The speech last night giving Saddam and his tyrant sons 48 hours, was a good enough speech. It started a little awkwardly, I thought; he looked like a deer in headlights. But this passed quickly as he got into his sober mode. I especially liked it when he talked directly to the Iraqi people. It was effective. I hope that we broadcast it into Iraqi radio for 24 hours a day for the next few days. It seems to me that he was a bit too gentle with the UN, but, in general he gave a good accounting of the whole problem. I especially liked these two lines:
"The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours."
"Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety."
"Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety."
That was the best line of the speech - a course of safety with a new strategic doctrine that calls for preemptive strikes against potential enemies. Wonderful! And in addition to that: intervention in a country that has never attacked the United States with no evidence in involvement in 9/11, in a hostile region surrounded by millions of Islamic fundamentalists.
Sounds like a "course toward safety" to me!
He definitely had the opportunity to show the irrelevancy of the UN last night, but resisted the temptation. I believe that this was calculated by Mr. Bush. Our actions will soon prove that the UN is useless. It was quite interesting to hear this morning that we had the votes for a new resolution, but the faible, would have invoked their veto...