Strange juxtaposition

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 31, 2005

President Discusses Schiavo, WMD Commission Report
Room 450
Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building
11:31 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Today millions of Americans are saddened by the death of Terri Schiavo. Laura and I extend our condolences to Terri Schiavo’s families. I appreciate the example of grace and dignity they have displayed at a difficult time. I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life.

The most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people. Since September the 11th, 2001, we’ve taken bold and vigorous steps to prevent further attacks and overcome emerging threats. We face a new and different kind of enemy. The threats today are unprecedented. The lives of our citizens are at stake. To protect them, we need the best intelligence possible, and we must stay ahead of constantly changing intelligence challenges….

….To win the war on terror, we will correct what needs to be fixed, and build on what the commission calls solid intelligence successes. These include the uncovering of Libya’s nuclear and missile programs. In Pakistan, our intelligence helped expose and shut down the world’s most dangerous nuclear proliferation network. Where we have had success, the commission reports we have seen innovative collection techniques and a fusion of interagency intelligence capabilities. We must work to replicate these successes in other areas.

The men and women of our intelligence community work hard. And the sacrifices they have made have helped protect America, and our nation is grateful for their hard work. The work they’re doing is critical. We need to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on the weapons of mass murder they would like to use against our citizens.

The work of our intelligence community is extremely difficult work. Every day, dangerous regimes are working to prevent us from uncovering their programs and their possible relationships with terrorists. And the work our intelligence men and women do is, by nature, secret, which is why the American people never hear about many of their successes. I’m proud of the efforts of our intelligence workers and I’m proud of their commitment to the security of our country, and the American people should be proud, too.

And that’s why this report is important. It will enable these fine men and women to do their jobs in better fashion, to be able to more likely accomplish their mission, which is to protect the American people, and that’s why I’m grateful to the commission for this hard work….

….It is like a parody of himself. He stresses that intelligence work is a) hard and b) secret.

That is supposed to make it all right that we sent a high-tech army into a poor, weak country and turned it into a failed state, killing 40,000 innocent Iraqis and suffering over 1500 coalition troops dead and over 10,000 US troops wounded, many maimed for life, and spending $300 billion on it? For no reason? When the poor weak state did not in fact have the weapons of mass destruction that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz insisted it had? When they bullied anyone who questioned their evidence for all this, and got their billionnaire buddies who own the media to have their anchors and editorialists also bully any dissidents?

Because intelligence work is hard and secret?

How does Bush square all the violence he has unleashed in the world with his praise of “life?” What is the link between war-mongering and being “pro-life?”….