“Democracy is on the march in Iraq.”
By on May 31st, 2006 at 12:00 pm
“Democracy is on the march in Iraq.”
– Letter from President Bush to ten-year-old Emily Shrader of Canaan, Maine, who says she found it “upsetting to see that the war keeps on going on and on and so many people keep on dying.” (HT: Hotline)
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How sweet, Bush explained to a ten year old that these people have to die for….what again?
May 31st, 2006 at 12:07 pmWe are freeing the Iraqis from their bodies…one by one. Freedom is on the march!!! Now let’s march to hell!!!
May 31st, 2006 at 12:09 pm$5 says Georgie never read that letter, and if he did, that means he just crapped all over a 10 year old girl’s heart-felt concern for others. Yep, he’s his mama’s boy…
May 31st, 2006 at 12:10 pmThat’s all he knows how to say. Of course, I’d be surprised if he even wrote that himself.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:10 pmI question how many people who have also written to Bush have recieved a letter just like that – perhaps even word for word. It would not surprise me if the White House has a Microsoft Word document on a computer which they print out and mail to everyone who asks those similar questions.
I mean honestly, would you really write “”Democracy is on the march in Iraq …. I encourage you to support these service men and women who are willing to sacrifice for a cause greater than self,” to a child? Sure there are words she will know how to read – the language itself isn’t complicated, but the incompassionate and impersonal way it sounds… it doesn’t feel as if this was written with the little girl in mind. Maybe I am just over-analyzing. Then again, he HAS said “Democracy is on the march…” in most of his speeches on Iraq.
People say that children know how to speak the truth because they haven’t been tainting with all the BS that many children grow up to be influanced by. And there are others who say war is complicated – it isn’t black and white – so you can’t really explaine war in a detailed way to someone who is young.
But I feel this letter could find a middle ground somewhere. If Bush really read it – perhaps he would get a glimpse into the truth about this war, about how people really feel. He may think that she could never really understand the whole picture, which is probably true. But I do hope his eyes are opened to more than just the full picture as HE knows it.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:13 pm“What difference does it make to the dead,the orphans,and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the HOLY name of liberty or democracy?”
—Gandhi
May 31st, 2006 at 12:13 pm–let’s just call this Demoncrazy—
May 31st, 2006 at 12:19 pmIs it time to turn another corner now? Huh, is it? Is it … please? I can’t wait!
May 31st, 2006 at 12:19 pmWhat color crayon did The Decider use to respond with?
-GSD
May 31st, 2006 at 12:20 pmObviously, what the president was actually saying was:
“Here’s your talking point and a lollypop, Kid. Now go away.”
May 31st, 2006 at 12:22 pmDemocracy is on the march? Bush should try explaining that to the relatives of the 66 year old grandmother who was shot in the back and the seventy five year old man who was shot in a wheelchair and the children under ten years of age, all of whom, among others, were massacred in Haditha. At least LBJ chose not to run for a second term because he realized how badly things were going in Vietnam. For people like Bush, and Cheney, and Rumsfeld, their hubris, their magalomania will never allow them to admit that their policies have been flawed, much less that they have done egregious harm to so many people. As bad as the neoconservatives are, the liberal hawks may actually be worse, apparently fearful that they will somehow be called soft on national security if they dare to logically and intelligently call for the rapid and immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:22 pm“Oh did I say ‘democracy?’ I meant ‘death squads.’”
May 31st, 2006 at 12:23 pmWe keep turning that elusive corner…..but we keep ending up where we started.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:28 pmAre we going to realize soon that we are going in circles?
No real democracy in Iraq, but lots of OIL to be exploited > lol.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:29 pmooohhh OIL :) Yummy! :)
May 31st, 2006 at 12:31 pmThe 10 year old little girl has got 8 years until “she’s on the march”…….
May 31st, 2006 at 12:32 pmJay and Mash: “Black gold, Texas tea!”
May 31st, 2006 at 12:33 pmGeez, I’m hopeful someone with a brain will take that kid aside and explain the context and significance of that letter. I have a 9-year-old son, and I can tell you, if he got that letter back after writing a letter regarding his concerns about the war, we’d be having a chat about the meaning of words like “dissembling,” “incompetence,” “aggression,” “unjustified war,” “dismemberment,” and “grief.”
May 31st, 2006 at 12:33 pmDemocracy is on the march….unfortunately its goosestepping.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:33 pmMy 3rd grade students wrote to him several years ago about driling in the ANWR. They each received form letters telling them to use their “god-given gifts” to read and stay in school, as well as an 8×10 photo of shrubbie with noticeable hair growing out of his ears. My students were thoroughly digusted that he and his aides didn’t bother to even address the topic of ANWR with them. Several enterprising students discovered that pencil erasers could be used to deface the shrub photos, and by they time they left that day, George Bush had been transformed into the devil, various monsters, and a plethora of monkey-types. I feared for my job that night, but the next day, the only comment that was made was from a parent who said they posted the photo in the center of their dart board.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:36 pmDemocracy is getting marched on.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:39 pmPost 17 lol I guess the Texans like bad tea? One sip of the Black Gold and your liver dies!
May 31st, 2006 at 12:40 pmWhatever happened to the TP thread on Bush’s young male pal “Peanut” going to Harvard? Somebody asked on the thread who gave him the nickname and why? Blake Gottesman the “Peanut” was either named by Jenna Bush for being tiny in the crotch or by Dubya Dunce Decider himself for the same reason > lol.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:46 pm#20 Great story! Thank you for the comic relief.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:46 pmThe term “Democracy” was not used until the sloganeering of the Wilson administration in WW I. It is also inaccurate as the US is (was) a Representative government based on democratic principles which are held in check, from the tyranny of the majority, by internal checks and balances of our (or what used to be our) Constitution.
Before this time, the term was rarely used and was something that was understood as idealistic in concept as communism. Democracy is majority rule of any group of people without principle. That is why we have the pledge to the REPUBLIC and the Battle Hymn of the REPUBLIC…
May 31st, 2006 at 12:51 pmDemocracy is on the march if one considers that democracy is closer to mob rule than what is written in our Constitution (which may no longer be relevant to any of the three branches of our government).
May 31st, 2006 at 12:52 pm“LITTLE EMILY:
DEMOCRACY IS ON THE MARCH IN IRAQ.
AND IF, BY CHANCE, IT DOESN’T MARCH FAST ENOUGH FOR THE LIBERAL MEDIA, I HOPE YOU’LL SEE FIT TO JOIN OUR CRUSADE ON YOUR 18TH BIRTHDAY.
YOUR PRESIDENT.”
May 31st, 2006 at 1:00 pmWill we see the swiftboating of Emily Shrader? Will BushCo stoop to savaging 10 year olds in the press? “Democracy is on the march”, is a campaign slogan, not a reason for continued bloodshed. How pathetic that 10 year olds can see the chimperor has no clothes , while so many adults can’t.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:02 pmCORRECTION:
A fundamentalist Islamic democracy is on the march in Iraq.
A fundamentalist Islamic democracy with extremely close and long standing ties to Iran is on the march in Iraq.
A fundamentalist Islamic democracy is on the march in Iraq as a direct response to the horrific attacks of 9/11.
Al Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq is on the march in Iraq.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:12 pm“Democracy is on the march”
It’s too bad that “Light at the end of the tunnel” has already been used.
As was any reference to “Last throes”, “Turning corners”, “Standing down when standing up”, and “Up or down vote”
May 31st, 2006 at 1:41 pmI bet GW Bush had a bad time reading a letter of a 5 years old. So much difficult words!
May 31st, 2006 at 1:42 pm#30 Remember the Warner’s Toons? The light at the end of the tunnel is a train comming.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:43 pmThsi war does seem to being going on and on and on and on and on
I have had it up to my teeth with America get out now
BAGHDAD, May 30 (Reuters) – Iraq’s prime minister said on Tuesday his patience was wearing thin with excuses from U.S. troops that they kill civilians by “mistake”
He said a timetable of 18 months he mentioned last week for Iraqi forces having overall control of the whole country could even be shorter if U.S.-led forces were serious about giving support and training to the new Iraqi army.
Their U.N. mandate expires in December and the government will have to negotiate the terms on which they stay. Maliki, a Shi’ite, seems keen to speak up for the concerns felt especially among minority Sunnis over U.S. tactics in their areas.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:00 pm$5 says Georgie never read that letter, and if he did, that means he just crapped all over a 10 year old girl’s heart-felt concern for others. Yep, he’s his mama’s boy…
Comment by Zookeeper — May 31, 2006 @ 12:10 pm
Of course he didn’t read it, but I’m willing to bet that that girl didn’t write that letter on her own or come up with the idea. I hate when parents use their children for any political purpose, it’s wrong and it should be condemned.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:27 pmBush doesn’t do email, why should anyone believe that Bush answered that letter?
Playing Golf, doing photo-ops, drinking, snorting cocaine, Making Money on the People, thats more important than actually taking part of the war you started isn’t it?
May 31st, 2006 at 2:36 pmRight?
I mean Golf and money are more important than lives right?
Money after all is why we are at war right?
The Economy? Sacrifice your life for wall street?
Right? Right?
#34 If kids of 5 years can write to Santa to ask for his favorite wishes, why can’t a kid write a letter to the President of the USA? After all, kids see TV news, and know about Iraq (altough a bit as a fairy tale country), and know that the President of the USA is a powerful godlike man who can do almost magically anything he wants. At least, is so as they see him in the Prez speeches. And I bet that many USA kids see the Prez as a Santa’s reincarnation.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:43 pm#34 – you don’t give kids enough credit. A ten-year-old could easily come up with the idea to write the president all on her own. My students came up with the idea of writing to the president after reading about the ANWR in their Time for Kids magazine. All I did was find the address for them and show them how to address an envelope properly. A 4th grader at my school organized a food drive for the holidays one year, while her parents sat back and said it wouldn’t work. She proved them wrong. We have 7th graders in our district who spend each weekend reading to the little kids in homeless shelters, 5th graders who help restore salmon stream habitat, and 3rd & 4th graders who make and sell hand-stamped Valentines cards with the profits to go to the kids at Primary Children’s Hospital, and high-school kids who tutor our younger kids and organize fund-raisers for families and students without insurance in need of special medical care – i.e. cancer treatments, surgery. The vast majority of these kids don’t have supportive parents, or even have both parents around, most of them are/were English Language Learners, and probably 80% live well below the poverty level. But they are aware that others have even less than them and are determined to do something about, rather than sit back and be cynical. What about you?
May 31st, 2006 at 2:51 pmI can’t help but think that all this talk about indicting Marines, and not tolerating massacres must be affecting the morale of the troops
May 31st, 2006 at 3:05 pmI can’t help but think that all this talk about indicting Marines, and not tolerating massacres must be affecting the morale of the troops
May 31st, 2006 at 3:05 pmBritain has been asked to leave Iraq by the leader it helped to install. Only arrogance or myopia can explain its refusal
READ HERE
May 31st, 2006 at 3:10 pmThe occupation is plainly not bringing peace to Iraq nor is it preventing civil war, however defined. Almost all coalition forces are now hunkered down in their barracks protecting themselves. Even reconstruction, such as it is, has been subcontracted to private mercenaries. Iraq is a failed state. Its democracy is meaningless without order, and order is beyond Britain’s capacity to deliver.
Now Blair has been asked by the elected ruler of Iraq to leave by the end of the year. By what conceivable right does he refuse?
May 31st, 2006 at 3:15 pm“Democracy is on the march”. But it only moves in one direction,straight ahead, don’t get in the way. Sheesh, even my kids cheap Radio Shack RC car has foreward, reverse + left/right.
May 31st, 2006 at 3:20 pm#41, Tobey, I agree, both Blair and Bush, have, I believe, previously stated that if they were asked to leave, they would leave. Whatever happened to Iraq becoming a “sovereign nation”? Of course, Bush has no idea what the word “sovereignty” means, as he has previously demonstrated. You’d think that both leaders would jump at the excuse to leave; which only goes to prove that the release of Iraq from a tyrannical dictator, and the establishment of a democratically-elected leadership in Iraq were NOT the real reasons for invasion, as the Bush administration is at such pains to convince us. Um, well, Bush has been trying to convince us that those were the reasons since the WMDs didn’t turn up.
May 31st, 2006 at 3:41 pmThank you #37
May 31st, 2006 at 5:23 pmVery refreshing, and congrats to those kids, they display actions that give hope that the future will be better than the present. Let’s hope they don’t become jaded by the money market this country has become.
“Democracy is on the march in Iraq.â€? Maybe is more accurate to say “Democracy has marched steadily out of Iraq”.
June 1st, 2006 at 8:25 amThat’s all he knows how to say. Of course, I’d be surprised if he even wrote that himself.
Comment by Punchy #4
Punchy,
Bushiva had that stump speech talking point- “freedom’s on the march”…
…made into a rubber stamp…
…it’s a form letter…
…like “fighting the enemy over there…yada yada yada”
…what a basta*d…
…Bushiva makes King Louis of pre-revolution France look positively… “compassionate”…
June 1st, 2006 at 9:50 amOn the march? It’s soaring like the Hindenberg.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:50 amSome marines slaughtered innocent people. It was premeditated murder. They fricking shot a 3 year old child. Oh, but TALKING about it is what hurts the morale of our troops. Got it. Having your buddy have his head blown up, well, that is ok until the media reports it. That is when the morale goes down. The administration leading these kids into an untenable, unwinnable situation with their bungling incompetence doen’t hurt morale, pointing it out does. Why do the media hate our troops? Bunch of traitors.
June 1st, 2006 at 5:04 pm