Posted on 08/23/2005 11:39:58 AM PDT by nosofar
W. is a politician and politicians speak a different language when addressing national audiences. I generally discounted this kind of talk because of it. I still think I'm right, but not quite as much as before.
The initial point was to push Islam in general. The war has done that, but not as much as was initially envisioned. I also suspect there are people in the administration who took their eye off the ball (the Islamists) and got a little too invested in 'democracy' in the ME for its own sake instead of a strategy in the WOT. I don't think it's near what it looks like because politicians tend to overstate things in the spirit of if you repeat something long enough and loud enough it it must be true (similar to 'Islam is a Religion of Peace'). I doubt Lincoln, for example, believed at least some of what he said during the Civil War, but the rhetoric was necessary to instill motivation and morale in the North.
This is what irritates me the most. This should have been considered as PART of the WOT and planned for every bit as much as the actual military operations. Maybe it was planned for, but it was a pretty crappy job if so.
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