14 Marines Killed in Iraq as President Bush Vacations

[Guest $iLk]

Does President Bush take his job seriously?

(Washington, D.C.) On Wednesday, 14 Marines deployed to Iraq from Ohio were killed when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb. The attack is one of the deadliest attacks to take place in Iraq. Days earlier, six Marines from the same unit were killed in a fire-fight near Haditha.

Meanwhile, Republican President George W. Bush set out yesterday to begin his five-week vacation in Crawford, Texas. The planned vacation will be the longest presidential getaway in 36 years (Richard Nixon spent over a month at his San Clemente estate in 1969).

While Bush's aides and enablers defend the president's aggressive vacationing, it is simply poor leadership on the part of the Commander in Chief. While American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen are disallowed from simply returning to the United States as scheduled and risks their lives in Iraq each day, the President of the United States enjoys the comfort and pleasures of his Crawford ranch.

"As a self-professed 'Wartime President', George W. Bush needs to start taking his job seriously by showing the leadership that our troops deserve," said Shane Cory, director of communications for the Libertarian Party.

Cory continued, "Throughout his presidency, Bush has wrapped himself in patriotic rhetoric by using the troops as the focus of American pride. It's time for Bush to take a step toward working as hard as they do by simply staying on the job and finding a way to bring our troops home."

Quick Facts:

[*]American troops reported dead in Iraq: 1822

[*]Length of the invasion/occupation of Iraq: 869 days

[*]Crawford vacation days of the Bush presidency: 319 days (20%)

[*]Average days of annual paid vacation of the working American: 13

[*]Days of annual leave for military personnel: 30

[John Prezioso]

Not touching this one - SOMEONE will end up banned...

[Guest $iLk]

And I'm a Conservative. Bush's vacation should go over like a fart in a church with everyone.

Whether or not he's "working hard" as he likes to say - it's an image issue and this hurts our troops, and our image to our enemies.

[John Prezioso]

Nomad - show me a modern-day APC that can withstand a 100-lb explosive detonation to its underside.

[John Prezioso]

Yeah -I forgot about that one. Not practical for long road recon and travel, though. The insurgent made road-side bombs are ingeniusly shaped and cleverly camoflouged and are capable of higher yields than mines- not much ANY vehicle not a MBT or specifically designed as the Caspir can do to survive a detonation directly underneath - the least armored part of a vehicle, with exception of maybe the top.

[Kalshion]

quote:

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14 Marines Killed in Iraq as President Bush Vacations

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Like no other president ever took a vacation in there life

The media must be getting desprite.... now there making it as if Bush has NO RIGHT to have a vacation..

[John Prezioso]

I would think a job of the magnitude and stress like President would require more vacation than, say, a web designer. The pressure must be incredible.

[Guest $iLk]

Must be great pressure... way the hell worse than sitting in some ****hole foreign country getting shot at and worrying about whether your wife is banging some of those navy guys. They get a measly 30 days for that walk in the park. The President's job is waaaaaaaaay worse... having to work hard at not butchering the English language and all that.

"It's hard work." - President Bush

[John Prezioso]

It's always SO easy to criticize. Actually DOING something is always much more difficult...and usually left to the less cynical and bitter, and more rational people.

[Guest $iLk]

It's been disappointment after disappointment. I supported Bush's re-election, and watched as Iraqis had money that was earmarked for repairing water infrastructure (about $10 Million) that was re-allocated to pay for Iraqi Police and misc 'security' issues while Halliburton Co received a $70 Million 'bonus' for 'good work' and today come to find out that they have been billing the Army $40 per case of soda.

You are damn straight it is easy to criticize after these shenanigans. To top it all off - while Marines are being slaughtered wholesale - the President takes a 5 week vacation.

Sean Hannity-style verbal fellatio is not productive towards our country. We are supposed to be at 'War' yet Bush has raised defense & discretionary spending to the greatest levels in the past century (including inflation) and is the first president to do so since Jimmy Carter.

Instead of body armor and ammunition - this administration and Congress' priorities were on a pork-laden Highway bill and different alternatives on pandering to hispanics by leaving a suicidal open-border policy in place. We are at war with terrorists who have professed a desire to sneak a nuclear weapon into American cities and this administration can't be bothered to take border control seriously.

Again - it is extremely easy to criticize.

The only thing sadder is that the leading opposition party is the 'me too' party.

[John Prezioso]

I am not a Bush supporter - I am an America supporter. But I am not going to sit here and listen to someone bad-mouth a guy for taking a vacation when he has the toughest job in the world. Just because he is not in Iraq, his job is not tough? How would you feel if a decision you made, and decisions you make every day, while you truly believed was right, has resulted in the deaths of so many? Could you lightly make such profound decisions? No matter what he does SOMEONE will absolutely rape him for how stupid he is, how inept he is, how evil he is, yadda, yadda, yadda. Believe what you want, but I will not be drawn into a debate over such nonsense. Later.

[Guest $iLk]

I was not a fan of invading Iraq since the beginning. You can find my early posts on the subject in this very forum.

Thanks to U.S. policy, Sharia will rule the lives of Iraqis for years to come, while Iran will take a larger role in the affairs of Iraq. Iraqi women now find the veil decending over them, our fellow Americans are dying in support of this, and Halliburton hasn't had such an excellent time in the stock market in years.

This was a war of choice - not necessity. Bush made the decision to send these men and women to their deaths - and now he wants to take a vacation.

For the sake of our soldiers - I hope that the war is concluded successfully - and Bush's policy succeeds dramatically and quickly.

But all you have to do is look at what's happening. Iraqis are being left without water and electricity while Dick Cheney's Halliburton get's $70 million bonuses for charging our troops $45.00 per 24 pack of canned soda, $100.00 per bag of laundry, and charging 12 hours per day, 7 days per week even if they don't do anything. If a Halliburton truck has engine problems - they torch it and bill us for a new one.

If you are pro-America you would jump all over this shit just as quickly.

You are paying for Halliburton to do this, while Iraqis starve.

You are paying - with your hard earned tax dollars for the rights of Islamic fundamentalists to beat their Iraqi women with sticks and clothe them in the veil.

It's being done in your name... and mine.

That's why I'm angry.

[Kalshion]

quote:

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Instead of body armor and ammunition - this administration and Congress' priorities were on a pork-laden Highway bill and different alternatives on pandering to hispanics by leaving a suicidal open-border policy in place.

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Now THIS I am in agreement with

Our BIGGEST security risk IS the border, our open border is just INVITING more problems

How the heck do you think the terrorists got into this country in the FIRST place? Because of the open border

quote:

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If you are pro-America you would jump all over this shit just as quickly.

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We are pro-american, but with the way the media has treated President Bush and this War, it is VERY hard to tell the truth from the lie's... THATS why I'm not taking this to seriously, because the media REFUSE'S to focus on the REAL issues (The BORDER, The GOOD we've done in iraq, those types of things)

[Guest $iLk]

quote:

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We are pro-american, but with the way the media has treated President Bush and this War, it is VERY hard to tell the truth from the lie's... THATS why I'm not taking this to seriously, because the media REFUSE'S to focus on the REAL issues (The BORDER, The GOOD we've done in iraq, those types of things)

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I'm a Conservative - I vet my sources thoroughly. The majority of what I'm saying actually originated in Conservative news outlets and was picked up by the libs.

Halliburton's $70 Million 'bonus' was all over the news, including army.mil - and the Washington Post reported on the security situation in Iraq drawing funds away from rebuilding to 'security'. $10 million was removed from one of the towns that Saddam gassed in the 1980s that was earmarked for having it's water infrastructure rebuilt.

My conclusion - Halliburton's interests are more important than Iraqis. And this is one of many examples.

[Guest]

First off, Bush is in Crawford, but he is NOT on vacation.

He may claim it as such, but it's NOT a vacation.

Every morning he has the same briefings that he gets at the White House, he has ALL of the same communications equipment, web access, emergency military access etc.

He is at the white house in Crawford, yeah, he may take a few hours a day to chop some wood, or play on the ranch, but the man is working his butt off.

This is NOT a vacation, and should never be considered such.

The president can run the country from ANYWHERE, and he just happens to be in Crawford because Congress is in recess, and he can afford to get away from Washington DC.

[Guest $iLk]

I do not disagree Jaguar. The point of this is that it does not send a good message to our enemies, or to the troops in Iraq for the President to take a "five week vacation" in the middle of a war. (Longest vacation since Nixon)

I don't care if he has DSL cables running from his brain to the Pentagon transmitting his thoughts real-time. This does not send a good message.

And that hardly negates the rest of my analysis.

The President can do his job from anywhere - but do you believe his speech on 9/11/2001 would have been accepted just as well if he had been sitting on his tail-gate of his pickup petting his dog's head while wearing jeans and a cowboy hat - or in the Oval Office in suit and tie?

Image is everything. And as President - it is his job to set the right tone and message. I could do my job in my underwear - but that doesn't mean it's proper.

[Guest $iLk]

I still think it looks bad... what a cluster**** Iraq is & is going to be. Conservative != Republican.

[Darkling]

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

... and today come to find out that they have been billing the Army $40 per case of soda....

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And who is going in there to sell items at regular price? You? You have to keep in mind that companies that are doing business over there HAVE to hire private security firms and they HAVE to pay these private contractors close to 100K a year, so of course these costs have to be taken into account and built into the price of the items being sold.

As for this whole vacation thing, come on guys! I take vacations all the time, BUT it's mostly for my family because I don't really take vacations. I bring my laptop with me every time and I work just as many hours as I do when I'm not on vacation. About the only exception to that is my Anniversary.

[Darkling]

Spelling & Grammar Check:

quote:

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Originally posted by nomad:

I think that unfortunately a whole nation will learn at its expenses

- expense -

that you can't come in all guns blazing, remove a dictator in a country who never experienced democracy, and expect that the population will accomodate with an

- an (not With An) -

imposed political architecture who doesen't

- doesn't -

correspond to its traditions. It requires a maturity that the iraqui

- Iraqi (It's a name which means it should ALWAYS be capitalized) -

leaders miss.

Iraki's

- Iraqis (apostrophes are used to imply ownership, not so with plurality and if there was plurality in addition to ownership the apohstrophe is after the s) -

are used to grab what they want by force. A few days ago, the maire

- Mayor -

of Baghdad was forcefully expelled from his functions by a Badr militia leader, and nobody from the iraqui

- Iraqi -

government has any intention to counter this move, therefore the US neither if you want to give the impression that Iraquis

- Iraqi -

are running their own country to avoid other problems...

This doesen't presume anything good about the future. If US troops leave now, it's chaos and civil war almost for sure. Then Turkey will come in from the north arguing that PKK benefits from Kirkuk's oil revenues and fight against the Kurds, the shias

- Shias or more properly Shi'ites -

will ally with Iran, and the sunnies

- Sunnies (capitalize nouns) -

are politically linked with Syria through Baas

- Ba'th is the most appropriate spelling, but may also be spelled Ba'ath or Baath -

structures, and to Saudi Arabia for wahhabite

- Wahhabite (captialize nouns) -

fundamentalism. If US troops stay, they will be increasingly seen as an occupation force by a portion of the population.

What's the solution ?

- Solution? (No space between the word and the question mark) -

I don't know, except not going there in the first place. I remember when Russia & France said that this would open the Pandora box...

- open Pandora's Box -

I guess there's less people laughing at them now.

The director of "The Council of Foreign Affairs", an old respected US publication, has recently declared that full stabilization of Irak

- Iraq -

would require hundred

- hundreds -

of billlion $

- billions of $ -

and a decade of US military presence. Are US citizen

- citizens -

ready for such a sacrifice ?

- sacrifice? -

Recent polls show the contrary. My worry is that there will be no long-term consensus to finish the job, and that we may end with a de facto Iraqi-Iran union simply by the natural convergence of their respective interests and religious

- religous -

background. What's also interesting is that Iran has privilegied

- privileged -

links with Syria. So it is plausible that Teheran

- Tehran is more proper, but at least it's right this time -

could also connect with the sunni

- ALWAYS CAPITALIZE NAMES -

insurgency through Syria.

In this case, the resulting landscape could look much worse than what used to be in Saddam times.

---

- END SPELLING AND GRAMMAR CHECK -

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by nomad:

Thank you Darkling, I appreciate your corrections and I am keen to learn. It isn't always easy to write in a foreign language, more so when it's the one I master the worst. By the way, some errors are due to the fact that I don't think in english. Some words that are incorrect in english are correct in other languages. Baas is used in italian and french for example.

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What? you don't think in English? I thought everyone thought in English!! LOL

[Guest $iLk]

quote:

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Originally posted by Darkling:

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

... and today come to find out that they have been billing the Army $40 per case of soda....

---

And who is going in there to sell items at regular price? You? You have to keep in mind that companies that are doing business over there HAVE to hire private security firms and they HAVE to pay these private contractors close to 100K a year, so of course these costs have to be taken into account and built into the price of the items being sold.

As for this whole vacation thing, come on guys! I take vacations all the time, BUT it's mostly for my family because I don't really take vacations. I bring my laptop with me every time and I work just as many hours as I do when I'm not on vacation. About the only exception to that is my Anniversary.

---

Aren't we paying for the private contractors as well? Aren't we paying security firms $30,000 per employee per month through government contracts? Don't we have a military over there?

Why is Halliburton feeling it necessary to overcharge the U.S. government through creative ways such as torching 2 year old trucks to justify billing the US for new ones?

Why did the Army give Halliburton a $70 Million "Bonus" instead of using that money to rebuild the sewage/water infrastructure of cities most damaged by Saddam?

Do you honestly believe that Iraq was the right decision?

I felt that Saddam had WMD's, but I disagreed with the invasion. As soon as our troops stepped across the border - I've hoped for a swift resolution and a dramatic success of Bush policy.

Instead - we are financing another soon-to-be tinpot dictator who will force the Iraqi women into Sharia, and financing the rebuilding of a future Iran ally.

Good job. It was a war of choice - first and foremost. Iraq was the worst decision in the past 30 years. Sadly - you've got a party of whiners as your opposition party at the moment.

American soldiers are dying, Halliburton is posting record stock prices, and the Iraqi women have the veil descending over them - courtesy of George W. Bush.

The vacation thing is incidental. It looks bad for him to be "on vacation" even if he's working his butt off, considering that we are in 'his' war for 'his' reasons in which people are dying for 'his' choice.

[Darkling]

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

Aren't we paying for the private contractors as well? Aren't we paying security firms $30,000 per employee per month through government contracts?

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I don't know are we? I can't find any definitive answers on this.

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

Don't we have a military over there?

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Yes we have military over there, but they are implicidly NOT responsible for private contractors. Whenever their needs coincide, yes the military will help, but most times the private contractors are on their own and must hire private security firms to guard their employees if they want to stay safe.

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

Why is Halliburton feeling it necessary to overcharge the U.S. government through creative ways such as torching 2 year old trucks to justify billing the US for new ones?

---

I have no idea what you're talking about, tried googling it, but I can't find any articles on Halliburton Torching vehicles so they can bill for new ones. I would think that a company that is making boatloads of cash on this deal wouldn't need to find shady ways of raking in even more cash, but I guess anything is possible. Problem is, are you speaking of conjecture or something that there is actual evidence of?

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

Why did the Army give Halliburton a $70 Million "Bonus" instead of using that money to rebuild the sewage/water infrastructure of cities most damaged by Saddam?

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I don't know, as an IT contractor I regularly put together lowball bids on jobs that includes "Bonuses" for on time deliver, meeting or exceeding goals and so on and so forth. Since I don't know what type of contract they have with the government, I really couldn't tell you.

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

Do you honestly believe that Iraq was the right decision?

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I believe that if there is a criminal that breaks the law, that criminal should be apprehended. Saddam Housein entered into a legal agreement with the US that they would allow us, without ANY interference from him, to inspect anywhere in the country for WMD's, that didn't happen. The issue isn't so much if there were WMD's but more, what will the US and the UN do about this direct defiance of the agreements. Obviously doing nothing emboldends criminals (like Hitler) and it also emboldens their friends (like Khadafi). So, by the US forcibly removing this criminal we show the world that you can't make an agreement with the US, renege and think that everything will be Okeydokey. Unfortunately not everyone understands this, which is why a Madman like Hitler was able to seize so much power, people don't seem to understand how the criminal mind works, you can't talk to a criminal and make him understand that what he's doing is wrong, he only looks for your weakness to destroy you.

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

I felt that Saddam had WMD's, but I disagreed with the invasion. As soon as our troops stepped across the border - I've hoped for a swift resolution and a dramatic success of Bush policy.

---

So did I, but we can't all have what we want can we? Leadership isn't for the weak or the weak minded, which is why the US needed to do this, since Europe would be happy with collecting Husseins kickbacks via the ill concieved Oil for Food program.

quote:

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Originally posted by $iLk:

The vacation thing is incidental. It looks bad for him to be "on vacation" even if he's working his butt off, considering that we are in 'his' war for 'his' reasons in which people are dying for 'his' choice.

---

Yes you're right of course, Bush needs to show how frantic the Terrorist over there have made us here in the US, as a matter of fact I think ALL US citizens need to end thier vacations until all the US troops are back home. Stop going to restaurants, the Movies, Disney, the Beach, everyone should just stay home and or work .... Speaking of work, I guess a TON of people would be out of work when everyone stops spending money, but Oh well if 10% unemployment is the price we must pay to be politically correct, we will be just like Europe!

[John Prezioso]

Silk-

You are completely entitled to your opinions, and I respect them as they are yours. I think you are 100% wrong, but I respect your opinions.

But for the love of all that is holy, please stop caliing yourself "conservative". As a conservative myself, I find it a tad insulting...

[John Prezioso]

quote:

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So, face the reality: nobody is innocent in this game, and everyone acts according to his own sellfish interests, European countries, Russia, China, the US, etc...

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No, YOU give ME a break. First of all, this topic was supposed to be about Bush vacationing during the war in Iraq. Thread-jacking in effect!

Secondly, you can hate the US all you want, but try grouping us with terrorists and evil regimes again, and I might not have anything else to say to you... ever.

[John Prezioso]

Can I read? Are you on edge or something? You've not stooped to insults before, as I can remember.

But, as you wish. Yes I can read. And what I see is dismaying. You love to muddy an issue (regardless of the topic) and then take poorly veiled shots at the US after you're done confusing the issue. What exactlty am I to make of the statement "No one is innocent here, everyone acts according to his own selfish interests here..."?

You are drawing moral equivalency between terrorists, terrorist regimes, and the US. You are implying the war in Iraq and the deaths of my countrymen are done in the name of greed and corruption. You ignore the fact that we are fighting an enemy whose evil we could never even touch, while belittling the sacrifices of so many. Nope, no reason I should feel insulted or anything...

[ 08-11-2005, 07:09 PM: Message edited by: Prez ]