Republicans Take On Iraq War Veterans
Posted at 7:46 am on Tuesday, August 2, 2005, in Uncategorized, and tagged bush, iraq.
In a despicable display of their utter disdain and disregard for human life, and American human life, the GOP is now actively campaigning, and dirty politicking, against an Iraq war vet. Not Bush’s father’s Iraq war. Dubya’s.
Paul Hackett is running for a U.S. House seat from the state of Ohio, and he is up against a do-nothing GOP political hack, former Ohio state representative Jean Schmidt.
Here are a few examples of the callousness of the GOP…
First, Schmidt is attacking Hackett on, of all things, Iraq. (It’s true; the man who fought for this country, put his life on the line, is being maligned for his service.) Hackett recently said…
“I agree with the president. We need to get the job done there, stay there, and don’t set an exit date. I agree with him on that. However, I disagree with him, I don’t think we should have gone into Iraq originally.”Source: FoxNews.com
And this is how Schmidt responded/attacked…
“We were right to go in there and get rid of the thugs that were controlling the environment.”Source: FoxNews.com
I thought we went to war in Iraq to dispose of an imminent threat from Iraq’s readily available weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was also a nuclear threat; the U.S. may have been ground zero for a mushroom cloud, had we not gone into Iraq without heed. Remember what Bush said…
“America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” – George W. Bush [October 7, 2002]Source: The White House
Schmidt has also questioned Hackett’s patriotism. (Can you believe this? Does she have the “support” of the White House?) Hackett stated in a USA Today interview…
“I’ve said that I don’t like the son-of-a-bitch that lives in the White House. But I’d put my life on the line for him.”Source: FoxNews.com
To which Schmidt attacked…
“There’s something wrong when a person says that the greatest threat to the United States is not Usama bin Laden, but the man in the White House.”Source: FoxNews.com
Usama bin Laden? Who?
“So I don’t know where he [bin Laden] is. Nor — you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you.” – George W. Bush [March 13, 2002]Source: CNN.com
The GOP has hit rock-bottom when it turns on Iraq war servicemen and women. The White House should condemn the political attacks on Hackett. Then again, the White House has become a moral vacuum, and there are very slim chances that Bush and the Rovian Administration will ever acknowledge any wrongdoing in their misguided push for an unwarranted war.
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August 3rd, 2005 at 5:08 pm
In the interest of your journalistic integrity, the ‘Saddam is a bad guy’ argument has always been on the laundry list for reasons for invading Iraq. Pretty low on the list, but it was always there. You can probably find a reference in the mushroom cloud speech. When no WMD’s were found the ‘bad guy’ argument gained increasing emphasis. Schmidt’s ‘get rid of the thugs’ comments reflect this change in emphasis.
When asked whether going into Iraq was still justified, given the the lack of evidence for any imminent threats to US national security, Bush replied ‘what’s the difference?’, which cleverly spins the rational for invading Iraq back to the ‘Saddam is a bad guy’ argument. And, of course, Bush never would have gotten support for invading Iraq based on this argument alone…
August 3rd, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Bill-
Thank you for your comments.
“Saddam is a thug” certainly wasn’t the reason that Bush and his administration used to sell the war to the American people. And Bush discarded the United Nations Security Council because the necessity of going to war was so vital, the threat was so imminent, the United States could not wait any longer. The American people would have insisted Bush to wait for the UN and go with the world had the people been told “we need to get rid of this thug” (and told the truth about the true weapons capabilities in Iraq).