Join Me in My Crusade

[seemslikeadream]

It's official: the 2004 campaign is a referendum on whether the United States should wage a crusade to bring liberty to the repressed of the world – particularly in the Middle East – in order to heed the call of God and to protect the United States from terrorists who target America because they despise freedom. Or, at least, that is how George W. Bush would like the contest to be framed.

In his acceptance speech, Bush pushed the message of the week – it's the war, stupid – to lofty heights. Like the speakers of previous nights, he fully embraced the war in Iraq. But while John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Zell Miller, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Laura Bush depicted the war as an action necessary for safeguarding America, Bush also placed it within the context of an even grander mission. "America," he proclaimed from that altar-like podium, "is called to lead the cause of freedom in the new century.... Freedom is not America's gift to the world. It is the Almighty God's gift." (Minutes earlier, New York Governor George Pataki described Bush as the Supreme Being's gift to the United States: "He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge.")

This rhetoric was nothing new for Bush. He has made these points previously. But at the end of a week in which the war was presented as the Number One reason to vote for Bush, he chose to highlight the messianic side of his military action in Iraq. It was this part of the speech that soared. During the first 35 minutes, Bush ticked off a laundry list of domestic initiatives, as Bill Clinton liked to do. But Bush did so without the enthusiasm that Clinton displayed when discussing such subjects. It was as if this was the obligatory portion of the evening; Bush had to talk about something other than the war to prove he has a second-term agenda. It was an act of self-inoculation, an attempt to preempt Democratic criticism that he doesn't care about the close-to-home stuff. He tossed out a few new (but modest proposals) and the old standbys: health savings accounts, partial privatization of Social Security, tax reform, and tort reform. Especially tort reform – which the GOPers regard as a blow against John Edwards. The delegates roared when Bush pushed this button – much more loudly than when he promised more money for Pell grants or low-income health clinics. As for the details of his domestic agenda, Bush told the crowd to check his website.

He took a couple of spirited swings at John Kerry, deriding his challenger for having voted against the antigay Defense of Marriage Act, for having declared that Hollywood is the "heart and soul of America, and for opposing the $87 billion in funding for the Iraq war. And Bush briefly dished out the red meat to the social conservatives: a few words of support for "the unborn child," a poke at activist judges, a vow to oppose gay marriage. But his passion was reserved for the war on Iraq and the larger undertaking.

more
http://www.alternet.org/election04/19775/

[fearnobush]

1. His Speech was a joke, had PANC written all over it. The speech

only solidly confirmed his connection to the neo-cons and to the imperialist conquest of the world. Freedom and Liberty are just words to mask domination and exploitation.

[jmowreader]

3. Do you mean PANIC or PNAC?

I think you meant PNAC but both are applicable: Bush is terrified that the left is going to find that one final straw that breaks the camel's back and puts him in the 25 percent approval range.

Walt's PX Hero investigation may be what does it. Especially if Kerry mentions it at the debate--I'd wait till the last one then hit him with the unearned medal, hit him with Hitler, hit him with Laura's boyfriend, hit him with the abortion he paid for. The GOP thinks John Kerry's wife is fair game, why not bring up the indisputable facts that Prescott Bush financed the Nazis until several months into World War II, his wife killed a guy and Bush came by his anti-abortion stance honestly, he had to spend all of his beer money for the week paying for one.

It's just too bad we can't find the guy who taught Bush how to smoke weed.

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. Bush--a deluded puppet

The man is in dire need of a mental health check-up

[Martin Eden]

4. I did my part today

I sent a LTTE (though I doubt it will be published) to The Chicago Tribune in response to an editorial titled "Taking the war to the enemy" that framed this election as a referendum on the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. Though the editorial pruported to pose a question rather than furnish as answer, they skillfully parsed it in favor of Bush.

here's my LTTE:
If this election is a referendum on the Bush policy of "preemptive" war, the verdict is already in. The invasion of Iraq did not preempt an attack with weapons of mass destruction – there were none. It didn’t preempt a terrorist attack – Saddam was not collaborating with al Qaeda. What it did preempt were the opportunities presented by the international good will that was ours in the wake of 9/11. We are losing the crucial battle for hearts and minds, and recruiting more terrorists than we are killing.

A doctrine of preemptive war depends on sound intelligence and objective analysis, especially when miscalculation has such serious consequences. The Bush administration’s approach was to amplify any scrap of intelligence that supported their policy agenda, and to disregard anything or anyone that contradicted it. Consequently, we have been plunged into an unnecessary invasion and occupation of Iraq that is costing our nation dearly. An overwhelming majority of Americans were behind president Bush after the 9/11 attacks but now we are deeply divided -- not because of blind opposition to Bush, but because so many of us can clearly see how we were deliberately misled.

The Bush doctrine of preemptive war belongs on the ash heap of history, along with the administration that devised it.

[Booster]

5. Very good letter - very intelligent.

[USA_1]

6. Pre-emption

Pre-emption is illegal under international law unless there is proof of imminent threat of danger. Kofi Annan and Hans Blix have both said that Bush's war is in contravention of this concept. The latter even wrote a book about it.

Please use excerpts from their writings when you publish letters on this matter.