Boston Globe: Troops & their families "props" to justify war Bush started?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

She strikes a chord for military families

By Peter Canellos, Globe Columnist | August 16, 2005

WASHINGTON -- In war and politics, military families have more friends and fewer advocates than other Americans. The military families' contributions to the Iraq war are regularly celebrated by President Bush and the Republican Party as advancing the cause of freedom. Meanwhile, the soldiers' deprivations are highlighted by the Democratic Party as signs of the Defense Department's poor management of the war -- the lack of armor, the need for more troops, and so on.

But in each case, closer inspection suggests that the troops and their families are merely props intended to buttress existing arguments -- be they Bush's efforts to justify a war he started, or the Democrats' need to show how poorly conceived the whole exercise has been. The fact that military families often choose to participate, and show a lot of emotion, gives them an added glow of poignancy: Their desire for an advocate, a voice in the process, is palpable. So is their susceptibility to false friendship.

When a soldier is killed, as has happened with slow, muffled regularity for 2 1/2 years, military families seem especially alone, in a dilemma only they can fully appreciate. Most want to believe that their loved one died to keep the United States free, but many wonder if the sacrifice was worth it.

Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old mother of four from Vacaville, Calif., lost her son Casey in Iraq about a year ago. Her ceaseless grief has led her to demand a meeting with Bush to discuss ending the war, which she feels has become ''senseless."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/16/she_strikes_a_chord_for_military_families/

[gratuitous]

1. "Closer inspection suggests" Well thank you all to hell, Globe!

You finally noticed that Bush likes to use the military as props, did you? It somehow escaped your laser focus that he's been doing this for four fucking years, and particularly during his 2004 campaign where he appeared solely before canned crowds and audiences that could be ordered to clap for the Commander in Chief? Assholes.

And of course, no expose of shameless Republican politicking is complete without some fake equivalency with the Democrats: While Bush appears before audiences who either clap for him or face a court martial, Democrats too work with the grieving families of dead military folks to be sure they get the benefits they were promised and to see that their deaths aren't rendered meaningless by an incompetent and incoherent administration.

Yes, Cindy Sheehan's grief is indeed "ceaseless," you butt munches. I suppose you folks would know that if any of your precious progeny were actually fighting and dying in Iraq for the greater glory and profitability of Halliburton and Big Oil. Losing a son kind of does that to you.

Words fail me.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Butt munches? *sniggering like ** *