Admit it. You knew it was coming. At least it's not a raised terror alert...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031502297_2.html

Quote :

"Bush to Restate Terror Strategy 2002 Doctrine of Preemptive War To Be Reaffirmed President Bush plans to issue a new national security strategy today reaffirming his doctrine of preemptive war against terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, despite the troubled experience in Iraq. The long-delayed document, an articulation of U.S. strategic priorities that is required by law, lays out a robust view of America's power and an assertive view of its responsibility to bring change around the world. On topics including genocide, human trafficking and AIDS, the strategy describes itself as "idealistic about goals and realistic about means." The strategy expands on the original security framework developed by the Bush administration in September 2002, before the invasion of Iraq. That strategy shifted U.S. foreign policy away from decades of deterrence and containment toward a more aggressive stance of attacking enemies before they attack the United States. The preemption doctrine generated fierce debate at the time, and many critics believe the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has fatally undermined an essential assumption of the strategy -- that intelligence about an enemy's capabilities and intentions can be sufficiently reliable to justify preventive war. In his revised version, Bush offers no second thoughts about the preemption policy, saying it "remains the same" and defending it as necessary for a country in the "early years of a long struggle" akin to the Cold War. In a nod to critics in Europe, the document places a greater emphasis on working with allies and declares diplomacy to be "our strong preference" in tackling the threat of weapons of mass destruction. "If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self defense, we do not rule out use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack," the document continues. "When the consequences of an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize." Such language could be seen as provocative at a time when the United States and its European allies have brought Iran before the U.N. Security Council to answer allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons. At a news conference in January, Bush described an Iran with nuclear arms as a "grave threat to the security of the world." Some security specialists criticized the continued commitment to preemption. "Preemption is and always will be a potentially useful tool, but it's not something you want to trot out and throw in everybody's face," said Harlan Ullman, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "To have a strategy on preemption and make it central is a huge error." A military attack against Iran, for instance, could be "foolish," Ullman said, and it would be better to seek other ways to influence its behavior. "I think most states are deterrable." Thomas Donnelly, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has written on the 2002 strategy, said the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the strict sense is not an example of preemptive war, because it was preceded by 12 years of low-grade conflict and was essentially the completion of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Still, he said, recent problems there contain lessons for those who would advocate preemptive war elsewhere. A military strike is not enough, he said; building a sustainable, responsible state in place of a rogue nation is the real challenge. "We have to understand preemption -- it's not going to be simply a preemptive strike," he said. "That's not the end of the exercise but the beginning of the exercise." The White House plans to release the 49-page National Security Strategy today, starting with a speech by national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley to the U.S. Institute of Peace. The White House gave advance copies to The Washington Post and three other newspapers. The strategy has no legal force of its own but serves as a guidepost for agencies and officials drawing up policies in a range of military, diplomatic and other arenas. Much of the new document echoes the 2002 document. "I don't think it's a change in strategy," Hadley said in an interview. "It's an updating of where we are with the strategy, given the time that's passed and the events that have occurred." But the new version of the strategy underscores in a more thematic way Bush's desire to make the spread of democracy the fundamental underpinning of U.S. foreign policy, as he expressed in his second inaugural address last year. The opening words of the strategy, in fact, are lifted from that speech: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." The strategy commits the administration to speaking out against human rights abuses, holding high-level meetings at the White House with reformers from repressive nations, using foreign aid to support elections and civil society, and applying sanctions against oppressive regimes. It makes special mention of religious intolerance, subjugation of women and human trafficking. At the same time, it acknowledges that "elections alone are not enough" and sometimes lead to undesirable results. "These principles are tested by the victory of Hamas candidates in the recent elections in the Palestinian territories," the strategy says, referring to the radical group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. Without saying what action would be taken against them, the strategy singles out seven nations as prime examples of "despotic systems" -- North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Burma and Zimbabwe. Iran and North Korea receive special attention because of their nuclear programs, and the strategy vows in both cases "to take all necessary measures" to protect the United States against them. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," the document says, echoing a statement made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week. It recommits to efforts with European allies to pressure Tehran to give up any aspirations of nuclear weapons, then adds ominously: "This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided." The language about confrontation is not repeated with North Korea, which says it already has nuclear bombs, an assertion believed by U.S. intelligence. But Pyongyang is accused of a "bleak record of duplicity and bad-faith negotiations," as well as counterfeiting U.S. currency, trafficking in drugs and starving its own people. The strategy offers a much more skeptical view of Russia than in 2002, when the glow of Bush's friendship with President Vladimir Putin was still bright. "Recent trends regrettably point toward a diminishing commitment to democratic freedoms and institutions," it says. "We will work to try to persuade the Russian Government to move forward, not backward, along freedom's path." It also warns China that "it must act as a responsible stakeholder that fulfills its obligations" and guarantees political freedom as well as economic freedom. "Our strategy," the document says, "seeks to encourage China to make the right strategic choices for its people, while we hedge against other possibilities." To assuage allies antagonized by Bush's go-it-alone style in his first term, the White House stresses alliances and the use of what it calls "transformational diplomacy" to achieve change. At the same time, it asserts that formal structures such as the United Nations or NATO may be less effective than "coalitions of the willing," or ad hoc groups responding to particular situations, such as the Asian tsunami of 2004. Beyond the military response to terrorism, the document emphasizes the need to fight the war of ideas against Islamic radicals whose anti-American rhetoric has won wide sympathy in parts of the world. The strategy also addresses topics largely left out of the 2002 version, including a section on genocide and a new chapter on global threats such as avian influenza, AIDS, environmental destruction and natural disasters. Critics have accused the administration of not doing enough to stop genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, responding too slowly to the Asian tsunami and disregarding global environmental threats such as climate change."

What's this blitz gonna be worth? Four, maybe five percent?

Good timing, too. With Feingold's censure motion to rally the GOP faithful around the president, and Rice barnstorming around breathing fire at Iran, Bush just might get out of this mess!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/rice.presser.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

[Edited on March 15, 2006 at 10:39 PM. Reason : ...]

3/15/2006 10:35:05 PM

not to detract from this thread...but how many threads have you made in the last week?

3/16/2006 12:45:32 AM

6 in 7 days.

3/16/2006 1:20:34 AM

I don't know why, but that exchange was adorable, guys.

3/16/2006 1:38:37 AM

^It's called "courting"

3/16/2006 2:13:11 AM

It's obvious they love each other.

And why haven't we seen an increase in the terror threat color since the election?

3/16/2006 3:18:07 AM

i still don't know what to wear with this orange alert.

3/16/2006 5:34:49 AM

http://americanresearchgroup.com/

46% of Adults favor Feingold's Censure Motion
48% of Registered Voters...

42% of Adults favor impeaching Bush
43% of Registered Voters...

I know! Let's bomb Iraq some more!

3/16/2006 7:21:03 PM

^ LIBERAL BIAS!!!1

3/16/2006 7:43:23 PM

Maybe what Bush needs is some more strawman arguments...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/03/18/national/w095252S08.DTL&type=printable

Quote :

"Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches "Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently. Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free." "There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people." Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions. When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows. The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position. He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making. Bush routinely is criticized for dressing up events with a too-rosy glow. But experts in political speech say the straw man device, in which the president makes himself appear entirely reasonable by contrast to supposed "critics," is just as problematic. Because the "some" often go unnamed, Bush can argue that his statements are true in an era of blogs and talk radio. Even so, "'some' suggests a number much larger than is actually out there," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as "a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion. "It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people," Fields said. "All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff." Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters. Not long after taking office in 2001, Bush pushed for a new education testing law and began portraying skeptics as opposed to holding schools accountable. The chief opposition, however, had nothing to do with the merits of measuring performance, but rather the cost and intrusiveness of the proposal. Campaigning for Republican candidates in the 2002 midterm elections, the president sought to use the congressional debate over a new Homeland Security Department against Democrats. He told at least two audiences that some senators opposing him were "not interested in the security of the American people." In reality, Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Bush himself first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual civil service protections. Running for re-election against Sen. John Kerry in 2004, Bush frequently used some version of this line to paint his Democratic opponent as weaker in the fight against terrorism: "My opponent and others believe this matter is a matter of intelligence and law enforcement." The assertion was called a mischaracterization of Kerry's views even by a Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Straw men have made more frequent appearances in recent months, often on national security — once Bush's strong suit with the public but at the center of some of his difficulties today. Under fire for a domestic eavesdropping program, a ports-management deal and the rising violence in Iraq, Bush now sees his approval ratings hovering around the lowest of his presidency. Said Jamieson, "You would expect people to do that as they feel more threatened." Last fall, the rhetorical tool became popular with Bush when the debate heated up over when troops would return from Iraq. "Some say perhaps we ought to just pull out of Iraq," he told GOP supporters in October, echoing similar lines from other speeches. "That is foolhardy policy." Yet even the speediest plan, as advocated by only a few Democrats, suggested not an immediate drawdown, but one over six months. Most Democrats were not even arguing for a specific troop withdrawal timetable. Recently defending his decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor without subpoenas the international communications of Americans suspected of terrorist ties, Bush has suggested that those who question the program underestimate the terrorist threat. "There's some in America who say, 'Well, this can't be true there are still people willing to attack,'" Bush said during a January visit to the NSA. The president has relied on straw men, too, on the topics of taxes and trade, issues he hopes will work against Democrats in this fall's congressional elections. Usually without targeting Democrats specifically, Bush has suggested they are big-spenders who want to raise taxes, because most oppose extending some of his earlier tax cuts, and protectionists who do not want to open global markets to American goods, when most oppose free-trade deals that lack protections for labor and the environment. "Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world," he said this month in India, talking about the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. "I strongly disagree.""

Some argue that the United States should establish total domination over every corner of the globe, violate the sovereignty of every nation on Earth, and nuke all who disagree into oblivion. I disagree. Some in Washington believe that we shouldn't pay any taxes whatsoever. I disagree. There are some who say the U.S. don't have to respect the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution at all. I strongly disagree.

3/18/2006 3:15:31 PM