I re-read the transcript of Today's Bush speech. Read it on CNN
here. Below the fold I highlight six aspects of Bush's defensive PR campaign to fight overwhelming criticism of his invasion. My conclusion is that Bush's strategists have new and more ruthless analogies and, in addition, are recycling long-debunked pre-war arguments using heavy insinuation.
--New PR Strategy: Conflating the Iraqi War with the American Revolution--
Apples and oranges are both round-ish. Apples and oranges are both fruits. The President, however, uses the arguably similar aspects of our American Revolutionary struggle and the Iraq war to say that apples are oranges. Anyone who went to elementary school knows comparing the two is almost impossible. Again, Rove underestimates our intelligence.
I can think of no better place to discuss the rise of a free Iraq than in the heart of Philadelphia, the city where America's democracy was born. A few blocks from here stands Independence Hall, where our Declaration of Independence was signed and our Constitution was debated. From the perspective of more than two centuries the success of America's democratic experiment seems almost inevitable. At the time, however, that success didn't seem so obvious or assured. The eight years from the end of the Revolutionary War to the election of a constitutional government were a time of disorder and upheaval. There were uprisings, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings. There was a planned military coup that was defused only by the personal intervention of George Washington. In 1783, Congress was chased from this city by angry veterans demanding back pay, and they stayed on the run for six months
.
There were tensions between the mercantile North and the agricultural South that threatened to break apart our young republic.
Here, the difference is that the early American north and south were divided by economic philosophy whereas Iraq has three groups divided by cultural and religious values. The latter, I would argue, is a larger obstacle to overcome.
And there were British loyalists who were opposed to independence and had to be reconciled with America's new democracy. Our founders faced many difficult challenges, they made mistakes, they learned from their experiences and they adjusted their approach. Our nation's first effort at a governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, failed. It took years of debate and compromise before we ratified our Constitution and inaugurated our first President. It took a four-year civil war and a century of struggle after that before the promise of our Declaration was extended to all Americans. It is important to keep this history in mind as we look at the progress of freedom and democracy in Iraq. No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts. The past two and a half years have been a period of difficult struggle in Iraq, yet they have also been a time of great hope and achievement for the Iraqi people.
Democracy takes different forms in different cultures. Yet in all cultures, successful free societies are built on certain common foundations: rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, a free economy and freedom to worship. .
Not far from here, where we gather today, is a symbol of freedom familiar to all Americans: the Liberty Bell. When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public, the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration and a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something." Today the call of liberty is being heard in Baghdad, in Basra and other Iraqi cities, and its sound is echoing across the broader Middle East. From Damascus to Tehran, people hear it and they know it means something. It means that the days of tyranny and terror are ending and a new day of hope and freedom is dawning.
This is Bush's conclusion to the speech. If I didn't know that building a Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq was near impossible, recall Islamic law in the constitution and the discovery of Iraq government torture dens, I would want to applaud.
--Conflating 9/11 with the Iraq war--
In the following quotes, the President parroted the same long-debunked myths that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. He does so by making the specific insinuation, and by repeatedly stating that attacking Iraq was necessary to reduce worldwide terrorism. Notice how carefully each quote is worded to heavily imply a 9/11-Saddam connection with enough wiggle room for plausible deniability.
I've come to discuss an issue that's really important, and that is victory in the war on terror. And that war started on September the 11th, 2001, when our nation awoke to a sudden attack.
So we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.
Just over two and a half years ago, Iraq was in the grip of a cruel dictator who had invaded his neighbors, sponsored terrorists, pursued and used weapons of mass destruction, murdered his own people and, for more than a decade, --defied the demands of the United Nations and the civilized world.
This quote reminds me of a strategy taught to me in Law School. If you have facts that are bad for you or are difficult to support, bury them in the middle of the paragraph. By doing so, the President mixes true facts, i.e. Saddam's tyrannical rule, with the debunked tie between Saddam and Osama.
The terrorists' stated objective is to drive U.S. and coalition forces out of Iraq and gain control of that country and then use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America.
The terrorists in Iraq share the ideology of the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th.
By fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we are confronting a direct threat to the American people.
Last I read, Saddam was not a direct threat to us. Osama orchistrated the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, and our President refuses to hunt him down. Instead, he conflates this tragedy that causes pain in every American's heart with his depraved misadventure in Iraq. Shameful.
Arab leaders are beginning to recognize that the choice in Iraq is between democracy and terrorism, and there is no middle ground. The success of Iraqi democracy is in their vital interests because if the terrorists prevail in Iraq, they will then target other Arab nations.
Here, the President retroactively implies that Saddam's rule was one that threatened terrorism. Dictatorial brutality, yes, but the link to Al Qaeda has long been disproved. Additionally, he refuses to acknowledge that the US invasion is what placed Arab leaders in this position. Before the invasion, Iraq was not a heaven for terrorists.
The American and Iraqi people share the same interests and the same enemies. And by helping democracy succeed in Iraq, we bring greater security to our citizens here at home.
In a 1998 fatwa, Osama bin Laden argued that the suffering of the Iraqi people was justification for his declaration of war on America. Now bin Laden and al-Qaeda are the direct cause of the Iraqi people's suffering.
This conflation I find particularly sinister. If I had more time I'd read the full fatwa to check its veracity. Of what I know of this Republican administration, they will lie again and again until people believe it. This quote is simply a new twist on an old lie.
By helping Iraqis build a strong democracy, we're adding to our own security. And like a generation before us, we're laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.
--Reducing the moral, military, and cultural complexities of the Iraq invasion and terrorism into infantile statements of "good versus evil"--
By couching the war in terror in "good versus evil" terms, or as Lieutenant General Boykin stated in May of 2004 a struggle between "a Christian Nation" and Satan (thank you Al Franken - page 285, The Truth: With Jokes), the President continues to deny the true causes for terrorism. By ignoring the true causes of terrorist attacks, outlined on page 40-41 of a Defense Department document delivered to the President in September of 2004, the President is doomed to run an incompetent war against the true terrorist threat. In other words, by dumbing-down the debate, he evidences his inability to address the actual causes for attacks against Americans
Yet the terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity.
So we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.
This is an enemy with conscience and they cannot be appeased.
When our coalition arrived in Iraq, we found a nation where almost none of these basic foundations existed. Decades of brutal rule by Saddam Hussein had destroyed the fabric of Iraqi civil society.
Here, the President ignores the fact that Iraq had a complex and civilized society before the invasion, despite the dictatorial leader.
--Responsibility Shifting.--
The President refuses to acknowledge that chaos in Iraq has anything to do with our invasion. In this refusal, he repeats an attack on the Sunni's for rejecting the American-sponsored Iraqi government.
And when Saddam Hussein's regime fled Baghdad, they left behind a country with few civic institutions in place to hold Iraq society together.
Hussein abandoned his country? We kicked him out, and by disbanding the army we left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis without jobs. Doesn't the American invasion have a share of blame in the lack of post-war civil institutions? I believe yes.
One problem was the failure of the vast majority of Sunni Arabs to vote. When Sunnis saw a new 275-member parliament taking power in which they had only 16 seats, many realized that their failure to participate in the democratic process had hurt their chances and hurt their groups and hurt their constituencies.
We encouraged Iraq's leaders to reach out to Sunni leaders and bring them into the governing process.
The document that initially emerged from the committee did not unify Iraqis. And many Sunnis on the constitutional committee did not support the draft. Yet Iraq's leaders continued working to gain Sunni support.
The above three quotes lay blame for Sunni disenfranchisement on the Sunnis. Many in Iraq did not want a democratic system because they knew they would have no power. I'm not arguing that democracy is an inferior system to dictator rule. Rather, it is evidence that Bush failed to recognize the aspects of the Iraqi political and social structure that would reject democracy. Bush's policies hold as much responsibility for Sunni disenfranchisement as do the Sunnis.
In the January elections, Iraq was one giant electoral district, so seats in the transitional assembly simply reflected turnout. Because few Sunnis voted, their communities were left with little representation.
Recently, U.S. and Iraqi troops have discovered prisons in Iraq where mostly Sunni men were held, some of whom have appeared to have been beaten and tortured. This conduct is unacceptable and the prime minister and other Iraqi officials have condemned these abuses. An investigation has been launched. And we support these efforts. Those who committed these crimes must be held to account.
This is not so much a blame-shift but a refusal to accept responsibility. The President would have us believe that the torture by Iraqi authorities has nothing to do with the government that his administration is attempting to build. Using passive voice, he distances the new Iraqi government from the atrocities in these torture camps.
--Empty War Strategy--
Multiple times, the President insisted he had a strategy but fell short of explaining any strategic decisions. In fact, he has a strategy for "victory" without defining how we have achieved victory. As we all know, these empty statements of strategy do not bode with the facts on the ground.
I explained how we are working with Iraqi forces and Iraqi leaders to help Iraqis improve security and restore order, to rebuild cities taken from the enemy and to help the national government revitalize Iraq's infrastructure and economy. Today, I'm going to speak in depth about another vital element of our strategy: our efforts to help the Iraqi people build a lasting democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
Typical rhetorical, unsupportable tripe. Tripe continues...
On the economic side, we're helping the Iraqis restore their infrastructure, reform their economy and build the prosperity that will give all Iraqis a stake in a free and peaceful Iraq. On the security side, coalition and Iraqi forces are on the offense against the enemy. We're working together to clear out areas controlled by the terrorists and Saddam loyalists, and leaving Iraqi forces to hold territory taken from the enemy. And as we help Iraqis fight these enemies, we're working to build capable and effective Iraqi security forces so they can take the lead in the fight and eventually take responsibility for the safety and security of their citizens without major foreign assistance.
We're making steady progress. The Iraqi forces are becoming more and more capable. They're taking more responsibility for more and more territory. We're transferring bases to their control, so they can take the fight to the enemy.
If our President actually
had a strategy, he would stay something that we could sink our teeth into.
As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down. And when victory is achieved, our troops will then return home with the honor they have earned.
Here, the President refuses to acknowledge that many experts do not see the takeover of security forces as possible at any time in the near future. It shows an ignorance of the facts on the ground, and places a false "milestone" to claim "victory" in the elections. None of the previous elections reduced attacks on US troops, why would this one? Is the President laying the groundwork for another "mission accomplished" banner to facilitate a pull out before the 2006 midterms?
--Critics of the Iraq war are un-American--
Through heavy insinuation and blind-side jabs, the President attacks war critics. Notice the repeated "rejectionists and Saddamists" statement. The implication is that those that reject the war, Iraqi or otherwise, wish that Saddam could continue his atrocities. These are clever and ruthless insinuations. As many of you will notice, drawing this conclusion from some of these statements seems somewhat paranoid. At some times the President may actually be referring to the bombers in Iraq. But I insist the statements, taken together, were designed to denigrate those who disagree with this war and group terrorists with war critics.
The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists and Saddamists and terrorists.
And there were British loyalists who were opposed to independence and had to be reconciled with America's new democracy.
Here, the President attacks the critics. If you oppose the Iraqi war, then you obviously would have been on the side of the imperial British. Criticism is un-American, says the President. His speechwriters are getting smarter and more ruthless.
Many Sunnis voted against the constitution, but Sunnis voted in large numbers for the first time. They joined the political process and by doing so they reject the violence of the Saddamists and rejectionists.
No, I know some fear the possibility that Iraq could break apart and fall into a civil war. I don't believe these fears are justified. They're not justified so long as we do not abandon the Iraqi people in their hour of need.
These fears are not justified? Watch this clever linguistic hat-trick. This is a statement of moral equivalence, not a statement of military reality. The man couches a statement of possible future civil war in a framework of ideological philosophy, thus insinuating that it is a philosophical or political debate rather than a strategic debate based on on-the-ground facts. This is clever because it makes it sound that civil war can only be the fault of non-believers in the pro-war ideology. Smart, but ruthless. He also ignores the many people who believe a civil war is already afoot.
Yet Iraqis are showing they have the patience and the courage to make democracy work. And Americans have the patience and courage to help them succeed.
These insinuations are harder to see and are even more pointed. Here, the President is saying that those without "patience" to see this unjustified invasion to the end of less-than-clearly stated goals actually want democracy to fail in Iraq.
My conclusion is that we need to stay on top of our propagandist President even more in the face of this blitzkrieg PR campaign. When we find the President is still trying to conflate 9/11 with the war in Iraq, we need to raise our voices even louder, for two reasons. First, we owe it to every American to find the true perpetrator of 9/11 and terrorism at large. Second, we owe it to the Iraqi citizens to clean up the mess made by this depraved and dishonest administration.