Kerry to hit Bush on Iraq - Mothers of troops to help 'tell the truth'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/19/kerry.bush.iraq/

(CNN) -- Mothers of U.S. troops serving in Iraq will help Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry make the case Monday that President Bush's optimistic view of the war does not reflect reality, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Sunday.

Kerry will make a "major address" on the issue at New York University, where at least five mothers of service members will criticize Bush's leadership in Iraq, McAuliffe told reporters in a conference call.

"They're sick and tired of George W. Bush and his rosy scenarios," he said. "They want America to know the truth, because they're talking to their sons and daughters" who have told them that Bush "is not telling the truth."

McAuliffe said the United States is "stuck in a quagmire" -- paying 90 percent of the costs of the war and suffering 90 percent of the casualties. snip

McAuliffe said Bush told the American people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that he had a plan to win the peace, that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for reconstruction, that the United States would take democracy to Iraq and that U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators.

McAuliffe said none of that proved true.

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[saigon68]

1. U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators.

Liberators who are greeted with bombs, RPGs, grenades, snipers and young men who blow up cars.

The average person greets the Liberators as pariahs. Sounds like we're winning to me. </sarcasm>

[Eye and Monkey]

2. At Bush speeches, GI Moms get arrested - Kerry speeches, get the podium

"Support Our Troops" obviously means different things to different people.

[JerseygirlCT]

3. Can I just say?

This can't hurt any with the "women's vote" either. Putting the same people Bush arrests out there to speak. Sometimes it's less about what kind of talking you're doing than about what kind of listening you can do. Kerry is able to do that.

I think this is a good move!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. This is a good move. Kerry campaign needs to peel the floorboards

off of the tell tale heart that is the Iraq war. It's late, but not too late, and we can win this election.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Nope

We will win this election.

Don

[Career Prole]

14. Thanks

for saying that...I needed that this morning! :thumbsup:

[Cloud]

6. I'm just curious

I wonder what percent of the vote Bush will get from the families who have had a loved one killed in Iraq? I doubt it is very much at all. It is easy for repubes to support the war as long as it is not their sons and daughters being killed.

[NNN0LHI]

7. This article suggests very few parents of dead soldiers...

...still support Bush's war. Like maybe only couple. They must be the real Bush-bots?

Don

http://www.suntimes.com/output/pickett/cst-nws-pickett17.html

Acknowledging war deaths now a political statement

It is called "Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of the Iraq War."

The display of 1,022 pairs of combat boots -- one for each U.S. soldier killed in Iraq -- is a powerful piece of public art.

And, just in case the folk songs and the mediators and the souvenir T-shirts don't give it away, it is, it must be said, an anti-war demonstration. snip

Two parents of dead soldiers, Celeste Zappala of Pennsylvania and Fernando Suarez del Solar of California, spoke to the small crowd that had assembled, giving voice to the almost incomprehensible grief a parent must feel when a child dies. Listening to them, it was almost impossible to conceive of anything that could be worth the enormous sacrifice made by their families.

But there are other families, too. Most of the boots set out in the plaza bear labels with the name, age, rank and home state of the soldier they represent. A couple of names, however, have been removed at the request of the soldiers' families who did not want their private grief to be part of a public display. I suspect they also objected to the political statements being made with their loved ones' names as a backdrop.

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[Lizzie Borden]

8. You'd be surprised.

Sometimes people who have lost loved ones just cannot believe that it was for nothing. They will continue to hang on toany belief that justifies their sacrifice. This happened a lot in Vietnam.

[donco6]

9. And is still a very sore spot for most Vietnam vets.

That's why some don't support Kerry, because he spoke out against the war and they have had to convince themselves that the war was actually worthwhile. They don't like the suggestion that it was all for nothing - any more than the Gulf vets will.

[NNN0LHI]

11. Well, those vets can eat shit and die for all I care

If they had their way I would have been drafted in 1974 and sent to Vietnam. Fuck that! And fuck anyone who thinks I should have been drafted to go off and kill someone who had done nothing to me.

Don

[0007]

13. This Korea war vet has yet to find a vet that doesn't SUPPORT Kerry -

I'm sure Tom DeLay and Karl Rove can round 'em by the thousands, 'eh?

The Casualties So Far isn't worth it either.

Number of dead 1032 during 550 days of war
Number of wounded soldiers nearing 6,500
Number of Iraqi dead 9,400 to 11,300 (estimated)


As of September 19, 2004

[IndianaGreen]

10. And what is Kerry's plan about Iraq?

To put it bluntly, if Kerry does not announce a rapid withdrawal of US troops either now, or at his Inaugural, Kerry will end up inheriting the Iraq War and the accompanying antiwar criticism just as Nixon inherited Vietnam from Johnson.

[screembloodymurder]

12. Terry McAuliffe shouldn't be releasing the battle plans.

Just which side is he on?

[markus]

15. Good thing we got that CBS/memo thing cleared up today

just in time for this event, so that the spinning heads will have something important to talk about tonight: Dan Rather's vendetta against the Bushies.