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And 9/11:
To address these issues, it is important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place. We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women, and children without regard to their faith or race or station. Were it not for the heroic actions of the passengers on board one of those flights, they could have also struck at one of the great symbols of our democracy in Washington, and killed many more.
Bush often invoked the troops and their families when giving speeches on Iraq and the "war on terror." (Iraq gave him a unique ability to avoid addressing the problems created by invading Afghanistan.)
By citing the troops, the mission becomes salvaging the war. It becomes something aimed at ensuring Americans did not die in vain.
The invocation of troops and their families sets up a situation where critics fall into the same rut that they fell into when Bush was helming the war in Iraq. Inevitably, one winds up saying I support the war but not the mission.
Unfortunately, liberals and progressives may fall for this and we may see more people buying more yellow ribbons. Quite frankly, supporting the troops does support the mission and the war.
If we find that their will be dire consequences for the expansion and further escalation of this war (even if it may come to a conclusion in 2011), we cannot support the troops because they will be contributing to a mission that does others great harm.
As for the invocation of 9/11, apparently this is Obama's moment of desperation. 9/11 has been the crutch that political leaders have leaned on in their moments of great political trial.
John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, countless Republicans, and, of course, George W. Bush invoked the story of 9/11 to martial support for their own unpopular ideas on foreign policy.
In fact, these are words from President Bush's State of the Union on January 29, 2002:
What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning. Most of the 19 men who hijacked planes on September the 11th were trained in Afghanistan's camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning.
To the American Legion on February 24, 2006 in a speech on violence in Iraq & the "War on Terror":
We remain a nation at war. The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001, when our nation awoke to a sudden attack. Like generations before us, we have accepted new responsibilities, and we will confront these dangers with firm resolve. (Applause.)
And in October 7, 2001 in a speech on Afghanistan he said, "We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it."
Bush was a warmongering president. He was boisterous and had a realist foreign policy that didn't hide its aim of global domination. But, truth be told, these words quoted from Bush could have appeared in Obama's address at West Point.
It's extremely disturbing that Obama's second to last paragraph in his speech was the following:
