Speech - I have an

Speech - I have an unexpected break in the day's schedule, and I'm listening to the President's speech at CENTCOM.

He summed up the biggest, best reason for this whole intervention: "We will not wait to meet the challenge with fire fighters and policemen and doctors in our cities. We're meeting the challenge now."

Bingo.

I think this part is for military consumption - and of course, the media:

And "In the ranks of that regime are men whose idea of coursage is brutalizing prisoners...who use civilians as human shields...who pretend to surrender, then fire on those who show them mercy. This band of war criminals has been put on notice; the day of Iraq's liberation will also be a day of justice."

Here's the part I love:

"Freedom is God's gift to humanity...we have no ambition of Iraq except the liberation of the people. There is no goal to war except a durable peace."

The key words in this address were everywhere: Freedom. Liberation. Liberty. ...the Special forces motto is 'to free the oppressed'. Freedom is God's Gift to Mankind. .

This, people, is perhaps the key meaning of this war; it's an end to the politics of stability practiced by most American presidents since World War II. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all erred on the side of stability over freedom; we backed some real sons-of-bitches for reasons no more or less important than pure realpolitik. Carter supported Hussein while Khomeini held our hostages in 1979-'80. Clinton was all about keeping stability at the expense of freedom.

Even Reagan - who was all about freedom and liberty in fighting the Cold War, and is regarded in some parts of eastern Europe as a great liberator - backed the likes of Pik Botha and Ferdinand Marcos (until it was expedient not to do so).

This is not about stability - about settling for a bad status quo out of fear of something worse. This is about freedom.

And freedom works.

Posted by Mitch at March 26, 2003 10:18 AM