Quote:
Originally posted by HarmlessRabbit
My thoughts:
He often sounds wooden when giving speeches, like he is reading off cue cards. And I HATE his William-Shatner-style dramatic pauses that he likes to do. He didn't do that in this speech.
Iraq wasn't really about that.
I also thought his point about "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops" in relation to the torture scandal was awfully ballsy to say in a speech. Bush had better be really, really, really sure that none of his commanders were directly involved. If it comes out that anyone at the general level or above knew about the abuse, that quote is going to hurt Bush a lot.
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Interesting comments HR. I'm sorry I missed the speech but thanks for supplying the text.
I agree with the first paragraph I quoted above. Bush is a very good public speaker when he's speaking more from the heart than making prepared speeches and trying to stress the "official talking points".
You and I disagree about Iraq not being about Terrorism but we've known that for a long time now. Not to get off the focus on the speech in this thread, but I still see Iraq as one piece of the puzzle in the war on terror, primarily for the simple fact that a country basically thumbing their noses at us for a decade and firing on our forces whenever they feel like it reinforces the belief that the US is a paper tiger who will take the easy way out when faced with the possibility of US deaths. That belief encourages terrorism. Governments and terrorist organizations finally paying a price for their attacks against us cuts into the paper tiger theory.
I was happy to read that he called the conduct of guards disgraceful. Unless it was Rumsfeld or one of his other close advisors who sanctioned the conduct I don't think the statement will hurt him. A General knowing about it wouldn't surprise me. It also wouldn't surprise me that the same General or Generals covered it up and kept it from their superiors. Of course, only time will tell and even then we will only get bits and pieces.
As far as international reaction, I've learned not to expect much from even our "allies" in terms of support so I think you're probably right that it won't be received all that well.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of the UN resolution to internationalize the security of Iraq.