I Knew This Was Going To Happen
I was listening to a later night talk show tonight in the car. They played two pieces of the Bush speech from today.
I was impressed with what he said.
I had every intention of going home, jumping online and posting it, if I could find it.To my surprise, I couldn't find it.
Actually, that was sarcasm, I knew I wouldn't find it.
What I did find was an odd twist on the speech.
Bush was talking about not leaving Iraq at this critical point.
But the way the MSM made it out was like this...
ABC: Bush to Iraqi's: Time to Get a Government
CBS: Bush Blames Saddam For Iraqi Violence
And just for good measure, what do all the Yahoo! users see?
Yahoo! News: Bush to Iraqi's: Time to Get a Government
I doesn't really matter which story you read, they're pretty much the same.
Bush doesn't have a government in Iraq, and he has to blame Saddam for his failure.
Unfortunately, I'm going to paraphrase because the MSM didn't find these comments important enough.
Bush said that if history has taught us anything, we went to Afghanistan to help their freedom fighters against the Russians. Then we left them, before they had a strong hold on victory. And because of it, Afghanistan became a haven for the Taliban.
I know the situations are not exactly the same, but the analogy is a good one. I would even make the same analogy about Viet Nam, look how we bailed on them, and look how that turned out. Of course, he couldn't use that analogy, because the average American wouldn't understand it.
But there was no mention of that part of the speech anywhere I found in the MSM.
CNN got a little closer than anyone else in the MSM.
Bush blames Iraq's instability on Hussein
"Iraq is a nation that is physically and emotionally scarred by three decades of Saddam's tyranny," Bush said in a speech to Freedom House, a more than 60-year-old independent organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.
Bush said Iraq's instability "is the legacy of Saddam -- a tyrant who exacerbated ethnic divisions to keep himself in power."
Bush said it is vital to the security of Iraq that its police force not be infiltrated with Saddam loyalists or members of illegal militias. The violence has raised the urgency for forming a government representing all ethnic groups, he said.
The United States has been pushing Iraq to speed up the formation of a unity government, seen as the best option to subdue the violence gripping several Iraqi cities -- and to allow for further U.S. troop withdrawals this summer.
But the talks are fragile in a country with deep sectarian differences between Shiites and Sunnis and daily violent death tolls in the dozens.
"I know that the work in Iraq is really difficult," Bush said, adding that a free Iraq in the Middle East is important to the security of America.
He criticized lawmakers calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq -- a move that Bush said would have disastrous consequences for American security.
If troops were withdrawn now, Iraq would turn into a safe haven for terrorists, who could arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction and could attack moderate governments in the Middle East, he said.
"The Iraqi government is still in transition, and the Iraqi security forces are still gathering capacity," Bush said. "If we leave Iraq before they're capable of defending their own democracy, the terrorists will win."
I just find it interesting that the MSM left out the part where Bush warns us about the consequences of pulling out of Iraq right now.Oh well, what can you expect.
Our media is retarded.
*No offense to the mentally challenged, I didn't mean to assert that our media was on your level, it's just an expression.
posted by The Fu2rman at 12:01 AM
7 Comments:
No offense to the mentally retarded. The mentally retarded actually display more of a moral backbone than the media. We need a new PC-euphemism for the idiocy of the media;
Reality-challenged
Lie-dependent
I don't know. Maybe you can help me, Fu2rman.
Yeah, we bailed on the South Vietnamese after investing a mere 20 years, 50,000 dead and umpty-billion dollars, by which point they had progressed to the point of having a kleptocratic regime of war-avoiders and thoroughbred racers with no support from the masses, who were, as it happened, a different religion from the wardheelers in Saigon.
But if we'd only stayed another 20 years and invested another 50,000 young men, I'm sure it would have come out all right in the end.
Nobody in Iraq wants to be a democrat. They all want to be oppressors like Saddam.
Pastorius,
I put up the disclaimer so I wouldn't offend the mentally retarded.
After I wrote that the MSM was retarded, I thought, 'If I were retarded, I'd be pissed that I was put in the same sentance as the MSM.'
HE,
I assert that if The US would fight a war like they did up to and including Korea, Viet Nam, and now Iraq would look a lot different.
I will post on that in the near fu2r, just to make this point.
But thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again...
You can try, but I doubt you'll have anything to add to what I first heard 35 years ago.
The problem was not our failure to apply insufficient force (we dropped more explosives on Vietnam than on Germany), it was the failure of the Vietnamese to want popular self-government.
Thoughtful commentators, much closer to the scene in western Asia than I am, like the Syrian political scientist Bassam Tibi (based, significantly, in Germany), said before the invasion of Iraq that Arab Muslims have no interest in democracy.
Events suggest he was right.
HE,
Great point.
Let's leave Viet Nam out of the conversation for now, and focus on Iraq.
Muslims have no interest in democracy.
That may be true.
So what is the alternative?
Stay out of their way?
Let Iraq, Iran, and whomever else, have nuclear weapons?
It is abundantly clear, at least to me, that if they have nuclear capability, we would be a target.
We were already a target on Sept. 11th, what would stop them from using nuclear weapons against us?
For a moment, I'll go with you on the idea that Muslims don't want democracy, but where does that leave us?
We have to stop Iraq, and we are going to have to stop Iran from obtaining nukes.
Since we are saying we can't go in and over-throw their current regimes, and install a democratic government, what do we do?
I would love to hear a better alternative.
Change the religion. That's what happened to Christianity, only with Islam it has to happen much faster. With Christianity it took over 300 years.
Here's the deal.
1. Accept that the WoT is really a war of civilization v. Islam.
2. Prefer, in the name of humanity, to avoid the '20-minute solution,' which in any event is impractical.
3. Adopt the Bonifacian solution. Boniface, the 'Apostle to the Germans,' destroyed the basis of their devotion by cutting down their sacred trees. Since the tree-gods did not retaliate, the Germans lost faith in their power. (This is a simplified version, in real life it was more complicated.)
4. Instead of pussyfooting around and respecting Islam, the rest of the world has to say out loud, 'We despise what your religion stands for, and we defy your god to defend it or you. We are coming not just for a few Islamofascists, but for Mohammed and Allah as well. Let them stop us if they can.'
In one version, I suggested (before the invasion of Afghanistan) that the US submit a list of, say, the 100 holiest mosques or shrines in Islam and announce that, unless Allah could stop cruise missiles, one per hour would be destroyed.
I liked that approach because it targeted things but not people. Well, it would not targeted their bodies; it would, of course,have caused enormous psychic pain, but, heck, I'm told we caused enormous psychic pain just by publishing some snarky cartoons.)
The Bonifacian solution is not just one way to deal with Islam, it is the only way. (Unless the religion pacifies itself internally, of which there is no sign.) Until the religion is tamed (as Christianity, Hinduism, even the violent form of Buddhism were tamed), the religion will keep throwing up new enemies of civilization.
Ask me for proof? OK. Wouldn't you expect suicide bombers to be a wasting asset? (Even in World War II Japan, the closest historical example, the supply of kamikaze volunteers was running low by early 1945, and draftees were being used.) Yet no matter how many Islamic nutcases blow themselves up, there seem always to be at least as many more left.
(They should wish oil reserves worked that way.)
I recommend Bernard Lewis's brief introduction to the Assassins (conveniently collected in 'From Babel to Dragomans') for how this worked in the past.
If it is true that Islam is a religion of peace and equality for most of its adherents, the Islamic masses could adjust themselves without too great difficulty to a version purged of insane murderousness. As an historical example, H.L. Mencken observed, a century ago, that it was becoming difficult to find American Christians still willing to fight over the doctrine of infant damnation. Christian father no longer (with rare exceptions) choose their daughters husbands, although they used to.
Islam could, in principle, change dramatically in the direction that its saner apologists claim it really is.
If the alleged good Muslims do not gain control of their religion, then it will end up with a massive slaughter.
It has in the past, at the Battle of Pyramids in 1\1798, at Omdurman in 1898 etc. In the 1960s, antiAmerican protesters used to chant, 'One, two, many Vietnams.'
They were wrong. There was only one.
But Muslims should contemplate the possibility that there will be 'One, two, many Omdurmans.'
Harry Eagar,
I must admit you surprised me.
Your solution is excellent.
Let me confess, I have been resigned to the fact that in the current political and media climate, our current course of action is the best we've got.
I've posted on my hatred for the politically correct, be it in this war or any place we see it. But I've never taken a stand like you are suggesting.
I am in 100% agreement with you on this.
However, I still don't think the political, media, and public opinion climate would stand for an all out assult on the religion itself.
How do we address that?
I'm going to use some of our conversation on a main post in the next few days. If you would like to contribute please email me...fu2rman@yahoo.com.
I would love to go into some detail on how this is the only way to win the WoT, and how it could become a reality...and/or, if this is not the course of action, we are just spinning our wheels.
I'm so glad to have talked with you, you've energized me.
Thank You.
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