Friday, February 27, 2009

Exploiting the troops

President Obama announced today a plan for getting out of Iraq. I'm all for that. But as I've complained before re Bush, it irritates me that the Pres poses in front of a back drop of soldiers, or in Obama's case, Marines.

Please, please, don't use our troops as a visual aid. They're humans, but if ordered to be there will be there. They don't have a choice. I think it's exploitive, and I'm disappointed with team Obama for using the same cheesy photo op as Bush used.

Isn't it good enough to require them to attend a rally, and show the crowd? Do you have to use them as a back drop? I hoped for something better from President Obama.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bush set the bar low and Obama isn't going to do a “Limbo” now, but when speaking as the Commander in Chief in an attempt to raise the bar does the CIC stand in front of a bunch of suits from CitiBank when making policy statements about the war?

The U.S. Marines have suffered the greatest causality rate of any of the coalition forces in Iraq and made a good background for Obama's concerns for our troops. At least he didn't go low brow and pose in front of the flag draped caskets still being off loaded, or, like Bush, go on deck of a carrier and declare “mission accomplished”.

Anonymous said...

Agreed, it could be worse.

And as for the Marines having the highest per capita casualty rate, I believe that's correct. I think it's because of how they conduct themselves, I.E., needlessly aggressive. I've been thinking for some time that somebody way up in the DoD ought to conduct a review of why Marine casualties are so high.

Anonymous said...

George Bush never ever, spoke in front of a group of "normal average citizens". Every speech was before pre-screened true believers. W. used the military for hundreds if not thousands of photo ops to further his corrupt agenda. President Obama has ONE in the first 6 weeks and you complain? Here is a link for a picture, the guys don't look thrilled to be there but they ultimately will be better off with Obama as CIC. http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2009/02/first-returns-on-obama-cic.html#comments