ATTN Busheviks: Senator Boxer right...again.

[chefmike]

Sen. Boxer right: Personal price of the war paid by few Americans

Two years ago this week, Condoleezza Rice was before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, seeking confirmation as secretary of state. By then, 1,366 American soldiers had died in Iraq, 10,300 had been wounded and 58 percent of Americans disapproved of President Bush's handling of the war. Iraq had been the principal issue of the presidential election two months before, when a record 137 Americans were killed. In her 3,700-word opening statement to the Senate committee, Rice not once mentioned the casualties. Nor did she mention the Iraq war. Her only references to war, other than plugging Pakistan as "a vital ally in the war on terror" (she calls Pakistan's dictator, Pervez Musharraf, "a good friend") had to do with World War II and the Cold War. She was not only in a time-warp. She was in an empathy warp.

Publicly, Rice has shown more emotion about Brahms' second piano concerto, which she's promised herself to learn "before I leave this Earth," than she has about her own and her employer's mistakes, which now have the United States fighting three losing wars -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan, on "terror" -- and winning only one: the domestic one on liberties. As a national security adviser, Rice, an old Chevron director who once had an oil tanker named after her, was the pipeline through which the greased machinations for serially failing strategies made it to the president's ears. "Constantly mother-henning me," is how Bush once described that role. As a secretary of state, Rice has been the frequent flier to nowhere. Every one of the foreign-policy hot spots she inherited -- North Korea, Iran, Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, the Horn of Africa -- is in worse shape today than in 2005, when things were bad enough. As a member of the Bush administration, she's been a perfect fit.

So, when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., brought up the matter of Americans dying in Iraq and making their families suffer consequences Rice may not understand personally, Boxer was not making an isolated observation. She had Rice's sorry record before her. This, specifically, is what Boxer said: "Now, the issue is who pays the price? Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, within immediate family. So, who pays the price? The American military and their families, and I just want to bring us back to that fact."

Reactionaries spent the last two decades glorifying the virtues of motherhood, parenting and "family values." Boxer's words should have rung true. Instead, led by Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, the reactionary class attacked Boxer for her "far-left" insensitivity to single women. Boxer's observation, so rarely made -- most Americans have as much personally at stake in this war as they do in weather patterns on Jupiter, which is partly why it's dragging on -- was ideologically neutered.

Boxer never questioned Rice's empathy. She merely pointed out that Rice and Boxer herself will never know the personal sacrifice that families losing sons and daughters to the war must live with every day. She should have pointed out that Rice's empathy for the war's human cost is nil, because it derives from the deepest disconnect between the administration and the country, as proved yet again by Bush's speech last week: the most astounding expression of presidential contempt for the nation to date. This Boxer did point out: "Madame Secretary, you are not listening to the American people. You are not listening to the military. You are not listening to the bipartisan voices from the Senate. You are not listening to the Iraq Study Group. Only you know who you are listening to, and you wonder why there is a dark cloud of skepticism and pessimism over this nation. I think people are right to be skeptical after listening to some of the things that have been said by your administration."

Should the personal play a role in this? Put it this way: I don't know if anyone who's not a parent can feel what a parent does over the loss of a child. I doubt Rice can. What's clearer is that this administration has been fighting the war as if its human consequences were as outsourced as its location. What's clearest is that someone is being mother-henned who shouldn't be, and tens of thousands of young men and women aren't, who should have been.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/4776

[White_Male_Canada]

Should the personal play a role in this? Put it this way: I don't know if anyone who's not a parent can feel what a parent does over the loss of a child. I doubt Rice can. What's clearer is that this administration has been fighting the war as if its human consequences were as outsourced as its location.

More emotional blathering nonsense from Fluffington.

It was a personal attack,period,end of story.


Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,"(Our commanders) have asked for additional forces and are happy to have additional forces in the pipeline,” These additional troops will give them the flexibility they need to “to reinforce success” already made or respond to unexpected increases in enemy action, If conditions on the ground demonstrate the troop surge isn’t needed, the pipeline “can be turned off,”.

I think Pace is a more qualified 'stategerist' than Boxer. And just where and when did Boxer serve in the armed forces or is she just another ChickenChicken like Obama ,Edwards and Hillary.

The majority of violence in Iraq comes within 3 provinces with the center of gravity being in Baghdad,naturally.

Sadr`s gang and he himself should have been eradicated ASAP. There are now new ROE where previously if a terrorist layed down his weapon you were NOT allowed to shoot.Did you know that on D-day,seeing thousands and thousands of soldiers being cut down within hours Omar Bradley was actually considering a withdrawal of the forces early in the morning, but the troops on the ground did what they needed to do and pushed ahead, inches at a time, and accomplished the mission.

As for violence,the annualized Iraqi civilian death rate is about 27.5 per 100,000. Venezuela has 31.5 violent deaths per 100,000 –14.5 percent higher than Iraq. Columbia`s,61.7 per every 100,000.South Africa looses 49.6 per 100,000 to violent deaths every year. In Jamaica it is 32.4. Russia in 1998, there were 30.6 homicides per 100,000 population.

And in Washington, D.C., it is 45.9 violent deaths per 100,000. That means DCites are about 63.5 percent less safe than Iraqi civilians.Detroit: 41.8 per 100,000, Baltimore: 37.7 per 100,000,etc.

What`s the difference? The left-wing media focuses on one thing, get Bush at all costs.

[White_Male_Canada]

You and your bloviating fluffington.

When did Boxer ask former Secretary of State Madelyn Albright whether she had an "immediate family" who would "pay the price" of her troop deployments to Bosnia and Somalia?

And those troops,they are not children. Does Boxer think they are or have the minds of children for voluntarily joining the armed forces of the USA?