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Bush: Saddam's Ouster Inspired Reformers
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/19/05 | JENNIFER LOVEN

Posted on 03/19/2005 5:12:04 PM PST by Valin

The U.S. military victory against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq gets the credit for "inspiring democratic reformers from Beirut to Tehran," President Bush said Saturday.

"Today, women can vote in Afghanistan, Palestinians are breaking the old patterns of violence, and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are rising up to demand their sovereignty and democratic rights," Bush said in a weekly radio address that marked the two-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

"These are landmark events in the history of freedom," he said.

With his primary rationale for the war — Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — discredited, Bush has turned to the argument that the war in Iraq was justified because it freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and now gives the Middle East a model for democracy.....

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bushdoctrine; iraq; viceisclosed

1 posted on 03/19/2005 5:12:05 PM PST by Valin
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To: Valin

Powerline
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#009905

Where is Sergeant Friday When We Need Him?

Our old friend AP reporter Jennifer Loven, discussed here and here, is at it again. Today Ms. Loven attacks President Bush's weekly radio address, in which Bush hailed progress toward democracy in the Middle East:

The U.S. military victory against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq gets the credit for "inspiring democratic reformers from Beirut to Tehran," President Bush said Saturday.
Loven can't let that go by without supplying a little "context":

With his primary rationale for the war — Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — discredited, Bush has turned to the argument that the war in Iraq was justified because it freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and now gives the Middle East a model for democracy.
Well, that's the DNC talking point, all right, and it's not surprising to see Ms. Loven (whose husband was listed on John Kerry's web site as one of Kerry's key supporters) echoing the DNC line. Only, of course, it isn't true. The administration's rationale for the Iraq war was always multiple, and it always included the humanitarian imperative, as expressed by President Bush in this March 2003 speech, as on many other occasions:

We know from recent history that Saddam Hussein is a reckless dictator who has twice invaded his neighbors without provocation -- wars that led to death and suffering on a massive scale. We know from human rights groups that dissidents in Iraq are tortured, imprisoned and sometimes just disappear; their hands, feet and tongues are cut off; their eyes are gouged out; and female relatives are raped in their presence.
As the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, said this week, "We have a moral obligation to intervene where evil is in control. Today, that place is Iraq."


Likewise, the strategy of defeating terror by reforming the Arab world was always a key element of the administration's approach to Iraq, as the President explained in November 2003:

This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. (Applause.) The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. (Applause.)
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. (Applause.)

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.)


Loven's revisionist history of the rationale for war is only the beginning of her attack on the President's speech. She also wants to make sure that newspaper readers don't fall for the idea that progress is being made in Iraq:

Bush said "the Iraqi people are taking charge of their own destiny," citing the country's first free and fair elections in its modern history, this week's first meeting of the Transitional National Assembly and the upcoming drafting of a constitution for a "free and democratic Iraq."
Against that progress, insurgents have carried on a relentless campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings while rampant crime, power outages, unemployment over 50 percent and a fuel crisis in one of the world's prime oil-exporting countries continues.

Even as the Iraqi legislators convened, they did not set a new date to meet reconvene, elect a speaker or nominate a president and vice president.


Am I missing something here? Last I knew, the Democrats had an opportunity to respond to the President's weekly address. Aren't mainstream reporters like Jennifer Loven supposed to be reporting on the President's speeches, as opposed to trying to refute them?


2 posted on 03/19/2005 5:13:40 PM PST by Valin (DARE to be average!)
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To: Valin
Jennifer Loven is among the worst of all the AP reporters, which is quite an achievement. E.g:

"With his primary rationale for the war — Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — discredited, Bush has turned to the argument that the war in Iraq was justified because it freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and now gives the Middle East a model for democracy."

Note to Jen: that was always one of the primary purposes. And on the WMD: the Duelfer Report clearly shows that Saddam, if left alone, would have re-instituted his WMD program. Just as the President stated, we acted before Iraq became an imminent threat.

Here's another: "Some have questioned Bush's repeated claims that recent democratic developments in several global hotspots are due to both the Iraq war and his second-term drive to push for reforms in friend and foe."

You mean to say, Jen, that you have questioned it. Along with other losers who have pinned all their credibility on the opposition to the Iraq war.
3 posted on 03/19/2005 5:19:03 PM PST by Cyclopean Squid (History remembers only what was, not what might have been.)
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To: Valin

Bush's strike at Saddam Hussein was pretty inspired, as a way to re-introduce an air of freedom to a part of the world that has not known much of that aspect of life for a long, long time.

Kicking one of the legs out from under the "axis of evil" will certainly lead to a new equilibrium, and maybe, just maybe, is the boost needed for the reform of the entire culture there.

If Islam either reforms itself, or another religion asserts itself in the region, then that cannot be counted a bad thing. Keeping Islam like it is, with the Wahhabi apostasy, isn't comfortable for anybody.


4 posted on 03/19/2005 5:23:41 PM PST by alloysteel ("Master of the painfully obvious.....")
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To: Cyclopean Squid

Note to Jen: that was always one of the primary purposes

Now just stop it! If Jenneypoo say's it the primary reason, then it's the primary reason. I mean she's a reporter and so has absolutly no bias at all.





No one's going to outsarcasm me! :-)


5 posted on 03/19/2005 5:43:18 PM PST by Valin (DARE to be average!)
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To: Valin

You are right. We shouldn't be sarcastic about Jen Loven. Everyone knows the shattering force of Jen's logic, the crystal clarity of her intellect. To oppose Jen is to stand against the march of history. One could no sooner refute her crushing command of facts than one could reposition the continents by sheer force of will. For Jen is the Prophet of the Age; in the centuries to come, her works will be studied by the world's greatest minds and worshipped by the civilized peoples of the globe. All future science will be traceable to her articles alone. In the distant future, Jen will become the sole example of excellence from these dark times, and will be held up as the paragon of virtue to be followed in all facets of life.

But her legacy will not end even after the last human dies. No, for a new race of sentient fungus will rise from our ashes, and will organize their society around the unattainable ideal of Jen's works. Primitive totems featuring her visage will sprout all over the New World, until such time that the fungoid creatures rise beyond even the accomplishments of Man. They will master the art of Time-Travel, whereupon they shall bring forth Jen from beyond the Shadow of Time to rule over them as Queen and Goddess, omniscient and beautiful mistress of Space and Time!

But, as I've said, we don't want to get sarcastic about it. :-)


6 posted on 03/19/2005 6:14:57 PM PST by Cyclopean Squid (History remembers only what was, not what might have been.)
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To: Cyclopean Squid

ROTFLMAO!!!!

I bow to a master!


7 posted on 03/19/2005 6:22:30 PM PST by Valin (DARE to be average!)
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To: Valin

I see only equals here; 2 souls who appreciate a good sarcastic line...along with the works of a certain Jen Loven.


8 posted on 03/19/2005 6:27:31 PM PST by Cyclopean Squid (History remembers only what was, not what might have been.)
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To: Valin

This hapless so-called reporter at it again.

Anyone watching the Kentucky/Cincinnatti b-ball game tonite?

Cincy has a player named, get this, "Jihad Muhammed" Unbelievable!

Imagine if someone like J.J. Redick changed his name to "Crusader" Redick. The media would be hysterical demanding that he change his name.


9 posted on 03/19/2005 6:34:26 PM PST by texasmountainman (proud father of a U.S. Marine)
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