since you word it this way, then please replace the f*ck with screw or another more mild expression and remove the and then I stand corrected, but the content still stands Not fully removed? hmmm ok let's see how many funerals he attended.. "There are those who say Mr. Bush should have emulated Rudy Giuliani's empathetic leadership after 9/11, or Dad's in the first gulf war, and attended some of the funerals of the 379 Americans killed in Iraq. Or one. Maybe the one for Specialist Darryl Dent, the 21-year-old National Guard officer from Washington who died outside Baghdad in late August when a bomb struck his truck while he was delivering mail to troops. His funeral was held at a Baptist church three miles from the White House." "The ball for fall is fund-raising. President Bush has been going full throttle since summer, spending several days a week flying around the country, hitting up rich Republicans for $2,000 checks. He has raised $90 million so far out of the $175 million he plans to spend on a primary campaign in which he has no opponent. At fund-raisers, Mr. Bush prefers to talk about the uptick in the economy, not the downtick in Iraq. On Monday, arriving for a fund-raiser in Birmingham, he was upbeat, not somber. As Mike Allen of The Washington Post reported in his pool report, "The president, who gave his usual salute as he stepped off Marine One, appeared to start the day in a fabulous mood. . . . An Alabama reporter who was under the wing shouted, `How long will U.S. troops be in Iraq?' The president gave him an unappreciative look." Perhaps the solution to Mr. Bush's quandary is to coordinate his schedule so he can go to cities where he can attend both fund-raisers and funerals. The law of averages suggests it shouldn't be hard. http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/opinion/06DOWD.html
Pentagon keeps dead out of sight Bush team doesn't want people to see human cost of war Even body bags are now sanitized as `transfer tubes' TIM HARPER WASHINGTON BUREAU WashingtonâCharles H. Buehring came home last week. He arrived at the air force base in Dover, Del., in the middle of the night, in an aluminum shipping case draped in an American flag. When the military truck drove his remains across the tarmac, workers paused and removed their hats. He was met by a six-member honour guard acting as pallbearers, to allow a "dignified transfer" to the Charles C. Carson mortuary, where he became one of an estimated 60,000 American casualties of war that have been processed there over almost five decades. "It reminds us we are at war," says Lt.-Col. Jon Anderson, who describes business at the Dover mortuary as "steady." But America never saw Lt.-Col. Buehring's arrival, days after a rocket from a homemade launcher ended his life at age 40 in Baghdad's heavily fortified Rasheed Hotel last Monday. Americans have never seen any of the other 359 bodies returning from Iraq. Nor do they see the wounded cramming the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington or soldiers who say they are being treated inhumanely awaiting medical treatment at Fort Stewart, Ga. In order to continue to sell an increasingly unpopular Iraqi invasion to the American people, President George W. Bush's administration sweeps the messy parts of war â the grieving families, the flag-draped coffins, the soldiers who have lost limbs â into a far corner of the nation's attic. No television cameras are allowed at Dover. Bush does not attend the funerals of soldiers who gave their lives in his war on terrorism. Buehring of Winter Springs, Fla., described as "a great American" by his commanding officer, had two sons, 12 and 9, was active in the Boy Scouts and his church and had served his country for 18 years. No government official has said a word publicly about him. If stories of wounded soldiers are told, they are told by hometown papers, but there is no national attention given to the recuperating veterans here in the nation's capital. More than 1,700 Americans have been wounded in Iraq since the March invasion. "You can call it news control or information control or flat-out propaganda," says Christopher Simpson, a communications professor at Washington's American University. "Whatever you call it, this is the most extensive effort at spinning a war that the department of defence has ever undertaken in this country." Simpson notes that photos of the dead returning to American soil have historically been part of the ceremony, part of the picture of conflict and part of the public closure for families â until now. "This White House is the greatest user of propaganda in American history and if they had a shred of honesty, they would admit it. But they can't." Lynn Cutler, a Democratic strategist and former official in Bill Clinton's White House, says this is the first time in history that bodies have been brought home under cover of secrecy. "It feels like Vietnam when Lyndon Johnson was accused of hiding the body bags .... "This is a big government and a big Pentagon and they could have someone there to meet these bodies as they come back to the country." But today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" â a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them "human remains pouches" and it now refers to them as "transfer tubes."
There is somewhat of a standing policy for acting presidents not to attend individual funerals for soldiers who die in or out of combat. Bush may be in denial of the the situation, but denial suggests that feelings do exist to deny. I don't view him as cold blooded about the death of American soldiers. Believe it or not, and again I am not a fan of GW for many reasons, I don't view him as divorced from his conscience.....perhaps undergoing a legal separation at times, but not fully divorced.
The real question is: Should we make policy on the basis of a small percentage of our armed forces losing their lives, or on the basis of what we think is right in the long run? Not claiming to have the answers....but as tragic as the loss of a single American life is, the good of society is the goal, even if it means sacrifice along the way. This is the debate that needs to take place, not that war is tragic, but is the tragedy worth it?
you are correct, that is an important question. but whether the answer is yes, no, or not sure, there's no excuse for not honoring appropriately those who have sacrificed. whoever is responsible for this policy of ignoring the casualties should be given the next available ticket to Tikrit. this is despicable.
Nice that you have the easy answers. There were many colonists who also believed that a single life shed was not worth the upside in around 1776.
Excellent points. I have repeatedly voiced my disgust that more attention has not been paid to preventing casualties, but some casualties are inevitable. I don't recall the Lynn Cutlers of the world being too concerned whne Wes Clark was running a terror bombing campaign over Serbia or when our sailors were killed on the Cole or at Khobar Towers.
comparing this fraud for war and US invasion of Iraq, with what happened in 1776 surely is in bad taste. ARougueTrader Yall can generalize all you want. But this thread is about dummya and Iraq.!!!!!!!!!! C Rombinson has it RIGHT the answer is NOOOOOOO