From Billmon:
Shrub still needs to work on those non sequiturs:

Bush showed the most emotion while urging allies to contribute troops to Iraq despite the dangers.
Thumping the lectern with his finger, Bush said, "We should never forget the lessons of Sept. 11. The terrorists will strike." They will not only strike targets in Baghdad, he added, saying "they will strike America, too."


So our "allies" are supposed to throw their kids into the Iraqi meat grinder because the terrorists might attack America again?

This isn't exactly Bush's strongest selling point. Too many "allied" leaders (especially in the Islamic world) understand that after the next big terrorist attack on America, a significant fraction of their populations are going to be out in the streets cheering.
Check the link--but my interest in the Bush quote is that it flies in the face of the Administration's insane position that the occupation of Iraq will cause "the terrorists" to focus their efforts in the Middle East...this position is as insanely stupid as the childish assertion made by Bush over and over regarding terrorists: They hate freedom. They hate America. They want to destroy freedom, blah blah blah.

I personally think that while Bush himself might be stupid enough to believe this, his policy makers certainly must realize it's utterly simplistic (in a bad sense) nature. Terrorists, or, to use Bush-speak, trrists, all have definite aims, agendas, goals, and tactics. If you want to do more than flail away and alienate the crap out of everyone, it would be a good idea to understand their goals--for the same reason that a good lawyer learns his opponents case--you can't defeat what you don't understand...

Recently, on NPR, I heard a report that noted the State Department has exactly FIVE fluent Arabic speakers. FIVE. Count 'em on one hand. Sure, there might be a few more in the Defense Department, the CIA, DIA, and so on, but no one can deny our dearth of people with any familiarity of the language. How the HELL can we expect to do anyting on the ground in Iraq when we lack the capability of understanding the opposition's basic communication? Those opposing us might not even have to speak in code, although they probably do, given the Iraqis who've been hired as interpreters...

Aside: When I visited Morocco, I was with a group of US folks. We visited the home of a Moroccan-American friend whose sister was getting married, and stayed with the family in Rabat. I recall one of the US folks--a guy--realizing that no one spoke ANY English at the table, so he proceeded to make a number of, uh, graphic remarks as to the good looks of one of the servants (this was really weird--a family living in what was for all practical purposes a middle class house had three young women who worked full time--cleaning, cooking, etc.)--sorry to digress. But I recall feeling my face getting flushed when this guy spoke, until I realized that no one else understood or cared what he said--the young woman included. Not that this gave me opportunity to likewise be crude--that's not my style--but I think that's when it really sunk in....we were foreign, which gave us some liberty, although it also meant that we too were likely subject to all sorts of remarks, crude or not. And we were clueless as to what they were saying...

Our soldiers in Iraq are likewise out of the loop--especially if Chalabi, as it now seems, was our major source of "intelligence." Unbelievable.

And to hear Bush drone on about how much he cares for the lives and health of our soldiers rubs salt into the wound. That is so full of shit that, to paraphrase a line from Apocalypse Now, you need wings to stay above it...