Candidate wounded in Iraq: Bush offers 'shallow slogans'

September 30, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Illinois congressional candidate who lost both her legs during combat in Iraq said Saturday that President Bush has no real strategy for securing the war-ravaged nation, just political talk designed to appeal to voters.

"Instead of a plan or a strategy, we get shallow slogans like 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Stay the Course,"' former Army Capt. Tammy Duckworth said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "Those slogans are calculated to win an election. But they won't help us accomplish our mission in Iraq."

Duckworth's address served as a response to the president's weekly radio talk and gave the Democratic Party a chance to showcase one of its strongest candidates as it seeks to regain control of the House in November's elections.

Duckworth, who copiloted a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed while under a rocket grenade attack almost two years ago, also criticized Bush and others in his administration for accusing anyone who challenges the president's policies of "cutting and running."

"Well, I didn't cut and run, Mr. President. Like so many others, I proudly fought and sacrificed," Duckworth said. "My helicopter was shot down long after you proclaimed 'mission accomplished."'


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More soldiers that were there need to speak out. What the hell happened to peace rallies like there were during Vietnam?

Maybe those people were not threatened by a governemtn that wants puppets and not citizens.

I've asked the same question, DK...what happened to the peace marchers of the 60s? They're not all dead and gone, surely. No doubt many of them have children and grandchildren caught up in this monstrous war in one way or another. Do they think they've done all they're going to do to help a nation come to its senses? I can't blame them...after all, the nation doesn't seem to have learned a thing from Vietnam.



Catherine

i've wondered the same thing about peace marches. how to mobilize?
it was the campuses of course, now it has to be the web.

ive wondered that if a day without immigrants could be done in those numbers, then why not peace?

i am not sure that domestic opinion againts iraq has yet reached the levels that tiped the bakance on viet nam.

There is a fear in the country that was not there before. People are being threatened, put in jail and the dictator relishes on the fear that he sprouts.

Look at what happens to protesters in the cities he goes to. They are march off to some far part of the city and nobody sees them. You cannot be on the same road that he travels and hold up a peace sign without being moved.

Those of us that care are not number enough and I think that those who want to organize are being "spoken" to if you know what I mean.

There was also the draft, which touched so many lives so negatively. Now, unless somebody in one's family is actually in Iraq, or will be soon, the war is just a distant "background noise" filtered out by Fox News and the latest reality televsion show. Another thing is the news media...we saw those Vietnam War soldiers coming home in coffins. Now we don't. Out of sight, out of mind.

The American people have changed, too, and not for the better, IMO. It seems to me that respect for human life has taken a strong downturn. People are mean and hateful. They are aggressive, arrogant, and it's me, my, mine all the way. They feel enabled by the present administration, and a tremendous number of Americans actually find the only likable thing about W is what they perceive as his "toughness." They can't get by that, so everything else bad that he's done, well...it is to be forgiven.... and so, they give him 100% of their approval. They like to "identify" with the cowboy. It means they don't have to change and it validates their perception of themselves.

If the draft is ever reinstated, the same reaction we saw in the 60s might be visible again, though. Many of the Bush approvers are arm-chair warriors, and they can cheer on those who are going over to Iraq to fight, but they sure as hell don't want to go themselves.

Cat you seem to have hit it on the head. The American people have changed and I agree not for the better. I don't know how old you are but, I remember coming home from school and having my mother home. I remember eating supper with my parents and spending time with them, even if only watching television. Television seemed different also. Many of the shows were family type shows.

The American public has become accustomed to violence and thinks nothing of it and with a President who seems to thrive on it and give his OK as long as it is in the line of Terrorism anything is alright.

Hell six years ago, the police would have investigated threatening mail coming to somebody home. Now it is labeled a terrorist attack. Go to the library and be careful of what you check out. You could be getting a book that is on the LIST.

We have become sheep. There are only a few of us that question what happens, not because we want to cause trouble, but, because we still value the way of life that this country was founded on. We still want everybody to feel safe when they walk down the street, we still want to be able to trust our government to do what is right for us.

But that is not happening, instead we are questioning our government and wondering why.

I remember all of those things, DK...Mom was home when we got off the school bus. We were never pulled out of bed at 6 am during the summer to be taken to a daycare center. I remember my mother having the time to come to school as a Grade Mother. That meant that on special days, Mom and a few other mothers would bring homemade refreshments to school. Classes were suspended for an hour or two and we'd have a party. I was always so proud of my mother when she'd arrive at school on those special days. She was a beautiful woman and she would have taken special care with her hair and makeup and she'd be dressed like she was going to church. Her cookies, cupcakes, brownies, and punch were always popular with my classmates. Best of all, I had the leftovers to take home. Everybody knew everybody else.

My parents always served the evening meal on the dining room table and the food was in bowls, which were passed around the table. We talked to each other, discussing the day we'd each had and the events happening locally and nationally. It was during those meals that we learned table manners and the importance of listening to one another's viewpoints. We didn't have a television of our own until I was in the third or fourth grade. Our neighbor had one, and two or three evenings a week, we'd finish supper and then we'd walk up the dirt road to the neighbor's house and watch a few programs. The neighbor was my dad's employer and our two families have remained close, even to this day.

We were "disadvantaged" but we did not know it, nor did we care (that's the term that became popular during Johnson's War on Poverty). We didn't have the latest toy or "mod con." We had all the food we could eat, a decent home to live in, warm clothes and shoes, and parents who spent time with us. I even got an allowance starting at age 12: 50 cents a week!

Now, things are so different, my own childhood seems almost surreal when I reflect back on it.

Catherine

Does the Main Stream Media inform us about these things? ( actually I would not know since I do not watch television much anymore ) And, I just read somewhere that Bush was supposed to be making a speech at some college campus, but they did not want him there ( his speech was cancelled ) and this was not reported. How many other things of interest to the American population are not being reported? Things that could change peoples' minds.

Cat, nice memories. I look back and sometimes wish I could go back to those times, but, we cannot so all we can do is try to insure that our children will have pleasant memories also.

We don't get a chance to eat together much, because my wife works nights, but, on the nights she is home we sit at the table and pass food, laugh and have a great time.

Just one more the media is accused of not supporting Bush and saying unkind things about him, when in reality this President has been given a pass on just about everything. The media does not report the protesters, the schools, the business's that do not want him to speak.

I believe they are afraid to. I believe that they are afraid of what he and his administration might do. If one can believe half of what is said, people have been threatened about what is said about him.

His entire administration is based on fear. In every speech he uses fear to make sure the people remain under his control and make no mistake he does control this country. Whether we want to agree with it or not.

Look at what is happening now, just before the election. Gas prices are falling, attacks are being stopped, Bin Laden is suppose to be dead. It will not end only get worst.

I fear for this country. A terrible mistake was made when he became President.

Just about everything!

What did Bush do when he first came to office? He put his, his father's and Reagan's papers under secrecy rules. Everything he has done since then has been secret too.

There is supposed to be a second report on Iraq that is sitting in the WH marked DRAFT so it won't come out before the elections.

Right after the 2000 stolen election, the neocons built a 'shadow government' to be used if anything should happen to our elected government. And they increased their bunkers.

If a pandemic happens in America the military takes over.

These things, if they are said at all, are whispered--somewhere on page 23 under the fold. Thankfully, we have people reading page 23 under the fold and posting on web sites. They are called 'conspiracy theorists'.

We have no idea what the government is doing or how it is going about it's business. We have only government apologists and propagandists telling us things disigned to quiet the populace so we will not be a nuisance to them.

That old saying, 'What you don't know won't hurt you' is totally wrong!