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His speech pretty much means he will prolong a war that has killed thousands of Americans and many multiples more Iraqis before it is all set and done. The US is no longer seen as a leader of the free world. He has burned the old America and has tossed its ashes into the wind. We are left with pale, faded memories of a time when America was once loved in the world and tears for the dead in Bush's wake.
When the US pulls the last soldiers out of the US embassy in Baghdad some years from now--I don't know how far away that is--it will be after the US has been humiliated politically, its armies worn down to the bone by years of fighting against Iraqis who simply refused to accept the American presence.
The world is changing. The world is moving towards a multi-polar state once again. Gone are the days when the US could claim to be the only power in the world. In a way, Bush merely hastened the transition by rapidly depleting the power the Republic once held.
The next generation will inherit the legacy of today--a shattered world reputation, massive debt, hatred of America, and probably more terrorist attacks from abroad. They will inherit a world worse off than the one their parents inherited from their parents, and they will learn to accept that, after a time anyway.
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