I was driving in my car earlier today listening to Sirius radio and Larry Elder when at the 4 o’clock hour (PST) ABC News came on with their hourly update. They led it with the host saying things like "Bush dodged going to Vietnam but today he compared Iraq to that war" and I had to smile. This is our "unbiased" MSM. So I went online when I got home to see if I could find a copy of their updates but found nothing. But I did find this post by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ:
The newsroom is a sacred, magical place where unhinged partisanship never intrudes into actual reportage.
MSM Suddenly Convinced Iraq NOT Like Vietnam, Now That Bush Has Suggested Comparison To Mass Slaughter and Displaced Boat People: Apparently Iraq is only like Vietnam in ways that benefit the Democratic party.
Who knew?
Of course ABC has since changed that headline to "New Bush Talking Point: Iraq Like Vietnam" but as usually is the case with our extremely biased MSM they even got his message wrong. His exact quote: (From Mike’s post below)
Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. There’s no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields."
There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today’s struggle — those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government’s war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."
His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda’s chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."
Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility — but the terrorists see it differently.
We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror — but it’s the central front — it’s the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it’s the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating. (Applause.)
If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America. (Applause.)
And to think the liberal reporters came away from that speech with a headline like Iraq Like Vietnam when in fact he is saying it WILL be like Vietnam if we run from this fight.
Not to tough to figure that one out, but we all know they did. They just enjoy twisting the message of the President to fit the agenda they want to push. Par for the course for todays media.
See author page
All in all, it was a meatless speech with some good sizzle. I was hoping someone at the WH would’ve used my comparison of Saddam/AQ ties and put a question in the speech asking if there were NAZI training camps in Tokyo like there were Al Queda camps outside Baghdad. But hey, maybe they’re just not caught up on their Flopping Aces reading yet
😉
Also in this speech, Bush reminded the democrats (who are calling for Maliki to step down) that this decision is up to the people of Iraq, not politicians in Washington.
General P. is doing his part magnificenty. Nouri al-Maliki
is attempting to make peace with all the factions (including largest insurgency in Iraq LINK
Meanwhile our democratic party at home are trying to figure out how they can still promote a failure and defeat to save face with the anti-war left that appears to hate America and Bush more than our enemys. Their claim that the Iraqi government is fractured rings hollow when they have to look in the mirror of their own accomplishments since they have regained power. But I think the “tide” is turning.
Scott, I think we could bring Saddam back from the dead and have him admit the “Saddam/AQ connection” and the left would still deny it. Their position that AQ was never in Iraq until we got there is so ingrained in the rhetoric, it may take historians years later to correct this blatant lie.
Rovin, I completely agree.
Saddam’s VP, his #2 man, the so-called strong arm of the regime, the “muscle man,” Izzat Ibrahim al Douri actually did an interview for TIME and admitted his ties to Al Queda.
We’ve had Marines actually based at the terrorist training camps-writing hundreds of letters home from them every day for 4 years now, and people still don’t buy it.
We’ve got detainees admitting that ansar was an AQ camp functioning as Saddam’s tool in N Iraq; admitting they personally carried orders from Baghdad to the AQ leaders there.
We’ve got MILLIONS of captured documents
There are dozens of extremely well-documented pre-war & pre Bush Admin high level meetings between the two
UBL openly and freely declared that 2/3s of his excuses/reasons for killing Americans were the US war on Saddam
Man, there’s even documents claiming that UBL was an intel asset for the IIS back in the 1990’s
For years Saddam’s newspapers described UBL as a hero of the Iraqi people
We’ve got Saddam calling for Islamic Holy Warriors to attack the US and defend Iraq
I could go on for hundreds of pages-and in fact have done so, but you’re right. Opponents of the war would rather believe political claims about the issue of regime ties rather than all of that-even the words of the leaders of AQ and Saddam’s regime. Why believe Sen Levin, Rockefeller, and others who continually point fingers rather than own up to their role in making the CIA and 15 other intel agencies unable to fulfill their mission? Why not believe Saddam, al Douri, Bin Laden, captured IIS guys, captured AQ guys, the documents that were captured, and the training camps the USMC occupies?
It’s simple:
It doesn’t fit the preferred narrative. If one accepts those facts, then they have to accept the war, and an opponent of the war can never do that because it would invalidate the core excuse/catalyst for their Bush hate.
For some strange reason I managed to catch most of the speech live (which is unusual for me). Yesterday evening, when researching for The Pink Flamingo and I saw the commentary on the speech I wondered if I watched the same speech everyone else did. Thanks for reassuring me I was not imgaining things!
SJ Reidhead
The Pink Flamingo
It’s pretty easy to see that Rove leaves, and all of a sudden we’re getting speeches that have the Karen Hughes flavor again.
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 08/23/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
We keep complaining that President Bush isn’t getting his message out, then we have an example like this which shows that no matter how good a speech he delivers, the “news” media will simply ignore it or warp it.
It’s a long speech, and surely the attention deficit disorder media wouldn’t be able to pay attention that long.
But if you read it, or listen to the audio, you’ll hear the history lessons that our media SHOULD cover.
I’d like to know which speech writer worked on it. It’s certainly different from most of Bush’s speeches on this subject. But it was also written for an audience that LIVED that history the President was talking about.
Scott,
We can add that Saddam put his military on full alert just before 9-11-01. My Brigade had an Armor Battalion in Intrinsic Action at the time. That unit mobilized expecting an invasion by Iraq across the Kuwait Border. This was in the news, but there was no way to connect the dots without 20/20 hindsight.
In addition, one of Saddam’s son’s newspapers printed an article about America suffering in the “arm that was already stinging”. How would Saddam know about the impending attack (one does not put a fully re-armed, despite the sactions, Iraq on full alert for no reason) unless he had detailed information from AQ?
And we have the fact that after the invasion by the Coalition of 30 plus countries into Iraq, which Saddam had plenty of warning for, AQ terrorists took 20 TONS of VX and Sarin nerve gas in semi trucks from Syria into Jordan. These terrorists were caught with the mother of all chemical VBIEDs at the Jordan border in 2004. They confessed to the Jordanians that they got these weapons from the convoys that had entered Syria from Iraq and the plan to attack Aman, Jordan was blessed off by AQ’s then commander in Iraq. They also stated Saddam had welcomed in from their loss in Afghanistan and given them medical care and material support.
How did AQ get these weapons and the authority to use them without A) Iraq having them (Syria has no stocks of VX) and B) Saddam working with AQ to use them in an attack on Jordan’s capital?
As you say though, the list goes on, and on, and on.
I’m curious. Does anyone know how many of the Iraq War supporters who post their opinions to these and other forums have enlisted for active duty in the war they so obviously believe in?
Bush Puts Iraq in Historical Context at VFW
President Bush brilliantly lays out the Iraq war in historical context using the words of critics for past wars at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Conference.