"Mr. Bush sought to place the war in Iraq in the context of
an epic battle between tyranny and freedom, saying the
campaign against global terrorism was 'the decisive
ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of
our generation.' 'If we do not defeat these enemies now,'
Mr. Bush said, 'we will leave our children to face a Middle
East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed
with nuclear weapons.'
How interesting, when a lie becomes extreme, it circles back to a truth.
Yes, Iraq does reflects an epic battle, between the freedom fighters of the
world, and the tyranny of global capitalism. And yes, the battle between freedom
and global tyranny is the decisive ideological struggle of our generation. If we
do not end the tyranny of folks like Bush, we will leave our children -- those
that survive -- to face a world overrun by a global fascist dictatorship, armed
with nuclear weapons.
rkm
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Original source URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/us/12bush.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
September 12, 2006
THE PRESIDENT
In Prime-Time Address, Bush Says Safety of U.S. Hinges on Iraq
By JIM RUTENBERG and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 ‹ President Bush used the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11
attacks on Monday to tell Americans that they were engaged in ³a struggle for
civilization² that would be determined in part by the course of the war in Iraq.
³The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of
Baghdad,² Mr. Bush said.
In a prime-time speech from the Oval Office, delivered after a day of solemn
ceremonies, Mr. Bush sought to place the war in Iraq in the context of an epic
battle between tyranny and freedom, saying the campaign against global terrorism
was ³the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of
our generation.²
³If we do not defeat these enemies now,² Mr. Bush said, ³we will leave our
children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators
armed with nuclear weapons.²
The address capped a week of speeches in which Mr. Bush tried to lay out his
best case for the war in Iraq by defining it as a crucial front in the war on
terror, while portraying the broader struggle as a natural successor to World
War II and the Cold War in defining the place of the United States in the world.
Even by the standards of his latest round of speeches, Mr. Bush¹s language was
particularly forceful, even ominous, with warnings of a radical Islamic network
that was ³determined to bring death and suffering to our homes.²
Mr. Bush spent roughly one-fifth of his 17-minute address making the case that
the nation¹s safety hinged on success in Iraq, even as he implicitly
acknowledged there was no link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 strikes.
³I¹m often asked why we¹re in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for
the 9/11 attacks,² Mr. Bush said, going on to say that Mr. Hussein was a threat
nonetheless, that he needed to be confronted and that the world was safer with
him in captivity.
And Mr. Bush reprised some of his tougher talk against Osama bin Laden,
delivering a message to him and other terrorists, ³America will find you, and we
will bring you to justice.²
Mr. Bush gave his address at the end of a tour through the three major attack
sites ‹ Lower Manhattan; Shanksville, Pa.; and the Pentagon ‹ in which he
attended ceremonies and spoke with the bereaved but made no public comments.
He gave the speech from behind his desk at a fast clip, but with a furrowed brow
and circles below his eyes. He delivered it five years to the minute of when he
addressed the nation from the same seat on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, and
proclaimed that those who harbored terrorists would be dealt with as if they
were terrorists themselves.
Drawing parallels between the challenges of his presidency and those of
Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, Mr. Bush said, ³Our nation
has endured trials, and we face a difficult road ahead.² And he called for
unity, saying, ³We must put aside our differences and work together to meet the
test that history has given us.²
All of the networks carried the address live; ABC ran it during a break in its
miniseries about the attacks that portrayed the Clinton and Bush administrations
as having failed at times to move aggressively enough against Al Qaeda before
the attacks.
Mr. Bush¹s address brought to a close a day when leaders of both parties put
aside, at least for the moment, the acrimony that has characterized the national
security debate since the brief period of national unity after the attacks. But
as soon as the speech was over, the partisanship flared again. Senator Edward M.
Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the president ³should be ashamed of
using a national day of mourning² to justify his Iraq policy. And Senator
Charles E. Schumer of New York, leader of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee, called the address disappointing, saying, ³You do not commemorate the
tragedy of 9/11 by politicizing it.²
Hours earlier, Congressional leaders joined on the Capitol steps to sing ³God
Bless America,² an effort to recreate their spontaneous moment of post-attack
comity. And the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid ‹ whose press office is
ordinarily a clearinghouse for hard-charging attacks on the president and
Republican leadership ‹ released a statement that read in part, ³The light that
shone on Sept. 11 cannot die, it cannot be dimmed, it cannot fail.²
But it was the president¹s day that dominated a news media environment that was
swimming in the imagery of Sept. 11, with the cable news networks offering
blanket coverage of the day¹s ceremonies, mixed with remembrances from
survivors, first responders, officials and politicians.
Before speaking from the Oval Office, Mr. Bush had spent the day in public
silence as he and Laura Bush visited the three sites scarred by the attacks, a
solemn trek that began at ground zero Sunday night.
The Bushes began their day at the Fort Pitt firehouse on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan, where they observed back-to-back moments of silence ‹ one at the
precise moment each of the twin towers was struck. They then moved to
Shanksville, Pa., where Mr. and Mrs. Bush laid a wreath in a spitting rain in
the field where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed, and wound up at the Pentagon,
where the weight of the day showed on their faces.
It was an emotional and somber, if carefully scripted, day for the Bushes,
designed by the White House to maximize the president¹s exposure but minimize
his words before the evening speech.
At the Pentagon, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld presided over a memorial service that was occasionally interrupted by
the eerie roar of commercial jets from nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Addressing a crowd of 500 that included relatives of victims, Mr. Cheney said
the United States would keep pressing the fight. ³We have no intention of
ignoring or appeasing history¹s latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their
way to power,² Mr. Cheney said, quoting the president and reprising a theme that
has been taken by critics as a veiled effort to portray Democrats as appeasing
the enemy.
Also speaking at the service, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
said the number of American military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq,
at roughly 3,000, was approaching the number of people killed in the attacks.
Teresa Taylor of New Hampshire, who attended in honor of her brother-in-law,
Leonard E. Taylor, said she was moved by Mr. Rumsfeld¹s recounting of the day of
the attacks, given in halting voice. ³It brought back a lot of memories,² she
said.
But Shannon Mason of Springfield, Va., called the ceremony ³too political² for
coupling the attacks with the war in Iraq. Ms. Mason, whose mother, Ada Mason, a
Pentagon budget analyst, was killed in the attack, added, ³I think the war has
nothing to do with Sept. 11.²
Even as he called for unity Mr. Bush alluded to Democratic calls for a timetable
to withdraw from Iraq, saying, ³Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the
worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would
leave us alone. They will not leave us alone.²
Mark Leibovich and Helena Andrews contributed reporting.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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