Mr. Bush, You Are a Chicken Shit

While Holiday George Vacations, More American Men and Women Die in Iraq

There comes a time when a person says 'Enough is enough'. When one can no longer abide the ever growing heap of lies, distortions, injustices and arrogance that are part and parcel to the Bush administration.

What bothers me most about Mr. Bush is the fact that, despite sending nearly 2,000 servicemen and women to their deaths, he's yet to attend a single funeral.

To which I say: Have you no decency, sir? Have you not a shred of human compassion?

No matter who you are, no matter the stripe of your politics, you must admit that our foray into Iraq was voluntary. There was no sinking of the Maine, no shelling of Fort Sumter, no sneak attack on Pearl to prompt American tanks crossing the Iraqi border. The 9-11 commission found, unequivocally, no connection between Iraq and those planes smashing into the Towers. There was, simply put, no cause-and-effect relationship necessitating America's invasion. There was nothing more than a man and his minions making a decision, making a choice.

A choice stained crimson.

The stories are now spreading across the country, the sad tales of young men and women lost to the bombs, bullets and hatred that swirl across Iraqi sands.

Stories like this that appeared in the Plain Dealer, a story of the Shroeders of Cleveland learning their son Augie is never coming home:

Paul and Rosemary saw the grim faces on the men at their door and they knew, too. They stood motionless as one of the Marines began to speak.
"We regret to inform you that Edward August Schroeder II. . ."

Two weeks ago, Augie had called home from Iraq after spending 26 days in the field. They had not heard from him for five weeks, and their son's voice seemed to reflect a change in his convictions about this war.
"When he first arrived in Iraq in March, he was full of optimism about what his good intentions could accomplish," Paul said.
But Augie's enthusiasm eroded over time, and his father said he will never forget what his son told him.
"The closer we are to departure, the less 'worth it' this has become," Augie said.
In a way, Paul was heartened by his son's words.
"When you first get there, you think everything's hunky-dory," he said. "But after four operations, the insurgents were still there. He didn't think they were having any effect. I heard him and thought, 'Well, the bloom is off the rose.' I was opposed to this war before it even started, and my son is a sharp kid."
He caught himself.
"Was," he said, as he started to sob. "My son was a sharp kid.
"Oh, Jesus."
Augie was 23 years old. He was six weeks from coming home.
While we don't yet have exact numbers, we now know that Ohio has lost about 80 soldiers and Marines to the Iraq war.
And there is no end in sight.
That haunts Paul Schroeder.
In the first hours after he learned that his son was dead, Paul wrote a short statement. "I hope people forgive me for what I have to say," he began. "I just don't care anymore."
He listed who he blamed for Augie's death.
"I hold the Bush administration responsible, from the president
through the secretaries of state and defense and all those who have had a hand
in starting this war.
"I also hold every Democrat in Congress who voted to authorize this misadventure as accomplices."
His son, he wrote, "died doing his duty. So have some 1,800 other Americans.
"Augie did his duty at every turn, from being an emergency medical technician while still in high school, a lifeguard, a Boy Scout, an active church member, and, of course, as a Marine. For all this, we consider him a hero.
"To honor him, I no longer can sit still, just keeping quiet and being politically correct."

That same story is spreading across America like a terrible cancer. While the men and women he dispatched are far from home and bleeding out their lives, Mr. Bush takes his 49th trip to Crawford ranch to clear brush. While American soldiers race madly up Iraqi roads, scanning the bleak land around them for ambush, for the flare of a rocket-propelled grenade hurtling toward from out of the night or for the bomb hidden beneath a coke can and waiting to kill, while Marines patrol through the twisting alleys and trash-strewn streets of cities a thousand years old and teeming with gun-toting rebels and a rabid hate for America, while these brave men and women stalk streets of peril, Mr. Bush blithely rides his excercise bike before attending a pep-rally to proclaim American resolve and how he'll never back down to terrorists. Mr. Bush, safely guarded by a small army of Secret Servicemen, ensconced within the belly of America, calls out to the rebels 'Bring it on', like some midget punk surrounded by his buddies bravely threatening another, bigger man.

Makes him a tough guy, right? Wrong.

Mr. Bush, there are those who say you're a chicken-hawk who dodged his own war of youth. But I don't call you a chicken-hawk, sir.

I call you chicken-shit.