President Bush's 9/11 anniversary speech seems to have done little to ramp up his popularity with Americans. It was an almost desperate affair, outing himself over the non-existent links between Saddam Hussein and the events of September 11, 2001, and trying to fire up his fellow Americans over the importance of the 'War On Terror'.
It doesn't seem to have worked. That might have had something to do with his insistence that the 'War On Terror' is going to last a very, very long time indeed. It may just be Bush being totally frank, but war-weary America didn't want to hear this kind of talk.
And it has been extremely hard for Republicans and the Bush-Cheney cheerleaders in the media to over-ride the perception that Bush used the fifth anniversary of 9/11 as a political platform.
We'll take a closer look at his plethora of recent speeches in another post soon, but for now here's a take on it from 'The Australian' :
Declaring the world in the "early hours" of a struggle between tyranny and freedom, US President George W. Bush used a prime-time Oval Office address on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to try to bolster flagging public support for the war in Iraq.
"Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone."They will follow us. The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." He added that the war on terrorism was "the calling of our generation".
The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington killed nearly 3000 people and galvanised the US into launching two wars which, along with other counter-terrorism initiatives, have cost Washington more than $US430 billion ($570 billion).
"America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over," Mr Bush said. "The war is not over - and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious."
