[lbo-talk] Re: 'Bring Them On'

Seth Kulick skulick at linc.cis.upenn.edu
Thu Jul 3 11:11:40 PDT 2003



> Chuck0 wrote:
>
> >Last night I was hanging around one of our activist spaces and was
> >surprised to find out that all of the activists I talked to had
> >heard this quote already. I mentioned to several people that Bush
> >was sounding like John Wayne. Another activist suggested that Bush
> >had been watching too many re-runs of the "A Team." The best
> >analysis was from one activist who asserted that Bush had gotten
> >this language from "The Rock," of pro wrestling fame.

It's somewhat ironic to recall that Hitchens used a variant of this in the 1/28/03 debate:

"But I think we know enough. What will happen will be this: The president will give an order, there will then occur in Iraq a show of military force like nothing probably the world has ever seen. It will be rapid and accurate and overwhelming enough to deal with an army or a country many times the size of Iraq. That will be greeted by the majority of Iraqi and Kurdish people as a moment of emancipation, which will be a pleasure to see, and then the hard work of the reconstitution of Iraqi society and the repayment of our debt - some part of our debt to them - can begin, and I say bring it on."

But regarding this:
>
> Business Week - June 30, 2003
>
> WASHINGTON OUTLOOK
> The Bad News for Big Labor: Blue Collars Love This Blueblood
> By Richard S. Dunham
...


> Maybe, but top AFL-CIO officials do. The bottom line, labor leaders
> warn, is that Democrats must be seen as strong on defense and
> terrorism if they want to compete for industrial union votes. "People
> are concerned about security," says AFL-CIO President John J.
> Sweeney. "And that has to be an important part of the debate if we
> want to get the attention of people we want to impress."

Is it really so impossible to portray the Republicans as a disaster for security? Not just in terms of blowback and U.S. foreign policy (although I still don't really understand why the Democrats aren't plastering pictures of Hussein with Rumsfeld everywhere, saying "is this who you trust for your security?"), but also in terms of what's happened in Afghanistan. And here's an excerpt from an editorial from Army Times that is making the rounds:

(the full editorial is now off their web page, but available at http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=849)

--------------

In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled

Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on

the military. But talk is cheap and getting cheaper by the day,

judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting

lately.

For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits

incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful

and unnecessary including a modest proposal to double the $6,000

gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes

at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about

one a day.

[...]

Taken piecemeal, all these corner-cutting moves might be viewed as

mere flesh wounds. But even flesh wounds are fatal if you suffer

enough of them. It adds up to a troubling pattern that eventually will

hurt morale especially if the current breakneck operations tempo also

rolls on unchecked and the tense situations in Iraq and Afghanistan do

not ease.

--------------

How could anybody read this together with the "Bring Them On" comment and not feel complete disgust for Bush?



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