The terrorists are bad
He thanks people, and then starts with flag-burning: Bush wants a Constitutional amendment banning it. Seems to me that you'd have to amend the first amendment to read 'except for flag burning.' If flag-burning were banned, that would seem to me to be a pretty good reason to go burn a flag. Bush isn't serious though, not really.
The next thing Bush talks about is 9-11 and how the war on terror 'came to our shores' on that day, we can't cut and run, the terrorists can't win, etcetera. After he's done with that he mentions Iraq and says it can't become another Vietnam.
The militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments.
Bush is using this to say that we can't leave Iraq, which we certainly can't at the moment, but it really draws attention to the fact that we ourselves created this situation where it's either the United States or a 'power vacuum.' We proved in Gulf War I that we were perfectly capable of containing Hussein within the borders of his own country.
Next Bush suggests that if we leave Iraq, our enemies will 'establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.' (quoting Zarqawi, I believe, but giving it way more credence than it deserves). That's a crock.
In one sentence Bush compares the terrorists to the Khmer Rouge, the Maoists, and the Soviet Communists. Pretty ironic that Bush should reference the 'gulags' when the United States is holding people prisoner without charge at Guantanamo. And now I'm hearing that there are secret CIA ones in Europe? Haven't done enough reading on that to know how much credence to give.
Everyone knows these guys are bad, but Bush spends half the speech talking about just how bad they are. I am, and I think much of the nation is, tired of speaking about Iraq and other foreign and domestic efforts in terms of moral imperative. It would be very nice if all the bad people were killed or imprisoned indefinitely or somehow converted (don't ask me how), but is there any room in all this rhetoric for some reasoned consideration of what is in the Untied States best interest? Is there any room for consideration of something other than the destruction of all terrorism the world over as an acceptable outcome?
Article comments
1 - G. Oren
Good post Sam Jack.
Having read thru the full speech myself, I find it curious but expected that W offers nothing more than his tried and true formula - which begs the question of whether we have approached the "war on terror" in the correct way to begin with. The Iraq vacuum, created by us, becomes a justification for itself - in order to prevent the takeover of Iraq by terrorists. Whether or not our efforts to impress democracy on the Middle East will lead to more destabilization and perhaps even the eventual success of radical Islamicist in plebiscites is an issue that W and the neo-cons conveniently ignore. Having no civil tradition on which to build an orderly democracy, are we pressing the moderate elements in the Middle East from the frying pan into the fire?
What indeed are we to do, if anything, about Syria. Are we up for another invasion? Or are we just trying to destabilize Assad with rhetoric and posturing. Again, do we not risk simply uniting real foes (Al Queda etc..) with distasteful oligarchs. Is this sound policy, and is it what really needs to be done to stop the terrorists?