Zar

No, einstein, what people mean is that Bush should be saying things like, "The attacks must cease. We will not give in to them. They only hurt the Iraqi people more and delay the people's movement back to a more peaceful, civil society." But here's Bush: "Bring 'em on!" Huh? Inciting an attack? Just a tad off the mark, I'd say. Not much better than Joe Sixpack could do without even a moment's contemplation.

You probably represent the quintessential demographic of Bush's "Ugly American" self-righteous constituency, which explains why you would apply these evangelical apologetics to everything Bush does or says.

And yes, Bush is a major focal point for a lot of scrutiny. But he's a big boy and doesn't need your protection, I'm sure. If he can't take the heat, he should get out of the furnace.

fatherphil

forget scrutiny zar, bush is targeted for death by the same forces he's called out. sorry you missed my point, try not to put me in a box and you might get more out of my posts. at any rate, do tone done the attacks.

Arken

fatherphil,

Somehow you don't seem to understand the difference between direct provocation and diplomatic aggressive wording. If you're working in a convenience store and a guy comes in and points a gun to your head, do you say "bring it on" or do you say "the police will be here in thirty seconds so you'd better not shoot."

One is an open, meaningless threat which will almost definitely get you shot. The other has weight behind it and is said without mockery and will probably save you your life.

Zar

Your previous post polarized the question into a false dichotomy of what Bush would be forceed to say if he didn't say "Bring 'em on!" It was a very sloppy point that was pretty hard to take seriously. I did not detect even a whif of this second point you are making in the first point.

And your new "point" is not much of an improvment in clarity or effectiveness. You say Bush is "targeted for death by the same forces he's called out." What the heck are you talking about? Do you mean to say that the Iraqi forces are knocking on his door in Crawford?

Even so, that has little to do with the general environment of "criticism", so I'm not sure that has much to do with my complaints.

Godless Dave

Accepting for the sake of argument that that's a bad thing, Bush has all the resources of the Secret Service and US intelligence services to protect him from an attack on his person. He is safe in the White House, a hemisphere away from any danger from Iraqis. The US and British servicemen in Iraq face much more immediate danger.

Jacey

fatherphil,

I will try to be as nice as I can being that I'm a mod here at II. But these two statements are totally idiotic, and I am quite literally sitting here, in uniform, fuming.

You say that no one is wearing a bigger target than gwb. Interesting for you to say that since he probably has more physical protection than anyone in the world. A bigger target........though, hm........how about any one of the 200 servicemembers who have already died thousands of miles from home? Oh wait, those deaths are "insignificant," right? I think that after the rhetoric that Bush leashed out against Saddam, that yes, of course he's going to be a target. Who started this damn war anyway........oh wait that was us.

Remember, Bush shouldn't have to beg Iraqis for anything, he told us, Rumsfeld told us, and keep going down the line, that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms.

Speaking of Iraqis, how many innocent civilians died over there? It's in the thousands. As much as we cry about 9-11, we unleashed a 9-11 of our own over there.

jman0904

www.iraqbodycount.net should put it in perspective.

Jimmy Higgins

I personally don't like that argument. I mean, the number of Iraqis killed from Gulf War II and after may still be less than those if Hussein was still in power.

I think the main line to argue is the fact that after all these years, this administration still doesn't know how to deal with Muslims. You think someone would have read the Qu'ran by now. Right now Iraqis and Coalition troops are dying because of this Administrations inability to come up with a feasible plan to rebuild Iraq.

Godless Dave

This is just me, but if I were planning to invade a country and remove its leadership, I would come up with a rebuilding plan before the invasion. But again, that's just me.

jman0904

I think the point of the argument isn't just that civilians are dying in mass numbers, but that:
The administration told us in Afghanistan, and before Iraq, that because of their "Highly Accurate Precision Bombing", civilian casualties would be very low if not almost non-existant.
Months after we've left Afghanistan, people are still dying. Whether from finally dying after lingering painfully, or whether a child decides to see what this cool tube is (and unknowningly picks up a cluster bomb).
And civilians are dying in large numbers even after the war has been proclaimed over.



Funny how a cluster bomb doesn't look like your average bomb. Good thing those little kids know what one looks like!
(Oh wait....damn, they don't. )