C’mon, is anyone here surprisd that Dubya continues to use 9/11 to justify our invasion of Iraq despite all the evidence to the contrary? Is anyone really shocked that the twerp clothes himself with the mantle of righteousness in a black/white conflict with no nuances whatsoever?
After four years is there any outrage left?
And let’s be honest here–most Americans also believe WWII started with Pearl Harbor because they know nothing of history. This will will play perfectly with his core audience, who like Worldnews Daily but fear it might skew a little lefty. Bush used faked evidence to hoodwink the American public in supporting his incursion in Iraq? No problem, them Aye-raqis had it comin’. Our handpicked leader in Iraq turned out to be an Iranian spy? T’ain’t nuthin’, better than votin’ fer Kerry.
This unbelievably offensive tripe will not hurt him at all.
Yes here we go I will attempt to use as small as words as possible becuase it is quite obvious you are a dumbass.
Bush talked about Pearl Harbor. Bush spoke about something for 19 paragraphs before he said anything about Iraq. Can you figure out what he talked about?
On 9/11, we weren’t attacked by any single nation’s military. We were attacked by Al Qaeda, a loosely-formed terrorist organization with cells in many, many countries. In WWII, we were fighting against Germany and Japan, countries with tightly-formed military organizations. They weren’t entrenched across the globe, and we fairly well knew where Hitler and Hirohito were at. Mussolini wasn’t hiding out in a cave somewhere in Greece, he stayed in Italy until the bitter end.
Iraq wasn’t responsible for 9/11. While Saddam did pay families of suicide bombers, none of them made it to US soil. More likely, they were headed to Israel. I bear Israel no ill will, but Israel is a country that is demonstrably capable of taking care of itself. Anyway, in WWII, we took out Japan and its allies, and left it at that.
In WWII, the goal of victory was crystal clear: The surrender of the Axis nations. We did that the best way we could: by defeating them. Like I’ve already said: On 9/11, we weren’t attacked by any one nation or any league of nations. Al Qaeda isn’t bound to any one country. Nor are any of the other terrorist organizations that pose a threat to us and our way of life. Traditional warfare probably isn’t going to work against such an amorphous enemy. I think the best we can do here is to improve the security in our own country to prevent terrorists in our backyard from carrying out attacks. We need to know about the people entering our country. We need to know how the terrorists can hit us, and what we can do to prevent it. The terrorists won’t surrender. If we can prevent them from attacking us, it won’t matter. They can just stay home and hate us from a distance.
In short, while the attack on Pearl Harbor may have borne some resemblance to the attacks on 9/11, WWII was nothing like the War Against Terrorism or the War On Iraq.
The lovely thing about our President’s present round of speeches on his national security policy, other than it is giving to audiences that know damn well that it is their job to listen politely, applaud on cue, salute and about face, is that once you hear him you have to sit down and reason out what the Hell he said, and then what the Hell he meant to say.
He insists, against all reason, on equating the Jahidists responsible for 9/11 with Iraq. If the Pearl Harbor simile is valid, as others have pointed out, then the American response in 1941 would have been to invade Belgium so as to defang Japanese and German militarists by introducing the Low Countries to the blessings of democracy.
He really stood up there in front of all those shiny new USAF 2LTs and said that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was central to TWAT (God, I love that) in order to neutralize the Jahadists with the 1920s Style Death Ray of Democracy. Does he not know that the introduction of real democracy to the Near and Middle East pretty much guarantee the emergence of Jahadist nations who hate the West and will have a strangle hold on the only thing in the area that is worth having and which the West must have in order to survive? Does he not have any appreciation of what an Iraq run by the Iraqis, a Saudi Arabia run by the Saudis instead of the House of Saud, an Egypt run by the Egyptians will look like? They will all look like Iran. Won’t that be fun?
<nitpick>Well, in 1941, Belgium was under the control of Nazi Germany, so invading them would have been a good move.</nitpick>
This is a whole other thread here, my friend. FYI, the correct term for someone wants an Islamic state is an Islamist, which is probably what you’re talking about. Someone who undertakes jihad is a mujahid, plural mujahideen. If you want to translate “mujahid” into English, try “crusader” or something.
Your assumption that all or the vast majority of Iraqis, Saudis, and Egyptians are Islamists is incorrect. Also, Iran isn’t a terrific example since, among other differences, because it’s a Shi’ite state, not a Sunni one.
Iraq is only a part of it, and it would appear the majority of the posters to this thread are doing far more in the way of equating the war in Iraq with the war on terrorism than anything that has been posted as Bush having said.
I would just like to take this opportunity to point out how pleased I am that this photo found its way onto the White House webpage. The thumbnail version really softens up all that buzzkill rhetoric about clashes of civilizations and such immediately adjacent to it.
Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism against the United States, and certainly had nothing to do with 9/11. Attacking Iraq is NOT part of TWAT (cheers, Eve).
See, there you go again! Where did I say or even imply that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11?
Nowhere, that’s where.
Here we go with even more of the mindless inability to read into someone’s words what they actually said. This has been a hallmark of most of this thread. I don’t suppose there’s any reason you should be any different.
And furthermore, you are nowhere near the authority on TWAT ( ) that you apparently think you are. The war in Iraq is most certainly, and has always been, a vital part of the war on terror, and in ways and on levels that you aren’t even aware of.
Actually, there is a similarity between the War in Iraq and WW II. A certain large nation invaded a certain small nation pre-emptively after claiming the small nation was an imminent threat to the large nation. Lies were used in both cases to support this.
There is one difference. In the WWII case the small nation (which I believe was a dictatorship also) was actually next to the large one.
Starving Artist, don’t be such a moronic tool. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, and never did. There is no credible link between any known terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein’s former government.
Only a dunce would fail to see that Bush is once again trying to create a link in the mind of public between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and that furthermore (someting new) he is trying to connect the present conflict in Iraq with WW2. Any fool with two brain cells to rub together can readily see how specious such connections are.
) that you apparently think you are. The war in Iraq is most certainly, and has always been, a vital part of the war on terror, and in ways and on levels that you aren’t even aware of.