"Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" (to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann) John McCain

'White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea in which "you get to a point in the future where you want it to be a purely support model."

"The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you've had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability," Snow told reporters.' reuters

How can the US be 'a force for stability' in Iraq? It's the US invasion that led to the current situation of a failed state, civil war, sectarian killings and terrorist activity there. In Korea, it's clear who the US troops are providing a defence against, and who they provide security for. But what about in Iraq?

And how convincing is this daydreaming about a rosy future anyway? What about what's happening now?

There's also this...

'At the May 23 Coast Guard commencement, Bush reprised some of his old talking points and unveiled a new one, citing intelligence that Osama bin Laden tasked al-Qaeda forces in Iraq in January 2005 to conduct terrorist attacks outside of Iraq, including possibly the United States.

“I’ve often warned that if we fail in Iraq, the enemy will follow us home,” Bush said. “Many ask, ‘How do you know?’ Today, I’d like to share some information with you that attests to al-Qaeda’s intentions.”

Bush then laid out the story of bin Laden ordering Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to divert some of his operatives in Iraq to terrorist activities outside Iraq.

“Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi’s number one priority in terms of foreign attacks,” Bush said. “Zarqawi welcomed this direction; he claimed that he had already come up with some good proposals.”

The operations, however, were thwarted, Bush said, and Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. bombing raid inside Iraq in June 2006.

Though Bush presented this two-year-old intelligence as support for his argument that the U.S. forces must fight the “enemy there, so we don’t have to fight them here,” the information actually would seem to establish the opposite; fighting them there makes it more likely that they also will attack here.' www.consortiumnews.com

Possibly, the administration's attempts to spin the debacle in Iraq have moved beyond dumbness.

'Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam “had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction.” He dismissed this as an “unreasonable hypothetical.”

Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney’s remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday’s debate. But...' select.nytimes.com

No wonder there are so many Americans confused about what led to the Iraq invasion, and so many conspiracy theories able to gain traction.

'Scooter Libby was a soldier in your--our--war in Iraq...

...Scooter Libby was there for the beginning of that campaign. He can't be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own.'
Fouad Ajami asking Bush to pardon the "fallen soldier" Scooter Libby.

"Make sure you pick up all the trash after it's over. (Laughter.)" George

Bush has redefined success in Iraq again - 'The terms of success set out by Mr Bush included "the rise of a government that can protect its people, deliver basic services for all its citizens and function as a democracy even amid violence".'

That's not particularly dumb, though. How low the bar is being set is surely more of a sad condemnation of Bush's failure.

The dumb bit was 'Mr Bush suggested Israel as a standard to work towards.'

Forget Korea, Iraq is going to be the new Israel now. And next week's model country for Iraq will be... ?

Israel model for Iraq, says Bush

From the guy supposed to be "Bush's brain":

'“I make no apologies,” Rove said when an audience member asked how personally responsible he felt for the war. “It was the right thing to do. The world is better off with (Saddam Hussein) gone. We all thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The whole world did. He didn’t. …

“In the aftermath of the removal of the regime, al-Qaeda decided to make its stand in Iraq. And we have got to, in my opinion, fight ‘em and beat ‘em there; otherwise we are going to face them somewhere else.”' www.denverpost.com

Sigh. One more time:

To imply that deposing Hussein was the aim of the invasion is to admit that it was illegal. Further, more importantly, it didn't need the invasion that has brought about such bloody chaos to depose Hussein.

WE didn't all think he had WMD - certainly not in any shape or quantity that constituted a threat necessitating invasion. Notably, the UN inspectors did not think so - and surely their voice should have been heeded.

"They" (a usefully vague word - al Qaeda is most likely a small part of the insurgency in Iraq) are being fought in Iraq, but that hasn't stopped Islamic fundamentalist terrorism elsewhere. In fact, it has probably increased it.

What a sorry and threadbare patchwork of discredited excuses the administration has been reduced to.

Talking of which, I see that Northern Ireland is this week's country of comparison for Iraq.

("It took decades..."? Decades? If we start counting from the invasion that was the root of the trouble in Ireland, it took centuries.)

Northern Ireland? It bears comparison: two communities across a sectarian divide each historically loathing the other and each with extremists who would murder someone simply because they were of the wrong faith. And the enmity goes back centuries.And, of course, the extremists of one side would kill 'to get the British out of Ireland'

Sad thing is that Petraeus represents what the British did right in Northern Ireland. His thinking is akin to ours. His predecessors and the Administration were all for what the British knew was the wrong way.We recovered , eventually, from our one big mistake in Northern Ireland [the 'Bloody Sunday massacre'].We did not repeat that one day's error. We also soon found out that internment without trial (think Guantanamo) was effective only in theory.In practice it was a recruiting, propaganda and fundraising tool for extremists

Fortunately the British were not led by a government that would not learn instantly from its mistake.Unfortunately, Petraeus is in charge in Iraq about three years too late.

PS. In the Green Zone in Iraq a reporter saw the following graffiti, about the US, written by a despairing British official : " 'Yee-haw!' is not a foreign policy"

'Bush laid out his Iraq policy yesterday in plain language, with none of his recent gibberish about al-Qaeda in Pakistan being the same as al-Qaeda in Iraq, only different, but really the same, kind of. This time we heard the classic neocon analysis - the same grand vision that got us into this mess. If Bush hasn't changed his mind by now, he ain't gonna.

Bush said we have to stay in Iraq to "change the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens" - and that's the heart of the matter. Forget for a moment that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. The neocon idea is that the only way to eliminate terrorism in the long term is to create democracies that will offer potential terrorists an alternative future of freedom, prosperity and hope.

No one can argue against the flowering of democracy, and the United States should help freedom bloom wherever it can. But what on earth would make Bush - or the neocon ideologues who are his enablers - believe that any nation would appreciate being invaded, occupied for years by tens of thousands of foreign troops and having a particular brand of Western democracy imposed at the point of a gun?' Just Another Vacation From Reality

Not to mention that by destroying Iraq's infrastructure and sparking civil war there, with millions of refugees fleeing religious/sectarian strife, along with bitter resentment of US intervention, Bush has actually helped further 'the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens'.

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:

Bush said we have to stay in Iraq to "change the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens"

Of the 19 all were Saudi Arabians save for an Egyptian, 2 from the UAE and a Lebanese. So what are the conditions in Saudi Arabia (or the UAE, Lebanon and Egypt) that the President wishes to change? And how is he to change them? By bringing democracy to Iraq ?

Our bombers in Britain suffered conditions which turned them into suicide bombers too. Their beliefs, the beliefs of al-Qaeda and other jihadists about Islam, democracy and Sharia law, America etc were the same as the 9/11 bombers'. Pity that they were British. Now, just what conditions are there here that the President would change? Something has to, by his reasoning. So far, invading Iraq isn't doing it. In fact,the invasion and occupation of Iraq is part of the excuse for the suicide bombings here.

Of course, it might just be that these people were motivated by a hatred of the USA, the conviction that it is a sinful place and that it is the enemy of Islam. Well, that thinking should change now the US is encamped in Iraq !

quote:

Of course, it might just be that these people were motivated by a hatred of the USA, the conviction that it is a sinful place and that it is the enemy of Islam.

Oh yes! We hate the USA, so lets bomb the Brits.
Good thinking. They must really love England.

Quote:
quote:
Of course, it might just be that these people were motivated by a hatred of the USA, the conviction that it is a sinful place and that it is the enemy of Islam.



Oh yes! We hate the USA, so lets bomb the Brits.
Good thinking. They must really love England.

-----------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, our idiot of a Prime Minister,at that time, Tony B liar, decided, for some totally unfathomable reason, that he had to back Dumbya's invasion of Iraq. If he hadn't, the U.K. would certainly not have experienced any terrorist attacks from Islamic fundamentalists.

The U.K. is now tarred with the same brush as the U.S. in that it is part of an occupying army in a country which was invaded illegally.

As a good and trusted friend of the U.S. B liar should have counselled Dumbya into letting the U.N. sort it out. He didn't.

God forgive both Bush and Blair for they have done to poor innocent Iraqis, and also to their own military personnel.

quote:

Originally posted by Scotty:

quote:

Of course, it might just be that these people were motivated by a hatred of the USA, the conviction that it is a sinful place and that it is the enemy of Islam.

Oh yes! We hate the USA, so lets bomb the Brits.
Good thinking. They must really love England.

"These people" (above) means the 9/11 bombers Scotty.

But you'd be right to think that there are British muslims who 'hate the Brits', as you put it, because they think that other Britons are sinful, just as they think Americans are sinners, and deserve to die: one group of muslim, jihadist, conspirators here attempted to car bomb a London nightclub, to kill the occupants simply because they regarded all young women customers as 'slags' (=hookers or loose women).They'd set one car bomb outside the nightclub and another car bomb nearby: the first was to blast the club premises, the second was set to kill people fleeing the nightclub via the emergency exits after the first bomb exploded. The detonators were set to operate on a mobile phone signal but failed.

And, of course, there are others, all British, who would kill us because they see behaviour in Iraq as part of the 'war against Islam' and Britain is engaged in that war.

'On the day that Zach sent his email home, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney addressed a town hall meeting 50 miles from his home town. Romney was asked why none of his children are serving in the military. "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president," he said.' Military families live in dread, while the rest of America is busy shopping

'...But when he referred gratefully to Mr Howard’s forces in Iraq as “Austrian troops”, he had perhaps used up his credit. The worst mistake was made in the third sentence of his speech. “Thank you for being such a fine host for the Opec summit,” he said, confusing the 12-member Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries with the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum. “Apec summit,” he said quickly in correction. “He [Mr Howard] invited me to Opec next year.” But that wasn’t true either.' No need to tell you who 'he' is.

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:
'...But when he referred gratefully to Mr Howard’s forces in Iraq as “Austrian troops”, he had perhaps used up his credit. The worst mistake was made in the third sentence of his speech. “Thank you for being such a fine host for the Opec summit,” he said, confusing the 12-member Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries with the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum. “Apec summit,” he said quickly in correction. “He [Mr Howard] invited me to Opec next year.” But that wasn’t true either.' No need to tell you who 'he' is.

Hmm. Neither Austalia nor the USA are members of OPEC Iran and Iraq both are The President's mind was obviously elsewhere

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said. Yup, him again.

I think the dumbest statement of the week was when Ahmadinejad said that there weren't any homosexuals in Iran.

Yes - apparently that got a laugh. There was an article in the 'Atlantic Monthly' (I think) last year, which talked about homosexuality in Saudi Arabia. It exists, of course, but isn't seen the same way - not as an identity but as a phase that some go through. Men can commit gay acts, but not 'be' gay (kind of like Larry Craig ). If Ahmadinejad meant that there isn't the same concept of gay culture in Iran, then - maybe - he had a point. It does seem more like just a dumb statement, though.

Going back to Bush for a moment; the slip points up the problem with the kind of standardised tests that 'No Child Left Behind' depends on. In such a test, an error like that loses you points; in real life, or in an authentic assessment of a child's abilities, it's not so important.

(The report also mentions the phonetic spelling of foreign names in Bush's UN speech. In one comment on this, it was asked whether this was really important 'news'. Maybe it is - it implies that either he doesn't discuss these people or places as part of his daily work, or that if he does, none the minions in the presidential bubble corrects his pronunciation.)