US President George W. Bush suggested on Friday that history would vindicate his decision to invade Iraq, saying he believed that a half century from now it will be regarded as important a transition for the world as the democratization of Japan was after World War II.
"I'm absolutely convinced that some day, 50 or 60 years from now, an American president will be speaking to an audience saying, thank goodness a generation of Americans rose to the challenge and helped people be liberated from tyranny," Bush said.
"Democracy spread and the world is more peaceful for it," he added.
PHOTO: AFP
He spoke at a fundraiser here expected to raise about US$1 million for Representative Mark Kennedy, a Republican running for a US Senate in a state Bush lost in two presidential elections.
In a luncheon speech to a ballroom full Kennedy's supporters, Bush repeated many of the arguments he has made in the past two weeks about the importance of winning the battle for Iraq and with it, he insists, the greater Middle East.
"We have got a strategy for victory and we'll see that strategy through," he said, drawing on lines from his recent policy speeches on Iraq.
"We will defeat the terrorists in Iraq. We will not let al-Qaeda take a stronghold -- get a stronghold in Iraq. We'll help this country develop a democracy, which will send a powerful signal to people in Damascus and Tehran," he said.
During last year's campaign, Bush often spoke of his friendship with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, remarking that a bitter enemy that former president George Bush fought against in World War II has become a close friend and ally. He expanded on the theme during his recent trip in Asia, with Koizumi at his side, and used it again today to argue that history would prove him right in deciding to invade Iraq.
"Something happened between the time that my dad and your relatives signed up in World War II and I'm talking peace with Koizumi," he said.
"And what happened was Japan became a democracy," he said.
Many outside experts and even some of Bush's own aides question his reliance on the comparison, noting that Japan was a unified state before World War II, but that Iraq has always been divided along religious and regional lines.
"It may sound too simple, but this is a comparison the president believes in deeply," one of his senior aides said last month when Bush was in Asia, declining to be quoted by name because he was discussing the president's thinking.
"It's the argument he knows his presidency will be judged by," the aide said.
Casualties
Meanwhile, a US soldier was killed and 11 others were wounded in a suicide car bomb attack against a unit in western Baghdad, the US military said yesterday.
The attack, which also wounded an Iraqi civilian, occurred on Friday in the Abu Ghraib district, the US military said in a statement.
The identity of the soldier who was killed was not released pending notification of his family.
The soldiers had been manning a static security position at the time of the attack, said Master Sergeant David Abrams of Task Force Baghdad. Most of the wounded had superficial injuries, while one soldier was evacuated to Germany for medical treatment, he said.
As of yesterday, at least 2,137 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,676 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The AP count is one lower than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 1pm on Friday.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
RSS