Bush ‘envious’ of troops’ ‘romantic’ work in Afghanistan

March 14, 2008

I really wish the president wouldn’t say things like this.

In a videoconference, Bush heard from U.S. military and civilian personnel [in Afghanistan] about the challenges ranging from fighting local government and police corruption to persuading farmers to abandon a lucrative poppy drug trade for other crops. […]

“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.

Bush periodically talks about how much he wishes he could put on a military uniform and fight in one (or both) of the wars he began. The last time was in September, when the president told a group of conservative milbloggers that he envies U.S. troops in Iraq, and said he’d like to be serving alongside them. He can’t, he said, because, “One, I’m too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me.”

It’s likely that Bush thinks these kinds of remarks are good for troop morale. If the commander in chief wishes he could fight on the front lines personally, they must be part of a worthwhile mission.

But seeing these remarks, more than once, simply reminds me that when Bush had a chance to serve, he chose not to do his duty.

James Joyner noted:

My immediate, cynical reaction was that this it is an easy thing to say, if not insulting to those enduring great hardship and danger. Certainly, it’s an impolitic thing to say, since it will immediately raise questions about his actions when he was young and free to go off to war. Some of the soldiers and Marines — and probably all of the civilians — likely had the same reaction.

Now, Joyner went on to more or less reject this cynicism, but I’m afraid I have a less forgiving attitude.

Bush can talk now about the “romantic” work of serving multiple tours and fighting on the front lines of years-long wars. If only he were younger and unemployed.

But he was younger and unemployed, there was a war underway that he said he believed in, and he chose to pull strings, take advantage of family connections, and then neglect to even complete his obligations to the National Guard.

Far more offensively, he’s badly mismanaged two wars as president, and over-stretched our fighting forces to the breaking point.

Maybe this is a subject Bush could just avoid? Please?

Bush refused to serve on the front lines. He even weaseled out of serving on the back lines.

Bush violates laws and rules at will, but when his ass is at stake suddenly the rules matter?

  • “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.”

    Far more offensively, (Bush has) badly mismanaged two wars as president, and over-stretched our fighting forces to the breaking point.

    About the only way the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can end without years and years of more bloodshed is if “The Decider” (dum da-da dummmm!) takes over as commander for the Taliban or the Iraqi Shiites. Unfortunately, neither of those groups are as stupid as American voters.

  • I know he’s read some “Shakespears”, but President Bush should add some poetry to his “reading” list:

    Here’s the famous and important “war is hell” poem written by a WWI British soldier:

    Dulce et Decorum est
    by Wilfred Owen

    Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
    Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
    Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
    And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
    Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
    But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
    Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
    Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

    Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
    Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
    But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
    And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. —
    Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

    In all my dreams before my helpless sight
    He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

    If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
    His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
    If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
    Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
    Bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
    My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
    To children ardent for some desperate glory,
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
    Pro patria mori.

    More Info Here

  • This is, without any shadow of a doubt whatsoever, a “let-them-eat-cake” moment. What does it take for the cowardly enablers in the Congress to understand that they have to get this sickeningly-moronic excuse for a human being out of the Oval Office?

    The war-crimes trials will clearly implicate Pelosi….

  • he’s living in fantasy .. pure chickenhawk .. i’ll bet cheney wishes he too could serve ..

  • Eerily similar to his mother’s “This is working out quite well for them!” comment about all the Katrina refugees at the Superdome, isn’t it? Every time one of these statements trickles out it just reinforces the idea of them as a family of sociopaths.

  • It’s easy to be romantic about war when as Commander in Chief you never go the funerals of those that died because of your commands. For Bush, war is a game played while riding a mountain bike and yelling “air raid.” He’s just like his mom looking around the Astrodome and not seeing the aftermath of a carnage but some romantic version of the little people enjoying the crumbs falling from their privileged table.

    But paying for the care and rehabilitation of the soldiers after they are done with their service is so unromantic for Bush that he choses to not support it. Real empathy for other humans is dismissed in favor of the pleasant visions dancing in George Bush’s imagination.

  • As easy as it is to make fun of the idiot hypocrite who in his youth supported the Vietnam war and deliberately checked the box saying “no thanks, I don’t want to go to Vietnam”, the NATO mission in Afghanistan is historic, and does need the support of the American people. So, setting aside for a moment all the ways that Bush has hurt our mission there, he actually is saying something good when he says we need to be there helping them form a real democracy.

    Afghanistan is a war that most of us can agree needed to be fought. When we destroyed the Taliban for harboring al Qaeda, we obligated ourselves to repair that country, and we owe it to our progeny to leave the place more stable than it was before we went in. If Bush’s blathering can help the soldiers there feel better about the war, then I say fine.

  • “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.

    You’ll pardon my delay in being able to post a comment, since it’s hard to clean barf off a carpet.

    This scummy little draft-dodger, who went AWOL from even the minimal service daddy managed to pull strings for him to do, this permanent fratrat sonofabitch who “spent his days in all-day pool volleyball games with ambitious secretaries” when the rest of us were being shot at, this goddamned COWARD has the arrogance, ignorance, mendacity and chutzpah to say this???

    God. Damn. You. To. Hell. You worthless piece of shit.

    Excuse me, I think I can worship the porcelain god if I leave now….

  • “Eerily similar to his mother’s “This is working out quite well for them!” comment about all the Katrina refugees at the Superdome, isn’t it?”

    Or like the time a woman told him she had to work three jobs and Bush just giggled and said what a great American she was, or words to that effect.

  • This just about takes the cake. He just spit in the face of any U.S. Armed Forces veterans.

    The globalists need to train their chimp to stop saying dumb things or we might have a revolution led by the troops to extricate Lord Bush and his autocratic ilk.

  • These are the words of someone who is clinically delusional. Congress betrays all that is holy by not impeaching this miscreant before he further destroys our country and our Constitutional Republic (with the help of said enablers). Impeach Pelosi.

  • RacerX:
    No one from the west has ‘succeeded’ in Afghanistan since Alexander the Great.
    In ten years (or less) we will regret having gone in, whether necessary or not.

    The ONLY benefit of the Iraq debacle is distracting the press from the failures in
    Afghanistan, which was the ‘easy’ case. Ha!

  • “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.”

    Democracy to Bush means a pliably compliant client state.

  • “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.”

    Well hey, recreating that experience won’t be hard:

    Dine on MREs and tepid, chlorine-flavored canteen water for a week.

    Walk around the hills of Virginia with a fifty pound rucksack.

    Sleep outside in the snow with just a sleeping bag and a poncho liner.

    Have someone fire a couple of mortar rounds at the White House. every few days.

    Have a car bomb go off at the front gate once a week.

    Then someone can cut loose on Bush’s SUV with a few RPGs whenever he drives throough D.C.

    That’ll giver you some of the “fantastic experience” going on in Afghanistan.

    Fuck you very much, George.

  • Racer X said:
    … So, setting aside for a moment all the ways that Bush has hurt our mission there, he actually is saying something good when he says we need to be there helping them form a real democracy.

    Afghanistan is a war that most of us can agree needed to be fought. When we destroyed the Taliban for harboring al Qaeda, we obligated ourselves to repair that country, and we owe it to our progeny to leave the place more stable than it was before we went in. If Bush’s blathering can help the soldiers there feel better about the war, then I say fine.

    I usually enjoy your comments, Racer X, but in this case you’re missing the mark. First of all, we (i.e. the military Clinton left for Bush to screw over and screw up) didn’t destroy the Taliban. That’s why we’re still fighting them, six years later.

    The war in Afghanistan (like the war in Iraq) was mismanaged before it ever began because the Bush and his civilian administration was too arrogant and ignorant to listen to people who understood the country. The war was doomed when the U.S. allied itself with the Afghani warlords. The warlords, a collection of bandits and drug lords who had been armed by the U.S. to fight the Soviet occupation, had turned on each other after the Soviets left and their fighting left Afghanistan in ruins. The Afghan people turned to the Taliban for relief from the violence an corruption of the warlords.

    So when the U.S. invaded, it looked to the Afghan people like we were trying to bring back the chaos of the warlord’s rule. The Bush administration, concerned primarily about funneling taxpayer money to their contributers and cronies, has completely screwed up post-invasion reconstruction and has failed to win over the Afghan people.

    At this point, I don’t see any way to end this war before our NATO allies give up and leave us holding the bag.

    – The warlords are now too entrenched to attack.

    – The Karzai government is a corrupt joke that has little influence once it gets ten miles outside Kabul.

    – The lives of most rural Afghans haven’t gotten better, so they’re turning to the Taliban again.

    – Pakistan is allowing a steady flow of support to the Taliban, and the U.S. can’t do anything about it.

    There is one program that may produce positive results — in a decade or so — the United States Agency for International Development. Naturally, the Bush administration is phasing it out.
    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0712.warner.html

    There is only one thing that Bush could say that would make any positive change in Afghanistan:
    “As my last act as President, I have have turned Dick Cheney over to the War Crimes commission in the Hague. I finally understand how badly my incompetence has hurt the United States, both domestically and abroad. Simply resigning is not sufficient. So I have decided the only way to atone for my mistakes is to commit sepeku. One of my aides handed me a quote from Shakespeare — who I never really read, by the way — that I want as my epitaph. ‘Nothing became his life like the leaving it.’ Goodbye.”

  • Well, so many of these comments speak for speechless me. I didn’t think I could hate this piece of shit any more than I did already, but…
    Will he never get what he deserves?

  • Hey, he’s the Commander in Chiefer. He can issue and age exemption for himself and his chickenhawk buddies to join up and experience the romance. While he’s at it, he can take the twins on a nice romantic tour.

    Just.Plain.Evil

  • I’ll tell you who is glad he can’t serve – the officers and noncoms in direct command of troops in both theatres. Bush was a cataclysmic failure as a businessman, a……cripes, what’s a word that means “way worse than cataclysmic”? I’ll settle for abysmal….failure as president, and there’s no reason to believe he would find his niche as a soldier, to put it as mildly and profanity-free as possible.

    The next time he opens his piehole and rhapsodizes about the romance and comradeship of getting shot at while in uniform, there should be a recruiter standing right there to sign him up. “Hell, no, Mr. President, you’re not too old. You’re in good physical condition, you could pass the aptitude tests (ha, ha), you’re drug-free (wink, wink), and your country needs you. Here’s your helmet, boots and rifle, follow me to get your immunizations and draw the rest of your kit”.

    He’d look like he just found a snake in his pocket.

  • I remember reading an article shortly after the Afghan war started about the story of a young Russian soldier who described his experience there. Apparently they were doing the cells living among the villagers strategy and he and several of his group were invited to a local mullah’s place for supper. He ended up not going. Good thing. The others arrived thinking they were going to have a friendly dinner and the hosts chopped them up and made stew out of them… very grisly. They will never be “friends” with outsiders or allies. EVER. They won’t give up until the last set of invaders boots is gone. Very romantic indeed!

  • The operative word here is “insulting”. The decider is getting decidedly worse at deciding but becoming an expert at insulting. I wonder if he is aware that Scotch, Cocaine and Prescription Medication don’t mix. Oh, that’s right. He’s a Repubelican. Nevermind.

  • I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed managed to wrangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units .Of the many tragedies of Vietnam , this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegience to their country .
    Colin Powell ‘ 95

  • As I reminded an incompetent butter bar many years ago , friendly fire is a mother f %*# ker .

  • And this is the not-so-well-trained chimp that Clinton, Obama, and McCain voted in the Senate to give the authority to declare martial law for “other conditions” and use the National Guard as a police force within the United States. See “Defense” Authorization Act of 2007.

  • Thank you Patriot Bush! Wish you had been a little more gung ho is reading that intelligence report warning about Osama flying missiles into skyscrapers! “Guess you’ve covered your ass! You can leave now!”

    Whatever, whenever, Mr. Bush has been a miserable failure.

    313 more days of failure…. and god bless the USA

  • I would like to add something to Steve T’s comment @20. Contrary to popular mythology, we didn’t even do very much when we invaded Afghanistan. We let those good old warlords do most of the real work. Defeating the Taliban was more from the effort of the Northern Alliance than it was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; the latter provided mostly earth shaking airpower. Conveniently, of course, the leader of the Northern Alliance (Massoud) was assassinated right before his final victory. He wouldn’t have consented to an American puppet in Kabul…and he might well have turned on his benefactors to seek revenge for leaving him out in the cold at the end of the Afghan civil war.

  • There will never be enduring peace unless and until human beings come to accept a philosophy of life more adequate to the cosmic and psychological facts than the insane idolatries of nationalism and the advertising man’s apocalyptic faith in Progress towards a mechanized New Jerusalem.
    — Aldous Huxley

  • That anyone would think that the Bush remarks were anything other than the delusional mental wanderings of the ultimate cowardly bully, is simply incredible.
    To American youth raised to believe that defending (under fire) the nation is the highest honor in life, participation in a war is both exciting and romantic. I know this as in 1968, I was invited to serve. I made the choice to serve in the USAF. By 1969, the romantic war images that I grew up with came up against accounts of vets returning from Viet Nam and I volunteered to go. Eighteen months later, I was disabused of romantic notions, my excitement over false ideals of furthering freedom and democracy spent. Bush had the same opportunity that I did at the time, when he was both young and “excited”. He did everything he could (quite successfully) to avoid the excitement and romance of his day, and now he has the audacity to say how nice it would be…
    How nice it must be to give into romantic thoughts of combat when 60 years and the might of the planets solitary superpower stand between you and actual jeopardy.
    A creature beneath contempt slips ever lower.

  • I hope I live to see him HANG! Him and everyone of those CRIMINALS in his Cabinet! Nixon ought to be rolling over in his grave, that this Basturd got away with everything he couldn’t! Hitler would be so proud, if he could see Facism in the United States of America, being spread, by an Idiot! We will all have to wait for the COME around, to GO around!

  • To Tom Cleaver, if you are, as I suspect, a Vietnam vet then you have my fullest sympathies. For any active duty soldier, this punk president is repugnant beyond word. But in case you missed the CBS/Connie Chung interview of him in 1988 during the Rep National Convention, he also stated that maybe the national guard should have gone and fought in Vietnam — ‘we’d a done a better job”. Why Bush, this psychotic retard, this revolting excuse for a human being, gets such a pass in life and in the press, is at the heart of the great masochistic sickeness gripping American life.

  • The Homicider would wet his pants and cry for mommy if he were ever put on the front line. And that’s without any bullets being fired.

    The idea of George Putz on the frontline begs the question: Would he survive long enough to encounter any Al Qaeda? Or would he be Tillmanned by “friendly fire”? Or some not-so “friendly fire”?

    The only front line that The Homicider knows about are the coke lines on the mirror, and the only front line he deserves is the row of seats in a courtroom in the Hague.

  • All the above is so eloquently said, I don’t think I could add much. It makes me fantasize a bit. What would it take to actually bring Bush and Cheney up on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors? Malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance in office? How about 4000 manslaughter charges? How about treason? Well, you’d certainly have to set politics aside, wouldn’t you. Imagine that! And what if the punishment could be made to fit the crime? A life sentence without parole in Guantanamo? I like that idea. Bring on the dogs! No, pretty soon some soft-headed president type would grant pardon. Then, Bush would be set up in some do-nothing but expensive job with Exxon-Mobil, and Cheney would return to lead Haliburton, positions they’ve certainly earned. No, I think they should be sentenced to bake in full battle rattle in an unarmored Humvee in the desert for a week, then they should sit there under constant RPG barrage until there’s not two atoms left you could rub together. Then, let the healing begin.

  • And Tom above makes me wonder. Wouldn’t it be fitting if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and a few more were marched up the steps of Saddam Hussein’s gallows to be dropped through that same trapdoor with that same noose to stop their fall? Hmmm. THEN the RPG treatment!

  • The Time Has Come…NOW! Bush and Cheney must be impeached!

    It’s the only way that true justice can stop bleeding. These two very poor excuses for “men” never mind “politicians” must get out of office in a way that most appropriately reflects the wonderful “job” they have done of reducing our national pride to a pile of dogsh!t.

    Please check out the following link to read about a very dear friend of mine who has put, not only her “money where her mouth is” but she has put her “life where her mouth is.” She is 87 years old and went on a hunger strike for the cause of Impeaching those assh0le$ in office. God bless her and anyone else who has the personal and political balls to stick a “laser dot of action” on the foreheads of the two biggest, criminaly, insane hypocrytes to ever set foot in Washington DC.

    “Representative Hall has worked tirelessly to make sure the people’s voice is heard in New Hampshire. The committee hearing serves as an opportunity for the public to become involved, expressing the voice of a true democracy. Hall has declared that she will join the Code Pink hunger strike and is “willing to die for impeachment.” http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/?p=4847

    http://impeachforpeace.org/index.php (main impeach site)

    Thank you. This site is great!! Let’s keep up the pressure. Zen

  • Of course, when Bush WAS younger, evidently having determined that democracy-in-the-making needed more help in Alabama than in Vietnam, he too engaged in all-night drinking sessions to coax local residents into cooperating. Bush’s fantastic experiences while AWOL from the Texas ANG must have been exciting and in some ways romantic, and he also confronted many dangers: irate fathers, unplanned pregnancies, STDs…

  • Has anyone noticed he didn’t start talking this way until Prince Harry said he wanted to go to Iraq? His commanders said no because he would be a target and his unit would be that much in danger. Bush must have thought it was safe to say he really wished he could go but knew he couldn’t. He must have s**t his pants when he found out Harry managed to go anyway.

  • These comments are not only offensive to the “public” but down right “perverted”. I can only imagine what are brave men and women feel when this idiot, slacker, who has betrayed this entire country, uses “romantic” to describe this catastrophe he has brought upon our military. “Evil” that is how I would describe this entire “illegal” president, administration, and his “supporters”. It probably gives him an “orgasm” each time another casualty is reported. “Look Daddy, what I have done!” This individual is nothing more than a “phsyco” and his illness has been destroying everything this country stands for.

  • This man has earned my disrespect. He has to be the dumbest man to ever hold this office. The thing we must fear is that the handlers who put him in office are still working behind the scenes supporting others to keep their power.

  • “the cruel war is waging and dubya cain”t go” another crushing blow from the left hand of caligula.he is limited to dressing up in a flight suit and announcing that the mission was accomplished-and cutting the veterans benefits of those who did go.and fight to establish those fledgling democracies.the boy king did his part here at home though,seriously eviscerating the limited democratic elements in what he is allowed to call “his government.
    the statements attributed to the real life president are ar BEST among the stupidest comments i have ever seen attributed to an adult.at worst,they represent issues i’m not qualified to raise.

  • We cannot let our President into a combat situation, of course. Perhaps he could use one of his many vacations to drive a truck for KBR. McCain could go with him. They could stop by the mall and stroll around.

  • I hope that I outlive you – my ‘furher’ – so that I can find our where you are burried and piss on your sorry ass in your grave. I though that it would never ever be possible in my lifetime to se subjected to the humiliation of having a more evil monster than Kilinton to disgrave my country with his filth. But you – you miserable piece of dog feces – are the hands down winner! You unload hundreds of thousands of tons of radio-active poison on innocent men women and children and create a living hell for God’s most innocent creations. Young mothers in that hell that you created are now bearing horrible disfigured children thanks to your jew incited greed and evil. They are committing suicide because they cannot understand what has happened to them – that perhaps God has punished them for some reason – and you have the arrogance to call this horror “ROMANTIC”! , YOU SADISTIC BASTARD! I PRAY that you spend eternity in the most forelorn place in hell for all eternity for your evil. You have betrayed my country to the jew and disgraced my political party – my uniform – my country – and my God, YOU DAMNED HYPOCRITE. I hope the hangman’s noose will find you. You are a filthy monster – and you WILL be remembered as one!

  • I used to think that GWB was simply dumb. All you people who voted for him in 2000 and 2004 must be cringing in your boots. The man is losing his tenacious
    grip on reality. This is just the latest in a long line of incidents that has me convinced that we better do something and quick. God help America.

  • What’s romantic about killing another human being?
    Soldiers in combat are wet, often cold, hungry, tired and scared much of the time. Nothing romantic about that.
    the only thing this statement by this president shows is that he’s never been in combat except in his deluded dreams.

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  • I’m a Vietnam veteran. What do you expect from a drug-damaged chickenhawk who thinks war is like a John Wayne movie? What does he know about anything REAL? I want Cheney (another chickenhawk) and Bush to be impeached. If this wimp Congress won’t do that, then after next January I want them indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned in one of those privatized prisons where nonviolent criminals stand all day, day in and day out, in tiny dark dungeon cells. They’d find out a few things about the Real World! The one that they created.

  • Ol’ Bush kept the Viet Cong out of Louisiana during ‘Nam, didn’t he?

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