William Rivers Pitt: A Veto Inked in Blood

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050207J.shtml

A Veto Inked in Blood
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 02 May 2007

There are some similarities, of course. Death is terrible.
- George W. Bush on comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, April 19, 2007

Four years after a humiliating strut across the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, four years after declaring major combat operations in Iraq ended and the mission accomplished, four years and more than three thousand dead American soldiers later, four long years to the day, George W. Bush delivered a veto that only ensures more wretched and bloody carnage.

"Bush used his veto pen for only the second time Tuesday," reported NBC News, "after Congress sent him a war spending bill that would impose timelines to withdraw US troops from Iraq, which he called a 'prescription for chaos.' The bill is unacceptable because it 'substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgments of our military commanders,' the president said in a nationally televised address to explain why he was vetoing a bill that would also provide more than $100 billion in emergency spending for the war."

Take a moment to absorb the twin-bill nonsense within that explanation.

The now-vetoed, multi-billion-dollar Iraq spending bill, which contained withdrawal timelines demanded by Congressional Democrats, "substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgments of our military commanders," according to Bush. Many of us must have missed the memo explaining how Bush, Cheney, and the rest of this administration aren't politicians anymore. We also missed the memo explaining how it was the "judgments of our military commanders" that sunk us into this mess to begin with.

more...

[mnhtnbb]

1. Nice piece from WRP. We are living in a dictatorship--and Congress

had better figure it out before the military decides to effect a coup.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. There is also the little consideration regarding...

Something called "Civilian Control of The Military" that he seems to have missed as well. A concept that, in the past, our military has been quite comfortable with, I might add.

Sometimes this maladministration reminds me of a person in the midst of a deep psychotic break, only with less word salad-ing and creative viewpoints, that while diverting, bear no relationship to any normative reality. Just a lot of flailing its arms around and babbling, while occasionally breaking things and scaring the horses.

Hayyy-Zeus, it's gonna be a long hard slog to dig this country out of the mess they are gonna leave. Wouldn't be at all surprised if we end up having to hold a Constitutional Convention before it's all over.