Fuck you, scumbag.
Interesting considering Bush & co. are saying Kerry shouldn’t be blaiming our troops.
Heh
Here’s a link that isn’t a video with some of theinfo:
I see. It’s not the President’s fault, it’s the troops’ fault for not looking carefully enough. Not even the generals’, mind you. The troops’ fault.
Yeah, that’s how to pull in the overseas military vote for the Republicans: shift the blame for a scandalous security failure onto the troops in order to defend the President. What on earth was Giuliani thinking? Even if he really believes that the soldiers just didn’t do their job properly, does he really think that blaming them for it is going to go over well with the voters? Seems to me that the voters who are still gung-ho about the Iraq occupation will not take kindly to hearing servicepeople dissed, and the ones who aren’t gung-ho about the occupation were probably not going to vote for Bush anyway.
Of course it isn’t Bush’s fault, only good things that happen are Bush’s fault, bad things are someone else’s fault.
I hate to get involved in politics, since there are more informed people than I on this board to handle the political debates, but I have a question.
First, I hate Bush and as much as I hate to ask this, why would it be Bush’s fault? I think it’s pretty shitty to blame the troops, who are merely following orders. But why doesn’t the blame fall on whoever led the troops in that particular task?
There are plenty of reasons for me to think Bush isn’t fit to lead this country for 4 more years, but what did he do (or not do) that caused this to happen?
This isn’t meant to be inflammatory or to goad anyone into an argument, I’m asking sincerely because I don’t know. Fight my ignorance, please. 
The typical argument is that the main argument against Bush’s leadership regarding Iraq is that it was poorly planned - there weren’t nearly as many troops as needed to make occupation during reconstruction painless and overwhelming for insurgency. Too little troops results in things falling through the cracks. In this case, its hundreds of tons of explosives that slipped away into the ether.
You do realize that he does not blame the troops, as your stupid OP claims, right?
No, Brutus, he doesn’t “blame it on the troops”–he simply says that “no matter how you try to blame it on the president, the responsibility would for it really would be for the troops that were there.” Technically, he never said, “the troops are to blame for it.” You’ve learned well from your master, Padawan.
Nonetheless, if you squint really hard, and dig really deep, can you maybe see the implication there? Seriously.
Why woudl we blame the president for it? Because there weren’t enough troops. I’m no military expert, but I know a little bit:
-Airplanes and missiles are real good at killing people without risking your own troops so much.
-Airplanes and missiles aren’t so good at occupying and protecting strategic sites. That’s kind of why you need infantry.
Bush launched a war into a country with plenty of high-risk sites, and he decided to do it with inadequate infantry levels. The result, apparently, was that high-risk sites weren’t occupied or protected.
The responsibility isn’t “for the troops that were there.” The responsibility is “for the person who guaranteed that the troops wouldn’t be there.”
Daniel
Is there a link to the full interview?
Guiliani apparently is saying that perhaps no mistake was made, so maybe there isn’t any blame anyway:
But he quite clearly implied that if it turns out there should be blame, it belongs to the troops and not to the President:
[/quote]
“The president did what a commander in chief should do – and no matter how you try to blame it on the president, the responsibility would for it really would be for the troops that were there – did they search carefully enough? Didn’t they search carefully enough?”
[/quote]
UC, stpauler’s link has more quotes, although not the full interview text.
Thanks Darth! I was just pointing out yet another Lefty OP that is clearly bullshit, all of the convoluted spinning by you guys aside.
Except it’s not clearly bullshit: he’s said that “the responsibility would for it really would be for the troops that were there.” “Responsibility” in this context is awful close to “blame.” He’s not going to give them special bunny rabbit toys for this responsibility. He’s going to toss the buck back to them, say “Nuh uh, the president isn’t responsible.”
Daniel
Do you really believe that Guiliani wasn’t trying to lessen the political impact this story might have on the election by shifting the responsibility to the troops who were there?
Brutus: I was just pointing out yet another Lefty OP that is clearly bullshit, all of the convoluted spinning by you guys aside.
How is it bullshit? Giuliani is clearly saying “well, maybe we shouldn’t blame anybody, because things happen in war, but if we are assigning blame for this, it belongs to the troops who were there, not the President”.
That is certainly “blaming the troops”, although only provisionally. Obviously he would much rather not blame anybody for this, but I don’t think that’s going to fly.
“the responsibility would for it really would be for the troops that were there.”
Maybe they were ‘Bad Apples’?
That worked for the Abu Ghraib Torture thingee. Maybe it’ll work here too.
I wasn’t sure if this was the left jumping on a perceived mistake or if there was an actual reason for them to blame Bush and, if so, what that reason was. Thanks for the clarification.
I’ve made up my mind, so I’m trying to stay away from the news as much as possible. I can’t take this election anymore.
Brutus, back in 1944 the Powers that Be tapped a Senator to step in and run as Vice President. The President’s health was deteriorating, and most people who were “in the know” realized it.
That Senator stepped up because he felt it was his duty – not because he particularly wanted to be Vice President.
Three months after he was inaugurated as VP, the President died. And a lot of major decisions, at least one of which was the topic of a recent GD thread, descended on him.
He used to keep a sign on his desk. It read, “The Buck Stops Here.”
Meaning, whatever happens “under his watch,” as the modern expression for a Presidential term goes, was his responsibility. If he appointed an idiot, or someone who was careless enough to hire idiots, and they screwed up, he took the blame – because he should have taken care to prevent what happened.
And if he appointed someone, he stood by them, and didn’t leave them to take the flack.
He also, famously, made an interesting set of remarks. Speaking to the NAACP – the first time a President had addressed them, on June 28, 1947, he said:
We have come a long way since then. And I have real questions about a President who expects affirmations of loyalty to his candidacy of an audience that he will speak to, who seems to be willing to let his appointees take the blame. Don Rumsfeld was not to blame for the problems in Iraq that he took the blame for earlier this year – no matter if he was the one who made the mistakes or not. He was an appointee, the guy named to head the DOD. The man elected to do the job, our Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, was the man with the ultimate responsibility. If anyone should have taken the blame, it should have been Mr. Bush. And further, it seems to me that his definition of “all Americans” leaves quite a lot of us out in the cold.
You may see things differently – in fact, I’d say it’s odds on that you do. But I’d be most interested in seeing what you have to say about the stances that Mr. Truman and Mr. Bush have at two different times taken.
You guys sound like you are trying awful hard to convince yourselves. Enough repetition may do the job, I would not know. I do know that Guilliani did not blame the troops, as the OP claims. I also know that while Truman may have come up with a oft-quoted zinger, you guys seem to be trying to put into practice his other great line: ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them’. Truman is great and all (or terrible, whatever), but that has what to do with a blatantly false OP?
Well, not on September 11, 2001, he didn’t.
Trying to claim that the statement
is somehow not blaming the troops would indicate a serious lack of reading comprehension.