Bush's speech/Simply more of the same - Mpls Strib editorial

[question everything]

Let's be clear at the outset: President Bush's much-anticipated speech Monday night at the Army War College in Pennsylvania wasn't about Iraq. It was about the general election on Nov. 2 and Bush's frantic desire to stop his inexorable slide in public opinion polls, the latest of which has his approval rating at a dismal 41 percent. A Bush aide said as much Sunday, telling the New York Times that the Monday night speech was designed to dispel "this idea that we don't know what we're doing" in Iraq.

Did Bush succeed? Not by a long shot. It's arrogant of a president to believe speeches can dispel the skepticism borne of three years of lies and incompetence on the ground. Lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Incompetence in sizing the American troop strength that would be required to pacify Iraq following the inevitably quick opening combat. Incompetence in failing to plan well for dealing with an occupied Iraq. Incompetence in ceding control of American foreign policy to a small cabal of self-delusional neoconservatives who threw traditional American pragmatism -- conservative pragmatism -- overboard in favor of grandiose plans for remaking the Middle East into a peaceful, democratic region in one fell swoop.

(snip)

Bush refuses to acknowledge what is plain: The war in Iraq had no relationship to the war on terror; it was a distraction from the essential war on Al-Qaida and other terrorists who wish America harm. At one point, Bush referred to Iraq as the "central front" in the war on terror. If it is, that is so only because the United States invaded, and it will cease to be so once the United States leaves.

(snip)

Bush didn't retreat one iota from the line he has followed since before this war started. He acknowledged no error, admitted no lapse in judgment... You would think by now that Bush would have learned: Believing in something, hoping for something does not make it so.

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/4793841.html

[Raster]

1. love that last paragraph...

(bold emphasis mine)

"Now Bush looks hopefully ahead to a neat solution. It's quite unlikely. As Anthony Zinni, a respected former commander of Central Command and special Middle East envoy for this administration, said Sunday night on CBS' "60 Minutes,"They've screwed up." Indeed, the Bush team has screwed up from the get-go in Iraq, and no amount of feel-good spin will change that."