Who Owes the Troops an Apology? GW Bush and his Co-conspirators

CNN was on in the locker room at the gym last night (I've gone every day since I joined and am down to 248.6 pounds, thanks for asking), and I couldn't help overhear about John Kerry's joke and the wingnut reaction to it. Kerry said something to the effct that you should study hard and get smart or you could end up stuck in Iraq. "Ha Ha!" thought I. "He means be smart, not stupid like GW Bush who ended up in the Iraq quagmire."

Then I heard that GW Bush and the wingnuts who support him interpreted this as a slam on the military, that Kerry was calling the troops uneducated and stupid. I reckon that this is a case of classic projection. Of course, the wingnuts interpret the statement this way, because that's how they really feel inside. Nobody has more contempt for the military than GW Bush, except maybe Rumsfeld. Bush and Rumsfeld have underequipped and undermanned the forces in operations that have no bearing on the defense of the US or freedom. The almost 3,000 dead are just so many saps that had to be sacrificed to advance the political agenda of the neocon death cult. Bush owes the military, among many others, an apology. It's just like Bush to evade a comment that was directed at him by deflecting it to the military. He would sacrifice every last soldier, sailor and airman to protect his political ass.

In a much more nuanced way than GW Bush is capable of grasping, one might very well make the case that, thanks to GW Bush, the Iraq quagmire has become an apt metaphor for the undesirable situation that one studies to avoid. He has created the circumstance where future recruiting for the military will depend on a pool of unfortunates. In my day, it was the prospect of becoming a "ditchdigger" that was held out as motivation; then it was the prospect of having to go to Vietnam. Who indeed will end up in Iraq in the next ten years of endless, idiotic war? It will be those lacking in other prospects or those whose character is seriously flawed. Those who were already servicemembers when these clusterf***ks in the Middle East were getting underway can't really be blamed or have their intelligence or morality held in suspicion because of their service. They had previously been duped into thinking that their military service would be for the defense of their country. By now, it should be clear to even the minimally educated that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with defense of America or fighting terror, that it was entered into fraudulently and unlawfully, that it has been prosecuted incompetently and unjustly, and that continuing it makes no sense at all. If you join the military now, you should do so with every expectation of serving in the Iraq war; therefore, you must be wanting other prospects, woefully misinformed, lacking the capacity to discern the true situation, or just like to kill people.

It is ironic indeed that GW Bush is calling for anyone other than his own regime to apologize to the troops. Nobody has insulted them more than him.