[ptmusic]

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WHHHOOOOOSSHHHH

That my friends is the sound of my point rocketing over kurto's head. Let me try and make it clearer for his benefit.

Here are the Prez's references to 9-11 during his speech:

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The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression by toppling governments, driving us out of the region and exporting terror.

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Are we in agreement that the goal of many if not most of the terrorists (Al Qaeda et al) are indeed trying to shape the Middle East into their vision of a brutal theocracy? No problems here.

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To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali and elsewhere. The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat. They are mistaken. After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom.

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Again, nothing said here is untrue.

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The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. For the sake of our nation's security, this will not happen on my watch.

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Again, if we forget what lessons we learned on 9-11, don't the terrorists win?

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We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America's resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins.

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If you think the terrorists aren't trying to shake our will in Iraq, then I give up on you.

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After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing. Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military.

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Again, this is undisputable.

So maybe if you dems could get your heads out of your asses and actually read or hear the context with which the President referred to 9-11, you'll notice how much you're overreacting.

So can we dispense with the strawmans?

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There are many, many terrorists all over the world. No one will ever be able to get rid of them all. There is not one huge common terrorist enemy group. For the most part, the various terrorist groups are UNconnected. And unconnected is exactly what Iraq and our actual attackers were.

The problem with parts of Bush's speech is not that he's lying, but that he is continuing to make a connection between the Iraq terrorists (who weren't even there before 9/11 for the most part) and the Al Queda terrorists.

"The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden."

What he should have said is: "Bin Laden made a mistake when he attacked us on 9/11, and he will pay for that mistake." Throwing in that Iraq phrase in the middle of that sentence implies that Iraq, 9/11, and Bin Laden are all intricately tied together.

"They are trying to shake our will in Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001." Here Bush is blatantly using the pronoun "they" to refer to BOTH the terrorists in Iraq and the terrorists of 9/11. If they were the same people, he would have said this sentence in this exact way! He is making no effort to differentiate between the two.

There's a phrase the entertaining Sean Hannity loves to use when bashing liberals. It applies to the tactic Bush employs in the above sentences (and in the many times he and Cheney have implied the connection between Iraq and 9/11):

he's not being "intellectually honest".

-ptmusic