President Bush addressed Fort Bragg and the nation today, and although I was out, I recorded it so that I could watch it.
There were a lot of people speculating that, given record low approval numbers, he might change gears and start leveling with the American people.
So far, I've watched 15 minutes of the speech (I don't know how long it is in total), and all he's done is laid out more of the same spin, propaganda and lies we've had out of this Administration since the start.
I’m rewinding it now, and I’m going to comment on his statements as we go along. This may take a while. As always, if you disagree, you’re welcome to comment. And if you have facts which support some of the President’s statements that I take issue with, please share them!
Now, to the speech:
“The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attack us, and the terrorists we face, murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent.”Rhetoric, pure and simple. Note that in spite of being clearly debunked, he still takes every opportunity to link Iraq to the events of 9/11. The idea that they attack us because they hate freedom is simplistic and false. Rejecting tolerance, well, so far our “tolerance” has consisted of issuing slurs against the religion of Islam. If someone were tolerant of me in that fashion, I think I’d reject it as well. And despising dissent, that sounds a lot like our current Administration, dismissing those who disagree as hating America or supporting the terrorists. Karl Rove, thought by some to be the brains behind this President, gave a fairly well publicized speech the other day in which he pretty much dismissed out of hand anyone who didn’t 100% agree with the Administration.
So far, not so good.
“Their aim is to remake the middle east in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression, by toppling governments, by driving us out of the region, and by exporting terror.” Let’s see, the only reason we’re IN the region is because we are there having toppled two governments, in order to remake the middle east in our image. Now, personally, I like our image better than theirs. It’s the one I’m used to, it’s the one I grew up in. But I can also say that I don’t really know theirs very well, and I know it better than the average citizen here (at least, I’ve tried to read up on it). I don’t dispute the toppling of the Taliban. They made themselves our enemy by giving shelter and aid to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. As I’ve said on many occasions, we are there on just and moral ground, and I support that war. We should be paying more attention to it.
But the key thing to note here is that he’s AGAIN lumping all of the terrorists together into one group. To the best of my understanding, most of the insurgency in Iraq is supporters of the old Saddam Hussein regime. Al Qaeda has stepped in only to the extent that we’re the bigger enemy in their eyes, and as the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That, and the continued lack of infrastructure (since we destroyed it during the early days of the war) has led to anti-American sentiment that makes for a fertile ground from which to reap the next crop of members.
But even assuming that the entire insurgency is al Qaeda’s doing, all that justifies is seeing the job through, now that we’ve started it. It doesn’t in any way justify the war’s start.
“The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent.” No, the terrorists believe that OUR society is essentially corrupt and decadent. So far, I haven’t heard of al Qaeda hitting Sweden. Heck, bin Laden even says the same thing in one of his tapes in dispute of the simplistic assertion that we were attacked because the “killers” hate freedom.
“After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the America People, this nation will not wait to be attacked again.” Part of that commitment, which I quoted just the other day, was that we would not rest until we had captured Osama bin Laden. So much for Bush commitments.
“Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania.” Again, drawing a link to al Qaeda which, let me stress again,
did not exist until we invaded Iraq. Hussein was not a nice man. His people deserved better. The people of the WORLD together should have done something about him, like they should be doing something about genocides in Darfur and Chechnya. As a group, we should be doing something about human rights abuses in China and the poor treatment of women in many Arab countries. But these are all things which should be done as part of a large coalition, not one neighborhood bully, strong arming a couple of his pals into beating up on the weaker nations to make them do things our way. We, by invading Iraq, have made it the stronghold for anti-American terrorists that it is today, but wasn’t under Saddam Hussein. Hans Blix reported (and has since been proven correct) that Hussein barely had enough weapons to be a threat to his neighbors in the region. Hussein was no threat to us, and nor was Iraq, until we turned it into a focal point for anti-American sentiment and an incubator for terrorism.
“Our mission in Iraq is clear: We’re hunting down the terrorists... we’re removing a source of violence and instability and laying the foundations of peace for our children and our grandchildren.” Whoops, SO close. At this point, now that we’ve turned Iraq into a source of instability and terrorism in the region, our mission IS to end that source of violence and instability, but so far we are not succeeding, and far from laying the foundations of peace for future generations, we have given anti-American Arab terrorist groups another focal point for recruiting new generations of martyrs. We have pretty much guaranteed that if some leader plots another another round of anti-American offenses when our children grow up, there will be no shortage of volunteers to carry them out.
“Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question ‘Is the sacrifice worth it?’ It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country.” Again, ignoring the fact that this threat to the future security of our country didn’t particularly exist until we invaded, this is essentially true, but kind of like beating up your neighbor’s child and then building a fence because you need to protect yourself from a neighbor who wishes to do you harm. Saddam Hussein may have wished to do us harm, but he was in no position to do so, and being a secular Muslim, he was almost as big an enemy to al Qaeda and Iran as we are. There’s just no way he was working with them. (And no, I’m not saying the threat of al Qaeda didn’t exist until we invaded Iraq, I’m saying the threats IN Iraq did not become so until we did.)
“Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers(*) who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom.” (* I hate when he uses 4th grade terminology. If he wants to convince me he’s an intelligent man, he has to show a more sophisticated grasp of the English language than “bad guys” and “killers”).
Again, simplistic at best. Most Islamic nations have come to view the United States as anti-Muslim, and certainly we’ve given them enough reason to think that. I sincerely doubt any of the insurgents said to themselves “we’ve got to stop this peace and freedom.” I believe in their minds, it’s much more likely that they see US as foreign invaders, trying to impose our will on their region, showing a marked disregard for their religion. Look at the vitriol spouted by the Religious Right towards liberals in this country for FAR less offense towards the Christian religion than we’ve given towards Islam. People get upset when they perceive that you are attacking their faith.
Bush even says as much a few moments later:
“They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake.” If you thought your way of life was at stake, if some other country invaded the U.S., deposed our President, and began dictating the course of our future government, would you not also take up arms? Would you not feel justified in doing whatever it took to get the usurpers out of your country? And knowing that they had all the military weapons, would you not consider car bombs and other “cowardly” attacks to be justified? How can Bush be so sure most of the insurgents are not simply people who object to our intrusion into their sovereignty? And can we really ascribe to evil intent the same protection of home that we would probably feel compelled to do ourselves, if it were our country thus invaded?
Certainly there are evil people over there, but can we really be that certain that, were our country invaded and taken over, there aren’t factions of our own country that might engage in public beheadings and think themselves justified? Hopefully not most of us, but consider the atrocities visited upon blacks by white supremacist groups, who have historically engaged in beatings, lynchings and worse, and for far less cause than they’d perceive if their country was invaded. It doesn’t make it right, but thought about that way, recognizing that there are people here who COULD do the same things facing a similar situation, it’s easy to see how impossibly simplistic the President’s take on the situation is. And these beheadings weren’t going on in Iraq until AFTER we invaded.
Yes, we have a problem in the region, and yes it’s now a security problem for us. But we can’t simply absolve ourselves of the responsibility for
creating the situation in the first place.
“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’.” Again, switch your point of view, think about how we might react if it were Canada that had been invaded, by someone who was openly spouting rhetoric about spreading their ideals into “the region”. Whether we had ever had any intention of using Canada as a staging ground for anything, we’d certainly be talking about it. This is selective quoting to try to prove a point that it does not support.
“The terrorists, both foreign and Iraqi, failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty.” Is that really their aim? As much as they may not like what I’m sure they perceive as a puppet government, the transfer of sovereignty at least brought them one step closer to ruling themselves again.
“And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large number with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy.” I’d like to know just how many these “large numbers” are. The same large numbers that are “fully trained and equipped”, which generally is very few unless you take the Administration’s very optimistic definition of “fully” trained and equipped? I know I’ve read articles that they’re having large problems with attrition in their new police forces and army. I know they haven’t by any stretch of the imagination got enough forces to take over the defense of Iraq, our armed forces are still doing most of that.
“The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th.” Like, for instance, that Osama bin Laden is our number one enemy and must be captured and his group dismantled?
“Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard.” To say nothing of rebuilding a country after it’s been bombed back to the stone age.
“We’re improving roads and schools.” But they, and basic utilities like electricity, are not nearly at the levels they were at before we invaded.
“In the past year the international community has stepped forward with vital assistance. Some 30 nations have troops in Iraq. And many others are contributing non-military assistance. The United Nations is in Iraq to help Iraqis write a constitution and conduct their next elections." The President makes the mistake of implying that because people are supporting the rebuilding of Iraq, they therefore supported the war. That’s just not so. A single counter example should suffice. How many people reading this support the genocide going on in the Darfur region of the Sudan? OK, now how many support humanitarian aid to those who survived the genocide? It’s perfectly possible to want to provide support to help rebuild something which was torn asunder without supporting the original tearing. 30 nations have troops in Iraq. How many of them had troops in Iraq when we invaded, and how many have only sent troops subsequently to help rebuild what WE have broken?
“Thus far some 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about 34 billion dollars in assistance for Iraqi reconstruction.” To put this into perspective, the United States has thus far spent over 200 billion dollars in Iraq. Not the ringing endorsement for popular support, when the aid from all other countries COMBINED is about 1/6 of our total costs there.
It’s getting late, and I’ve only covered the first 12 minutes of the speech. At this point, those who are firmly in favor of this President merely think I’m showing my liberal bias. I hope the open minded among you can see some of the reasons why I so dislike this President. This speech is nothing but a batch of spin and glitter, hoping to bolster his ever-sinking approval rating (and ever growing disapproval of the war in Iraq). Nothing he has said has done anything to change the fact that he started a war in a relatively stable country that was a comparatively small threat to us, while failing to complete the more important mission of dismantling al Qaeda and capturing their leader.
And meanwhile, he spouts more rhetoric that almost, but not quite overtly, calls Islam an “ideology of hate” and “a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent” and in so doing, simply gives Muslims everywhere more reason to consider us an enemy. He wants us to believe that all people are innately “freedom loving”, defining freedom by our standards, but this is the same sort of faulty logic that told us that the Iraqi citizens would welcome us with open arms for freeing them from Saddam Hussein. It didn’t happen.
And the worst of it is, I can’t decide whether he actually BELIEVES in the overly simplistic world he paints, or if he thinks so little of the American public that he thinks that’s all we can understand, but neither one befits a President of the United States.
Copyright (c) June 28, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net
