President Bush's Loss of Faith

[jbfam4]

Editorial nytimes
President Bush's Loss of Faith

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/opinion/24wed1.html
Published: August 24, 2005

It took President Bush a long time to break his summer vacation and acknowledge the pain that the families of fallen soldiers are feeling as the death toll in Iraq continues to climb. When he did, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Utah this week, he said exactly the wrong thing. In an address that repeatedly invoked Sept. 11 - the day that terrorists who had no discernable connection whatsoever to Iraq attacked targets on American soil - Mr. Bush offered a new reason for staying the course: to keep faith with the men and women who have already died in the war.

"We owe them something," Mr. Bush said. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for." It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that "makes no sense." No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake.


It is also very clear, although the president has done his level best to muddy the picture, that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Mr. Bush's insistence on making that link, over and over, is irresponsible. In fact, it was the American-led invasion that turned Iraq into a haven for Islamist extremists.


Preventing that kind of tragic last chapter is the only rational argument for continuing the American presence in Iraq. The president's strange declaration yesterday that the draft constitution would protect the rights of women and minorities, and his continuing attempts to clog the debate with misleading explanations, suggest his own lack of commitment to the only rationale for keeping American troops in Iraq - or, perhaps, his lack of faith in the likely outcome.

[Inland]

1. How much lowering of expectations can Bush have: now death is the outcome

that justifies death.

All he can promise us is that there will be more death.

[flordehinojos]

2. thank GOD ALMIGHTY for someone in the MSM pointing out BUSH'STWISTED LOGIC

Mr. Bush said. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for." It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that "makes no sense." No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake.


It is also very clear, although the president has done his level best to muddy the picture, that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Mr. Bush's insistence on making that link, over and over, is irresponsible. In fact, it was the American-led invasion that turned Iraq into a haven for Islamist extremists.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Exactly. Just as if you killed your parents...

...then tried to illicit sympathy because you're an orphan.

[bpilgrim]

4. seems to be popular to call this war a MISTAKE when it is really ILLEGAL

based on a PACK OF LIES.

how much longer before the M$MWs pull their heads out their a$$?

peace

[EC]

5. I sent out an E-mail to one op-ed columnist that was

saying all the usual trype about Cindy, telling him that his column belyed the facts about the Iraq war (RW talking points re: 9/11 and Al Quada). He E-Mailed me back that Bush was saving the world...(it was Jay Ambrose) I E-Mailed back,Ya, RIGHT...

wasn't about to argue with someone that in love with **