Bush Says Debate Hurts Troops… Hackett Disagrees

Guest blogged by David Edwards

NBC’s Today Show reports that the president is demanding that critics “disagree responsibly” about Iraq. Bush says that criticism of the Iraq war is “defeatism” that is hurting the troops morale.

Paul Hackett is a veteran of the Iraq war who is running for the Senate in Ohio. Hackett disagrees with the president’s accusations. Hackett says that the troops debate the war just like other patriotic Americans. The troop morale in Iraq remains high.


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35 Responses

  1. What does "disagree responsibly" mean, if any disagreement hurts the troops and is by definition irresponsible?

    It can only mean something on the order of, "Say you disagree, but don’t say why." Which would put Bush’s critics on the same intellectual plane he’s on, i.e., one where you never explain yourself. May God forbid that the anti-intellectualism of the current Gilded Age ever puts thoughtful men and women on the same intelligence level as Bush.

  3. GWB, your lies killed over 2,000 of America’s finest, to launch a war that’s likely to cost over a Trillion $$, so that Iraqis can vote themselves a radical, Islamic dictatorship, in the midst of civil war.

    OK, now you retort.

  5. "Responsible disagreement" means:

    "Bush is Super-Duper!!," "No! Bush is Super-Super-Duper!!"

  6. Just shutup already, nobody’s buying it anymore. And the domestic spying plus war lies is enough, get the trials started.

    Doug

  7. By "disagree responsibly" does he mean shut up? Sounding more and more like a police state every day isn’t it?

  8. Good point

    We need to tell Bush to shutup, aka fool and chief, and to take his punishment like a man. We are through with being spoken down to as if we were little children!!!!!

    Al Gore made it all clear for the world…..We won’t stand for petty, idiotic behavior or exscusing illegal dictator acts or irresponsibility.

    Doug E.

  9. The trials are continuing … another group in another federal circuit filed suit today (link here).

    Two major suits against the president’s spying activity filed in one day!

    Wow, so these valid, legal suits against the president’s policies are going to hurt the troops? Give me a friggin break. What utter nonsense.

    The neoCons have no ideas, they only have lies.

  12. Andrew Johnson wasn’t "worser" than Bush, not by a long shot. Bush has enjoyed a friendly Congress throughout and a servile press, Johnson had the opposite. Johnson never started a war, never spied on Americans, never spent public monies he didn’t have available, never colluded with corporations, never antagonized foreign governments, never suborned torture, and despite having no formal education, could speak and write better than Bush.

    Johnson’s "crime" was firing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton, though a Democrat like Johnson, aligned himself with Radical Republicans after the Civil War in a campaign of punitive retribution toward former Confederates and all who sympathized with them (every Democrat, basically).
    He led an effort to connect Johnson with Lincoln’s murder (there’s more reason to suspect Stanton than Johnson) and obstructed justice at the trial of Booth’s conspirators and at John Surratt’s trial by withholding evidence and coaching witnesses to lie.

    Bush was much closer to Stanton than to Johnson, and "worser" than both of them. Bush ranks at the bottom along with Pierce, Buchanan, Grant, and Harding. If he lasts three more years, he’ll surely do enough damage to be dead last on the list.

  13. Another hopeful sign: Impeachment possible, Specter says

    Although the final paragraph looks afully familiar!

    Does the phrase "Specter also said that although the question of impeachment had not yet arisen for him, he would pursue it if he believes Bush broke the law." = "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."?

  14. RLM #12

    Thanks for the update – all I could remember about Johnson was the call to Impeach Lyndon Johnson. At that time the call was to Impeach him like Andrew Johnson.

  17. RLM #1

    You asked "What does ‘disagree responsibly’ mean".

    To the fascist Bush regime, I think it means to send your statements in to the white house for Rove to approve before you make those statements public.

    I refuse to disagree responsibly and will continue to disagree as a citizen. That is the most responsible thing Americans can do.

  18. (1) Debate about Iraq "hurts" morale if troops? NOT PROVEN.

    (2) Unjustifiably BEING in Iraq *KILLS* troops and innocents, and increases terrorist presence around the world. PROVEN.

    This is a no-brainer.

  19. I was just thinking, if Clinton was president, and he said how he wanted Americans to disagree with something. I’d call Clinton a big fat asshole. A rightwinger says about Bush, "Yeah, that’s we should disagree!" I hate Republicans and rightwingers.

  20. Rightwingers have to be told "how to disagree". This is meant for rightwingers who disagree with Bush. Because Bush cannot tell an independent thinker how to disagree with something. WHAT ARROGANCE!!!!!!!!!!

    Rightwinger: "How do we disagree with something, Mr. Bush? Tell us how!!!"

  21. Please add to my first two points above..

    (3) Being in a war-zone (esp. unjustifiably) hurts morale of troops.

    (4) Leaving a war-zone improves morale of troops.

    If Mister Bush wants to improve morale, and decrease DEATHS, it is still a no-brainer.

  22. Sure, sure and we are all terrorists. Impeach the lunatics while we still have a Constitution and country.

  23. anybody ever watch a show called "Max Headroom",the real news only got shown via pirate tv,wonder if it could be the way of the future ?

  25. MikeyCan speaks about troop morale.

    What really hurts troop morale is not providing them with proper truck and body armor and even telling them they can’t wear the body armor their parents bought them — even if it’s much better than the gov. issue.

    Apparently the company selling the gov. body armor has a deal and the gov. is enforcing it.

    It’s been said that 80% of the deaths of soldiers who were wearing the gov. issue body armor could’ve been prevented if they were wearing the other company’s product. Further, several generals are said to be wearing the other company’s armor to "test" it.

    The story is at either RawStory.com or BuzzFlash.com, I forget which.


  27. This is a bit off topic, but I thought I would share a quote from our fearless leader that I found on Raw Story yesterday. This absolutely floored me, but I guess in reality it should’nt have:

    Asked at a town-hall event Wednesday in Louisville, Ky., about the lack of separation between church and state in much of the Middle East, the president replied: "It’s going to be the spread of democracy itself that shows folks the importance of separation of church and state." He cited Iraq’s new constitution, which says Islam is "a basic source of legislation" but guarantees rights to the country’s non-Islamic and non-Arab citizens.

    Ok King George, so your for seperation of Church and State in the middle East, but not here?

  28. If "Islam is a basic source of legislation," then church and state CANNOT be kept separate. Bush is catapulting the propaganda by "disassembling" what Islam is all about.

    Guaranteeing rights to non-Islamic and non-Arab citizens CANNOT separate church and state, because those rights could be withdrawn at any time by ukase of Muslim a cleric… unless legislators were willing to disobey the cleric, in which event Islam could no longer be the basic source of legislation. And any legislator who disobeyed a Muslim cleric wouldn’t be a legislator much longer, because Islam rules.

    Pure, arrant nonsense from the frat boy president.

  29. Is this the Iraq War Vet Hackett, who had the vote stolen 51%-49% when the machines went down in the bottom of the 9th? And then Schmidt smeared Murtha, and "hurt the troops" and hurt a war vet?

    There’s 2 logical statements about Schmidt’s "victory":

    1. There was no vote fraud, and the Ohio voters voted for an unAmerican non-Iraq war vet, so they are "hurting the troops".
    2. The vote was stolen, and the Ohio voters got Schmidt and they didn’t want her.

    If it’s #2, Ohio voters: do something about it!

  30. The notion that debate over a war somehow hurts the morale of the troops fighting that war is an insult to the intelligence of the troops.

    These kids are sold a bill of goods to start with. At a time in their lives when they’re susceptible to persuasion, they succumb to recruiters’ appeals. Most have no clue about what to expect. They’re thrown into Iraq without adequate body armor, they see their colleagues blown to bits by suicide bombers, and at some point the light dawns…hey, this isn’t working!

    But, we’re asked to believe, if only those people back home would shut up, the reality of the troops’ experiences in Iraq wouldn’t register with them.
    Really, the only person who could believe that is someone who never fought in combat himself…in other words, a chickenhawk.

  31. And we need to stand with others like Jack Murtha and force their backs against the wall, to initiate impeachment, as its certainly issue.

    Doug E.

  32. What Bush has accomplished in the name of Democracy:

    "In the social breakdown that has accompanied the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s regime criminal elements within Iraqi society have had almost free rein," the document says. "In the absence of an effective police force capable of ensuring public safety, criminal elements flourish … Baghdad is reportedly divided into zones controlled by organised criminal groups-clans."

    Entire Article

  33. Last night I joined about 20 others, protesting a speech by L. Paul Bremer in New Canaan, where he lives and where I lived from 1973-2000. New Canaan is the current home of Bremer and newsman Brian Williams, and the former home of Ann Coulter, Ari Fleischer, and David Letterman (!).

    The speech (promoting Bremer’s book) was originally scheduled for the N.C. Library, a large and very well endowed place with meeting rooms. The public was invited. But when word got out that protestors might show up, it was shifted to St. Luke’s School (private property, in the woods outside of town) and suddenly attendance was "by invitation only." On the guest list were several Secret Service guys and plenty of cops.

    You guessed it. Protestors were allowed only in a tiny area far from the site. We were greeted with catcalls like, "What rock did you crawl out from under?" and "George Bush rules!" Trolls exist everywhere, but what bothered me was the very attractive woman who stopped her car, rolled down the window and said, "You know, I have two nephews in Iraq, and I’m worried about them." She was polite, but very distressed by our presence.

    The idea that domestic protests hurt troop morale and/or help the enemy is demonstrably false. It should have disappeared after Vietnam. Yet people who have been appealed to on the basis of fear like that woman believe it sincerely. The fact that Bush and Cheney are chickenhawks, and that a real hero like Murtha is speaking out against the war, seem to make no difference.

  34. Did you catch Bremer on The Daily Show 2 nights ago. I’m torn between wanting these guys to come on and say their piece and have Stewart say "Come on, level with us", (which is what he does to some extent while they dodge and duck and avoid truth)…and just avoiding these characters on what is an obviously liberal oriented show, precisely because you know they’re going to be softballed. It makes me grimace to hear the Daily Show audience clap for Bremer as a guest. I sure as hell would be booing if I was in that audience. Don’t get me wrong, I think Stewart does the best he can. I’m sure he’s limited in how far he can actually take the insinuation of "Bremer, you have your head up your ass" and they’re there to promote a book so their publicist probably has some written agreement worked out. There isn’t time for real debate there anyway.

  35. Debate hurts troops is just another ploy by bush "to sit down and shut up". I will never sit down, nor shut up!!!