Bush and the Wooly Bully Pulpit

Young Mister Bush gave his fourth speech on terror yesterday morning in Atlanta Georgia. It was both terrifying and terrible. I'm starting to think the guy actually believes his own plop.

He opened his speech with "Okay, here we go," presumably the only unscripted moment in his appearance before southern GOP supporters. The rest of his address was an unmemorable rehash of standard neo-mantras, but one statement caught my attention-- Bush's repetition of the latest talking point on Iraq that's been credited to John Abizaid, the four-star Army general in charge of Central Command: "If we leave, they will follow us." This bit of Orwellian twitticism begs two basic questions: who are "they" and how will they follow us?

"They," for the most part, are tribal and religious extremists who exert more effort fighting and terrorizing each other than they spend opposing U.S. occupation forces. Now, a key assumption in the "they will follow us" philosophy is that if we leave, they will stop fighting each other. They'd have to, wouldn't they, if they wanted to follow us back to America?

But wait a second. Hasn't most of the recent justification for staying in Iraq been that we need to stick around until they stop fighting each other? If we stick around until they stop fighting each other, though, won't they, like, start fighting us again? Wouldn't it be better if, when they stop fighting each other, we weren't around?

Let's let that issue go for now and focus on the more important question--how are "they" going to follow us? Will they hide themselves in our troops' luggage? Will they all pile into those cargo planes in bin Laden's gigantic air force, or onto the ships of his mighty naval armada? Oh, wait. Bin Laden doesn't have an air force or a navy, does he? Neither does Iraq. Iran has an air force and a navy, but they aren't big enough to bring all those fighting Iraqis across the ocean to attack America. Come to think of it, nobody--including China and Russia--has an air force or navy big enough to do something like that.

Like virtually all of the Bush administration's pro-Iraq War rhetoric, "If we leave, they will follow us" is fear and hatred inspiring nonsense. "They" won't follow us because they can't follow us.

Playing to His Strength

Remarking on the Bush administration's last ditch mid-term GOP election strategy, former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton told the New York Times “Look, they have won two elections on the basis of terrorism, and that’s the president’s strongest position. And he’s playing to his strength.’’

If terrorism is Bush's strength, red-hot chili peppers are a cure for hemorrhoids. Iraq is a disaster, Afghanistan is a disaster, the U.S. backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon is a disaster, and Hurricane Katrina proved that Homeland Security can't handle a disaster.

The administration makes repeated faulty comparisons of the war on terror and World War II. If Bush and his pals had been in charge when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, America would have invaded Mexico and Donald Rumsfeld would have referred to Hitler as a "dead ender." Dick Cheney would have said the Nazis were in their "last throes" while the Luftwaffe bombed Saint Louis, Missouri. "I think the Lutherano-fascists are losing," young Mister Bush would have said. "That's why they're still kicking our ass. The important thing to remember is that if we withdraw from Mexico, we'll show the axis of evil doers that we've lost our resolve."

Good God. Porky Pig and the rest of the Loony Tunes crowd could do a better job on the war against terror than Bush and his neo-conmen. And between the pig and the chimp, the pig's a better public speaker.

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.