al qaeda

The Petraeus Performance

By Matthew Rothschild

September 10, 2007

The opening day of the Petraeus performance went pretty much according to script. The somber general and the geeky ambassador were careful to promise not victory but the possibility of success, vaguely defined. And, of course, Petraeus warned of the “devastating consequences” of what he called a “premature drawdown.”

Petraeus threw out a bunch of stats, flipped some charts, and pointed to tables all indicating that the situation is improving. These are suspect. “The number of overall civilian deaths” has declined since December, he said, for instance. But a report by the McClatchy news service on Sunday rebuts this.

Bush delivers rant on Iraq to military audience as poll numbers plummet

By Bill Van Auken
WSWS

25 July 2007

With poll numbers indicating that support for both his administration and the Iraq war have fallen to record lows, President Bush Tuesday delivered a militarist rant before a uniformed audience in South Carolina, insisting that the fighting must continue in order to defeat Al Qaeda.

Speaking for less than half an hour before a dragooned audience of military personnel at the Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina, Bush used the words “Al Qaeda” 93 times and made at least 23 separate references to Osama bin Laden, nearly 40 to “terror” or “terrorists” as well as eight mentions of September 11.