Speeches

Here are two excerpts from two wartime speeches:

A time of testing--yes. And a time of transition. The transition is sometimes
slow; sometimes unpopular; almost always very painful; and often quite
dangerous. But we have lived with danger for a long time before, and we shall
live with it for a long time yet to come. We know that "man is born unto
trouble." We also know that this Nation was not forged and did not survive and
grow and prosper without a great deal of sacrifice from a great many men.

And this:

A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights
terrorists instead of harboring them – and it will help bring a future of peace
and security for our children and grandchildren.

I gues it is pretty obvious that that last one is from last night's speech, and of course there is the obligatory justification for Bush's war in the first place, and of course, the only terrorists in Iraq when we attacked it were in the U.S. protected 'no fly zone" where Saddam couldn't get at them, and of course, Bush didn't really take the blame for the disaster although he uttered words that seemed like it to those who don't pay attention.

The first speech was from January 10, 1967 by President Johnson. At the time there were over 6000 American casualties. Using that speech to justify more troops, eventually 60,000 would die. Many times that would carry wounds for the rest of their lives...wounds of all sorts.

In Bush's war, over 3000 American troops are dead so far and tens of thousands are wounded. Thinking about the wounded, Republicans have cut funds to the Veteran's Administration, by the way. Nice guys.

Here's what one of them said after last night's speech:

“All of us want to see a stable Iraq. All of us want to see our men and woman in
uniform come home as soon as possible. We all know that something different
needs to occur. It is important that the Iraqi government is making a stronger
commitment: with military and security forces, a commitment to spend $10 billion
in a rebuilding and jobs creation program, to move more quickly to an oil
revenue sharing agreement for Iraqi citizens, and by creating political reforms.
....”

That would be Bob Corker... "Sponge Bob"? Tennessee's new Republican Senator... Always with his eye on the "revenue". It is very nice of us to "share" the revenue from the Iraqi oil with the Iraqis, particularly after we negotiated a contract that gives American oil companies 70% of the oil. We have this contract with the existing puppet government we set up over there. If that government fails, the oil contracts are worthless, and we cannot have those 3000 troops dying in vain when the oil money must be protected.

Here's another excerpt from a Bush speech from about 90 days ago...

"Of course we're winning!"

Peace,

Steve