Does anyone remember the domino theory?
The President made his speech last night "...to convince the country that the terrible toll of the long, hot, casualty ridden summer in Iraq was a necessary price to pay in a broader struggle against terrorism, and to prepare the electorate for years of occupation, billions more in expense, and many bad days." And by the way he will be asking Congress for $87 billion dollars to fund the US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan next fiscal year. (See the NY Time article by David Sanger)
This is an enormous sum that according to the Times "...many experts believe may yet prove low." This is twice the requested budget for the Homeland Security department and pretty mcuh dwarfs other major budget items, except of course, tax cuts. The Washington Post provides a nice graph that illustrates the relative expenditures for major discretionary budget requests.
The President in his speech said that "Iraq is now the central front" in the war on terrorism. The President later says that "We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities." Read the full text for yourself.
As Sanger of the NY Times goes on to point out: President Bush "...fully merged the challenge of the occupation of Iraq with the terrorism of Al Qaeda, even though his own intelligence agencies found no link between Mr. Hussein and the conspirators of Sept. 11. Now, in a post-Iraq world, Mr. Bush is saying that link makes no difference — the arrival of terrorists blowing up Americans in Baghdad and Tikrit in the postwar period have turned this into a single war."
Paul Reynolds in his analysis in BBC online declares that "...President Bush is seeking to elevate the occupation there into part of a global struggle comparable to the one declared against communism by President John F Kennedy." Reynolds reminds us of Vietnam and the "domino theory" formulated to justify the terrible loss of life and the huge expenditures. Does anyone remember the domino theory? Read Reynolds' analysis.
This is a debatable point. I for one, do not see how we would be sustaining this level of casualties and spending the huge sums if we had not attacked Iraq. Our very presence there is attracting resistance to the occupation. Sending more tropops can only make the occupation more onerous for the Iraqis and generate more resistance.
11:13:33 PM 
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