Four more American soldiers were killed in Iraq today! Can anyone tell me how our President is able to sleep?

Question

It's just amazing what little value is placed on the precious American lives that are being wasted in a foreign land whose inhabitants don't have the foggies notion about what democracy is and couldn't care less about having it!

Answer 1

Hopefully this will spell it out for Do You Really Care and other Bush supporters who just don't get the point.

I am a liberal (no, I am not ashamed to say that I am one) who, like many other Americans, saw the World Trade Center towers go down on TV on the morning of September 11, 2001. When President Bush officially declared the beginning of the war on terror, I said to myself, "He's in full President mode now. Nobody will be making fun of the way he talks for a long, long time. Not as long as we're at war with the people who are at war with us. He's done what any real leader would do and stepped up to the plate to defend our country."

When we invaded Afghanistan to crush the Taliban and take out Osama bin Laden, I supported the President's decision, as I'm sure many others did.

In 2003, when the run-up to the Iraq war began, Colin Powell went to the U.N. and said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and needed to be removed from power, and I believed him. Saddam Hussein is one of the villainous men ever to rule any country in the world. I'm glad we took him out.

At the same time, I saw France, Russia, Germany, and China (all of which were part of the coalition that executed Operation Desert Storm in 1991) refuse to join what has become known as the Coalition of the Willing, wondering why we didn't wait for the U.N. weapons inspectors to finish the job they were asked to do, and wondering why we were in such a hurry to go to war. Because of this, our relationships with them became strained, France and Germany much more so than others (think "Freedom Fries" and Gerhard Schroeder's re-election campaign). At home and around the world, thousands of people were protesting the decision to go to war, and the President ignored them. The Dixie Chicks, who until then had been a bestselling country group, came under fire for saying that they were ashamed that the President is from Texas. These incidents were some of the first of many which prove that this administration despises dissenting opinions. At this point in time, if you were an American and you questioned Bush's Iraq policy, you were an unpatriotic, America-hating liberal.

On May 1, 2003, when the President stood aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln wearing combat gear, in front of a banner, with the words "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" in big bold letters on it, he declared that major combat operations in Iraq were over. To anyone watching this speech, as I happened to be, it seemed to be a clear sign that the war would be coming to an end, our troops would be coming home soon with minimal casualties, and President Bush could chalk this one up as a major victory in the war on terror, and go down in history as one of our country's greatest leaders.

As I continued to watch events unfold in the weeks, months, and years ahead, it became clear to me that none of the above would truly come to pass. As a result, my opinion of the President and his administration changed, for the following reasons, both foreign and domestic.

1. Bush declared victory on May 1, 2003, yet the followers of people like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Saddam loyalists have continued the war.

2. The weapons of mass destruction which the Bush administration used as justification for going to war have not been found. At least two Chief U.N. weapons inspectors have gone to Iraq to put this in writing. (I myself believe that Saddam did in fact have WMD's, but the evidence appears to suggest that he didn't have them where we were told he had them).

3. Bush chose to ignore tactical plans drawn up by the State Department, as well as warnings that an insurgency of the sort we see in Iraq today, would rise up. Instead, he and Dick Cheney believed Ahmed Chalabi when he said that our troops would be greeted as liberators when Baghdad fell (I believe his words were "with candy and flowers"). This has since been proven not to be true.

4. The 9/11 Comission has officially proven that Saddam Hussein's regime had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Nor was there even a single Iraqi hijacker on any of the four planes. The majority of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, which tends to beg the question of why we haven't done anything about their government. Yet the Bush administration has consistently tied Iraq and 9/11 together, in the face of so much evidence of no connection. One of the reasons why we and our allies often disagree on this point is because Bush looks at Iraq and the War on Terror as two parts of one giant war. Everyone else looks at Iraq and the War on Terror as two seperate wars.

5. By the time we realized that we didn't have enough troops on the ground to bring the insurgency under control, it was already too late.

6. During the 2004 campaign season, a spate of books came out which contradicted everything that we had been told about what we were going to do in Iraq and why. See, for example, "Against All Enemies", by Richard A. Clarke, or "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them", by Al Franken.

7. Needless to say, I voted for John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election. I became 100% resolute in my decision after Vice-President Cheney gave a speech in September of that year designed to blame Kerry and anyone who voted for him for the next 9/11-type terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Bush won a second term anyway.

8. The Valerie Plame case has become a high-profile example of what the Bush Administration does to people who don't agree with everything they do.

9. In 2005, the Terri Schiavo debacle exposed the right wing of the Republican party for what it really is, and convinced me that as long as Christian conservatives are in control of the party, the country is in serious danger of becoming the theocracy that right now Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and many others like him can only dream about. Do you remember when Falwell went on Fox News two days after the attacks and basically blamed them on anyone who isn't a right-wing conservative like himself? These are the people in control of the Republican party today, letting the moderate to liberal ones fall by the wayside, and President Bush is beholden to them, and they helped re-elect him. The scandals in Congress involving lobbyists and top names in the GOP certainly do not improve matters.

10. Since becoming President, Bush has been known for not admitting mistakes he has made. When Hurricane Katrina arrived on the scene and destroyed the Gulf Coast, and the Bush administration and FEMA were criticized for not responding quickly enough to the emergency ("Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job.") and Bush was forced to go on TV and admit that mistakes were made, suddenly no one believed him anymore, resulting in a massive slump in approval ratings, which he hasn't been able to dig himself out of since. The Gulf Coast is still recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

11. Iraq is now on the brink of civil war, if indeed it is not already in a state of civil war. Over 2500 of our men and women in uniform have given their lives to take over a country that has turned out not to be the imminent threat we were told that it was.
With Israel and Hezbollah now at war in Lebanon, and Syria and Iran reportedly helping them, and North Korea firing missiles in our direction, is it any wonder that we have lost much of our influence and moral authority around the world?

After 9/11 many Americans, the President included, said that the only way to handle a world full of terrorists is to go out in power and subdue them: to kill them before they kill us. But if we simply run over everyone who irritates us, how many allies will we really have left in the world? Or at home for that matter? People like John Murtha, Cindy Sheehan, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and many others can't speak out against the Bush administration without being flamed by conservatives.

When Bush created his plan for Iraq, he believed that if he could get rid of Saddam Hussein and replace a dictatorship with a democracy, and so turn Iraq into a U.S. ally in the War on Terror and set an example which other nations in the Middle East would follow. But the democratic elections that have taken place in the Middle East so far in the last few years have only led to more totalitarianism, not more democracy.

We are not winning the War on Terror. We are not winning anything by being in Iraq today. Freedom is not on the march in the Middle East. Our national deficit and our national debt have skyrocketed in the last five years. The size of the federal government is bigger than ever. Some of this can be explained away by the need to fight the War on Terror, but conservatives are supposed to be about small government, cutting taxes, and personal responsibility. George W. Bush is about none of these things. And oh yes: it's been five years since 9/11, and Osama bin Laden, who actually did plan the attacks and not anybody from Iraq, has still not been found.

Answer 2

I hate war! However, those soldiers knew the risks when they joined up. They are over there fighting because they chose to. The members of the armed forces have my utmost respect. President Bush is doing what he thinks is right, he has that right because he is our president. He was elected into that office by our fellow Americans and he deserves to be there. I suggest that instead of ripping on the president, try supporting him because he is the leader of the greatest nation in the world. Like it or not, it isn't up to you to be high and mighty because it isn't you over there dying, you are here complaining. Get a life and realize that putting down our President isn't going to change a damn thing!


P.S. I have known a few soldiers that have been to Iraq and they say that what they were doing over there was helping the people that couldn't help themselves. They told me that they made a huge impact on the Iraqi people and that they could definitely see a vast improvement in the lives of the Iraqi people that they helped to save!

Answer 3

It's easy, he sleeps on that bed of money he has made form this war. And the person who answered first Osama Bin Laden attcked the U.S. not Irac. Don't people remember?

Answer 4

I don't know how he is able to sleep - his comment today was that there is "no way" that we are going to pull out. It's time to get the hell out of there and stop killing American soliders in order to get his friggin' point across. The man deserves to be impeached.

Answer 5

You are able to sleep because of these brave soldiers protecting your dumb lazy a$$...these people came into our country to attack us...you are so ignorant. You should learn more before you start opening your mouth and looking like an idiot!!!

I guess that people forget that Bin Laden was funded by Hussein....

Answer 6

it seems like he is sending them to die

he really doesn't care

Answer 7

he can sleep quietly because he simply lacks conscience....