Thursday, January 11, 2007
When did we last hear this sort of stuff and nonsense?
Bush outlines plan to fix Iraq ‘mistakes’
US President George W Bush has told Americans he is dispatching about 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq and, in a rare admission, says he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.
“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me,” Mr Bush said in a televised White House address.
“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”
With American patience running thin over his handling of the war, Mr Bush says he will put greater pressure on Iraqis to restore order in Baghdad and he has used blunt language to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.”
“If the Iraqi Government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people, and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Mr Bush said.
Mr Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for all 18 provinces by November rather than just three now, “will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings” and other violence.
“The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve,” he said.
President Nixon’s Speech on “Vietnamization,” November 3, 1969.
Good evening, my fellow Americans:
Tonight I want to talk to you on a subject of deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world the war in Vietnam.
I believe that one of the reasons for the deep division about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their Government has told them about our policy. The American people cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overriding issues of war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy.
For the United States, this first defeat in our Nation’s history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in Asia but through-out the world.
Three American Presidents have recognized the great stakes involved in Vietnam and understood what had to be done.
In 1963, President Kennedy, with his characteristic eloquence and clarity, said: ”... we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independence.
“We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there.”
President Eisenhower and President Johnson expressed the same conclusion during their terms of office.
For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would thus be a disaster of immense magnitude.
-A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends. Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest. This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere.
Ultimately, this would cost more lives.
It would not bring peace; it would bring more war.
For these reasons, I rejected the recommendation that I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all of our forces. I chose instead to change American policy on both the negotiating front and battlefront….
We Americans are a do-it-yourself people. We are an impatient people
The whole deja vu here. Spot the differences if you can.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
