn't have an extensive background of interest, but you have definitely been amassing one.

I had a couple of thoughts about your post.
This:

Quote:

One is that before the war there were no "breed of 9/11 terrorist" in large numbers

I immediately thought of the hundreds of thousands of Arab children in virulently anti-West, anti-progress Islamic madrassahs. There are many historians and acclaimed students of the Middle East, who say this was their assembly line for terrorism--and we were on an unavoidable collision course with them and their hatred. How would you respond to that assertion?
BTW--in that same sentence, you say the US should have controlled the border better in those initial days as we took Iraq, before the insurgents crossed over. I agree 100%. We should have gone in with overwhelming force IMO.

Your third point--about Afghanistan... On the face of it, I'd agree. I don't know why anyone wouldn't. But, I'm pretty sure something of drasic import was at stake there. Musharraf (forgotten how to spell his name) was likely trembling on the precipice of a coup if he didn't get us out of Afghanistan, so we took a low profile. This has likely been the sorest point for us in this entire exercise. That's my theory. Why else would we back down?

The Bush/Biden point. Has anything made you think Bush is not accepting outside help? He's practically shaken the trees to get outside help. If something has caused you to think this, I would appreciate knowing where you got your information. Thanks.

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woiyo wrote:

After listening to this "tired old record" of a speech last night, it seems to me that this Govt allowed GW to get us into a catch - 22.

A cynical point of view would be this was the intended result. The alternative theory is we have a very dumb group of legislators in Washington DC. I have reached to point of cynicism...yet.

Bush is correct in that we can not cut and run today. That will only lead to a disaster in Iraq by either Iran invading or the present govt being over-run by the insurgency. Yet, to stay and work on security issues and infrastructure only puts out soldiers at risk.

When the Gulf War 1 stratagy was being developed, I recall Congress and the Executive Branch understnding exactly how we got in and how we got out. Both branches worked together and the plan was executed flawlessly.

That did not happen in this situation. Congress gave GW a blank check without demanding to have a clear plan. It is too late now for the pin heads like John Kerry to bitch and complain about this current situation now. Congress should have demanded this information BEFORE giving authorization.

I can only hope the handcuff are taken off our soldiers and they are allowed to begin to process of eliminating the insurgents quickly while to "politico's" complete the installation of Iraqi Govt.

Woiyo,

I am not sure if you know this, but the Republicans control the Executive branch and both houses of Congress.

You picking out John Kerry to pin the congresses inability to stand up to the excesses of our president is almost laughable (although I am not going to defend Kerry's character).

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"I am not sure if you know this, but the Republicans control the Executive branch and both houses of Congress.

You picking out John Kerry to pin the congresses inability to stand up to the excesses of our president is almost laughable (although I am not going to defend Kerry's character). "

Bull... Each member of congress has a responsibility to their CONSTITUANTS, not their PARTY when asked to vote on ANYTHING. I point out Kerry as he is one of only a FEW people who voted to GIVE the authorization who NOW says GW SHOULDA WOULDA COULDA. Congressman from BOTH sides are responsible to a degree for voting for this WITHOUT demanding to know exactly what the entry and exit plan was.

To argue PARTISINSHIP shows me that those who use that argument have no backbone, are not leaders, and should be removed from office by their CONSTITUANTS.

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Don't worry....Kerry's going to submit his 'Plan' to solve the Iraq war any day now. He's backed off on the fake Downing Street memo so he can refocus on bringing his 'Plan' to the fore.

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The only thing that Bush said of value is that we cannot establish a time line for withdrawal it would only embolden the insurgents. All else was a rehash of the crap the administration has been feeding the public from day one. It may have worked for him in the past [9/11, 9/11----] but the American public although a little slow on the uptake in greater numbers is no longer buying it. He lied his way inrto the war but most certainly can not lie us out of it.

Yes, we have to see it through regardless of the costs but that in no way absolves, explains or justifies the Bush and his administrations failures and missteps that placed the US in the position the US now finds itself in. Nor can he justify the cost in human life that his reckless actions are responsible for.
IMO the speech was a waste of air time.

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squinney wrote:

How frickin' misleading is that???

It's not misleading, it's merely disassembling.

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Quote:

I immediately thought of the hundreds of thousands of Arab children in virulently anti-West, anti-progress Islamic madrassahs. There are many historians and acclaimed students of the Middle East, who say this was their assembly line for terrorism--and we were on an unavoidable collision course with them and their hatred. How would you respond to that assertion?

I am not sure what "madrassahs" is but at the time of the build up to the war there was not a significant AQ presence in Iraq to warrant justifying the war because of terrorist similar to those that committed 9/11. Those that were there were in a part of Iraq where we had access in the northern part of Iraq of the No Fly Zones. And they were very small. Other countries had more terrorist in their countries than Iraq did such as Saudi Arabia and even our own. So we were not on a collision course in Iraq from terrorist at the time of the war.

We now have created more terrorist and have made the Iraqis unsafe because the terrorist have followed us there from other parts of the ME from the open borders plus have hooked up with disgruntled Iraqis so we now have a significant number of terrorist on our hands in Iraq. But for the most part the ones who are getting killed are other Iraqi themselves, not American citizens, so we are still not directly threatened. However we can be because they are now more deadly and accurate than ever having such a training course has they have had these last two years in Iraq and can go to other parts of the world.

Bush said that Americans will stand down when Iraqis stand up. (As usual putting the burden on someone else) Other countries have offered to train Iraqi soldiers outside of Iraq, but we have not taken them up on that. How are we going to do it all for another ten years which Rumsfeld has said will last all by ourselves? The trouble is that we don't want any help with countries that were against our war in Iraq and who still see the administration in a bad light because of the abuse scandals and so forth. So we are going to be bogged down in Iraq because this president insists on staying on the same failing course.

As for why we would back down in Afghanistan, because of Iraq of course. (My opinion)

Thank you though for your courteous post.

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Thanks for yours. I have to take my daughter to an appt, but I'd like to poke around this with you some more if you don't mind, later.

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Wow - after the speech... all I can say is wow. A one half hour speech dedicated to making links to Iraq and terrorists. In fact, 21 times he said "Terrorist" and 6 times he said "9-11" in a 30 minute speech.

I am not sure what to make of it. I must turn to a historical source in order to entertain this lack of any real new information and this absolute deception on his behalf that we are fighting terrorists that existed before 9/11 or had anything to do with 9/11.

Ah - here we go:

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. ..."

Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf

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You liberals sure seem taken with Hitler. Is he a role model for you guys?

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Why must you persist in this childishness in thread after thread, McG?

Seriously

Cycloptichorn

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It's just about the only reason he comes here, Cyclo--provocation.

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Bush Speaks Tonight From Fort Bragg- Oooh-Rah!

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