Still Talking. Still Wrong.

Yesterday, in Las Vegas, President Bush gave a speech on the Global War on Terror. It was quite a speech, chock full o' the usual Bushety goodness, but there's one passage in particular I'd like to highlight—and I would recommend donning your Irony Crash Helmets and Rhetorical Whiplash Braces before reading it. Also, although I've broken it apart with my inserted commentary, it is one continuous passage without edits. Here we go:

The world in which we live is a dangerous world, but a world full of great opportunity. We're involved in an ideological struggle -- the likes of which we have seen before in our history. It's an ideological struggle between those of us who love freedom and human rights and human dignity, and those who want to impose their dark vision on how people should live their lives.

This from the man who cut short his brush-clearin' vacation to intercede in the private family matter of Terri Schiavo's living will, from the man who does not support reproductive choice, from the man who supported a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, et cetera. Insert your own jokes here.

This is a -- not a political conflict -- I mean, a religious conflict.

Clear as mud. Tell us why, oh wise one.

And I'll tell you why: because one of the tactics, and the main tactic of those enemies of freedom, is to murder the innocent to achieve their objectives. Religious people do not murder the innocent.

In the words of our great modern philosopher, Shark-fu: Blink. As far as I can tell, Bush is using the same circular logic that prompts people to suggest that people who do, by their defintion, bad things in the name of Christianity aren't real Christians, or leads suddenly-disgruntled conservatives to suggest that Bush isn't a real conservative, now that he's sullied conservatism's good name (cough). Bush's awesome argument is that religion prohibits murder, so anyone who murders isn't religious. But that is, of course, bullshit. Certainly a Christian shouldn't be arguing that sin undermines one's religiosity, when forgiveness for sin is a cornerstone of his religion, which recognizes humans to be serial transgressors. If every religious person who sinned was excommunicated, the church would be one damn empty place.

And so we're facing this ideological struggle of people who use asymmetrical warfare. What distinguishes this ideological struggle from previous ideological struggles -- those with -- against fascism or communism, is that in this war, individuals use weapons to kill innocent people -- car bombs and suicide vests.

Hmm. Apparently, our president thinks no innocent people were killed during the struggle against fascism. What the fucking fuck is he talking about? Either this explains why he thought bombing Auschwitz was a hot idea, or he's suffering from the misapprehension that gas chambers aren't weapons, or, incredibly, his point is literally that the distinguishing factor between the Global War on Terror and WWII is the existence of "individuals" killing people, which would be dependent on his believing that in the whole of institutionally anti-Semitic Nazi Germany during the war, there were no individual Germans who engaged in murderous vigilantism against scapegoated Jews.

Okay, in all seriousness, I know what the bumbling moron is trying to say. He's trying to say that the difference between, for example, WWII and the GWOT is the lack in the latter of state-sanctioned armies. True that. Which is why reasonable, rational, thoughtful, pragmatic people repeatedly suggest that fighting terrorists with our military as though it's a war is a stupid idea, and what we need is a good, strong law enforcement response with strategic use of light military.

Take it away, Concern Troll-in-Chief:

And they do so to frighten the West. They do so to create chaos and confusion. They do so with the aim of creating vacuums into which their hateful ideology can flow. And that's why you see the September 11th attacks, in London, in Madrid, in Jordan -- attacks around the world. Some will say these are just isolated moments of -- where all we need is a good, strong law enforcement response. I think they're all part of an ideological struggle.

See how silly and wrong I am? Because terror strikes are connected by an ideology, law enforcement doesn't work. You need to go to war! Don't ask why. Don't point out that makes no sense whatsoever. Just shut up. He's the decider.

And the interesting development that is taking place in the beginnings here of the 21st century is, the freedom movement is on the march.

Oh indeed. It most certainly is.

I'm not surprised, and you shouldn't be either. I believe there is an Almighty. I believe the gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom.

We'll be free of him in 353 days, Shakers.