George Bush is barracking himself ’round the coffins of Casey Sheehan and another 1800+ dead soldiers in order to break his opponents’ concentration on his abject and bloody failures in Iraq.
As Dan Froomkin observes in today’s WaPo, Bush’s speech yesterday to the national VFW convention in Salt Lake City differed little from his usual platitudinous prattle.
However, Froomkin says, the White House shapeshifters pressed the WH press corps hard yesterday “to note the extraordinary significance of the president — for the first time anyone can remember — actually acknowledging the number of soldiers who have died in Iraq.”
[Bush speaking] “We have lost 1,864 members of our Armed Forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 223 in Operation Enduring Freedom. Each of these men and women left grieving families and loved ones back home. Each of these heroes left a legacy that will allow generations of their fellow Americans to enjoy the blessings of liberty. And each of these Americans have brought the hope of freedom to millions who have not known it.”
“[A]fter the speech,” continues Froomkin, “White House officials spun it as hugely significant evidence that — in spite of his refusal to meet with grieving mother Cindy Sheehan — the president is sensitive to the sacrifices imposed by his policies.”
Yes, Bush is so desperate, and without conscience, that he’s exploiting the number of coffins to promote the worth of his war. And, once the coffins are in the ground, the Pentagon is advertising its war on the gravestones of the Iraq war dead:
Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said “Operation Iraqi Freedom” ended up on his government-supplied headstone in Oceanside, Calif., without family approval.
“I was a little taken aback,” Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw the operation name on Patrick’s tombstone. “They certainly didn’t ask my wife; they didn’t ask me.” He said Patrick’s widow told him she had not been asked either.
“In one way, I feel it’s taking advantage to a small degree,” McCaffrey said. “Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact.” (“Troops’ Gravestones Have Pentagon Slogans,” Yahoo/AP, Aug. 23, 2005)
Former Georgia Senator Max Cleland — “who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam and headed the Veterans Administration under President Carter” — “called the practice ‘a little bit of glorified advertising’.” MORE BELOW:
From WaPo‘s Froomkin about Bush’s references to the number of dead:
Bush’s tone was matter-of-fact. He didn’t spend a lot of time expressing his sympathy for the dead or their families. His speech included no new plans to stem the loss. In fact, Bush went on to invoke the dead soldiers as reason to stay the course in Iraq — a policy that will inevitably create many more of them.
And those gravemarkers?
Unlike earlier wars, nearly all Arlington National Cemetery gravestones for troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are inscribed with the slogan-like operation names the Pentagon selected to promote public support for the conflicts.
Families of fallen soldiers and Marines are being told they have the option to have the government-furnished headstones engraved with “Operation Enduring Freedom” or “Operation Iraqi Freedom” at no extra charge, whether they are buried in Arlington or elsewhere. A mock-up shown to many families includes the operation names.
The vast majority of military gravestones from other eras are inscribed with just the basic, required information: name, rank, military branch, date of death and, if applicable, the war and foreign country in which the person served.
Families are supposed to have final approval over what goes on the tombstones. That hasn’t always happened.
[……..]
“I think it’s a little bit of gilding the lily,” Cleland said, while insisting that he’s not criticizing families who want that information included.
“Most of the headstones out there at Arlington and around the nation just say World War II or Korea or Vietnam, one simple statement,” he said. “It’s not, shall we say, a designated theme or a designated operation by somebody in the Pentagon. It is what it is. And I think there’s power in simplicity.” (Yahoo/AP, Aug. 23, 2005)
PHOTO: Image of veteran at VFW convention, courtesy of Kos who stole it from Atrios. And thanks to Other Lisa for sending me the sad grave marker story.
Words can’t describe how finished Bush is. I think that quote from Froomin says it all.
It’s not enough to sneak their coffins back into the country under the cover of darkness. Nooooo!!!! These fuckers pimp people even in death, right down to the last detail.
They are just evil. Evil!
So evil, they’ve got the devil taking notes.
OMG, that is a good quote
Thanks…though I wish they didn’t give me such “inspiration.” What is WRONG with them???
Maybe their silver spoons slipped and went right up their noses and into their brains?
NOT as good as yours but it’s the best i could come up with
Must be all that coke. Not that shrub would know anything about that, mind you.
They could have put these slogans on the tombstones:
“Halliburton. Proud.”
“Bechtel: A Century of Experience”
“Hummer. Like Nothing Else.”
Cross-posted at DKos.
Kos is calling on the “101st Fighting Keyboardists and chickenhawks. Great job defending our great nation against treasonous war heroes like Sens. Hagel and Kerry, and the families of war dead who refuse to thank Dear Leader for killing off their wives, husbands, and children. But the enemies of America won’t rest. Here’s your next mission, if you choose to accept: …”
That picture! Looks like one of the ones my father said were “flying desks” while others did the real work in WW2. He had little use for the VFW types, who would get all gussied up to march in the local parade at Memorial Day.
But he came by his skepticism honestly. He was in the Battle of the Bulge and was part of the advance forces that made it possible for Patton to sweep across Europe into Germany in record time.
He got pretty conservative in his older years, but I really wonder what he would have to say about the boy king. Not much good, I suspect.
Interesting.
During the Viet Nam War, the justification for the war was wrapped up in the body count of dead Viet Cong.
Now Bush is justifying the Bush Iraq War (BIW) by the body count of Americans.
G. W. Bush is mentally ill. Think he caught it from Pat Robertson?
attend a military funeral for one of these fallen military?
He could make a point to attend just one as a symbol of his deep regret and grief for all the rest who have been killed under his command.
I’m waiting…
C’mon.
He’s trying to get on with his life, people.
I’m still amazed, and a little apprehensive, that Bush has let Cindy Sheehan, and now her supporters, show him up as a petty, stupid little coward. It would have been so easy and obvious for a slick propaganda machine like the GOP’s to have him meet her early on, spout his usual mindless cliches, strike his usual “compassion” pose, and come out with no damage and maybe even a little temporary boost.
Instead his handlers chose to diss her in public, and with her, all the families of Bush’s American victims.
I’m genuinely at a loss: I know they know propaganda better than this. So what’s going on? They finally took that tiny last step from sociopathy to all-out madness? They really want to start a war between Bushie zombies and everybody else? They don’t think Bush is functional enough to pull off such a simple stunt? Bush just can’t abide the idea of treating this woman as if she were significant enough to warrant his royal presence?
What’s your theory to explain this grotesque, self-destructive, and threatening behavior?
The final call on this stuff is W’s.
I just don’t think he could do it.
Not because it would have been emotionally difficult, but because he hates her and her anti-American dissent.
I don’t think he hates her… it’s just he lied and sent her son off to be killed, and then he lied to her about it to make himself look good, and now she’s caught him out and she’s demanding that he look her in the eye…
and he doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to do that.
He gets a minor point for being AWARE that he doesn’t have the stones for it… but being that he is pretty much all by his lonesome responsible for the situation, that point doesn’t really buy anything at all…
.
… forces, is not only responsible to low count of US deaths, also the coalition deaths, contractors, security forces and civilian deaths. Don’t let Bush get away with a low number under 2,000 US troops killed! The cost of this war is much greater – more than 100,000+ men, women, children killed in a senseless adventure.
Iraqi Police and security forces
Period Police/Mil
Jan-05 109
Feb-05 103
Mar-05 200
Apr-05 199
May-05 259
Jun-05 296
Jul-05 304
Aug-05 207
Total 2005 1,677
Prior to 2005 1,300
Total 2,977
Deaths Since April 28th
(Shiite-led government announced):
Police/Mil: 1,113
Civilians: 1,924
Total: 3,037
~~~
Let’s start adding in those dead after leaving Iraq.
I really,REALLY need some of those BS protectors!
I have been searching the Internet — maybe I’m using the wrong search terms — but I can’t find them anywhere! Somebody must be selling them!