A "Remarkable" Speech- part 1

The President's speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, Mo. on August 22, 2007 contained so many distortions several blog entries are necessary. I begin here.

Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous; this enemy is determined; and this enemy will be defeated. (Applause.)

Judging from the previous paragraph of his statement, the President was referring to "the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places."

What are these "other places?" Could he have meant Pakistan? This is a government whose agreement with the Taliban in late, 2006: a)according to ABC News, "provides for the Pakistani army to return "captured Taliban weapons and prisoners" as well as to pull the national army out of northwestern Pakistan; b)according to counterterrorism expert Richard A. Clarke "means that the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership have effectively carved out a sanctuary inside Pakistan." A government which, according to Eurasianet.org, will have received $499 million in aid from the U.S.A. in fiscal 2007 and will receive $785 million in fiscal 2008, if the Administration's budget proposal is approved. A government which, according to the libertarian-conservative CATO institute, "was the chief political and financial sponsor of the Taliban in Afghanistan from the beginning" and which may now receive $3 billion dollars in additional aid from the U.S. over the next five years. (It appears no determination has been made as to whom this aid, which may land in the hands of the Taliban or even al Qaeda, will be distributed.)

No, the President wasn't referring to Pakistan. But perhaps he was referring to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Front, the Shining Path, or any of the other 38 groups on the State Department's List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2007. There is no way to know with a President whose enemy is always "they" or "them."