President Bush plans to argue today that a hasty "retreat" from Iraq would lead to the kinds of bloodbaths that followed U.S. withdrawals from Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s.
In a speech he is to deliver here at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, Bush will also say that the recent increase of U.S. troops is producing military progress in the war-racked country.
"Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" Bush says in prepared remarks released by the White House late Tuesday.
The VFW speech and another address Bush is scheduled to deliver next week to the American Legion convention come as supporters and critics of the war are seeking to influence members of Congress ahead of a report to be delivered next month by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the war’s progress.
With Congress in recess for the summer, the debate over Iraq policy has moved from the Capitol to the airwaves with direct appeals to the public through multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns.
That may or may not be true. We can hardly count on Mr. Bush to know. But it’s not the content of his speech that matters. This is another Talking Point – nothing more. Bush resists leaving Iraq no matter what. I wonder if he even knows why anymore. He surely can’t still think the war will give us dibs on the Iraq oil. He can’t still think that there is any kind of winning to be done in Iraq. He can’t still think that we can have any real effect on the Sectarian fighting in Iraq. I guess it’s just stubborn inertia. But who is he to talk about the Viet Nam War? He couldn’t even bring off serving in the Reserves.
14 soldiers died in a helicopter crash today. They say it’s mechanical failure that caused the crash. The equipment is wearing out just like the troops are wearing out that have been deployed to Iraq over and over again, but the equipment doesn’t have Mothers and Fathers, wives, sons, daughters, neices, nephews, grandmothers and grandfathers worrying and losing their loved ones. Remember when Israel’s Prime Minister Rabin signed a peace agreement with Arafat in the Clinton Administration, he said at the ceremony “enough fighting, enough blood” and then an Israeli from a radical party that Sharon and Netenyaho belonged to also, killed Rabin after a peace rally. Rabin a retired military hero was gunned down. The middle east has been a mess ever since. We need a Gandhi to lead us to a better place on earth. Who is he or is it too late after what Bush has done to our country and the world? I’m sure if there was someone, Rove would find a way to demonize him and there would be plenty of mindless people believing the lies. When did Joe McCarthy finally get his due? Was it Edward R Murrow who finally stopped him? I’m waiting for that moment.