Quote:
|
Originally Posted by guy44
Charms - of course Bush declared victory for the sake of scoring cheap political points. In that speech, he never said "Mission Accomplished." That was the sign, prepared by the White House, that he stood in front of.
What he did do is declare that "major combat has ended," which has clearly been shown to be false. If major combat is only defined as U.S. military action vs. Saddam's regulars, then yes, that is true. That will come as little solace to the 800 or whatever it is soldiers who have died since then. You know, after the major combat ended.
He also told terrorists in that speech to "bring it on." Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds EXACTLY like a cheap political point. Furthermore, whether spurred on by his arrogant and inappropriate comment or not, they have brought it on, and it has been nothing short of disastrous.
If victory is defined by toppling Saddam's regime, you are correct. If victory is defined by full, free elections, peace, rebuilding, actually controlling all the major cities, or even the reduction of deaths both military and civilian, then it is absolutely correct to suggest that Bush was busy scoring political points while ignoring what was actually happening.
|
My fault for an unclear sentence. My point was that Democrats should not try to score cheap political points by pretending Bush declared victory. He did not, and for Democrats to pretend he did is insincere.
Surely, he was trying to get political points and photo ops. Anything the president does is political, and Bush certainly doesn't hesitate to take advantage of it. I certainly think he went over the top with it and I don't support it. But I won't fault him for celebrating the end of the initial, major combat phase of the war, which by most accounts went pretty well. There is nothing wrong with celebrating the small victories along the way.
We can argue all day about the semantics of what constitutes "major combat," but Bush was celebrating the return of a carrier battle group and an end to theater-wide operations. A carrier battle group is just about the most major thing you can have on the battlefield: destroyers, cruisers, frigates, supply ships, submarines, 9 aircraft squadrons, etc. Just about anything else is minor in comparison.
That's not to say that we haven't seen recent escalation in the past few months and perhaps a return to 'major' combat operations. But criticism of Mission Accomplished started long before the recent operations into Fallujah, at a point where most military actions were along the lines of peacekeeping and low intensity operations.
Which brings us to the heart of Democratic criticism. It wasn't the speech or the proclamation so much as the swagger and style that really burns the Democrats. That's okay, but it has a tendency to overshadow the reasonable criticism. There is plenty of criticism to go around about Bush's post-war planning, but I think Democrats have overextended themselves by trying to make Mission Accomplished into some sort of gigantic metaphor.