Disgusting Comment by President Bush

[sam h]

Another depressing thing about this speech is the pattern of routinely making these historical comparisons that are just patently false. This is nothing new for him of course.

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"the terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we've ever faced"

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What? We fought the goddamn Nazis, and faced off agains the Soviets in the Cold War. How is this rag-tag bunch of terrorists as brutal as them?

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"By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress - from tyranny to liberation to national elections to the ratification of a constitution in the space of two and a half years,"

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In what sense is this progress "incredible?" The pace of democratization in Iraq is considerably slower than most comparable historical examples, where electoral regimes were much more quickly implemented after the fall of authoritarianism, and also considerably less extensive. Iraq may be marked by extenuating circumstances. But it is ridiculous to claim that the progress there, in comparative perspective with other cases of countries attempting to transition to democracy, has been substantial at all.

There is the irony. In a speech about defending himself from the charge of lying in the lead up to the war, he gets up and blows smoke about the aftermath of the war.

[bobman0330]

I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation here Andy. I'm not going to defend any failures of intelligence or planning that Bush may or may not have committed. Go ahead and damn him for those. Go ahead and blast him for any shortcomings you see in his current policy. Nothing like some insightful and incisive Andyfox commentary to help revitalize political discourse.

That being said, there's a great deal of anti-war sentiment that is indeed baseless. Part of the problem is a structural bias in the media towards car bombings over reconstruction efforts. Part of it, arguably, is a political bias on the editorial boards of a lot of major newspapers. Part of it is people's visceral animosity towards Bush and the right that makes them reflexively opposed to anything he says.

Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal. But in a situation like this, all the insipid Vietnam comparisons and the pessimistic view of the situation on the ground presented in the media can have serious consequences. Especially if they convince the terrorists that they're only a few suicide bombings away from getting the coalition out of the way so they can topple Iraq's democratic government. Or if Iraqis decide that the US isn't going to be in Iraq for the long haul, and they'd better start hedging their bets.

I'm sure there's a base political attempt to immunize himself from criticism here too. But the fundamental point remains that some responsibility is needed before speaking out.

There are plenty of legitimate things to debate about regarding the war in Iraq.

Should we have attacked? Should we have continued to use inspectors and UN pressure? How are we currently prosecuting the war? What's the exit strategy? Is it worth the costs (in dollars and lives)? What's going right in the war?

What's sad is that those that oppose the war rarely debate these issues. Rather, they want to focus on baseless charges of lying, Halliburton, imperialism, etc.

I will debate, talk, discuss, etc. about any of the former issues. But the latter ones are just garbage and just impugn the integrity and intelligence of those that make them.

Quite sad.

[ripdog]

I read his statements on MSN and had to smile. This is such blatant [censored], same old same old from this clown. How deep does the [censored] have to get before his apologists admit that--where have I heard this before?--these guys are the most crooked, lying group of people they've ever seen?

[PoBoy321]

I don't want to get into a whole long argument about whether or not we were justified into going to war in Iraq (I don't think we were, and that the Bush administration did intentionally mislead the US as well as Congress), but this type of rhetoric from Bush is highly typical of the American right. The argument that "If you question us, you hate America and are costing Americans their lives" is bogus and simply another way for them to attempt to cover up their misdeeds both at home and abroad by avoiding and type of descent.

[ACPlayer]

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But it was his own false charges that are responsible for the deaths of over 2,000 Americans. Shame on him.

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Plus causing a rate of dead Iraqi's that puts Saddam's tenure to shame.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Plus causing a rate of dead Iraqi's that puts Saddam's tenure to shame.
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Care to back this up or do you want to concede your dislike of Bush has clouded your judgement. I believe Saddam's number is at 800,000 (this may include Iranians that were killed in the 1980s).

[PoBoy321]

In sheer numbers, Bush hasn't reached Saddam's numbers yet (although the number I've heard thrown around is 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, but don't ask me to quote it, I've been drinking and getting ready to go out), but of course, Saddam had almost 10x the amount of time.

[TomCollins]

100k lol.

[BCPVP]

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although the number I've heard thrown around is 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, but don't ask me to quote it

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Well that's good, because it's absurd.