Bush: Democrats Jeopardizing Service Members' Safety

[Nickdfresh]

Bush: Democrats Jeopardizing Service Members' Safety
President Says Democrats Using Spending Bill as Way to Oppose War

By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/07/AR2007040700441.html?hpid=topnews) Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2007; 6:00 PM

President Bush used his Easter weekend radio address to suggest that while Americans are "blessed" to have so many brave, volunteer military service members, congressional Democrats are jeopardizing their safety by delaying passage of a $100 billion war funding bill.

"I recognize that Democrats are trying to show their current opposition to the war in Iraq," Bush said this morning. "They see the emergency war spending bill as a chance to make that statement. Yet for our men and women in uniform, this emergency war spending bill is not a political statement, it is a source of critical funding that has a direct impact on their daily lives."

The House and Senate have approved the $100 billion Bush wants for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, today, Bush restated his vow to veto Senate and House versions of a spending bill that would set a deadline for U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq, where more 3,200 Americans--and tens of thousands of Iraqis--have been killed over the past four years. Bush wants a bill that does not have a deadline for troop withdrawals.

In response, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on Bush and congressional Republicans to "stop trying to bully their way through this and work with Democrats to end the war."

"It's time for the president to show respect to the American people, who voted overwhelmingly to leave Iraq," Dean in the Democrats' weekly radio address.

A clear majority of Americans oppose the war, which has cost more than $300 billion so far. But Bush said the Democrats' delay in passing a bill with no troop pullout deadline will soon deprive U.S. military personnel of the equipment and training they need to do their jobs.

"When Congress does not fund our troops on the front lines, our military is forced to make cuts in other areas to cover the shortfall," he said. " . . . By mid-April, the Army will be forced to consider cutting back on training, equipment repair, and quality of life initiatives for our Guard and Reserve forces . . .By mid-May, the problems grow even more acute."

If funding for the war is delayed much longer, Bush said, "some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. And others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than they need to."

Dean said it is the Republicans who sent troops to Iraq without proper body armor, equipment or training.

"Our military is now stretched to a breaking point," he said. "Just this week, the Army announced that they'll send large division units back to Iraq without giving them at least a year's rest at home, as the Pentagon standards require. Because our forces have been so badly depleted, the Pentagon just yesterday announced that they're deploying an additional 12,000 National Guard Reserves to Iraq."

Early this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid endorsed the Senate's toughest antiwar bill yet--one that would set a March 31, 2008 deadline for completing the withdrawal of combat forces and ending most military spending in Iraq.

Bush has repeatedly warned that Iraq will descend deeper into chaos if U.S. forces leave the country.

"For our troops, the clock is ticking," he said today. " . . . We have our differences in Washington D.C., but our troops should not be caught in the middle. All who serve in elected office have a solemn responsibility to provide for our men and women in uniform. We need to put partisan politics aside, and do our duty to those who defend us."

Dean, a former Vermont governor, said the Democrats' plan includes a phased redeployment of troops to bring most of them home, with some remaining in Iraq for counterterrorism operations and training Iraqi security forces.

"We believe that we ought to refocus our military efforts on Afghanistan and on fighting terrorism," Dean said. "We've presented this plan to President Bush, but he stubbornly refuses even to discuss it. We intend to see that the troops get what they deserve and we will not give President Bush a blank check for a war without end."

[FORD]

Howard Dean is right.

As usual :cool:

[studly hungwell]

The human race is hopeless. This is Vietnam all over again. I hope these soldiers won't get spit on when they get home. Shameful.

[FORD]

Originally posted by studly hungwell
The human race is hopeless. This is Vietnam all over again. I hope these soldiers won't get spit on when they get home. Shameful.

Been to Walter Reed lately?

They ARE being spit on. By the same criminal bastards who sent them to Iraq for no reason in the first place. :mad:

[studly hungwell]

Originally posted by FORD
Been to Walter Reed lately?

They ARE being spit on. By the same criminal bastards who sent them to Iraq for no reason in the first place. :mad:

pretty predictable, dude. I meant in the literal sense....not metaphorically. HOpe my spelling is right....OD is a stickler for that.

[FORD]

Well, there really is no literal sense, because this "Vietnam vets were spit on" is more a right wing myth than it is reality.


JERRY LEMBCKE
Debunking a spitting image

By Jerry Lembcke | April 30, 2005

STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on.

What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their point of origin in time and place is obscure, and, yet, they have very similar details. The story told by the man who spat on Jane Fonda at a book signing in Kansas City recently is typical. Michael Smith said he came back through Los Angeles airport where ''people were lined up to spit on us."

Like many stories of the spat-upon veteran genre, Smith's lacks credulity. GIs landed at military airbases, not civilian airports, and protesters could not have gotten onto the bases and anywhere near deplaning troops. There may have been exceptions, of course, but in those cases how would protesters have known in advance that a plane was being diverted to a civilian site? And even then, returnees would have been immediately bused to nearby military installations and processed for reassignment or discharge.

The exaggerations in Smith's story are characteristic of those told by others. ''Most Vietnam veterans were spat on when we came back," he said. That's not true. A 1971 Harris poll conducted for the Veterans Administration found over 90 percent of Vietnam veterans reporting a friendly homecoming. Far from spitting on veterans, the antiwar movement welcomed them into its ranks and thousands of veterans joined the opposition to the war.

The persistence of spat-upon Vietnam veteran stories suggests that they continue to fill a need in American culture. The image of spat-upon veterans is the icon through which many people remember the loss of the war, the centerpiece of a betrayal narrative that understands the war to have been lost because of treason on the home front. Jane Fonda's noisiest detractors insist she should have been prosecuted for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, in conformity with the law of the land.

But the psychological dimensions of the betrayal mentality are far more interesting than the legal. Betrayal is about fear, and the specter of self-betrayal is the hardest to dispel. The likelihood that the real danger to America lurks not outside but inside the gates is unsettling. The possibility that it was failure of masculinity itself, the meltdown of the core component of warrior culture, that cost the nation its victory in Vietnam has haunted us ever since.

Many tellers of the spitting tales identify the culprits as girls, a curious quality to the stories that gives away their gendered subtext. Moreover, the spitting images that emerged a decade after the troops had come home from Vietnam are similar enough to the legends of defeated German soldiers defiled by women upon their return from World War I, and the rejection from women felt by French soldiers when they returned from their lost war in Indochina, to suggest something universal and troubling at work in their making. One can reject the presence of a collective subconscious in the projection of those anxieties, as many scholars would, but there is little comfort in the prospect that memories of group spit-ins, like Smith has, are just fantasies conjured in the imaginations of aging veterans.

Remembering the war in Vietnam through the images of betrayal is dangerous because it rekindles the hope that wars like it, in countries where we are not welcomed, can be won. It disparages the reputation of those who opposed that war and intimidates a new generation of activists now finding the courage to resist Vietnam-type ventures in the 21st century.

Today, on the 30th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, new stories of spat-upon veterans appear faster than they can be challenged. Debunking them one by one is unlikely to slow their proliferation but, by contesting them where and when we can, we engage the historical record in a way that helps all of us remember that, in the end, soldiers and veterans joined with civilians to stop a war that should have never been fought.

Jerry Lembcke, associate professor of sociology at Holy Cross College, is the author of ''The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam."

Link (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/30/debunking_a_spitting_image/)

[studly hungwell]

Originally posted by FORD
Well, there really is no literal sense, because this "Vietnam vets were spit on" is more a right wing myth than it is reality.

A right wing myth? Do you really want to debate the idea that their were large sections of the population that held the soldiers themselves responsible for the shit that happened in Vietnam? And, what's worse is these guys weren't a volunteer force. They were drafted...they had to go. Also, they stood in the shadows of their fathers and grandfathers who were showered with honor and respect for the wars they fought. Do you really believe the article you posted?

[FORD]

Find me 100 vietnam vets who will say that happenned to them, and I'll take it seriously.

And not members of "Swift Boat Liars For Bush", "Freak Republic", or any other such neocon propaganda cult.

[studly hungwell]

Originally posted by FORD
Find me 100 vietnam vets who will say that happenned to them, and I'll take it seriously.

And not members of "Swift Boat Liars For Bush", "Freak Republic", or any other such neocon propaganda cult.


So, if I don't find 100 you won't believe it happened? What if it only happened to one guy? The slinging of spit is not really the issue here. It is that some of the population hated these guys that went to Vietnam. Will you at least accept that? And, if so, will you admit it was wrong to do so?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by studly hungwell
A right wing myth? Do you really want to debate the idea that their were large sections of the population that held the soldiers themselves responsible for the shit that happened in Vietnam? And, what's worse is these guys weren't a volunteer force. They were drafted...they had to go. Also, they stood in the shadows of their fathers and grandfathers who were showered with honor and respect for the wars they fought. Do you really believe the article you posted?

There's no question that a minority of the anti-War movement hated the GIs. But the majority regarded them as co-victims of a failed policy.

And I'd wager that for any vet that was spit upon, there was probably a vet that was harassed for "not winning" or not fighting well by a drunken idiot in a bar (yes I got that out of a Richard Pryor movie, but it probably has some basis in truth).

[FORD]

Originally posted by studly hungwell
So, if I don't find 100 you won't believe it happened? What if it only happened to one guy? The slinging of spit is not really the issue here. It is that some of the population hated these guys that went to Vietnam. Will you at least accept that? And, if so, will you admit it was wrong to do so?

Of course that would be wrong. Especially given the fact that most of them were drafted.

But I believe this myth was created by the reich wing propaganda machine to harm the current anti-war movement, and was used specifically against John Kerry in 2004, even though he was a combat vet himself.

[studly hungwell]

Originally posted by FORD
Of course that would be wrong. Especially given the fact that most of them were drafted.

But I believe this myth was created by the reich wing propaganda machine to harm the current anti-war movement, and was used specifically against John Kerry in 2004, even though he was a combat vet himself.

With all due respect, Ford...this isn't a new story or "myth". This has been accepted as truth since the early '70's.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
There's no question that a minority of the anti-War movement hated the GIs. But the majority regarded them as co-victims of a failed policy.

And I'd wager that for any vet that was spit upon, there was probably a vet that was harassed for "not winning" or not fighting well by a drunken idiot in a bar (yes I got that out of a Richard Pryor movie, but it probably has some basis in truth).

Is that the same movie where he said his name was Jack Meoff?

Haven't seen that one in years.

[FORD]

Originally posted by studly hungwell
With all due respect, Ford...this isn't a new story or "myth". This has been accepted as truth since the early '70's.

Accepted as truth by WHOM?

Like the article posted above says, these stories didn't start circulating until the BCE was campaigning to take back the White House in 1980, and their propaganda machine has used it ever since.

Where were these stories in the 70's??

Like Nick said, I'm sure there was as much (if not more) stories of right wingers abusing the Vietnam vets for "not killing enough gooks" or whatever.

[WACF]

Does not matter if you're left or right...each end has more than it's fair share of idiots.

Each end has a lot of good people too...we just tend to notice the ass hats more.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by FORD
Is that the same movie where he said his name was Jack Meoff?

Haven't seen that one in years.

Yes yes, SGT Jack Meoff...:D

[studly hungwell]

Originally posted by FORD
Accepted as truth by WHOM?

Like the article posted above says, these stories didn't start circulating until the BCE was campaigning to take back the White House in 1980, and their propaganda machine has used it ever since.

Where were these stories in the 70's??

Like Nick said, I'm sure there was as much (if not more) stories of right wingers abusing the Vietnam vets for "not killing enough gooks" or whatever.

So this is your position? You won't admit that the situation was so intense that some people directed their ire at the draftees?

[Nickdfresh]

http://rapidshare.com/files/25054763/01_Bush_Deploys_20_000_Wishful_Thoug.mp3

[Ellyllions]

I see this whole debate as a NON-issue. The bill they passed gave 3 conditions that would not get funding cuts. Those 3 conditions actually define what the soldiers are supposed to be doing in the Iraq right now.

It's all political lip-service, from the democrats and from the republicans. Neither side is really doing anything. They all just think we're dumb enough to think so.

The ONLY thing that will happen if Bush veto's this bill is keep the earmarks from getting funded...and if he doesn't veto the bill, the earmarks get funded.



http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-talk/2007/04/april_8_democrats_willing_to_d_1.html?hpid=topnews

April 8: Democrats back away from Iraq troops withdrawal demand

For the second straight weekend, top Senate Democrats shrunk further away from core principles they had set out in the Iraq war debate, signaling Sunday that they were prepared to drop a timetable mandating the withdrawal of U.S. troops, should President Bush fulfill his vow to veto current war funding legislation.

Last Sunday, senior Democrats said that they would not hold back funding for the war if the president vetoed a bill including an Iraq withdrawal timetable. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, reiterated that point on ABC's "This Week." He said, "We're not going to vote to cut funding, period."


After a veto, he said, "there's a number of options. Either we can keep the benchmarks part of the bill without saying that the troops must begin to come back." And if that doesn't work, "what we will leave will be benchmarks, for instance, which would require the president to certify to the American people if the Iraqis are meeting the benchmarks for political settlement, which they, the Iraqi leaders, have set for themselves."

Democrats also suggested their strategy would be to portray Bush as the one who is denying funds to the troops.

"Should he veto this bill, which means he will be vetoing the money for the troops, we will try to come up with a way, ... trying to compromise with the White House, that both supports the troops and yet changes the strategy in Iraq, which we feel is misguided," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on "Fox News Sunday."

"And by the way, 70 percent of the American people feel it's misguided. If a change in strategy means not supporting the troops, then 70 percent of the American people don't support the troops."

The House and Senate have both passed $100 billion spending bills to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afgahnistan. The House bill would require U.S. combat troops to leave by Sept. 1, 2008, while the Senate bill asks that troops begin to leave in 120 days, a process to be completed by March 31, 2008. House and Senate negotiators are to work on a compromise bill to send to the president when the House comes back from recess in a week.

Some Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), have vowed to pursue legislation that would cut off funds for combat operations on March 31, if Bush continues to keep a large troop presence there. That would go much further than the bills currently being considered, which Democrats have emphasized would not cut funding.

Levin suggested that the more far-reaching bill, co-sponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) would not go anywhere if it contains measures to cut funding. "Harry Reid acknowledged that that's not going to happen. He has a personal position, which he said was not the caucus position. He was very clear when he joined a bill which would cut off funding under certain circumstances."

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Republican Conference, said the Congress should send the president a war spending bill without conditions. "The point here is that when you send the president a bill that has a big poison pill in it like that ... he's going to veto it. This is a very risky strategy," Kyl said on ABC's "This Week." "Every day of delay is a day when we're not sending troops the body armor they need, the humvees that they need and all of the other things that they need.

Also on the foreign policy front this morning:

-- On Fox, Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.),who is mulling a presidential bid, had harsh words about the response to Iran's seizure - and return - of 15 British Navy personnel: "The West was humiliated. The British were humiliated. The Europeans were humiliated. The United Nations was humiliated. ... We should be actively seeking to replace that government by bringing every kind of non-military pressure to bear we can, to destabilize that government and help the people of Iran, replace it with a moderate government."

-- On CNN, Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats, switched partisan roles discussing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Syria, in spite of administration wishes.
"She has a very prominent constitutional role in determine what's going to happen in the Iraqi war. Syria is very much involved with respect to the funding," Specter said.

Lieberman disagreed: "Her visit to Syria was a mistake, that it was bad for the United States of America and good for the Syrians. And I say this because Syria -- we're in a war. We're in a war against the Islamist terrorists who attacked us on 9/11/01. Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism."

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
Been to Walter Reed lately?

They ARE being spit on. By the same criminal bastards who sent them to Iraq for no reason in the first place. :mad:

I've been to WRAMC lately.

One building does not a hospital make.

The vast majority of the buildings and the grounds themselves are in great shape.

Actually, the building in question where these out-patient troops lived weren't actually on the hospital grounds itself, but was still the responsibility of the hospital commander.

FORD, you're believing all the democraticunderground and Main Stream Media anti-war propaganda... again.

[Hyman Roth]

http://content.imagesocket.com/images/_1a38f7.jpg

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by studly hungwell
pretty predictable, dude. I meant in the literal sense....not metaphorically. HOpe my spelling is right....OD is a stickler for that.

if not that, I'll find something else to bust your balls about

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I've been to WRAMC lately.

One building does not a hospital make.

The vast majority of the buildings and the grounds themselves are in great shape.

Actually, the building in question where these out-patient troops lived weren't actually on the hospital grounds itself, but was still the responsibility of the hospital commander.

FORD, you're believing all the democraticunderground and Main Stream Media anti-war propaganda... again.

Why the fuck do you keep making excuses for these criminal assholes??

The BCE has given this country the largest defense budget of any nation in the history of mankind. Literally bigger than that of the rest of the planet combined. With that amount of money being spent, there's no excuse for even one injured serviceman or vet to put up with substandard conditions in a VA hospital.

Except we all know that's not where the money's going. It's going into the pockets of Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, and other nazi piece of shit bastards.

As I said, how do you continue to defend these fucking criminals??

[Hardrock69]

I find it fucking stupid that themonkey keeps saying the Democrats are putting our soliders' lives in jeopardy by cutting off funding....when he has already murdered over 3,000 of our troops by sending them over there in the first place.

If anything, the Democrats are SAVING the lives of untold numbers of our American military personnel by getting them the fuck out of a fucked up place they should never have been sent to in the first fucking place!
:mad:

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by FORD
As I said, how do you continue to defend these fucking criminals??

My guess is it's a mixture of ignorance, cockiness, and a virulent disdain for reality.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
Why the fuck do you keep making excuses for these criminal assholes??

The BCE has given this country the largest defense budget of any nation in the history of mankind. Literally bigger than that of the rest of the planet combined. With that amount of money being spent, there's no excuse for even one injured serviceman or vet to put up with substandard conditions in a VA hospital.



FORD, you're absolutely correct. :eek:

No service member or vet should have to put up living in sub-standard conditions.

However, I think it's only correct and proper to assign blame where blame is due...to the service involved. The administration has little to do with how the facilities are kept up. The President doesn't do a walk-through every week of troop living spaces like a unit's commander or designated representative should do.

Hell, I could tell you some serious stories along the same lines going clear back to Jimmah Carter.

:cool:

[Ellyllions]

BBB, how about the drugs that get administered that are NOT FDA approved?

My grandfather was prescribed a whole host of "untested" drugs that we'd never heard of, couldn't find information on, and probably never will.

There are some harsh realities in this world and as long as there are humans runnin' thangs, nothing will ever be perfect.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
BBB, how about the drugs that get administered that are NOT FDA approved?

My grandfather was prescribed a whole host of "untested" drugs that we'd never heard of, couldn't find information on, and probably never will.

There are some harsh realities in this world and as long as there are humans runnin' thangs, nothing will ever be perfect.

Hmm....

I've never heard of that.

However, I was offered a trial drug being researched by Walter Reed, the National Institute of Health, and Georgetown University medical school.

I didn't take them up on their offer...it was completely voluntary.

[Ellyllions]

I've probably posted this before but my grandfather served in Iwo Jima. He was honorably discharged with Post Traumatic Stress disorder and was in and out of the VA in Roanoke for the rest of his life.

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Hmm....

I've never heard of that.

However, I was offered a trial drug being researched by Walter Reed, the National Institute of Health, and Georgetown University medical school.

I didn't take them up on their offer...it was completely voluntary.

Methinks you have been the victim of some sort of govt. conservative mind control experiment that is ongoing, and every time you hear a fat guys voice, you salivate and blame all democrats for everything.
You aren't still using the V.A. system, are you? Cut the cord man. Be free again.