But he’s a rapist who seems like he’d be fun to have a beer with, so that makes it okay.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we had just airdropped 450 Billion in various denominations over Iraq instead of going to war. Do it over a period of a couple years and let the black market flood into Iraq. Instead of depending on the government controlled money from the oil industry they could just buy what they wanted directly. They would have to pay a premium for it, but hey it’s free money anyway. Once they had a taste of what money can buy they’d be hungry for economic reforms and would probably have ousted Saddam on their own.
Enjoy,
Steven
They make damn sure that any soldier that sees the Shrub is pre screened and a war backer. Just like they do in his appearances.
Those “stupid soldiers” don’t have any choice. They’re picked for a photo op and ordered to look happy. Were they to try to do anything other than look happy (like say, bitchslap the idiot like he so richly deserves), they’d immediately be drummed out of the military.
I agree, I just can’t see how anyone who has lost a limb or worse in this particular war could still be a war backer. What kind of brainwashing have you endured to have, for example, lost both legs in a pointless war, and then get excited to see the guy who put you there? The 30% in the polls who still back him I wouldn’t think have actually been there, or had family and friends injured or killed.
And if that were me, you could threaten me with life in Leavenworth and I wouldn’t shake hands and smile with the bastard who ruined my life.
Soldiers are not the brightest pickles in the barrel.
I also don’t get the double standard in this case. If the leader of Iran said he had proof Kuwait or whoever was stockpiling weapons and nukes or what have you with the intent to bomb Iran, and as a result started bombing the shit out of Kuwait, America would be up in arms about it, calling for sanctions, embargos, or whatever they do in those cases, and their leader would be thought of as a tyrant who needs to be ousted. But somehow at least 30% of the country thinks it OK when the US does the exact same thing, and Dubya is a hero for doing it. Insane.
I beg to offer a bit of understanding. It is entirely human, all too human, that a man who has made enormous sacrifice for a cause will cling to the belief that his sacrifice is worthy, that he has not been duped out of an arm or a leg, or the use of his brain.
It is not surprising in the least that a wounded soldier would support the effort that wounded him, it would be more surprising that he doesn’t.
I’m sure there are more than a few right-wingers who would regard the starvation and destitution of the Iraqis as an excellent argument for repeating the performance on the Iranians.
I’ve got some ugly vision of a Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney-like team of idiots in Washington saying “Yeah, I’ll get the bombs and you two go get some tanks. We’ll see if the twins still have that ammunition…and we can use Gramps old gas mask! That’s it! We’ll put on a real show!”
Cue dance number and fade.
It’ll slay 'em in Tehran.
You are, of course, right on the whole of your statement – after all, that is how the system is designed to work, But I don’t have it in my heart to blame *all Americans
- for the actions of your chosen representatives. Specially in light of seeing how hard so many of you have resisted this massacre from the start…with more and more finally seeing the light everyday.
Without getting into the particulars, I do think if there’s one area the whole neocon/Bush gang did an excellent job with, was the emotional hijack they effected after 9/11. I seriously don’t think people knew what the hell to do except look for someone/something to lash back at…and that’s what BushCo exploited, that emotional fragility of the time.
Having said that, 2004 is still incomprehensible to me.
Kerry failed to demonstrate that he was smarter than Bush (which makes him the bigger idiot).
I thought Kerry’s “problem” was that he came off as an elitist intelligent type guy, which Joe Sixpack sees as a bad thing. And he windsurfed, which regular guys don’t do. And he changed his mind on topics when more info was made available (waffling)- Bush stressed that to his followers, and the leemings agreed! Never change your mind, no matter if your original idea is later proven wrong! Same as Gore being viewed as wooden in 2000- who in their right mind gives a fuck if Gore isn’t personable, or Kerry is well spoken and married to Frau Heinz instead of All American Laura Bush the manslaughterer? The answer unfortunately, is many stupid Americans.
But yes, Kerry’s failure to utterly destroy an idiot like Bush in the debates didn’t help.
He should have won by enough for it to be irrelevant, but you may be forgetting the rampant election fraud in Ohio, plus the “John Kerry will ban the Bible and make everyone get a gay marriage” telephone poll.
You bring up an important distinction. I don’t believe we all share the blame for Iraq, I believe we all share the responsibility for it. I point the finger of blame 100% at the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress: they decided they wanted a war with Iraq, and used post-9/11 fear-mongering to sell it. Even if we had had a non-pathetic media and minority party in Congress who was willing to try to fight back, it’s not at all clear if such resistance as they could mount would have stopped them.
But we as a country elected the President, and volunteered the soldiers, and paid for the guns, and a majority of us said it was a good idea if there was any chance we might face the risk of harm. The United States fucked up Iraq, not just the Bush administration. We can’t duck the responsibility and the shame of that.
I never saw Kerry ever do anything that didn’t make him look like a blithering idiot during most of the campaign, and his “voting for the war so that he could vote against it” was an absolutely boneheaded move. Yeah, I understand his reasons why he did it, and I don’t fault his reasons for doing so, but, given that the war still had some measure of popular support at the time of the election, it’s no wonder it hurt him. Also, that stupid bracefaced little girl at the convention lecturing us about Dead Eye Dick Cheney using “a bad word” was incredibly insulting to people, IMHO. (And, ironically, one of the producers of the convention used the same bad word, and other bad words on air at the end of the convention.)
Lenin’s Tomb, the phone poll I’ll give you, but until someone produces the “smoking gun” on vote fraud in Ohio, I have to put it in the same realm of possibility as Oswald not being the trigger man in Dallas.
oh, shit. from here:
(bolding mine)
From here:
The number of American soldiers who have died in combat since the war began (as of yesterday): 3,025
That’s just the soldiers. The American ones. Who have died in combat. In Iraq. Not Iraqi soldiers, not civilians, not American soldiers who have died, not American soldiers who have died in combat in Afghanistan. Just the American soldiers who died in combat in Iraq.
Lovely. Bush has killed as many soldiers in combat as al Qaida killed civilians on 9/11. I’m glad we’re the good guys. I’d hate to see if we weren’t.
I forgot about the “voting for the war so that he could vote against it” bit- yeah that was incredibly stupid. But I always found that whole aspect to be infurating- people are having to defend why the believed the POTUS and voted on something based on his faulty proof and lies. For Bush to call him on it showed real chutzpah- in effect he was saying- “you were an idiot for taking my word on something”. Why couldn’t he, and any Democrats who are asked about it for eternity, have simply said “Yes, I voted for the war. President Bush showed us what appeared to be proof that something dire was going on, and yes we believed him, which we were wrong for doing. When we found out he was wrong/mistaken/lying, I immediately changed my stance”- how hard is that? And why couldn’t any one of them had any balls and still voted against it, because it wasn’t worth an immediate war, even if true?
Because that would amount to admitting they were wrong, and to changing their mind, both of which terrify politicians.