Fact, Fiction, and Spin: Recent Bush Rhetoric

I don't have time to pursue specifics, but here is my evaluation of some recent "Bush Rhetoric," coming from Bush himself, Cheney the Snake, and Rumsfield the Blunt.

Cheney: Still playing the "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" card.

Spin and Fiction. The people we're fighting in Iraq would not have come here anyway, and the plots to come here are just as in process as they would have been otherwise. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" was independent of Al-Qaeda to begin with and asked if they could join. Most of the fighting right now isn't even insurgent fighting. It's Shiites fighting Sunnis and visa versa.

Bush, Rumsfeld: It would be perilous to withdraw from Iraq without leaving the country stable.

Fact. It would be very undesirable to leave Iraq in its current state. It would almost certainly degenerate into civil war and what would emerge is a Shiite power aligned fully with Iran, with perhaps a Kurdish nation to the north. Of course I get irritated with slogans like "cut and run," because they play on most people's inability to grasp complex situations with multiple variables. So we assign simple labels to things and then pretend like it's an all inclusive answer.

Bush: History will see that we've done a good thing here.

Fiction. History will consider Bush a farce and the primary cause of one of the most perilous world situations in the first half of the twenty-first century. Sure, 9-11 was the spark, but the current situation is mostly the result of Bush's response to the war. For those who want proof, it is easily at hand:

After 9-11, Before Iraq War
Al-Qaeda a marginal group that most Arab states reject

After the Iraq War
Al-Qaeda becomes a unifying force among "Islamo-fascist" groups, disempowered groups gain power over moderate groups, a whole next generation of youths come of age under extreme anti-American rhetoric.


Before Iraq
US sympathetic regime in control of Spain

After Iraq
US sympathetic regime voted out


Before Iraq
Moderate government in control in Iran

After Iraq
Extremist government elected in Iran, one with which we may soon find ourselves at war, yet we don't have the resources to deal handily with it because we are bogged down in Iraq


Before Iraq
Turkey, a vibrant allay

After Iraq
Turkey a tenuous ally having to deal with increased "Islamo-fascism" in its own borders


Before Iraq
At least American conversant Fatah in leadership of Palestinian authority

After Iraq
Hamas elected to leadership of Palestinian authority


Before Iraq
American in many places thought "fun," "Hollywood," "John Wayne," not really taken seriously but liked

After Iraq
America considered scary, a threat, an imbecile with a really big gun. Bush rhetoric of axis of evil leads N. Korea and Iran to even more aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons


Before Iraq
France, Germany vote with US like Britain

After Iraq
Increasing resistance to US proposals, increased talk of a need for the EU, China-Russia-Chavez to be counterbalance to a dangerous USA


In the light of recent Lebanon crisis
Before: Lebanon run by a US sympathetic government

After: Hezbollah with increased clout in part by association of Israel's tactics, America's tactics in Iraq, America's carte blanche support for Israel.

So I'm going with "fiction" on the idea that history will smile at all on George Bush. Sorry Charlie, your historical goose is cooked.


Bush, Cheney: The Democrats are weak on defense. Elect Republicans.

True, but spin. Again, this plays on simple minded Americans who can't handle complexity--this is the "fallacy of composition"--generalizing something that is true of a part and applying it lock, stock, and barrel to the whole. I guess most Americans aren't smart enough to handle this very difficult concept: whether an individual is weak on defense or not depends on whether that individual--Republican or Democrat--is weak on defense.

Having said that, I do think in general that Republicans tend to be stronger on defense than Democrats. But I don't vote for a party. I vote for individuals.

Bush: If you don't support the Iraq war, you don't understand the war on terror or you are weak on terrorism. If you don't support my way, the Islamo-fascists will blow up your house.

False, spin, sometimes true. First there's the fallacy of identifying the war on terror with the war in Iraq. You could be entirely for the "war" on terrorism and be against Bush's way of prosecuting the war and the war on Iraq. That's why I'd vote for John McCain today.

And that's the way I see it, Thursday, August 31, 2006.