To Bush: Go Fvck Yourself
By Thoreau
Said Bush to US troops in Afghanistan:
“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.”
“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks,” Bush said.
I have a lot of things I’d like to say about this, but I’m pretty sure that Jim doesn’t want the Secret Service shutting down this blog. Suffice it to say that if you really have such a hard-on for combat then you’re free to resign your job and go over there and experience it firsthand. Otherwise, shut the fvck up and go to a monastery to do penance for the rest of your miserable, worthless, catastrophe that you call a life.
EDIT: Actually you know, I really don’t want him to grab a rifle and go into combat. Much as I despise him, no good would come from one more firefight. I want him to end the war, not fight it. Nothing good would come from any scenario that involved George Bush in combat. It would just be one more bloody encounter in a conflict that makes no sense. So, if any Secret Service goons are reading this, know that I wish no harm on your Dear Leader. I want him to end the insanity, not get caught in it.
Comment by Ugh —
March 16, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
To quote myself from elsewhere:
Dude, you’re the fncking deciderator Commander-in-Chief boy-god-king. If you want to jump in a Humvee with an M-16 and do a little Taliban hunting, you can. In fact I encourage you to do so. Really. You can earmark my taxes for it to defray the cost. And if you need a little extra I’m sure I can take up a collection.
Comment by John Emerson —
March 16, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
In another context I speculated that a certain pronouncement of Bush was a “dog-whistle taunt” aimed at us. Someone else suggested that almost everything he says is a dog whistle taunt. He likes to make us mad, and figures out how to do with it without wakening the vast majority who don’t realize what he just said.
Ditto on the need for discretion.
Comment by abb1 —
March 16, 2008 @ 4:37 pm
It is amazing to me that the (non-fox-news kind) media are still reporting his ravings.
Comment by KWK —
March 16, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
I think he mis-spoke. What he meant to say was,
“If I were younger and not employed here, I would have my daddy pull strings so that I could show up (or not) for a stint in the Air National Guard that was a good 8000 miles from any danger whatsoever.”
Comment by bill —
March 16, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
Upon completion of his term Bush should be made permanent US envoy to Afghanistan, spending the rest of his years cowering in Kandahar.
Comment by Ian —
March 17, 2008 @ 3:56 am
I really don’t want him to grab a rifle and go into combat.
Neither would I — he’d be a danger to the honest soldiers on either side of him.
Comment by ajay —
March 17, 2008 @ 8:16 am
6 reminds me of an anecdote about Evelyn Waugh: one of his fellow officers, on the eve of the invasion of Italy, asked the CO to take Waugh out of the planning.
“The men don’t like him, and the officers can’t stand him. He’d be no good in the landings, and he’d probably get shot.”
“Well, we all run that risk.”
“Oh, I don’t mean by the enemy.”
Comment by buzz —
March 17, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
Right. Which is why so many of those soldiers are emotionally committed to the mission and why so many of them are willing to go back. Turn off your bush hatred for just one fucking second. Dumbasses.
Comment by John Foland —
March 17, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
Y’know, this sounds just like something Ronald Reagan would say when he he was deep in the grip of Alzheimers Disease. The President daydreaming about being envious of a soldier’s grinding daily life (maybe even getting to actually kill something) being “romantic” is just beyond any kind of rational notion that this man is capable of making decisions that affect the world. It is beyond sad.
Comment by Hunter —
March 17, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Dear buzz,
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/11/10_400.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/22/60minutes/main2505412.shtml
http://ivaw.org/
http://www.vaiw.org/vet/index.php
Love,
Guy on the internet
Comment by bago —
March 17, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
There’s a difference between trying to help your friends by being there for them and supporting the idiot who put you all in this mess.
Like Pat Tillman.
Comment by mediageek —
March 17, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
I’m disappointed. Surely this story cries out for a link to thisnews story.
If only real life were as excellent as sometimes reported in The Onion.
Comment by Dave W. —
March 17, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
If the soldiers were smart then they would be the ones complaining about what Bush said.
So far as I can tell, they aren’t complaining about what Bush said.
Hide your puppies.
Comment by Laertes —
March 17, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
What’s with the “not employed” remark? Does he think that the army is for people who can’t get a civilian job?
Comment by ParatrooperJJ —
March 17, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
If the Army would let me, I would be there in a second!
Comment by Bronzewing —
March 18, 2008 @ 4:28 am
Well, he’ll be unemployed again in … ooh, just about 10 months from now. He apparently keeps fit from all that bike riding and brush cutting; surely one of the armed forces could find a spot for him (tho’ there is the ‘Waugh problem’ (#6) to consider).
Both Ronald Reagan and George W Bush were/are presidents who didn’t/don’t have any experience of combat. A very large number of the ones since WWII, even ones not particularly noted for it, like Jimmy Carter and Bush père, did serve in action. It does make one to ponder about different attitudes to war.
Comment by Barry —
March 18, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
Comment by Dave W. —
“If the soldiers were smart then they would be the ones complaining about what Bush said.
So far as I can tell, they aren’t complaining about what Bush said.
Hide your puppies. ”
Dave, you do understand the term ‘harsh punishment’, don’t you?
Comment by Alsadius —
March 19, 2008 @ 12:15 am
What’s so unreasonable about this? So far as I can tell, Bush honestly believes the US is doing a good thing in Iraq, and is genuinely glad to be helping people in this way. Disagree with him if you will - and clearly, you will - but most of what I can tell about the guy, and most of the people I’ve heard from who know him, says that he’s pretty genuine. And instead of disparaging soldiers, you could ask them what they think of it - given that everybody there now has (re-)enlisted since the war started, they seem to think that fighting this war is what they want to do, and my anecdotal evidence of knowing a few soldiers agrees with that.
As for people saying “You can”, bullshit. He’s 61, and not the kind of 61 year old that can still fight effectively, given that he’s had what are effectively desk jobs for the last 30+ years. He’s never had the training needed to be a ground soldier(he was a fighter pilot, not an infantryman), and even if he had it’s be close to 40 years out of date. On top of that he’s the single highest-value target on the planet. He wouldn’t be at any conceivable risk of fragging (selection bias being what it is, soldiers are the one group that still like him en masse), but he’d still be a massive liability to any unit he was in, the same as Prince Harry had to be pulled once that fucker Drudge revealed his presence in Afghanistan.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 19, 2008 @ 1:09 am
If Bush actually believes in his bullshit, that only makes him even worse.
And as to whether he can go to Iraq or not, history shows that determined idiots who really want to shoot people for stupid causes generally find a way to do it.
Comment by Kolohe —
March 19, 2008 @ 3:40 am
When I was a JO a heard this sort of thing every so often from my seniors. Esp during the training pipelines. Stuff like ‘man I envy y’all, you guys you have toys I never had, and are doing all kinds of cool stuff.’
And now that I’m close to being on the other side of the generational divide, I sometimes find myself sometimes feeling the same envy, and saying sorta of the same things.
Because although the shitty parts are undeniably shitty, the fun parts are outrageously fun. And with time and nostalgia comes the feeling ‘man I I knew then what I know now, it woulda been even more awesome.’ - mainly because I would have known how to avoid or at least mitigate the shitty parts, and made the great parts kick even more ass.
So I understand the feeling that prompted Bush’s comment.
But what really sets me off and why I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of Dr T, is that he had a chance to take part in ‘that fantastic experience’ himself - AND DELIBERATELY AND SYSTEMATICALLY CHOSE TO AVOID IT. I mean, it didn’t have to be in a foxhole. With his Nat’l guard signup, and daddy’s connections, he should have easily been able to get in the theater - heck that’s pretty much what McCain had to do after his lackluster academics and crashing a plane or two.
And I can’t imagine it would have taken that much in Bush’s or any other dude’s case. Today, if you volunteer for Iraq (or Afghanistan) duty they are pretty good and efficient about satisfying your preference. I can’t imagine it was any different forty years ago.
So I wouldn’t mind at all this sort of talk from McCain (or Clark, or Webb, or even someone like my dad who was drafted in ‘66-’68 but spent his entire enlistment in Germany) But from Bush? Well it’s technically a UCMJ violation to repeat the title of the post, so I will end this comment forthwith.
Comment by Kevin Carson —
March 20, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
The biggest lie in the whole statement is his reference to Iraq as a “young democracy.”
The CPA handed over virtually the entire Iraqi economy to American corporate looters, while leaving intact all the draconian Saddam-era anti-union legislation. It rubber stamped Iraqi participation in international “intellectual property” accords, that enforce the fake property rights of the biggest corporate welfare hogs in the global economy. It set up a new “sovereign” puppet government in such a way that none of the “privatization” [sic] or “market reform” [sic] could be touched until a new constitution had been passed by supermajorities. The American military and its puppet government have repeatedly sacked the headquarters of the trade union federation and the Iraqi Freedom Congress (the most genuinely pro-democracy group in Iraq), and seized their assets.
What Bremer et al created in Iraq wasn’t a democracy, it the same kind of stage-managed, “color coded revolution” that Soros and the NED are so famous for. They installed what Chomsky calls a “spectator democracy,” where there’s just enough formal democracy to get the idiots in the press all moist about ink-stained fingers, but behind the fig leaf of formal democracy things are really run by the same gang of suits who take orders from the IMF and World Bank.