Bush History - How Cold: Soldiers Dead in Iraq are an "investment", 12/21

Thanks for sharing

You are welcome.

If a war isn't an investment in the future, I don't know what is.....

You've made some enemies jJack. And I thought that this was a civil place.

Jim G.,
I guess you can add me to your list.
Investing to me is to do something with the expectation of future benefit.
I feel the sacrifices that soldiers made over 230 years ago were made so future genration would have liberty.
Their investment has given me the benefit of liberty today.

If I'm an asshole making enemies for asking a simple question, so be it.

Wars are nearly always fought to secure a desired future.

What are wars fought for??? Resources, territory, religion, ethnic hatreds.... yes???

If you are fighting a war for resources, the desired future is one where you possess those resources, therefore, the war is fought as an investment in the future.

If you are fighting a war for territory, the desired future is one where you possess the land you covet, therefore, the war is fought as an investment in the future.

If you are fighting a war for religious reasons, the desired future is one where your religion rules the land, therefore, the war is fought as in investment in the future.

If you are fighting a war because you hate people with a different skin color, the desired future is a homogeneous society, therefore, the war is fought as an investment in the future.

Since the death of soldiers is a given in any war, it logically follows such deaths are the price paid, the investment in the future the war hopes to procure.

I'm not sure how this can be argued otherwise.

Your emotional responses are telling, and the name calling illuminating.

Not for nuttin' but uh....

Our own Declaration of Independence, which is basically the legal reasoning and philisophical foundation for declaring war on the king of England, cites the need to "provide new Guards for their future security."

This "future security" the Declaration speaks of is an investment bought and paid for with the sacrifice and blood of our revolutionary founding fathers.

Such things are givens when integrity, honesty and honor are the principles of governance.

Independent of if one thinks going into Iraq was a good or bad thing, for a top Bush official to say in public that the deaths of their loved ones is a good "investment" is just plain cold.

frank o.,
Don’t you feel that the sacrifice soldiers paid in each of our previous wars was a basis for the freedoms we have today?

Independent of if one thinks going into Iraq was a good or bad thing, for a top Bush official to say in public that the deaths of their loved ones is a good "investment" is just plain cold.

No it isn't, except of course to you. When Leslie Stahl asked Madeline Albright during the corrupt food for oil regime, "The UN says over 500,000 children under the age of five have died as a result of sanctions the Clinton administration has led. Are the deaths of those 500,000 Iraqi children worth this price?"

Madeline Albright said, "YES! ! ! !"

Watch the video of this exchange

You are really out in left field alone on this one ace....

We will agree to disagree. On the Poor George Almanac website there is a comment from a Vietnam Vet who is outraged that Rice would use that term.

http://poorgeorgesalmanac.com/?p=1228#comment-6341

Scroll to the bottom jJack for the comment. You can tell this Vietnam Vet why he is "in left field alone" if you like.

Frank o.,
That is very sad about that Vet's experiences. I don’t doubt that there are many that feel that way. I can assure you there are those that felt they were investing in the future of liberty in Vietnam, Southeast Asia and the world with their time and efforts spend in Vietnam.

Many of those that looked at much of their efforts as an investment for the future have had better experiences in their life than that person.
I suspect even the 1 in 11 who walked the rice paddies and mountains in Vietnam may not have use the word investment, but that was what they were doing. It was too bad that people were too impatient to continue to invest and wait for the future. That is the case with many people today, they are impatient and are unwilling to invest for the future, they spend and borrow as if there will be no tomorrow and yet tomorrow has always come. It is those that have had the patience to invest for the future that generally are the best prepared when it arrives.

Without rehashing the rationale for why we went into Iraq, it seems that if we can help them prepare and establish a version of liberty and popular selection of political leadership that would be an investment in their being less likely to support terrorism and be a model to others in the region of how free choice improves the quality of life.

From your comments, I think it is clear you are missing my point. This isn't about debating if this war or any war was worth the losses, it is about Conde Rice's cold choice of words to describes those losses. The ultimate sacrifice deseves much more respect than to be called an "investment".

frank o.,
What word would you use that would better describe the sacrifice soldiers have made in this war or any other war?

sacrifice

frankn o.,
Whehter it be men going to war, kids studying in school, people putting hard earned saving away, they are making a sacrifice, and when they do it for betterment in the future it is making an investment.

The return on the savings is an income in the future, the return on education is a better life, and those who give their all in war is liberty for others.

I believe that the men who sacrificed in war saw what life was like without liberty and they risked their all so others would have liberty. That is an investment in our counrty and the world.

Duane, you, as always, have some excellent points.

Like I said before we will agree to disagree. I will stand with that disgusted Vietnam Vet, and you can stand with Condi and the Bush administration. Rice might have been even more effective if she stood in front of a pile of disembodied arms and legs while she was pointing out the good investment they represented. I mean that is what she said, just without the visual aids. These slaughtered bodies, shattered lives, lost limbs; to Ms Rice they are a good "investment". No, I think I see things more like that Vietnam Vet. We're both disgusted by her inappropriate choice of words.

Cathi L.,

Thank you, I regularly wonder if what I have written has properly presented what I am thinking so others will understand and consider the ideas and my thought process.

I'm not standing with the Bush admin, just because I understand war is always an investment in the future.....

You're irrational Bush hatred colors your every perception.....

frank o.,

I surely do not expect you to agree. I hope you will try to see where I am and why I am there. I understand how an emotional appeal creates and immediate response while going outside the emotions forces a longer term thinking.

What I consistently find is that when people relying on the emotional appeal they most generally ignore the long-term impact. Whether it be in how we ignore the future in our personal life by not sacrificing for and education to have the immediate gratification of partying, how we spend and borrow now ignoring our needs and abilities for money in the future, or how we ignore why people have gone to war in the past and how it has affected the future.
Sacrificing today for gains in the future is investing in whatever forms it takes.
To ignore that process simply because we don’t like the word that describes it risks losing the future.

When a soldier goes to war they can only being doing it for others and for the future. There is no immediate benefit or glory when they look into the face of their death or the watch those about them dying or being mutilated. For at that moment their human frailty is person and immediate, and the future is for someone else. What higher sacrifice can one make for another’s’ future than to invest their life.
This doesn’t only happen on the battle field, it happens in everyday life. They are my definition of heroes. Investing in the future is what they are doing.

Listen, all I am saying is how much effort and consideration would it have taken for Rice to have made the same point without treating dead soldiers like inhuman assets that were invested? The language was very poorly chosen. If you can't see that, I feel a bit sorry for your ability to empathize and I hope you are not now, or ever will be in charge of managing people. Rice could have said 'the sacrifices of these soldiers will not be in vain, as they have advanced democracy and helped secure america'. They are, or were, human beings, not machines. They deserve more respect, far more respect, than to have their losses called a worthwhile investment. If you think they don't deserve such respect then as I said before, we will agree to disagree. To speak of the dead as a good investment is cold, ice cold. They were human beings, not investments.

The language was very poorly chosen

Well then if that's the way you feel, nothing can change your emotionally charged intellectual error.

Apparently you must also consider one of the greatest documents ever written to be "language poorly chosen" as well......

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Blood is the price paid in the present, the investment made for the future, whenever men rise up and let loose the dogs of war.

So it was with our own rebellion and revolution, so it is with the liberation of Iraq, so it is whenever peace is torn asunder and the fury and thunder of battle rages across the land.

Poorly chosen language?

I don't think so......

Frank o.,
As you say we agree to disagree, I try to listen to the content and not just the words.

I do empathize, if you listen to the words and what they say you would understand how much and why.

Your threshold for “cold” is much different from mine. For me, simple words don’t define a person’s emotions, it is their actions

For me people manage systems because they have no, people lead people because each of has a choice.

For me, people in government have a responsiblity to treat the honored dead with some respect. Conde Rice did not.

jJack I miss your point completely, and I think you miss mine

How could I possibly miss your point??? It seems rather clear. You seem to believe the words "investment" and "future" should not be used in conjunction with the death of soldiers at war. That isn't a difficult concept to grasp. Most emotionally based opinions are easily grasped, and this one is no different.

I knew you wouldn't understand my point, it had to be said regardless.

frank o.,
I don't see people in governemnt having any more responsibilities than the rest of us for what we say and the words we use. I also belive that we have responsibility to listen to what is said not just the words that are sed.

Like I said, we will agree to disagree. I think talking of dead soldiers as investments does not provide their deaths with the respect they deserve. You are fine with it. We disagree and neither of us will be changing our minds on this point.

frank o.,
First let say I do appriciate that you want to honor the sacrifice of those soldiers who have had their livs taken in battle and those that have sufferred severe wounds. We both agree that their sacrifice is one of the grreatest that can be made and it deserves true reverance.

I believe that it is because of the sacrifices of soldiers in the past we are able to have this discussion today.

I do appreciate the discussion and hope to see you inother conversations.

Thanks Duane. Same here. You are very civil, even it we disagree, and it is always a pleasure to talk to someone who keeps the conversation at a reasonable level, without resorting to the name calling one sees so often on discussion boards.