President's Portrayal of 'The Enemy' Often Flawed

[mwb970]

by Glenn Kessler

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of "the enemy" that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States.

Under Bush's rubric, a country such as Iran -- which enjoys diplomatic representation and billions of dollars in trade with major European countries -- is lumped together with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," Bush said, referring to the different branches of the Muslim religion.

Similarly, Bush asserted that Shia Hezbollah, which has won seats in the Lebanese government, is a terrorist group "second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken." Bush is referring to attacks nearly a quarter-century ago on a U.S. embassy and a Marine barracks when the United States intervened in Lebanon's civil war by shelling Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah has evolved into primarily an anti-Israeli militant organization -- it fought a war with Israel last summer -- but the European Union does not list it as a terrorist organization.

At one point, Bush catalogued what he described as advances in the quest for freedom in the Middle East during 2005 -- such as the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon and elections in Iraq. Then, Bush asserted, "a thinking enemy watched all of these scenes, adjusted their tactics and in 2006 they struck back." But his description of the actions of "the enemy" tried to tie together a series of diplomatic and military setbacks that had virtually no connection to one another, from an attack on a Sunni mosque in Iraq to the assassination of Maronite Lebanese political figure.

many more examples at...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012400006.html?nav=rss_politics


To summarize the article, just about everything the president said in his speech last night was some form of lie. What a surprise! But how nice to see this analysis in the MSM.

[indepat]

1. Our main enemy and largest threat is the enemy of our Constitution within

[Demeter]

2. Bush Has So Many Enemies

and they all look like us

[katty]

3. indeed it is! he should look at 'the man in the mirror'

[MasonJar]

4. He started down this pernicious road with the axis of evil, and he

turned the US and especially his administration into the true AXIS of EVIL.

[TygrBright]

5. Nonsense!! I got the message perfectly clearly.

The Enemy is all those brown mooslim people.

Duh.

ironically,
Bright