Our president cares about US casualities...well, not really

By now you've probably read about Bush's interview with George Stephanopoulous on ABC's This Week. It was the first time I have listen to Bush talk in something like four months because I would be in physically pain when I did, but for some reason I sat down for this one. There were some great moments, like the classic Bush/Cheney "I never said that thing I totally said" maneuver:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Exactly what I wanted to ask you about, because James Baker said that he's looking for something between cut and run...

BUSH: Cut and run and.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and stay the course.

BUSH: Well, listen, we've never been stay the course, George.

Listen, Bush has never been stay the course, and anyone with evidence to the contrary is politically motivated, therefore untrustworthy!

There was also the much commented on comparison of the current violence in Iraq to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968-69. On one hand this would look crazy for Bush to mention, considering his administration has been saying this is nothing like Vietnam, but Tim Rutten in the LA Times has a good piece explaining the internal logic to this spin.

...In classic reverse spin, the president was sending two messages — one designed to rally a key component of the Republicans' electoral base, the other a warning shot across the bow of the American news media as they weigh their reports on the bloody events in the shadow of what is shaping up as a critical congressional election.

To understand just how Bush spun this particular pitch, you have to recall that Tet occupies a particular prominence among the revisionist lessons drawn from the Vietnam debacle by the GOP's neoconservative wing...

Many people don't understand that there is a segment of the GOP (which happens to be surprisingly represented by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush!) that believe the US lost the Vietnam War not because it was unwinnable, or poorly conceived, or a battle against a repressed, highly motivated nationalistic force, or a horrendous crime, or a mistake, but because there was a lack of political will to win, and that lack of will was created by those pussy anti-war liberals and their punk friends in the press. From the above link:

Russert: Were you favor of the war in Vietnam?

President Bush: I supported my government. I did. And would have gone had my unit been called up, by the way.

Russert: But you didn't volunteer or enlist to go.

President Bush: No, I didn't....The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War....

It is important to understand that when these people say the lesson of the Vietnam War was to not let "politics" get in the way, they are essentially saying we need to kill as many motherfucking people as it takes regardless of how many mothers are crying for their dead children and how disgusted the rest of the domestic populace gets. Vietnam would have only been won if we bombed the fuck out of it and stayed forever. Then we would have won! This is the "stabbed in the back" myth of conservatism that has been going on for decades, and is standing in the wings ready to come out right after we leave Iraq. "If only Howard Dean and the crazy liberal coast dwellers didn't demand we leave Iraq, then we would have won, for sure!" Wait for it....

Those two points are familiar territory from the interview, but I just want to point to the, frankly, really disturbing moment in the interview with Stephanopoulos:

BUSH: The fundamental question is: Are we on our way to achieving a goal, which is an Iraq that can defend itself, sustain itself and govern itself and be an ally in the war on terror in the heart of the Middle East.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It seems like, every month, we're going farther from that.

BUSH: Well, I don't know why you would say that. I mean...

STEPHANOPOULOS: The casualties are going up.

BUSH: ... if that's the definition of success or failure, the number of casualties, then you're right. But that's what the enemy knows. See, they try to define success or failure.

I define success or failure as to whether or not the Iraqis will be able to defend themselves. I define success or failure as whether the unity government's making difficult -- the difficult decisions necessary to unite the country.

I define success or failure as whether schools are being built, or hospitals are being opened. I define success or failure as whether we're seeing a democracy grow in the heart of the Middle East.

Because a democracy in the Middle East, a society based upon liberty, will be a defeat for the terrorists, who have clearly said they want a safe haven from which to launch attacks against America, a safe haven from which to topple moderate governments in the Middle East, a safe haven from which to spread their jihadist point of view, which is that there are no freedoms in the world; we will dictate to you how you think.

I know some Americans don't think that is a threat. I view it as a threat because -- and the reason it's a threat is I can conceivably see a world in which radicals and extremists control oil. And they would say to the West: You either abandon Israel, for example, or we're going to run the price of oil up. Or withdraw...

Once again, postmodern theorist George W. Bush is dropping some mad knowledge and blowing your mind. You might think an increasing number of casualties means we aren't doing so well, but you are just in line with terrorist thinking. By killing more Iraqis and more American soldiers, they are making you think we are losing which is their goal, which you just end up accept without seeing we are winning. Get it? There definition of winning is killing a bunch of people. We don't care if they kill a bunch of people, we care about if the Iraqi government is difficult decisions. Well, they aren't doing that either, but still, stop thinking with the terrorist!

(On a related note, what the hell is Bush talking about in the second part of this answer? Its like a stream of consciousness international policy vision: success, government, hospitals, democracy, oil, jihad, Israel...)

The right-wing acts as if the problem is people aren't understanding what Bush is saying, not the fundamental failure of his policies. Does any find it amazing that Bush is claiming the number of causalities is not a good way to define success or failure a few moments AFTER he said this:

BUSH: Yeah, absolutely, I read every casualty, and it breaks my heart, because behind every casualty is somebody with tears in their eyes. Behind every casualty are families that will be mourning the loss of life for a lifetime.

I'm sure your heart breaks, dude. I'm sure it does.