President Bush was in my part of the world yesterday, speaking at the Raritan Center in Edison, NJ, at a political fund-raiser for NJ Republicans. While I mostly avoided the overblown fears about massive traffic problems in the area on my way home, I am disappointed that I didn't make my way over to a gathering protest held at the Holiday Inn parking lot a mile away (apparently as close as the protesters were allowed to come to the president). I found out about the appearance late. I would have been late arriving to the protest. And I don't know if I could have gotten around the police barricades at the time I drove past the Raritan Center. It's no excuse. I should have lent my support to the anti-war protesters who assembled there. So today, I'm doing the next best thing. All right, probably not the next best, but this blog is all I've got.
I've written ad nauseum about the disgraceful leadership of Bush in many areas, including Hurricane Katrina, global warming, international relations, warrantless wiretapping, support for prisoner torture, shockingly incompetent appointments to Attorney General, the U.N., and FEMA, shockingly unethical relationship with Big Oil and other corporations, the debt bill fiasco, the overall disdain for the rule of law, the overall disdain for the American public, and the overall disdain for competency in government. But the #1 issue remains Iraq. And the #1 reason Democrats capitulated in trying to bring our troops home is the fear that they had that Republicans would attack them for not supporting our troops by de-funding the war effort. What I just can't understand is how "supporting the troops" is continuing to force them to serve in the midst of an Iraqi civil war that is by its very nature completely unwinnable (how does America win a civil war in another country? Can someone - anyone - of the 28% of Americans still supporting this president explain that to me? Please??) And if you don't believe me when I say that the president and his followers are NOT supporting the troops, while those of us calling for an end to the war are, please listen to the actual soldiers on the fucking ground.
McClatchy reports tonight on Spc. David Williams, who collected questions for Senator Lieberman from 30 other troops.
At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:
“When are we going to get out of here?”
The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?
Williams missed six months of his girlfriend’s pregnancy when he was given six days’ notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy’s birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.
“He looks just like me,” he said. “I didn’t want to come back. . . . We’re waiting to get blown up.” […]
Next to him, Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.
“We’re not making any progress,” Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. “It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at. … It’s just more troops, more targets.”
In the past two months, the unit has lost two men. In May alone, at least 120 U.S. troops died in Iraq, the bloodiest month in 2007 and the highest number since the battles of Fallujah in 2004. [...]
It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card, the one that had a star next to it.
"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.
In response to their questions about leaving Iraq, Lieberman said it would be a “victory for al-Qaida and a victory for Iran.”
Click below for additional content added at 2 pm
Late addition: This comic from Tom Tommorrow on the Huffington Post. Nothing like being wrong. And as far as I know, no one below has admitted being wrong, nor had their careers suffer for being wrong. In fact, one of them joined the Bush administration. Shocking. (that's sarcasm).
Disgraceful that you didn't know about the protest. I got an email weeks ago from my Congressman about it. Of course, I'm only on the mailing lists because I emailed them about internet poker. But still.
Posted by: LegFuJohnson | June 01, 2007 at 04:40 PM