Great op-ed by Frank Rich. I know the Bush apologists here will dismiss it on account of the source, but there's no way they can counter his arguments. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/o...33ee2fe5c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Someone Tell the President the War Is Over By FRANK RICH Published: August 14, 2005 LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man? A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire. But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press. The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.) As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's über-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost. That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Mr. Bush gave the fateful address that sped Congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious." It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on 9/11 and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a Congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Mr. Bush. These are the tea leaves that all Republicans, not just Chuck Hagel, are reading now. Newt Gingrich called the Hackett near-victory "a wake-up call." The resolutely pro-war New York Post editorial page begged Mr. Bush (to no avail) to "show some leadership" by showing up in Ohio to salute the fallen and their families. A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as "a matter of courtesy and decency." Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Mr. Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can't win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7. Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive." But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it. The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006. Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq. WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central. Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.
No, I'm not. I do agree with Rich, and a sizeable majority of Americans, that this thing has become the 'Nam-like quagmire I and others here predicted from the beginning though. And I agree with Bush's war commander, each of our allies, and the vast majority of Americans that the time has come to begin the pullout. I also agree with Rich that when we pull out we will be leaving Iraq in a horrible situation. But we are losing and we are losing lives in a war we cannot win. I do so love this line of reasoning from the rapidly shrinking ranks of Bush supporters. First your guy, with the aid of your enthusiastic support, gets us (and Iraq) into this incredible mess and then you shift the onus to the ones who warned you this would happen to find a solution. 'Staying the course,' in a losing cause, is not a solution. And your favored strategy of clapping louder isn't working either. So what do you suggest, texxx? Bush (and you and your brother and the rest who supported this debacle) got us into this mess. How do you suggest getting us out? You broke it, you fix it. We warned you what would happen and it has. Iraq is the central front in the "struggle" against terrorism because your guy made it so. We warned you. Don't look to us for solutions.
Ooh, what an amazing fight you put up with that one sentence on how you feel about the article. I've just breezed through it and can easily argue many points... Are you serious? Please tell that to the families and friends of the 54 US armed forces personel who have lost their lives this month in Iraq. How dare you make their lives trivial by saying "the war is over, they are fighting for nothing." Last I checked a constitution was being formed and voted on in the coming weeks... a constitution from a nation that has seen nothing but tyranny for 30+ years. I personally know over 15 soldiers serving in Iraq, and I know their stories and what they see, do and hear... I don't need a New York journalist with an agenda to belittle their actions. Feel free to ask the British bombing victims if terrorism is real and lands that harbor them are a threat. Yeah, and we know exactly how accurate polls are... feel free to ask John Kerry how accurate they are. Polls are used by the media and politicians.... and have been proven time and time again to be anything but fact. The main problem with the armed forces recruiting is because of the child obesicty epidemic... feel free to search and see for yourself, I know from this first hand as well. Our armed forces have the same physical requirements as they did 50+ years ago, except now we have a country that is fatter then any other in the world. Wow... the President is failing because TV personalities are... showing a personality? GIVE ME A BREAK! Cable journalists work for advertisements, and anything to gain attention to their shows is open fodder... and this applies to both sides of the isle, but please for the love of God don't tell me the President is failing because O'Reilly says he is and Novak had a hissy fit. I'm glad this guy knows what's going on in the minds of all Americans, and Donald Rumsfeld for that matter. Seriously, we've obviously failed because they've decided to say violent extremism rather then terrorism? The war isn't against just those terrorist who strap a bomb to their chests, it is against extremists and terrorists alike... and once again, feel free to ask England just how dangerous extremests are. The President was fed bad intel, from our UNBIAS intelligence agencies... last I checked he was cleared of any wrong doing, but either way Saddam is gone and millions of Iraqis are free... so spare us the conspiracy theories. I don't get it... this guy is trying to say "how brave" these soldiers were and then he turns around and says how their cause was unjust. You can't have both sides. I don't hear thousands of soldiers coming back and saying what they are doing is horrible, but by God because a journalist says it with no proof it must be so. The President would NEVER go and visit the families of fallen soldiers to just win votes in a close election, and that is a bad thing? As far as the mother outside his rank, if you can't see that is all an act then my friends you are completely nieve. Just yesterday she has vowed to not pay taxes because her son was killed, now how does that make sense? So she's going to ROB money from the government and the DoD that SUPPLIES our soldiers by not paying her taxes? Great role model mom. This is also the same mom who's entirely family has come out in opposition of her actions. This is also the same mom who has said we need to stop supporting Israel and we should have Israel removed from Palestine. BRILLIANT! The US Armed Forces and their allies have siezed millions of tons in ammunitions and weapons, including bombs and ballistic missles... uncovered mass graves, built schools and hospitals, given the women of Iraq the right to live, vote, say whatever they please... and they've removed a dictator that paid suicide bombers families, including those that killed American citizens... yeah, we've done nothing but horrible things over there. So there is more terrorism now in Iraq then before we invaded? You've got to be kidding me. Simply because their are suicide bombers now doesn't mean they weren't around then, especially considering we were there to bomb in the first place. To say that Iraq was terrorist free or "low on terrorism" is ridiculous. Saddam supplied and paid terrorists on a regular basis, AND allowed terrorist cells to move about the country unimpeded. If this guy thinks our history in Iraq has been "sorry" then he has is a sadistic b*stard. We've liberated millions, freed slaves, give proper burials to hundres of thousands, found countless weapons stockpiles, built schools and hospitals that would have never been there in the first place, all while freeing potentially one of the worlds richest countries from the most horrible dictators. This is a country that was living in the third world while their leader bought new cars and built new palaces and performed more military marches. It was a victory from the time the Iraqi people were able to walk outside and praise their freedom. It was a victory when the people of Iraq walked to their voting booths that were protected by their soldiers and security forces and filled out that first ballot. It was a victory when the first woman was able to walk outside, face uncovered and unafraid to pick up a text book. It was a victory when that horrible dictator was found in the rat hole he was cowering in... if you don't see that, then I'd hate to be living your life. Yeah, our war has done nothing to curb the violence of terrorism? Yeah, sure... okay. Is that why Osama Bin Laden has been hiding in caves for 4 years? Is that why Saddam Hussein is soon to be tried for crimes against his people? Is that why hundreds of thousands of terrorists have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is that why an oil rich country in the heart of the middle east is now free for the poeple to decide it's future? Is that why hundreds of thousands of US Armed forces have sent touching letters and emails home explaining how it feels to help the women and children of Iraq have a fighting chance on the future? You show me one thing that's gone wrong over there, and I'll show you 100 that have gone right.
LOL - the classic BJ "I told you so" post. Believe me - nobody's going to look to people with your beliefs for solutions. You have no idea the message that would send if the US didn't stay the course, as Bush suggests. Your short-sighted idea would tell the world that the US can be defeated and retreat by simply hiding out and trying to kill a handful of soldiers a month, knowing full well the liberals in the US will eat it up and start complaining, as usual. I'm glad your party isn't in charge of anything. There's a reason for that.
Thanks for the reply, Svpernaut. I was primarily talking about basso and the Jorge brothers when I said there wouldn't be one. I appreciate you taking the time. I did not 'make their lives' (or the loss of those lives) trivial. Nor did I say or imply it was. George Bush elected to enter into this war. I and others suggested Iraq did not pass the smell test as a threat to the US; your side said it did. Your side suggested that if we didn't invade Iraq the smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud in America. We now know your side was wrong. If this war was unnecessary, if it was not worth the human cost, I did not make it so. So don't put it on me or other opponents if American troops died for a less than vital cause. The only poll that was meaningfully off wrt Kerry was the election day exit poll. Polls showed a tie game with a slight edge to Bush going right up to election day and that's how it shook out. Every single polling organization is polling constantly on Iraq and the upshot, according to every one of them, is that a majority of Americans oppose Bush's Iraq policy, believe the war was a mistake, believe the war was not worth the cost, believe the war is going badly and that we are losing ground, and favor reducing the troop level there. Believe it or don't. It's in every single poll and there are many of them. Recruitment's down because Americans are too fat? That's awesome. I hadn't heard that. No, Bush isn't failing because his major media supporters are in disarray. It's the other way around. Why don't you explain how and why the admin made a clear and concerted effort to change the language from "war on terror" to "struggle against violent extremism?" Are you suggesting that's arbitrary? Because it isn't. This is the second time you've raised England and 7/7. A clear majority of English people opposes (and has always opposed) the Iraq war and their government's involvement in it. Further, the government itself is now backing off its commitment there. The fact that England was attacked by terrorists -- who, incidentally claimed they attacked in retaliation for England's involvement in Iraq -- did not change public opinion to favor the war. 'Last you checked' must have been a year ago or so. The president wasn't "fed" bad intel -- he courted it. He encouraged intel that supported the case for war and suppressed intel that muddied that case. He was warned repeatedly that his case was flawed and, when that happened, he fired or trashed the credibility of the people warning him. Get up to date on this. This will help: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/HowSe...and_diverted_blame_fromWhite_House__0811.html Do you seriously not get the difference between the people who decide to launch a war and the ones who carry it out? As is the case here, Americans who served in Vietnam were brave but the cause was unjust. That's hardly a paradox. Everyone who straps on a gun and fights for his or her country, risking life and limb, is brave, American or not. That doesn't mean that every cause they fight is just. Speaking of having it both ways.... How can you say you support the troops and their families and then trash the families and troops that disagree with you? Do you only support the troops and families that support the war? Because, if so, you guys should update your bumper stickers. (Yesterday, btw, I saw a truck with Veteran plates on it. It had 'Support the Troops' and 'God Bless America' ribbon stickers all over the back. It also had a full size American flag waving from the back. It also had homemade "Screw Bush" and "Bush Sucks - Restore Veteran Benefits NOW!" signs. Do you support that veteran?) Let's talk about Cindy Sheehan. You mistakenly say that her entire family supports the war and opposes her. That's not true. We now know that letter came from her inlaws and that Casey's father and siblings are on her side. Not that any of that should matter. Do you, as someone who has presumably not lost a son in the war, really want to presume as to how someone who has should express her grief? In America, the land of free speech? You also ask how her threat to withhold taxes makes sense. I'd think that'd be obvious. She passionately opposes the policy that led to her son's death in what she considers an unjust cause. It makes sense she'd prefer not to continue contributing to that cause. She knows what she's doing is illegal and she's ready to face the consequences. In fact, she said she hoped it would go to court so the president's Iraq policy could go on trial. As for the Israel thing, again it's one woman's opinion. If you disagree with that, that's fine. But we're talking about someone who has actually paid the very highest price in this war. If you really support the troops, you'd do well to stop trashing the families who have paid the dearest price. No Iraq war opponent has ever, ever, EVER said we've done nothing but horrible things in Iraq. And no war opponent has ever said Saddam wasn't a horrible, brutal dictator. The fact that war supporters continue to put these awful words in the mouths of opponents speaks to the weakness of their argument. Yes, there are more terrorists in Iraq now and no I'm not kidding you. (Are you kidding me, by the way?) You won't find one credible source anywhere in the world suggesting otherwise. You're just wrong here. We can argue about the degree to which there might have been some terrorists in Iraq previously. We can argue about the degree to which Saddam participated in or supported terrorism, but when you say there were more - or an equal number of - terrorists in Iraq before the invasion, you're just wrong. Yes, the war has had various positive results. It has had more negative ones. Before the war started, that was a minority position. It's now held by a rapidly growing majority. That's not for nothing.
But texxx... I did tell you so. I told you so and you said I was wrong. It turns out I was right. I wish I hadn't been, but I was. I wouldn't have cause to say I told you so if Bush didn't insist on continuing his failed policy leading to more unnecessary deaths. I answered your question before. Since you advocate staying the course, answer these related ones for me: Is the current policy working? Are we winning?
Yes, Britain indeed is a dangerous country that harbors home-bred terrorists. The British were attacked by foreigners? Didn't know that! That tells me you know nothing about how polls are conducted. Certainly polls are sometimes inaccurate, and that's WHY they use the "+/- 3 to 5%" standard for accuracy. But when there is such a large margin -- 34% vs 50+% or so is a HUGE difference -- there is virtually no possibility of error with such a large margin of error to work with, especially when conducted by a polling org that has been conducting polls forever and is as well-reputed as they can get. I will take their word over yours any day of the week, especially since there is no shortage of polls being used by Bush-supporters when it favors their side of the argument. LOL! Great stuff man, no really! Hmm, not too 'linear' a logic for you, is it? Because I know that hardcore Bush supporters tend to see things in pure "black/white" terms, so let me explain: You support the troops (the foot soldiers taking orders that is, who have no choice but to fight the wars their entrusted leaders send them to) by making SURE that they are ONLY sent to wars of 'necessity', not wars of 'choice', and therefore you are looking our for their welfare. At the same time, the cause (Iraq or Somalia or Sudan or whatever else) could be seen as 'illegitimate' and 'unworthy' of sacrificing lives for, and therefore an 'unjust' cause by many; polls consistently show that most Americans now don't believe Iraq was 'worth it', so interpret it whatever way you want. I am sure there are 60%+ of 'liberals' in America who oppose the war, but apparently couldn't get their guy Kerry to win the election! So you support Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories? Why does her stance on this issue make her seem like a loonie to you and discredits her as having a legitimate grievance against the President? She could certainly be in it to get her '15 minutes' of fame and be a rallying point for anti-war protestors. However, we must respect her right to protest the war as not only a citizen of this country, but one that paid the ultimate sacrifice by losing her son in the war. Do you support the troops and their families ALL the time or only when they are pro-war and pro-Bush? There have definitely been good things done in Iraq, but the MOST important part of ANY person's life is SECURITY; without security nothing can prosper, and certainly not freedom. The number one goal of the military in Iraq is to accomplish security, and so far we have failed in this task. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! You should view the State Dept's own statistics on 'worldwide' terrorist attacks since the invasion of IRaq: they have more than doubled. So there goes your 'more terrorism' in Iraq before than now argument. Suicide bombers are in Iraq now as a RESULT of the occupation, insurgency is only a natural reaction of occupied peoples. Your argument doesn't hold any sembelence of truth in this regard, you're simply wrong based on FACTUAL evidence. If you care to argue this point based on hard stats evidence, feel free to do so. Your complete ignorance of the IRaqi people and their society pre vs. post Saddam is truly astounding! Iraqi women were the MOST well-educated under Saddam's Iraq, they weren't FORCED to 'cover' their faces. How about now you might ask? Well, how about the entire southern Shi'a region of Iraq being patrolled by radical Shi'a militias who ARE the de facto police force there, enforcing 'social conduct' and roaming the streets forcing ANYONE who violates the acceptable 'social norms' to either comply or face death. One thing Iraqi women aren't today is 'more free' to walk outside 'face uncovered' and 'read a textbook'. Saddam was a tyrant alright, but his secular rule gave men and women equal status in society, something that lacked in almost every other Arab society. Seriously, I would love to know where you are getting your numbers! Yes, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed directly or indirectly during the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Al-Qaida's estimated 'force' was by most accounts in the range of 30k-50k at most, and even those numbers are largely exaggerated. There are terrorists, there are insurgents, there are uniformed soldiers, and there are civilians. Those are the categories I am aware of, and I haven't seen the "we have killed hundreds of thousands" of terrorists worldwide part as of yet. Anyways, I was just pointing our some things in your post. If you are familiar with my stance on this issue, you will know that I am vehemently opposed to us withdrawing from Iraq (cutting and running is more like it). So you should know that I am opposed to a withdrawal from Iraq as the author of the posted article seems to suggest we do.
And the kiddies will likely keep getting fatter as long as administrations such as the current one are in power: Published on Friday, August 12, 2005 Junk Food Nation By Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor In recent months the major food companies have been trying hard to convince Americans that they feel the pain of our expanding waistlines, especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced it would no longer market Oreos to younger children, McDonald's promoted itself as a salad producer and Coca-Cola said it won't advertise to kids under 12. But behind the scenes it's hardball as usual, with the junk food giants pushing the Bush Administration to defend their interests. The recent conflict over what America eats, and the way the government promotes food, is a disturbing example of how in Bush's America corporate interests trump public health, public opinion and plain old common sense. The latest salvo in the war on added sugar and fat came July 14- 15, when the Federal Trade Commission held hearings on childhood obesity and food marketing. Despite the fanfare, industry had no cause for concern; FTC chair Deborah Majoras had declared beforehand that the commission will do absolutely nothing to stop the rising flood of junk food advertising to children. In June the Department of Agriculture denied a request from our group Commercial Alert to enforce existing rules forbidding mealtime sales in school cafeterias of "foods of minimal nutritional value"--i.e., junk foods and soda pop. The department admitted that it didn't know whether schools are complying with the rules, but, frankly, it doesn't give a damn. "At this time, we do not intend to undertake the activities or measures recommended in your petition," wrote Stanley Garnett, head of the USDA's Child Nutrition Division. Conflict about junk food has intensified since late 2001, when a Surgeon General's report called obesity an "epidemic." Since that time, the White House has repeatedly weighed in on the side of Big Food. It worked hard to weaken the World Health Organization's global anti-obesity strategy and went so far as to question the scientific basis for "the linking of fruit and vegetable consumption to decreased risk of obesity and diabetes." Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson--then our nation's top public-health officer--even told members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association to "'go on the offensive' against critics blaming the food industry for obesity," according to a November 12, 2002, GMA news release. Last year, during the reauthorization of the children's nutrition programs, Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois attempted to insulate the government's nutrition guidelines from the intense industry pressure that has warped the process to date. He proposed a modest amendment to move the guidelines from the USDA to the comparatively more independent Institute of Medicine. The food industry, alarmed about the switch, secured a number of meetings at the White House to get it to exert pressure on Fitzgerald. One irony of this fight was that the key industry lobbying came from the American Dietetic Association, described by one Congressional staffer as a "front for the food groups." Fitzgerald held firm but didn't succeed in enacting his amendment before he left Congress last year. By that time the industry's lobbying effort had borne fruit, or perhaps more accurately, unhealthy alternatives to fruit. The new federal guidelines no longer contain a recommendation for sugar intake, although they do tell people to eat foods with few added sugars. The redesigned icon for the guidelines, created by a company that does extensive work for the junk food industry, shows no food, only a person climbing stairs. Growing industry influence is also apparent at the President's Council on Physical Fitness. What companies has the government invited to be partners with the council's Challenge program? Coca-Cola, Burger King, General Mills, Pepsico and other blue chip members of the "obesity lobby." In January the council's chair, former NFL star Lynn Swann, took money to appear at a public relations event for the National Automatic Merchandising Association, a vending machine trade group activists have been battling on in-school sales of junk food. Not a lot of subtlety is required to understand what's driving Administration policy. It's large infusions of cash. In 2004 "Rangers," who bundled at least $200,000 each to the Bush/Cheney campaign, included Barclay Resler, vice president for government and public affairs at Coca-Cola; Robert Leebern Jr., president of federal affairs at Troutman Sanders PAG, lobbyist for Coca-Cola; Richard Hohlt of Hohlt & Co., lobbyist for Altria, which owns about 85 percent of Kraft foods; and José "Pepe" Fanjul, president, vice chairman and COO of Florida Crystals Corp., one of the nation's major sugar producers. Hundred-thousand-dollar men include Kirk Blalock and Marc Lampkin, both Coke lobbyists, and Joe Weller, chairman and CEO, Nestle USA. Altria also gave $250,000 to Bush's inauguration this year, and Coke and Pepsi gave $100,000 each. These gifts are in addition to substantial sums given during the 2000 campaign. For their money, the industry has been able to buy into a strategy on obesity and food marketing that mirrors the approach taken by Big Tobacco. That's hardly a surprise, given that some of the same companies and personnel are involved: Junk food giants Kraft and Nabisco are both majority-owned by tobacco producer Philip Morris, now renamed Altria. Similarity number one is the denial that the problem (obesity) is caused by the product (junk food). Instead, lack of exercise is fingered as the culprit, which is why McDonald's, Pepsi, Coke and others have been handing out pedometers, funding fitness centers and prodding kids to move around. When the childhood obesity issue first burst on the scene, HHS and the Centers for Disease Control funded a bizarre ad campaign called Verb, whose ostensible purpose was to get kids moving. This strategy has been evident in the halls of Congress as well. During child nutrition reauthorization hearings, the man some have called the Senator from Coca-Cola, Georgia's Zell Miller, parroted industry talking points when he claimed that children are "obese not because of what they eat at lunchrooms in schools but because, frankly, they sit around on their duffs watching Eminem on MTV and playing video games." And that, of course, is the fault not of food marketers but of parents. Miller's office shut down a Senate Agriculture Committee staff discussion of a ban on soda pop in high schools by refreshing their memories that Coke is based in Georgia. A related ploy is to deny the nutritional status of individual food groups, claiming that there are no "good" or "bad" foods, and that all that matters is balance. So, for example, when the Administration attacked the WHO's global anti-obesity initiative, it criticized what it called the "unsubstantiated focus on 'good' and 'bad' foods." Of course, if fruits and vegetables aren't healthy, then Coke and chips aren't unhealthy. While such a strategy is so preposterous as to be laughable, it is already having real effects. Less than a month after Cadbury Schweppes, the candy and soda company, gave a multimillion-dollar grant to the American Diabetes Association, the association's chief medical and scientific officer claimed that sugar has nothing to do with diabetes, or with weight. Industry has also bankrolled front groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom, an increasingly influential Washington outfit that demonizes public-health advocates as the "food police" and promotes the industry point of view. Meanwhile, public opinion is solidly behind more restrictions on junk food marketing aimed at children, especially in schools. A February Wall Street Journal poll found that 83 percent of American adults believe "public schools need to do a better job of limiting children's access to unhealthy foods like snack foods, sugary soft drinks and fast food." Two bills recently introduced in Congress, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's Prevention of Childhood Obesity Act and Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's Healthy Lifestyles and Prevention (HeLP) America Act, both place significant restrictions on the ability of junk food producers to market in schools. Interestingly, this is a crossover issue between red and blue states. Concern about obesity and excessive junk food marketing to kids is shared by people across the political spectrum, and some conservatives, such as Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs and the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, as well as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have argued for restricting junk food marketing to children. This may be one of the reasons New York Senator Hillary Clinton has once again become vocal on the topic of marketing to children, although Senator Clinton has called not for government intervention but merely for industry self-regulation, requesting that the companies "be more responsible about the effect they are having"--exactly the policy the industry wants. A vigorous government response would clearly garner the sympathy of the majority of Americans. The growing chasm between what the public wants and the Administration's protection of the profits of Big Food is a powerful example of the decline of democracy in this country. Let them eat chips! http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050829&s=ruskin
So now it is the President's fault that America's kids are fat? Priceless... keep grasping for straws liberals while we keep winning elections.
most people dont like hearing views that fundamentally differ from your own. it might be frustrating for you, but not "bad".
At least svpernaut responded to the article. I'd love it if he replied to my reply too, but maybe he just hasn't had time. Meanwhile, Fatty says I'm bad to talk politics with and texxx says it's a good thing liberals aren't in charge. In other words, apart from svpernaut, war/Bush supporters have no response to any of the various points raised in the article. Par for the course.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8423112/ And many others... I know personally because I was turned down from the Army in 2003 after trying for 8 months even though I lost 60+ pounds scored 99 on the ASVAB, and was still turned away. I was accepted into the Army at 250lbs in the DEP program (delayed entry program) and was to be shipped off 3 months later. During that 3 months I lost 36 more pounds, and when I went back at 6' 214lbs they would not accept me in because my neck had shrunk too much and I no longer met the required body fat %. I naturally have a stocky build and in the best shape of my life when I was 18 I was 6' 210, and they require 6' 195 unless you pass their old and out-dated body fat system. So, they accepted me at 250lbs because I had an 18.5 inch neck, but when I went in three months later to ship at 216lbs and a 16" neck it threw off their height/weight/chest/neck/age ratio. I spent 8 months of my life, quit a well paying IT job at Halliburton, sold my car, sold everything I owned and widdled myself down to 4 cardboard boxes of stuff (two of which were my computers)... and they turned me away because of procedure. I was going into military intelligence and was to be enlisted for 8 years, 3.5 which would be spent at Fort Huachuca Arizona for schooling. When I went to ship I passed all physical requirements including 2 miles in under 16 minutes, 40 situps in 2 minutes and 60 push ups in two minutes. When I was going through the MEPs on ship day (military entrance processessing) NINE people in my group of 40 were turned away on their ship dates due to not meeting the height/weight requirements! NINE, nearly 25%!!! So please dont' tell me that it isn't a problem. I ran with my recruiter 3 times a day for 4+ months to get into the best shape I'll probably ever be in and I wasn't good enough. After I was turned away I called the Colonel of the recruiting office and even Tom Delay, and I was told I could come back in 6 months and I'd be accepted (another procedure), but I had already wasted 8 months of my life for nothing... So for the love of God don't tell me their rigid requirements aren't a problem. I could do ALL physical requirements BEFORE going to bootcamp which isn't reven required, lost 60+ pounds, and I scored the highest you posibly can on the entrance exam and I was turned away. The Army entrance requirements are TOO rigid and are the same as they were in world war two. We ONLY have one Armed Forces branch that doesn't go strictly by a height/weight requirment, and that is the Army with their body fat % charts... and I still didn't pass that. Air Force, Navy and Marines all go by a very strict height/weight chart based on your age, trust me I tried them all... I spent a good year of my life looking for a way to serve my country and I couldn't. If you can serve, they should let you. If you are fat, they should train you... sooner or later they will realize that and make the change.
Svpernaut sorry about your ordeal however I think the Obesity rules may account for some of the problem I think the fact that people don't want to goto war is a stronger reason They don't care if the war is just or not most folx don't wanna fight in a war Rocket River
Of course people don't want to go to war, no one ever wants to go to war. It is a complication of many things slowing down their recruiting, but I know for a fact how many overweight people (by their standards) would love to be in the military but can't. My story is just one of many, it took me a long time to "let go" of the dream of being in the military. I'm still tempted everyday to give it another shot, but I'm 27 now and I'd be in my mid 30s by the time I got out if I chose MI which is where I know I could do the best for my country. The fact that we have been at war for 4 years now plays a huge roll in recruiting. Since we have so many people deployed, including reservests and so many injured, they have to recruit more then their normal share of the population, and of course that is a problem. Our generation Y isn't exactly known for being the most patriotic of generations... it's a generation raised mostly by single mothers. Simply saying the military recruiting problems are due to just people not wanting to go to war is painting the picture with one brush. We have more fat people then we did in the first gulf ware and all the ones before it. We have more high school drop outs then ever. We have more kids getting involved with the law at younger ages. It is societies problem as a whole that we aren't meeting the recruiting numbers, not just the Presidents. The MEPs facilities work 7 days a week, and ship out hundreds a day... while turning 10-20% away at some point in the process for everything from being overweight to being colorblind. If you've never gone through the MEPs process you have no idea how many ways they try to figure out how NOT to let you get in... it's crazy really.
