What the republicans are passing around at work.............
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by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
<
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/profile/2753/Jeffrey-Scott-Shapiro.html>
President forsaken
July 08, 2007 02:36 PM EST
As George W. Bush's presidency draws near an end, the country he saved
in the wake of Sept. 11 is turning against him. According to a recent
CNN opinion poll, 63 percent of Americans are in favor of withdrawing
troops from Iraq, and 42 percent of Republicans agree.
On June 29, the Associated Press wrote, "Bush had begun his second term
talking boldly of ending tyranny in the world, but the bloodshed in Iraq
has narrowed his focus and turned much of the country against him."
Falsely accused of disregarding the Constitution, arbitrarily sending
American soldiers to their death and unlawfully invading another country
for personal profit and exploitation, the President has faced
devastating resistance from his own people, to say little of the rest of
the world.
US Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain remain the President's most
stalwart supporters insisting that abandoning Iraq would only result in
disaster for the Iraqi people and the future of American foreign policy.
McCain pronounced during the May 15 Republican presidential debate that
he would continue to support the war, even if he were the "last man
standing" on the issue.
As the casualty rate in Iraq increases however, the President has seen
many members of his own party turn against him. Last week, Republican
Senators George Voinovich and Richard Lugar joined the Congressional
anti-war society that blames Bush for all the problems in Iraq. After
Lugar criticized the President's leadership on the Senate floor, he
received praise from Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who
said he had taken "a courageous stand."
Although the war was overwhelmingly popular when the U.S. Army liberated
Baghdad, resistance from the insurgency, troop losses and economic
hardship have all turned America against Bush. Most people don't seem to
recall, that in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the President brought
our country from its lowest depths of confidence back to its highest
peak of patriotism. Even U.S. Senator John Kerry complimented Bush
during the 2004 presidential debates, admitting that back "in those days
after 9/11, I thought the president did a terrific job. And I really was
moved, as well as impressed, by the speech that he gave to the
Congress."
Bush's critics commonly have said that he merely did what any sitting
president would have done in similar circumstances, but those of us who
were in New York City during the attacks know differently. When the
President came down to Ground Zero in the aftermath of the collapse of
the Twin Towers and told us that he had heard us, and that the world
could hear us, we felt a resurgence of faith. The entire city felt a
boost of confidence. For a few months, there was no such thing as
Democrats or Republicans. There were only Americans.
When our country sank to its lowest point, it was the President who
raised our spirits and saved us from fear and heartbreak. George W. Bush
gave something back to us that we were missing inside of ourselves by
reminding everyone that America stood for something sacred and special
that was unique in the course of human history.
He was the right man for the job.
To date, over 3,500 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and more
than 26,000 have been wounded. Nearly 67,000 Iraqis have been killed.
And while these losses are tragic, America seems to ignore how many
people who were tortured and murdered under Saddam Hussein's sadistic
Ba'ath regime.
According to a 2003 New York Times report, as many as 200,000 people
'disappeared' into the hands of Hussein's secret police and several
hundred thousand died during military conflicts with Iran and Kuwait.
Secret police were officially licensed to rape wives and daughters to
elicit confessions from prisoners, and other methods of torture such as
electric shock, eye gouging and fingernail extracting were not uncommon.
Despite our passionate cheers and heartfelt support for the liberation
efforts of 2003, it seems that many people either have forgotten, or
simply begun to disregard the President's noble achievements in Iraq-the
couuntless schools and health care facilities that have been built, the
hundreds of thousands of children that were vaccinated and medically
treated.
In the midst of what arguably was the most crushing assault on the
American spirit, the President gave us the courage we needed to
persevere, and to shield ourselves from further danger. He endured
tireless criticism from across the world for instituting improved
security measures in the U.S. and for preempting further attack from
enemy forces abroad. He liberated an entire nation of oppressed people
and effectively contained the war on terror overseas, preventing further
armed aggression in the United States.
Future generations will read about two kinds of Americans during this
era of our nation's history. There will be those who supported the
President when things became difficult and those who did not. Those of
us who believe in President Bush continue to do so because we feel it
would be unfaithful and wrong to abandon the one person who refused to
abandon us when it counted most. We will never forget, and we will never
take for granted the way he inspired us in our darkest hour.
Once the dust settles in the battlefields of the Middle East and Iraq is
free, a clear picture will emerge of whom George W. Bush really is and
what our nation has accomplished. When that moment comes, every American
who chastised the President will have to answer to their conscience, but
the final arbitrator will be their countrymen.
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is an investigative reporter who covered the Sept.
11 attacks at Ground Zero the day the Twin Towers collapsed. He is
currently practicing law in Washington, D.C. and can be reached at
jshapiro@ufl.edu <mailto:%3Ca%20href=> "> jshapiro@ufl.edu
<mailto:jshapiro@ufl.edu> .
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