Here is part of the text from the latest Bush campaign TV ad:
It begins with the mandatory message that this commercial was approved by the campaign to re-elect George W. Bush. It then shows a swimmer gliding through a pool, and it shows flags from Afghanistan and Iraq. A voice announces: "Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise. And this Olympics, there will be two more free nations and two fewer terrorist regimes. With strength, resolve and courage, democracy will triumph over terror. And hope will defeat hatred."
Here is President Bush in his own words:
Last Friday, he made a campaign speech in Oregon, saying: "Just the image of the Iraqi soccer team playing in the Olympics. It's fantastic, isn't it?"
Maybe they'll get invited to the White House if they win a medal?
Or maybe not: "Iraqi Soccer Players Slam 'Criminal' Bush"
Members of the Iraqi Olympic soccer team branded US President George Bush a “criminal” and called for American troops to pull out of the war-torn country.Speaking after winning their group stage at the Games in Greece, one player said he would take up arms against US troops in his country.
And the team attacked Mr Bush for running re-election campaign adverts featuring the Iraqi team.
“Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,” said midfielder Salih Sadir.
“He can find another way to advertise himself.”
Sadir was angered at Mr Bush’s adverts, which show pictures of the Afghan and Iraqi flags with the words: “At this Olympics there will be two more free nations – and two fewer terrorist regimes.”
“We don’t wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away,” said Sadir, 21, whose home town of Najaf has been battered by the war.
Another star player, Ahmed Manajid, 22, said of Mr Bush: “How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?”
“He has committed so many crimes.”
Manajid, from Fallujah, said he would be fighting US troops right now if he were not at the Olympics.
“I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?
“Everyone (in Fallujah) has been labelled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq.”
In an interview with the US magazine Sports Illustrated, the team coach Adnan Hamad told of the ongoing violence in his homeland.
“My problems are not with the American people. They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything.
“The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?”
Now, compare that to what we're hearing from the White House:
WASHINGTON -- Defending President Bush's foreign policies, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice counseled Americans to be "less critical of every twist and turn" in Iraq."We need to be more patient with people who are making those early steps" toward a working multiethnic democracy, Rice said yesterday as US troops fought a bloody battle with insurgents in the slums of Baghdad and Iraqi forces searched for ways to subdue insurgent militias in Najaf.
Rice said that in US history, it took a long time for the country to achieve democratic goals.
And so far, she said, Iraq's postwar leaders have not made a compromise comparable to the one by the framers of the US Constitution, who "made my ancestors three-fifths of a man."
I guess what those soccer players are describing is one hell of a nasty twist and turn? I also think Condi is forgetting the first step the framers took. Something about driving the Redcoats into the ocean, or something along those lines?
Posted by Mike at August 20, 2004 05:34 PM | TrackBack