An Islamic saying:
"The first to reason by anaology was the Devil."
By that measure, and the measure of historians, yesterday's speech by President Bush regarding Iraq was beyond outrageous.
I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.
The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.
If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.
So, Imperial 1940's Japan = 2001 al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Without Americans' intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be facing a more dangerous situation. The world would be less peaceful.
Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United States of America. South Korean troops are serving side-by-side with American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological struggle we're facing in the beginning of the 21st century.
Mr. Bush - where exactly is the equivalent of the 38th parallel in Iraq - a wall we can guard with thousands of American troop for decades?
Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America.
Mr. Bush - you've been wrong on every one of your predictions about this conflict - why, exactly, should we adopt your preminitions and faulty analogies as reasons to support your policy decisions?
- Shane-O's blog
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Backing through history
The Bush-Cheney administration took office ass-first and has presented that face to the world and to its subjects ever since.
Bush's Pearl Harbor–September 11 analogy is a prime example, since the PNACers waddled onto the scene, calling for another Pearl Harbor to usher in the United States' thousand-year reich. Just because things didn't work out exactly the way they planned doesn't mean that they didn't work out for their benefit--and not for yours.
The cart is always before the horse with this band of crooks. Remember fixing the intelligence? You see something you want, or something you want to destroy, you go for it. If you need a provocation, let/make it happen!
This is how the world works when you're rich, powerful, and dim: proceed as if you have achieved your objective, and the necessary causes will fall into place. The little people will clean up after you, although they will discover that the money is gone and the bodies are stacked high enough to block the sun.
The old "fight them there..." bovine excrement
"Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home."
The question I always ask: What does fight them there... really mean?
- Hans
Doesn’t this just point
Doesn't this just point out that our side needs to be prepared for Bush saying that Petraeus' report justifies continuance of the surge? That it just needs more time but the signs are encouraging?
And by prepared, I mean letting the Dems know that it is unacceptable. I predict that their reaction to Bush's reaction to the Petraeus report is going to be taken by our side as yet another example of the gutless, feckless beltway Dems empowering Bush. But people will wait and then proclaim that it just proves what they have been saying all along about the Dems.
That may be true. But I also think that while we have called Bush every name under the sun, we still don't really understand what it means to have a psychopath in the White House. Or what it means to be in Congress trying to deal with one.
I'm not making excuses for them. But we don't seem to be making headway against the war.
I just read Amy Goodman's interview with Nir Rosen where what he describes happening in Iraq doesn't seem to jibe with what anyone here in government is talking about. Crazy may be contagious.