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It Affects You
In the president's desparate attempt to shore up his tanking approval ratings and drum up support for his failed foreign policy speech to commemorate the end of WWII, he actually showed a little restraint. Just a little.
He only used the word "terror" (or terrorist/terrorism) 15 times. (Plus one al Qaeda reference, two bin Ladens and a Zarqawi.)
That was the extent of his restraint.
The terrorists and insurgents are now waging a brutal campaign of terror in Iraq. They kill innocent men and women and children in the hopes of intimidating Iraqis. They're trying to scare them away from democracy. They're trying to break the will of the American people. Their goal is to turn Iraq into a failed state like Afghanistan was under the Taliban. If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks; they'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions; they could recruit more terrorists by claiming an historic victory over the United States and our coalition.
The irony might be humorous if it wasn't so tragic.
Iraq has already become terrorist recruiting and training grounds on a massive scale. And that is not in spite of your foreign policy; it is directly because of your reckless foreign policy. Bin Laden knew we might come after them after 9/11, and he expected us to do so in Afghanistan. He thought he could keep the U.S. bogged down there the same way they did against the Soviets. Get us involved in a guerrilla war we could not win against an enemy we could not defeat. Eventually, he hoped, U.S. resolve would weaken, and in the process we would help radicalize the Muslim world and recruit scores of new followers to his cause. We largely avoided that by using mostly Northern Alliance troops on the ground. But then you handed him Iraq practically gift wrapped.
Mr. President, your war on terror is a failure. Our troops are not in Iraq trying to prevent it from becoming a recruiting and training grounds. That has already happened, and they are there trying to clean up your mistake. You should not be using terror in Iraq to drum up support for your war, you should be apologizing to the American people (and to the rest of the world) for it. It is time to stop trying to put a good face on your failures and do the right thing for the American people.
From It Affects You