Bush not ignoring casualties, Rice says

[radfringe]

Bush not ignoring casualties, Rice says

WASHINGTON — National-security adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that President Bush is not distancing himself from American casualties.

There has been criticism the president has been all but ignoring the growing death toll.

Bush, who has attended no funerals for troops killed in Iraq, does write personal notes to the families and is expected to talk about war sacrifice during Veterans Day remarks today, the White House said.

"The president is commander in chief, he cannot distance himself from American casualties," Rice said. "... He understands that he is asking the American armed forces and American families to make the great sacrifices. But the fact is that nothing of value has ever been won without sacrifice."

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Why Bush can't afford to join mourners
MAUREEN DOWD--NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON—Who can blame poor President Bush? Look at his terrible dilemma.

There are those who say the chief executive should have come out of his Texas ranch house and articulated and assuaged the sorrow and outrage and anxiety the nation was feeling last Sunday after the deadliest day in Iraq in seven months. An attack on a Chinook helicopter had killed 15 American soldiers, 13 men and two women, and wounded 21.

There are those who say the president should have emulated Rudy Giuliani's empathetic leadership after 9/11, or Bush's father's in the 1991 Gulf War, and attended some of the funerals of the 379 Americans killed in Iraq. Or one. Maybe the one for Spc. 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.

But let's look at it from the president's point of view: If he grieves more publicly or concretely, if he addresses every instance of bad news, like the hideous spectre of Iraqis' celebrating the downing of the Chinook, he will simply remind people of what's going on in Iraq.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Rice Confronts Rising Iraq Casualty Toll (PeterH)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=211369

US Rice: Nothing Of Value Gained Without Sacrifice

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20031110_1557.html


WASHINGTON (AP)--With the Bush administration, confronting a rising casualty
toll in Iraq, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Monday that
"nothing of value has ever been won without sacrifice."
Rice also said a surge of attacks against U.S. forces doesn't represent a
return to major combat operations.
"Major combat operations have not resumed in Iraq by really any stretch of the
imagination," Rice said. "What has happened is there are some elements of the
old regime that are making common cause with some foreign fighters in what I
think could classically be described as an insurgency or insurgency plus
terrorism."
Rice sat in the White House briefing room before a bank of television cameras
to answer questions from local network affiliates. It was part of the
administration's strategy to reach beyond the Washington media - what President
George W. Bush calls "the filter" - to deliver the White House message across
the country.
"He feels acutely every loss," Rice said. "He understands that he is asking
the American armed forces and American families to make the great sacrifices.
"But the fact is that nothing of value has ever been won without sacrifice,"
Rice told NBC affiliate KING in Seattle.
She spoke on the eve of Veterans Day, when Bush is to make a speech honoring
the sacrifices of American forces in Iraq and in earlier wars.



American soldiers are being sacrificed for the greater value in what….Bushco?
Where’s that middle finger thingie when you really need it.

[saigon68]

14. Rice dumber than a head of Cabbage

She obviously thinks her next corporate job is something she deserves. This toadying will get her that job.

It will be paid for by the blood of the lower class but what the fuck does she care.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

2. Rice should have a brand of toilet tissue named after her ...

She is forever covering up for him after his many mistakes and not being able to talk for himself . Un-sticker for sure .

[RuB]

3. Steadfast, Resolute, Damn I done good for the country, can't let death

get in the way pResident. Yep thats Bushie.

[La_Serpiente]

4. Good Lord Woman

How can you defend such a man?

Well, since we are not getting anything from the administration, we might as well get it from the press.

The New York Times compiled letters from the families of those who died in Iraq. These letters were being sent home while they were in Iraq.

It is very telling and it provides much more information than what the administration is giving us. At least these letters offers these young individual's lives to be exposed to the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11INTRO.html

The last one tore my heart up.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

5. Mine too ...

eom

[katusha]

7. he can go to fundraisers and make millions

but all he sneds to the families is a stupid letter. i wonder if he practices some of that flowing poetry like the stuff he wrote for laura.

roses are red,
violets are blue
you didn't contribute,
so your childs life means doo-doo.

[RuB]

10. It takes alot to make me cry anymore, that last letter so tough to read.

My heart goes out to those soldiers, all our soldiers! God Bless them all and bring them home soon.

[BloodyWilliam]

15. I have not been affected by current events in such a way until now.

Seeing coverage of the war and hearing about the people dying, especially reading the letters of soldiers... I'm quite close to tears.

[radfringe]

6. more field trip fundraising

http://www.wric.com/Global/story.asp?S=1519628

The president is joining in the traditional ceremony at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknowns. Afterward, he's addressing the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

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has plenty of time to do more fundraising??? although the article doesn't say Baghdad-Bush will be collecting checks, you can bet that Rove will be working the crowd and passing the collection plate

[leftchick]

8. more from MoDo...

<snip>Raising $1.8 million at lunch, Bush stuck to the line that "we are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there so we will not have to face them in our own country."

He didn't want to depress the donors by mentioning the big news story, the loss of 15 American soldiers, or sour the mood by conceding the obvious: that the swelling horde of terrorists fighting us there will not prevent terrorists from coming after us here.

Maybe we should all be like the president and not read the papers, so we don't get worn down either.

Perhaps the solution to Bush's quandary is to co-ordinate his schedule so he goes to cities where he can attend both fundraisers and funerals.

The law of averages suggests it shouldn't be hard.

........the absurdity of fighting them there so they won't get us here BOGGLES my mind! I am amazed people are stupid enough to believe that shit! Good on MoDo for mocking him.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. If one believes the official story...

and I'll have to admit, I have serious doubts... all it took to bring the USA to her knees and trash her Constitution and accept a police state was the work of 19 terrorists. If someone believes that story, how can they believe "that the swelling horde of terrorists fighting us there will prevent terrorists from coming after us here"?

[dbt]

9. let bu$h speak for himself!

If this is such important shit, I want to hear it from his own lack of lips! Why do we need CONdi to channel him?

:grr:
dbt

[gratuitous]

17. Yeah, it would be a tad more credible

If Bush himself addressed the issue, instead of sending out his mouthpiece to cover for him. But Condi knows which side of the bread has the butter, and she's about nothing if not money. So, she'll go out there and speak massah's words forcefully and with conviction, so she can walk head held high out the servant's entrance when she's dismissed for the day.

[Malva Zebrina]

12. Here we have the perfect example of Bushspeak that is actually a lie

"we are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there so we will not have to face them in our own country."

but no one will be able to call him on it without a complicated explanation--those complicated analyses are soon forgotten. His stupid freeper followers will be unable to parse this, given their rather, low on the scale,reading comprehension skills--and the rest of his sleezy sheep will simply make up excuses using the same type of spinspeak. I can almost forgive the dumb ones--but those who make up excuses for Bush's use of wordspeak and obfuscating misrepresentation are actually encouraging our boys and girls to meet their deaths in Iraq. I hold them responsible also--

First of all, he is calling the resistance to our attack and invasion and occupation, "terrorists" He has said it over and over and over--and by now, it is probably believed by his dumb followers who have been brain washed by the simple use of a propaganda tool. Similar to the way people believed Saddam was connected to AlQueda and 9-11.

Second--it does not look as though we are "defeating" anyone who is killing our soldiers at an alarming rate, daily. That is an outright lie

and the last insult to come out of the chimp slurpmouth-a non sequitur, nonsense and-an absurdity. We could bomb every country on the earth into oblivion and still have to grapple with terrorism and terrorists. Terrorists are born every day--they do not sign an armistice and do not sign any surrenders promising to stop attacking those they deem their enemies. This whole rubber stamping of the absurdity of Bush's "war on terror" that has gone on for three years is the most stupid of all -- yet people blindly follow, unaware that indeed, they have been brainwashed and if something does not come up that will finally let the light bulb go on in their head,opening their eyes to their folly and their fear, their children will be as brainwashed as they.

[underpants]

13. I remember when Clinton stopped calling winning clubhouses

after World Series and Super Bowls, the common thought was that someone might say something awkward or make a joke......compare that with not attending or publicly grieving the death of fellow Americans in a war YOU created and lied in order to facilitate.

Shameful.

[Nlighten1]

16. He isn't ignoring them...he just doesn't care...

why should he worry his beautiful mind on that stuff.