Bush to ask billions more for Iraq [What Bush Did Tonight]

CNN ^ | Monday, September 8, 2003

[JohnHuang2]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush told Americans in a televised address Sunday night he will seek an additional $87 billion from Congress to continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will also ask more nations to help pay the cost. Continues.

[woofie]

I think you hit it again ....I didnt see that much post speech commentary but what I saw was positive

And this speech will be followed by a full bore press to get what this administration and country needs to reshape that God forsaken area of the world...

[blackie]

JH2, you have nailed it again ~ congratulations!

[blackie]

Good read, Lady!

[Spruce]

I always enjoy your posts JH2! Another home run for you!

[Alamo-Girl]

Excellent! Excellent! Thank you!!!

[MeekOneGOP]

Excellent work JohnHuang2 ! Thanks for posting your article and for the ping !

"For America," added Bush, "there will be no going back to the era before September the 11th, 2001 -- to false comfort in a dangerous world. We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities."

"A presidential executive order issued during the Clinton
administration hamstrung the FBI so badly that bureau
lawyers decided it would be illegal to infiltrate Osama bin
Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, a senior
FBI official during the Clinton administration said Saturday."
(June 1, 2002)

____________________

"I don't believe 9-11 happened because of an intelligence breach," Quayle told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."

"I think it was really a policy breach. It was the inaction of the previous administration, by and large, that al Qaeda -- and bin Laden in particular -- thought that they could hit the United States, and there would be a retaliation maybe of a cruise missile but nothing more than that," he explained.

The comments make the former vice president, who served under President Bush's father from 1989 to 1993, the highest ranking former U.S. official to suggest that the Clinton administration should get the lion's share of the blame for not preventing the 9-11 attacks.

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[SouthernHawk]

Awesome thread! Thanks for the ping! JH2 - "you da MAN!"

[Fred Mertz]

I like your version JH2. I need to read your stuff more often.

[dansangel]

((((((Meekie))))))

You are a wealth of information! You ***ROCK***!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Thank you!

(((JH multi-lateral ping!)))

Once again, Bush sets the agenda, defines the terms of debate, the course for action, the meaning of success. That's what a leader does. That's what Bush did tonight.

Ping list: on/off, please Freepmail.

8 Unapologetically Pro-Coalition News Links and Articles

[JustPiper]

Loved your post Meek and JH, as always my friend, you nailed it!

[onyx]

BTTT --- excellent thread!

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

[MEG33]

This should be in every newspaper.Your 2Cents is worth a million!

[MEG33]

Your stuff is getting old....and you just got here.

[MEG33]

Loved your post!

[MeekOneGOP]

Oh, thank you !! :O)

[MeekOneGOP]

Re #27, 31, 36: Thank you, folks ! :O)

JohnHuang2 is always hittin' 'em outta da park !!

[BOBTHENAILER]

For the press, it was either lie outright -- portray post-war Iraq as a failure -- or face a credibility meltdown.

JH2 attacks the RATs "like a doberman on a hambone", says Dennis Miller.

As does the Meekster.

[FranklinsTower]

"Past differences (should not) interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilized world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilized world. Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity -- and the responsibility -- to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation."

I find the choice of using the phrase "civilized world" a very subtle but an extremely powerful rhetorical device. Last September, Bush used the threat of the UN being irrelevent as a means to get 1441 passed. It worked. While the threat of irrelevancy is still there, the rhetoric is now being moved to "Who is part of the civilized world? France, Germany and the UN are you going to side with the barbarians?" To call these people uncivilized is the ultimate insult to their way overblown egos.

Thus, the reason for going to the UN is to either expose France and Germany for who they really are -- allies of the barbarians -- or force them to comply with the "civilized world". Anyone who thinks we are going to the UN because we are "failing miserably" in Iraq is sadly mistaken. Instead, we are forcing France, Germany and the UN in general to play their hand. Bush is either going to get his resolution or the UN's inability to be part of the civilized world will render it irrelevant. My bet is that Bush will get his resolution just like last fall and then some -- perhaps some much needed institutional reform at the UN.

This is strategy of the highest order folks. Sun Tzu couldn't have done it better himself.