"Thank You." A Modest Proposal.
"Always thank your host. " "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." "Complement your hostess." "Wait to start eating till the senior person has taken a bite." "Elbows off the table." "At dinner, everyone shows up on time and is polite to everyone, even your sister."
These rules and more were smacked into me by my parents. I send thank you notes when I receive a gift and after an interview. Bring a gift when invited to a dinner party. Try everything on my plate no matter how weird it looks. And always say "thank you."
Here's a modest proposal. How about we thank the British for getting their soldiers killed fighting our war? They didn't want to. Their own military thought it was a bad idea.
The British came in because Prime Minister Blair backed President Bush and wanted to preserve the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain. Not a bad idea although personally I think being best friends means saying, "That's a stupid idea and because we're friends, not only won't I help you, I'll tell you why your idea sucks and we'll still be BFFs after."
But that's not what happened. Blair followed Bush like a puppy and now it's four years and way too many dead later, ours and theirs.
Britain has pulled their last 500 troops from Basra Palace. Instead of trying to lay the blame on the British, what if someone said "Thank You Great Britain for trying so hard to save our ass."
Scottsman
BRITISH moves to withdraw from Iraq will only make a difficult situation worse and put huge pressure on the Americans who remain, a retired US general warned yesterday.
General Jack Keane, who recently returned from Iraq, claimed the security situation in the British-controlled south was "deteriorating", and there was a "general disengagement" by the military in Basra.
He also suggested there was "frustration" among US commanders, who wanted to avoid having to fill any vacuum left if British soldiers withdrew. He claimed Britain had never had enough forces to "truly protect" civilians.
GNB Comments (Tanbark)
When Centcom, and the bush "intelligence agents" start pissing and moaning about the British essentially being "defeated" in the south, would it be asking TOO FUCKING MUCH for one or the other of the three top Democratic candidates to point out the maniacal cowardice and insanity of THIS agitprop shit-speak?
I mean, 165 Brits have died for Tony Blair's idiocy in following George Bush into the cluster-fuck. Thousands more have been wounded, many grievously.
EVERY FUCKING "JUSTIFICATION" for George Bush's realpolitik demolition-derby has evaporated like a puddle of back-alley piss.
The Brits are doing nothing more than the Americans stuck there:
Trying to stave off Bush's full-on civil war, and, bloody irony of ironies, trying to help cover his and the GOP's asses until they can get out of town and dump the nightmare in the Democrats laps.
I think John Edwards is the best of the Democratic lot. I hope some supporter of his reads this and repeats to him that this is a golden opportunity for him to show the kind of courage which seems to have disappeared from the souls of our public leaders.
He should LOUDLY and PUBLICLY thank the Brits for the sacrifices they've made in a practically useless cause. He should commend Gordon Brown and the British military for standing up for their troops and for starting the process of getting them out of the mayhem opera that George Bush has created.
He should ask...INSIST!...from the assholes who want to sustain this bloody bullshit, how much longer they want to keep throwing bodies, ours and the Brits, into the meat grinder.
And he should ask, repeatedly, for ANYONE on the side of keeping our troops there, to explain why they think that when we DO start to withdraw, whether it's one month from now or one decade from now, the situation will be anything but what it is now.
In short, Bush and his supporters are absolutely frantic for scapegoats.
Is there not ONE FUCKING DEMOCRAT who will call them out for starting to blame the British contingent?
The
Group News Blog is not picking sides between candidates.
But is it too much to ask as Great Britain pulls their troops from battle for at least one of the Democratic contenders to find a camera and: a) Thank Britain for their sacrifice, while b) denouncing the Bush Administration for refusing to follow Britain's senior, wiser lead in getting the hell out?
Who wants to be the last person to die for a mistake? How can we possibly justify Iraq as anything but a massive mistake in judgement -- a pack of lies -- by the Bush Administration? The faster the candidates call it straight, the more they pin the blame squarely on the Bush administration and the Republicans, the more votes they'll receive.
Isn't this obvious?
Britain leaving the battle is an opportunity for someone. Do what your parents taught. Be polite, be courteous. Say "Thank you."
Candidates, are you listening? Buhler?
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