(no subject)
Bush held a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki.
Q: I have two questions. One, President Bush. The first one: Is there an obvious change that could be made to the security strategy particularly in Baghdad right now?
BUSH: (inaudible) a lot of time talking about security, and I can understand why. There are people who are willing to destroy innocent life to achieve a political objective.
And the prime minister is deeply concerned about the lives of his fellow citizens. And I appreciate that concern. I would be very worried if a prime minister came to talk about his country and did not mention first and foremost protecting people's lives. That's, after all, the most important responsibility of government.
And he believes, and I believe, that there needs to be more forces inside Baghdad who are willing to hold people to account. In other words, if you find somebody who's kidnapping and murdering, the murderer ought to be held to account. And it ought to be clear in society that that kind of behavior is not tolerated. And that's the attitude of the prime minister.
And my attitude is: We shouldn't try to gauge whether or not someone is justified or not. We ought to be saying that, if you murder, you're responsible for your actions. And I think the Iraqi people appreciate that type of attitude.
Republican politicians are trained to speak in coded language to appeal to certain segments of the American population (principally poor white Southerners). Here, the "holding people to account" language was originally designed for the American public in the context of the domestic criminal justice system and welfare state. It was designed to appeal to Southern and Midwestern white racists who want to maintain white supremacy by holding blacks "to account," whether that be from the crimes they perpetrate or their refusal to get jobs and make their own way (if you didn't know, blacks are criminals and also lazy). The notion of holding Iraqis "to account" doesn't make any sense, and it won't make any sense to Americans (in this context) or Iraqis (in any context). Who holds people to "account" during civil wars? It's just not proper war propaganda. It's racist propaganda, specifically American racist propaganda, that Bush is trying to project on the Iraqi people ("and I think the Iraqi people appreciate that type of attitude"), because he is just too stupid to know better. No, Mr. Bush, Iraqis do not appreciate the attitude that we should imprison as many blacks as possible so they do not rape our white daughters or steal our tax dollars, as the language you are using is meant to convey. The "destroy innocent life" language is also meant for domestic politics (abortion), and has no real place in foreign policy propaganda.
Bush is just too stupid. He has phrases that he knows he is supposed to say in certain contexts. When he is in other contexts and is asked questions for which he has no script, he falls back on the coded language he has been told to say in other contexts. Hence his appeal to holding blacks accountable and preserving fetuses while discussing security in Iraq.
I usually don't like making the argument from stupidity, because, in truth, the American ruling class is anything but stupid. (They are winning, after all.) But Bush is not an American ruler. He is, like Reagan (and, indeed, like most American presidents) a figurehead. He's a puppet like most other rulers of the world. And it's incidents like this that prove it.
What takes the cake, of course, is Bush's statement that "[t]here are people who are willing to destroy innocent life to achieve a political objective." See: Iraq War. See: Afghanistan War. See: 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.
Q: I have two questions. One, President Bush. The first one: Is there an obvious change that could be made to the security strategy particularly in Baghdad right now?
BUSH: (inaudible) a lot of time talking about security, and I can understand why. There are people who are willing to destroy innocent life to achieve a political objective.
And the prime minister is deeply concerned about the lives of his fellow citizens. And I appreciate that concern. I would be very worried if a prime minister came to talk about his country and did not mention first and foremost protecting people's lives. That's, after all, the most important responsibility of government.
And he believes, and I believe, that there needs to be more forces inside Baghdad who are willing to hold people to account. In other words, if you find somebody who's kidnapping and murdering, the murderer ought to be held to account. And it ought to be clear in society that that kind of behavior is not tolerated. And that's the attitude of the prime minister.
And my attitude is: We shouldn't try to gauge whether or not someone is justified or not. We ought to be saying that, if you murder, you're responsible for your actions. And I think the Iraqi people appreciate that type of attitude.
Republican politicians are trained to speak in coded language to appeal to certain segments of the American population (principally poor white Southerners). Here, the "holding people to account" language was originally designed for the American public in the context of the domestic criminal justice system and welfare state. It was designed to appeal to Southern and Midwestern white racists who want to maintain white supremacy by holding blacks "to account," whether that be from the crimes they perpetrate or their refusal to get jobs and make their own way (if you didn't know, blacks are criminals and also lazy). The notion of holding Iraqis "to account" doesn't make any sense, and it won't make any sense to Americans (in this context) or Iraqis (in any context). Who holds people to "account" during civil wars? It's just not proper war propaganda. It's racist propaganda, specifically American racist propaganda, that Bush is trying to project on the Iraqi people ("and I think the Iraqi people appreciate that type of attitude"), because he is just too stupid to know better. No, Mr. Bush, Iraqis do not appreciate the attitude that we should imprison as many blacks as possible so they do not rape our white daughters or steal our tax dollars, as the language you are using is meant to convey. The "destroy innocent life" language is also meant for domestic politics (abortion), and has no real place in foreign policy propaganda.
Bush is just too stupid. He has phrases that he knows he is supposed to say in certain contexts. When he is in other contexts and is asked questions for which he has no script, he falls back on the coded language he has been told to say in other contexts. Hence his appeal to holding blacks accountable and preserving fetuses while discussing security in Iraq.
I usually don't like making the argument from stupidity, because, in truth, the American ruling class is anything but stupid. (They are winning, after all.) But Bush is not an American ruler. He is, like Reagan (and, indeed, like most American presidents) a figurehead. He's a puppet like most other rulers of the world. And it's incidents like this that prove it.
What takes the cake, of course, is Bush's statement that "[t]here are people who are willing to destroy innocent life to achieve a political objective." See: Iraq War. See: Afghanistan War. See: 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.