Pen-Elayne on the Web

This has been our strategeration all along...

Fortunately, I had better things to do (reading) than watch the Resident in Chief lie again on national TV last night, but now it turns out I didn't need to anyway, as South Knox Bubba (link at sidebar) got his hands on a preview of the speech. Great work, SKB!

Update: For something a bit more serious, I'd recommend (via Cyndy Roy, link at sidebar) Stephen Zunes' analysis of the speech on Common Dreams' website. A few key sentences:

In linking the legitimate international struggle against Al-Qaeda with the illegitimate U.S. occupation of Iraq, it becomes possible for the administration to justify the president’s determination to “spend what is necessary” in controlling this oil-rich country and to depict those in the United States and elsewhere who oppose the occupation as being soft of terrorism.
...it is important to recognize that prior to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, there were no car bomb attacks against UN offices, foreign embassies or places of worship. Since the U.S. takeover, however, Iraq has become a hotbed of terrorism. This raises serious questions as to whether invading other countries actually makes the world safer from terrorism or if such actions actually help create terrorism.

It's vital to remember cause-and-effect here. What terrorists are now in Iraq are there because of us. Those Iraqi civilians attacking their occupiers in desperation aren't doing so because they're jealous of our freedom, but because they're desirous of their own. (None of this is to excuse destructive and violent acts, but you gotta understand where they're coming from before you can prevent their continuance, and answering violence with more violence just makes things worse, as any logical-thinking Israeli or Palestinian can tell you.)

In this context, what I found the most interesting portion of Bush's speech that Zunes quoted was the Resident in Chief's advice to the Iraqi people: "Now they must rise to the responsibilities of a free people and secure the blessings of their own liberty." You know, just like we did in 1776, when we fought a war to oust the British. So as horrid as these acts are, could they not be interpreted in the same light, as Iraqis rising to their responsibilities and securing the blessings of their own liberty precisely by trying to oust the American invaders?