No it doesn’t. Not unless you believe that the phrase “Arabs in the US had been indiscriminately rounded up” means “EVERY Arab in the US had been indiscriminately rounded up”.
Do you think that Americans are obliged to keep silent about well-documented facts just because they make us look bad and might contribute to resentment among our enemies? Even if those facts are already well-known worldwide?
If so, how do you reconcile that with a position that supports publishing, say, insulting cartoons, even ones that contribute to resentment among our enemies?
First, does anyone have a link to the text of the speech? (If it’s been given already in the thread, my apologies; I’ve read the thread over the last couple of days and may have forgotten something).
Second,
I really don’t see this as giving our enemies ammo. Telling our enemies to “Bring it on”? That’s giving them ammo (indeed, terrorist recruiters are using that expression in their recruitment videos, according to a news report I heard yesterday). Rounding people up based on their national origin and holding them for years without pressing charges? That’s a propaganda coup for our enemies. Bombing a village in an attempt to kill terrorist leaders, killing lots of innocent civilians, and not issuing profound apologies to the survivors of the slain innocents? That’s like giving a crate full of Stingers to our enemies.
Our enemies thrive on depicting all Americans as bloodthirsty savages. Their tactics, especially their terrorist tactics, hinge on convincing youths that all Americans are complicit in the savagery of the United States, and that all Americans are therefore legitimate targets. A speech that undermines this idea, that spreads the idea that many Americans are apalled at the excesses of our government, goes a long way toward defusing, sabotaging, destroying one of the chief arguments that Al Qaeda makes in favor of terrorism.
The more that Americans can convey the message overseas that we understand our government’s appalling abuses of human rights, the fewer people will cross the line into terrorist training camps. That’s a vital part to winning this war.
Agree 100% that idiotic statement by Bush “Bring It On” was a stupid, stupid, statement.
You at least have brought a valid reason into his speech, rather then the normal comments that this thread had spawned.
I still do not agree with it, though your thinking is certainly valid. I can still see a former vice president on a Al Qaeda recruitment tape “America has abused the Arabs”
Thanks! I should mention that I think the ties-to-the-Saudi-family are irrelevant both for the Bush family and for Gore.
The video they played on the news (some NPR segment, an interview with a guy who tracks terrorist listservs) was chilling. It was a video intended to recruit terrorists in the US and England, IIRC, and was in English. It was very slickly produced, with a professional-quality announcer and stirring background musci. The final lines of it were someting like, “Mr. Bush, you invited us to bring it on. We have done so far beyond what you thought possible. Have you another challenge for us, Mr. Bush?”
Possibly so. The thing is, I don’t think this is news to anyone in the Middle East. Middle Easterners are hearing this constantly in their own languages through their local news. My impression is that they’re also hearing how America supports this, how America doesn’t care about the suffering of Muslims; this demonization of Americans is a key recruitment tool for those who want to murder American civilians. When someone says, “Yes, Americans DO care about the suffering of Muslims,” it’s not something the terrorists want to emphasize. It humanizes Americans, makes murdering Americans more morally problematic.
I’m not sure what a terrorist would gain from using Gore’s words. If they want to emphasize American mistreatment of Muslims, wouldn’t they be better off doing so without bringing up the fact that some Americans object to this mistreatment? Given all the local news sources they could quote saying the same thing, local news sources that don’t portray any American sympathetically, it seems to me they’d regard Gore as useless at best, dangerous at worst.
I am frankly amazed by how Gore got away with this …of course, he (Gore) never impressed me as being particularly intelligent. the fact is the US is at war, and for this idiot to be badmouthing the government is stupid and dangerous. Yes, 15 of the 9/11 MURDERES (yes, that is what they were) were saudi nationals. And the SA government has a lot to answer for. So a few Saudi nationals got their visas cancelled-who cares? Its not like these people care anything about the lives of US citizens-many Saudis actively cheered 9/11.
Even if you accept that our current combination of having occupying forces in Afghanistan and Iraq plus various counterterrorism activities constitutes being “at war”, why would it be “stupid and dangerous” to badmouth the government?
If Gore were out there revealing classified information about troop movements or something, you’d have a point. But all he’s doing is criticizing a government action that is well documented and widely reported on. The post-9/11 mass incarcerations of Arabs and Muslims in the US ain’t no secret (from anybody who reads the papers, at least), and I don’t understand why it would be considered “stupid and dangerous” to talk about it.
Does anybody really imagine that if public leaders refrained from criticizing our government, it would make us safer? Do you think that terrorists don’t have any information about US activities except what they find out in public speeches by Al Gore?
It was years ago that those detentions happened. Gore spoke at a **Saudi Economic **Forum. Not a place meant to bring up such things. This was not a Saudi Tribunal On American Injustices. This was not the forum to say something that even remotely brought up the past injustices. Face it, he brought it up to win the far left respect. Either that, or he fell off his rocker. I just thank my lucky stars every day that there are enough of us out there that do not put party before thought.
Oh, come on, man, that’s such a HARSH and JUDGMENTAL word, and using it interferes with my chakras and auras. I prefer to refer to them as SPIRITUAL VOYAGERS who were REDRESSING THE BALANCE of the evil US foreign policy in their own way, much the way I do so by refusing to eat animal products or use plastic or bathe regularly…
I mean, OF COURSE they were murderers. Who on earth would disagree? Do you actually BELIEVE that liberals on the SDMB are so airheaded and granola-y and anti-American that we would be somehow offended or shocked or have our minds expanded by your bold and patriotic use of that word? Turn off the O’Reilly factor and have some respect for your fellow countrymen.
Yes, when Gore was giving a speech at an economic conference in another country, his primary motivation was to appeal to American leftists. For some reason. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Look how it made the left in this thread react. I had a post at the beginning of my posting time here where I asked what I was politically. Because I vote many different ways, and do not harbor the ill will toward Democrats or Republicans, so many on here do. So frequently I am reading people who post based on party lines, even when it is clear they may be wrong. So I have came to the only logical conclusion I can, politically I am part of the new Sane Party.
WTF? There are quite a few people being held at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib even today. If they all got released, somehow that news didn’t make the “Liberal Media” - or even the conservative kind.
Have you done even a casual search of your own as to what was said, and by whom? The topics of all the speeches there was SA’s economic development, and the political conditions which both limit and promote it. Mutual, unthinking hostilities in both directions (Gore was much harsher towards Iran, ya know - or no, apparently you don’t) obviously inhibit that. Cherie Blair and Mary McAleese spoke strongly about women’s rights and the crippling effect on SA’s development that their lack causes.
Okay, is there one? Can a prominent Democrat say anything at all without it getting lied about by the people you apparently use as your sole source of information about the world?
Really? Would we even know about it if not for the RW hate media, blogs included, spouting these silly and monotonous treason charges every time he says anything more thoughtful and responsible than “Yee-ha!”
Tell us what “thought” *you * put into this subject. It clearly didn’t extend to the point of trying even minimally to find out what Gore actually said, rather than what the Coulters say he said. What “thought” are you referring to? Whose?
Where do you think I read? Interesting to know you think you know where I get my information. As I am not a blog reader, I am not into reading any one news source. Nor do I find it awakening to read my news on liberal, or conservative themed websites. Maybe that is why I do not have the talking points you do? As for treason, I have yet to see anyone on here calling his words treason, true I may of missed it but it was not said by me.
You seem to be defending him because of who he is, I am chastising him for what he said, why he said it, and where he said it.
Can you explain? Can you draw a line, however tenuous, from this speech to something specific that might happen? Once that line is drawn we can try to figure out whether it’s at all plausible; but right now I’m not sure what such a line would look like.
You’re not going to convince me that this is true by repeating it more bluntly. Even if it is true, that’s the ad hominem fallacy: the truth and the utility of a particular speech is not affected by the motives of the speaker.
And look who brought it up. Who’s publicizing this speech more, the right or the left? Who cares more about it, the right or the left? I could equally say, “Face it, he brought it up to win the far right respect,” with “he” referring to O’Reilly or Shodan. That would be equally irrelevant, but closer to the truth.
I just googled “Gore speech Saudi Arabia.” Of the first ten hits, six dealt with this speech. Two were objective articles covering the speech neither positively or negatively. The other four were moderate to rightwing sources slamming him for the speech.
Obviously, this is not a scientific poll, but as a snapshot of what’s going on in the punditosphere, I think it’s a good first investigation. This is not something that liberals are fawning over (except when conservatives bring it up): this is something that conservatives are trying to make hay over. Consider how the OP tries to use this to deflect criticism from Bush.
I asked what was the “thought” process in which you expressed so much pride. It is clear from your non-answer that no, you *didn’t * exert even a minimal effort to find out for yourself what Gore actually said. Pity.
No I read what he actually said, it is a pity I should have to point out that his whole speech is not the focus of this debate. I was focusing on the portions of his speech where he tried to re-ignite hatred IMHO. I could care less if in his speech he spoke about how bad Iran was, that was not an object of this debate.
Notice how this board has different sections for saying different things, the world should as well. You can bring up damaging past material to attack an opponents stance, but do it in a forum that is designed for that. Not in a forum, in a nation, that has enough people that want to blow me up already.
If during a post here I said, PosterA is dumb, but not as dumb as PosterB, should PosterA blow it off because “He did say worse things about PosterB” Of course not, Gore saying bad things about Iran, does not absolve whatever he said about the US admin, even if it wasn’t as bad.
Okay, you can’t be accused of taking soundbites out of context if you don’t think there *is * such a thing as context. Nice.
You’re down to your HO now, not “thought”. How did you form that opinion, pray tell? It couldn’t have been from reading even a single complete sentence he said. So what is your HO worth to anyone, then?
Right, your object was Democrat-bashing, and you went right for the parts you could use if stripped down and tortured far enough. In fact, though, obviously you let even that be done for you by someone else. Who? Once again, what *was * your “thought” process?
Let us focus on what the Arab news has to say about the speech then, okay. Then you will see the context doesn’t matter, they picked up on the parts that irritated me.
Not a single mention of anything he said about Iran, odd ain’t it.
I could care less if he was a purple people eater, let alone his party affiliation. Thus by you once again using your amazing assumption powers, leaves me no choice but to concede I cannot possibly win the debate when you wear donkey/elephant themed pajama’s to bed. bows out