President's Speech on Iraq (Reinterpreted)
As promised, here's a reinterpretation of the President's speech at Fort Bragg last night. As always, my liberal bias is totally apparent, and this is in no way the actual text of the speech. For that, go here. Other than that, enjoy :)
PRESIDENT: What’s up, Fort Bragg! It’s so nice to be surrounded by people who can be fired for expressing any kind of disagreement with my military policy-very warm and cozy.
SOLDIERS, LED BY WHITE HOUSE STAFF: *applause*
My greatest responsibility as president is to protect the American people-from the Menace of the Homosexual Agenda, from liberals, from themselves, and, oh yeah, from Teh Ev0l Terrorists, OMG. That seems to be your calling as well, so I’m sure we’ll all be best friends forever.
Thanks for your service, your courage, and your sacrifices in getting shot at for an increasingly nebulous reason. And thank you to your families. You aren’t getting paid enough for this shit.
I mean, the soldiers and families of Fort Bragg have contributed huge to the efforts to secure our country and promote peace through the use of enormously effective and expensive military weaponry. America is grateful, as evidenced by the ubiquitous yellow ribbons on the back of their gas-guzzling SUVs, and so am I. I think about you all the time, you know. But not in a stalkery kind of way because that would be wrong.
The troops here and around the world are fighting a global war on terrorism. And also a war in Iraq that I swear is linked to the war on terrorism in some way. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001.
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. We had no idea until this moment that we were fighting the Republican members of the House of Representatives! Kidding, kidding. Tom Delay, put that rifle down.
To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Riyadh, Bali, and a place called Casablanca that I saw in a movie once.
The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent and with a few hard blows, they can force us to retreat. They are totally right.
SOLDIERS: * are shocked*
PRESIDENT: Totally wrong, I mean. After September 11th,
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: After September 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: this nation will not wait to be attacked again. We’ll attack all the other nations instead! We can totally take ‘em.
Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, children, and kittens in Baghdad are followers of the same ideology that killed our people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. It's like the SATS: September 11th is to Iraq as Mom is to apple pie. Or possibly Earth logic is to my logic. Regardless, there is only one course of action against them: defeat them in Iraq before they move here, even though they seem to be perfectly content to stay in Iraq and blow the shit out of our people there instead.
The commander in chief of the Iraq coalition said that exact same thing a few days ago. We either deal with the problem we made abroad, or we deal with it when it comes here. I prefer it somewhere that’s not here.
The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Unlike most of you, I could have prevented it by not going into Iraq and concentrating our efforts on Afghanistan. Or negotiating with the nations in the Middle East. Or listening to anyone at all.
Some of the violence you see is being carried out by terrorists looking for a way up the terrorist corporate ladder by clocking in some field experience. They are coming from Saudi Arabia (although I’m sure they don’t mean to), Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other bad, bad places.
They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. Or they’re not real fans of the US being in a Muslim country for the last two years. Whichever.
When the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity - and when I say “Middle East” I’m using a bizarre definition that includes most of the former Soviet Union, where much of the democracy movements are actually taking place - the terrorists will lose their sponsors. And once we stop accidentally killing civilians, their base of recruits will disappear, too.
Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism or just an excuse for me to kick some Saddam ass for no apparent reason. My response is: whether it was originally or not, Iraq is terrorism central now. Here are the words of Osama bin Laden, who we haven’t found yet, but never mind that: “George W. Bush was totally right to attack my dear and bestest friend Saddam Hussein who had just shitloads of WMDs that he hid in super secret locations that certainly don’t include Syria or Iran.”
Okay, I might be paraphrasing slightly, but the point is that the war in Iraq is just and not at all a giant money-sucking quagmire of despair.
The terrorists are waging a campaign of murder and destruction, and there’s no limit to the innocent lives they’ll take. They send suicide bombers to a teaching hospital in Mosul. They behead civilians and broadcast it on worldwide television. They torture prisoners and take photographs of it. Oh, wait, that was us.
The terrorists failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty, although the Iraqis would be considered “in charge” right now only by the most generous of interpretations. They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal of allies. Instead it’s been more of a gentle trickling of our allies leaving us. We miss you guys!
The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11th.
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: And if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden.
A little over a year ago, I told you that our goal in Iraq was to defeat an enemy - I meant Saddam - and give strength to a friend - the people in Iraq that didn’t really know we were coming to help them. They’d be an ally in our war on terrorism, a reason to get our troops out of Saudi Arabia, and a convenient launching pad into our invasions of Iran and Syria. Oh, I bet I wasn’t supposed to say that.
KARL ROVE: *glares*
PRESIDENT: We said we’d hand authority over to a sovereign Iraqi government as soon as they found one. We’d help the Iraqis build their national infrastructure and pour billions of dollars into their country while running up a truly staggering national debt here at home. Well, we didn’t say that part out loud, but it was certainly implied. If you didn’t read that between the lines, tough toenails.
Over the past year, we’ve made some progress. A year ago today we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people in a tasteful surprise ceremony. In January they had their first free and fair election, for a certain interpretation of both free and fair. Our progress has been uneven, with the demonstrations and the hundreds of American military personnel who have been killed since I declared the mission a victory two years ago, and then eighteen months ago and then a year ago and then during the State of the Union. The insurgents are not reading our press releases. They need to tune into FoxNews and see how the world really is, rather than looking around and making their own decisions.
Anyway, we are improving roads and schools, fixing sanitation, and bringing puppies and flowers to the grateful people of Iraq. That our roads and schools and sanitation might need updates here in our own country is nothing but a bunch of liberal kumbayaya-ing Democratic whining. They voted for the war, they need to shut up and NEVER DISAGREE WITH ME AGAIN. Freedom of speech is only good when it’s speech that I like, you know.
KARL ROVE: *nods*
PRESIDENT: In the past year the international community has finally gotten its head out of its collective ass and pitched in. And we’re super grateful and stuff. Thus far, 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about $34 billion in assistance. That we go through that amount of money, oh, every six months, doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone, but thanks for the assistance, rest of the world.
More than 80 countries and international organizations got together in Brussels to coordinate their efforts to help in Iraq. Whatever our differences were in the past (well, and the present), the world understands the giant mess that Iraq is currently in doesn’t do a lot for global stability. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said yesterday at the White House, “I can’t believe I’m standing next to this asshole.” I mean, he said that a stable Iraq is important not just to Germany but also to the rest of Europe. I don’t actually care what he thinks, but I’m glad he felt comfortable enough in the White House to share those thoughts.
Today, Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of purposes-mostly involving raining quick and brutal destruction down on anyone who’s looking at ‘em cross-eyed. 20,000 of them aren’t even American or anything! The Iraqi forces are getting some action, too, fighting in Najif, Fallujah and Mosel. They’ve even led an anti-terrorist campaign that captured hundreds of suspected insurgents in Baghdad.
Like free people everywhere, the Iraqis want to be defending themselves and we are teaching them just as fast as possible.
To complete this mission we must hunt down and defeat the insurgents and terrorists. And the best way to do that is to help the Iraqis govern themselves so we can pack up and go the hell home. So our secret weapons are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to Ronald Reagan.
Wait…
Our strategy can be summed up this way: not completely thought out. I mean, as the Iraqis stand up, we stand down. So, generally speaking, we’ll be there for the next ten years as a best-case scenario. Worst case, the Iraqis decide we’re the reason they’re miserable and decide to unite against us.
We’ve made a lot of progress, if you define progress as “spent a LOT of money.” But we have a lot more work to do. Right now the Iraqi security forces aren’t exactly the most qualified group of people carrying heavy weaponry in the world. Our task is to make sure they can kick ass, take names, and put in huge orders for military hardware from Boeing and Halliburton.
Thousands of coalition troops are involved in training and equipping the security forces, a process that is going to take ridiculous amounts of time. NATO is establishing a military academy, and the Iraqis are currently being trained by Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, Romania, Australia, Italy and the UK, so a broader choice of options of how they should react to any given situation I can’t imagine.
And the Iraqis are brave and strong and incredibly good looking, and blah, blah, blah. Bottom line? We’re going to be there for a while, folks. And I’m telling you that a stable Iraq is worth the American sacrifices in heartache, heartbreak, injuries and death. I’m not going to tell you if American sacrifices can actually bring about a free Iraq because I don’t know.
And rethinking a policy makes the terrorists win, or something. I can NEVER BE WRONG, OMG.
But we’re there until we’re not, and setting a timeline on when we’d leave isn’t going to be happening, so basically this entire speech is a rehashing of things you already knew and nothing more than a half-hour waste of everyone’s time.
Some Americans ask me, if this is so freaking important, why don’t you sent more troops? And I say, because I don’t have any more troops. Enlist, you slacker.
The Iraqis are building a multiethnic society and showing everyone in the Middle East that freedom is totally awesome. It’s spreading to Lebanon and Palestine and sort of in Egypt and maybe a little to Saudi Arabia. And Libya totally turned over its WMD program because of our invasion of Iraq although a look at a calendar and an application of common sense shows that’s not true at all, at all, at all.
But the terrorists are being evil, and they are trying to shake our will, and by bitching about the cost of Iraq YOU’RE TOTALLY HELPING THEM, your heartless bastards. Have you forgotten about September 11th?
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: The terrorists don’t get us. They don’t understand that we won’t pack up and go home, except when we do, but when we do that it’s on our OWN TERMS and not because the terrorists won or anything.
We’ve done difficult work before. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, and all those good wars that people like to think about-yeah, we were there. We hold firm, we believe in certain truths. We know that if evil isn’t confronted, it just gains strength and returns to strike harder. We know that when work is hard, the right thing to do is work harder, not give up. We know that there’s nothing on television worth watching in the summer. We know that we are the only people who really understand freedom, and that the ideal of liberty is worth spreading. It’s our Manifest Destiny, yay! Sorry, wrong period of history.
Thanks to our military families. The burden of war falls especially hard on you, with the separation, and the fear, and the death and the lousy pay. I’ve met with families who have lost loved ones, and we’ve prayed together and I’ve told them that God tells me what we are doing in Iraq is right.
Thanks to all of you who have re-enlisted, even though it’s not like you really have a choice right now.
We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today take their places among the greatest generations who have worn our nation’s uniform. When history is taught, teachers will blow through the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq in a futile attempt to teach everything that happened after the Vietnam War before the kids head home for summer vacation.
After September 11th…
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: After September 11th, I told America that the road ahead would be difficult and we would prevail. Well, I made the road needlessly difficult, but you, the men and women in uniform, are prevailing. The big bads in the world are no match for the US military.
God bless you all, etc., etc.
SOLDIERS: *applause*
PRESIDENT: What’s up, Fort Bragg! It’s so nice to be surrounded by people who can be fired for expressing any kind of disagreement with my military policy-very warm and cozy.
SOLDIERS, LED BY WHITE HOUSE STAFF: *applause*
My greatest responsibility as president is to protect the American people-from the Menace of the Homosexual Agenda, from liberals, from themselves, and, oh yeah, from Teh Ev0l Terrorists, OMG. That seems to be your calling as well, so I’m sure we’ll all be best friends forever.
Thanks for your service, your courage, and your sacrifices in getting shot at for an increasingly nebulous reason. And thank you to your families. You aren’t getting paid enough for this shit.
I mean, the soldiers and families of Fort Bragg have contributed huge to the efforts to secure our country and promote peace through the use of enormously effective and expensive military weaponry. America is grateful, as evidenced by the ubiquitous yellow ribbons on the back of their gas-guzzling SUVs, and so am I. I think about you all the time, you know. But not in a stalkery kind of way because that would be wrong.
The troops here and around the world are fighting a global war on terrorism. And also a war in Iraq that I swear is linked to the war on terrorism in some way. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001.
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. We had no idea until this moment that we were fighting the Republican members of the House of Representatives! Kidding, kidding. Tom Delay, put that rifle down.
To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Riyadh, Bali, and a place called Casablanca that I saw in a movie once.
The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent and with a few hard blows, they can force us to retreat. They are totally right.
SOLDIERS: * are shocked*
PRESIDENT: Totally wrong, I mean. After September 11th,
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: After September 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: this nation will not wait to be attacked again. We’ll attack all the other nations instead! We can totally take ‘em.
Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, children, and kittens in Baghdad are followers of the same ideology that killed our people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. It's like the SATS: September 11th is to Iraq as Mom is to apple pie. Or possibly Earth logic is to my logic. Regardless, there is only one course of action against them: defeat them in Iraq before they move here, even though they seem to be perfectly content to stay in Iraq and blow the shit out of our people there instead.
The commander in chief of the Iraq coalition said that exact same thing a few days ago. We either deal with the problem we made abroad, or we deal with it when it comes here. I prefer it somewhere that’s not here.
The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Unlike most of you, I could have prevented it by not going into Iraq and concentrating our efforts on Afghanistan. Or negotiating with the nations in the Middle East. Or listening to anyone at all.
Some of the violence you see is being carried out by terrorists looking for a way up the terrorist corporate ladder by clocking in some field experience. They are coming from Saudi Arabia (although I’m sure they don’t mean to), Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other bad, bad places.
They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. Or they’re not real fans of the US being in a Muslim country for the last two years. Whichever.
When the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity - and when I say “Middle East” I’m using a bizarre definition that includes most of the former Soviet Union, where much of the democracy movements are actually taking place - the terrorists will lose their sponsors. And once we stop accidentally killing civilians, their base of recruits will disappear, too.
Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism or just an excuse for me to kick some Saddam ass for no apparent reason. My response is: whether it was originally or not, Iraq is terrorism central now. Here are the words of Osama bin Laden, who we haven’t found yet, but never mind that: “George W. Bush was totally right to attack my dear and bestest friend Saddam Hussein who had just shitloads of WMDs that he hid in super secret locations that certainly don’t include Syria or Iran.”
Okay, I might be paraphrasing slightly, but the point is that the war in Iraq is just and not at all a giant money-sucking quagmire of despair.
The terrorists are waging a campaign of murder and destruction, and there’s no limit to the innocent lives they’ll take. They send suicide bombers to a teaching hospital in Mosul. They behead civilians and broadcast it on worldwide television. They torture prisoners and take photographs of it. Oh, wait, that was us.
The terrorists failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty, although the Iraqis would be considered “in charge” right now only by the most generous of interpretations. They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal of allies. Instead it’s been more of a gentle trickling of our allies leaving us. We miss you guys!
The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11th.
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: And if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden.
A little over a year ago, I told you that our goal in Iraq was to defeat an enemy - I meant Saddam - and give strength to a friend - the people in Iraq that didn’t really know we were coming to help them. They’d be an ally in our war on terrorism, a reason to get our troops out of Saudi Arabia, and a convenient launching pad into our invasions of Iran and Syria. Oh, I bet I wasn’t supposed to say that.
KARL ROVE: *glares*
PRESIDENT: We said we’d hand authority over to a sovereign Iraqi government as soon as they found one. We’d help the Iraqis build their national infrastructure and pour billions of dollars into their country while running up a truly staggering national debt here at home. Well, we didn’t say that part out loud, but it was certainly implied. If you didn’t read that between the lines, tough toenails.
Over the past year, we’ve made some progress. A year ago today we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people in a tasteful surprise ceremony. In January they had their first free and fair election, for a certain interpretation of both free and fair. Our progress has been uneven, with the demonstrations and the hundreds of American military personnel who have been killed since I declared the mission a victory two years ago, and then eighteen months ago and then a year ago and then during the State of the Union. The insurgents are not reading our press releases. They need to tune into FoxNews and see how the world really is, rather than looking around and making their own decisions.
Anyway, we are improving roads and schools, fixing sanitation, and bringing puppies and flowers to the grateful people of Iraq. That our roads and schools and sanitation might need updates here in our own country is nothing but a bunch of liberal kumbayaya-ing Democratic whining. They voted for the war, they need to shut up and NEVER DISAGREE WITH ME AGAIN. Freedom of speech is only good when it’s speech that I like, you know.
KARL ROVE: *nods*
PRESIDENT: In the past year the international community has finally gotten its head out of its collective ass and pitched in. And we’re super grateful and stuff. Thus far, 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about $34 billion in assistance. That we go through that amount of money, oh, every six months, doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone, but thanks for the assistance, rest of the world.
More than 80 countries and international organizations got together in Brussels to coordinate their efforts to help in Iraq. Whatever our differences were in the past (well, and the present), the world understands the giant mess that Iraq is currently in doesn’t do a lot for global stability. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said yesterday at the White House, “I can’t believe I’m standing next to this asshole.” I mean, he said that a stable Iraq is important not just to Germany but also to the rest of Europe. I don’t actually care what he thinks, but I’m glad he felt comfortable enough in the White House to share those thoughts.
Today, Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of purposes-mostly involving raining quick and brutal destruction down on anyone who’s looking at ‘em cross-eyed. 20,000 of them aren’t even American or anything! The Iraqi forces are getting some action, too, fighting in Najif, Fallujah and Mosel. They’ve even led an anti-terrorist campaign that captured hundreds of suspected insurgents in Baghdad.
Like free people everywhere, the Iraqis want to be defending themselves and we are teaching them just as fast as possible.
To complete this mission we must hunt down and defeat the insurgents and terrorists. And the best way to do that is to help the Iraqis govern themselves so we can pack up and go the hell home. So our secret weapons are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to Ronald Reagan.
Wait…
Our strategy can be summed up this way: not completely thought out. I mean, as the Iraqis stand up, we stand down. So, generally speaking, we’ll be there for the next ten years as a best-case scenario. Worst case, the Iraqis decide we’re the reason they’re miserable and decide to unite against us.
We’ve made a lot of progress, if you define progress as “spent a LOT of money.” But we have a lot more work to do. Right now the Iraqi security forces aren’t exactly the most qualified group of people carrying heavy weaponry in the world. Our task is to make sure they can kick ass, take names, and put in huge orders for military hardware from Boeing and Halliburton.
Thousands of coalition troops are involved in training and equipping the security forces, a process that is going to take ridiculous amounts of time. NATO is establishing a military academy, and the Iraqis are currently being trained by Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, Romania, Australia, Italy and the UK, so a broader choice of options of how they should react to any given situation I can’t imagine.
And the Iraqis are brave and strong and incredibly good looking, and blah, blah, blah. Bottom line? We’re going to be there for a while, folks. And I’m telling you that a stable Iraq is worth the American sacrifices in heartache, heartbreak, injuries and death. I’m not going to tell you if American sacrifices can actually bring about a free Iraq because I don’t know.
And rethinking a policy makes the terrorists win, or something. I can NEVER BE WRONG, OMG.
But we’re there until we’re not, and setting a timeline on when we’d leave isn’t going to be happening, so basically this entire speech is a rehashing of things you already knew and nothing more than a half-hour waste of everyone’s time.
Some Americans ask me, if this is so freaking important, why don’t you sent more troops? And I say, because I don’t have any more troops. Enlist, you slacker.
The Iraqis are building a multiethnic society and showing everyone in the Middle East that freedom is totally awesome. It’s spreading to Lebanon and Palestine and sort of in Egypt and maybe a little to Saudi Arabia. And Libya totally turned over its WMD program because of our invasion of Iraq although a look at a calendar and an application of common sense shows that’s not true at all, at all, at all.
But the terrorists are being evil, and they are trying to shake our will, and by bitching about the cost of Iraq YOU’RE TOTALLY HELPING THEM, your heartless bastards. Have you forgotten about September 11th?
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: The terrorists don’t get us. They don’t understand that we won’t pack up and go home, except when we do, but when we do that it’s on our OWN TERMS and not because the terrorists won or anything.
We’ve done difficult work before. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, and all those good wars that people like to think about-yeah, we were there. We hold firm, we believe in certain truths. We know that if evil isn’t confronted, it just gains strength and returns to strike harder. We know that when work is hard, the right thing to do is work harder, not give up. We know that there’s nothing on television worth watching in the summer. We know that we are the only people who really understand freedom, and that the ideal of liberty is worth spreading. It’s our Manifest Destiny, yay! Sorry, wrong period of history.
Thanks to our military families. The burden of war falls especially hard on you, with the separation, and the fear, and the death and the lousy pay. I’ve met with families who have lost loved ones, and we’ve prayed together and I’ve told them that God tells me what we are doing in Iraq is right.
Thanks to all of you who have re-enlisted, even though it’s not like you really have a choice right now.
We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today take their places among the greatest generations who have worn our nation’s uniform. When history is taught, teachers will blow through the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq in a futile attempt to teach everything that happened after the Vietnam War before the kids head home for summer vacation.
After September 11th…
SOLDIERS: *drink*
PRESIDENT: After September 11th, I told America that the road ahead would be difficult and we would prevail. Well, I made the road needlessly difficult, but you, the men and women in uniform, are prevailing. The big bads in the world are no match for the US military.
God bless you all, etc., etc.
SOLDIERS: *applause*