OJ: a pretzel of irony
"I don't hang out with gangsters. I hang out with golfers." - OJ Simpson poolside in Las Vegas during an interview with an LA Times reporter moments before being arrested for armed robbery of items including photos taken by Nicole Brown-Simpson.
Labels: golf, Irony, OJ, robbery
W lost me in the first 2 minutes
Not that he ever had me, but I really listened to George W. Bush tonight in his post-Petraeus-testimony Oval Office address on Iraq. But by his fourth sentence, Bush’s PR spin cycle was whirring away.
“In Iraq, an ally of the United States is fighting for its survival. Terrorists and extremists who are at war with us around the world are seeking to topple Iraq’s government, dominate the region, and attack us here at home. If Iraq’s young democracy can turn back these enemies, it will mean a more hopeful Middle East and a more secure America.”
The Sunni Maliki government an ally of the US? Well, they do go into hiding during the whole month of August, like Bush and the US Congress.
Some cohesive Iraqi central government struggling against a massive war from outsider “terrorists and extremists”? Hardly. Al Qaeda in Iraq (a gift of the Bush/Rumsfeld fiasco) has less than a thousand foreign fighters.
Besides that, Anthony Cordesman, Middle East expert and holder of the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out in July 2007 that over 90 percent of the members of Al Qaeda in Iraq are not foreign fighters, but Iraqi natives who, after the American invasion, adopted the Al Qaeda brand to gain attention to their cause.
The enemy of Iraq is Iraqis. And the inept leadership of George Bush.
A more hopeful Middle East? Ask the four million displaced Iraqi’s and the millions left behind who huddle in dark houses in ethnically cleansed neighborhoods praying that death squads don’t come in the night.
A more secure America? Check your gut.
Labels: Bush Iraq fiasco
