Riiiiiiiiight.
Democrats Pull Ad With Flag-Draped Coffins
ROCK HILL, S.C., Jul. 15, 2006
By SEANNA ADCOX Associated Press Writer
(AP) Democrats pulled an Internet ad that showed flag-draped coffins Friday after Republicans and at least two Democrats demanded it be taken down on grounds the image was insensitive and not fit for a political commercial.
The ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called for a “new direction” and displayed a staccato of images, including war scenes, pollution and breached levees as well as a photograph of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay doctored to look like a police mug shot.
Look at those flag-draped coffins. It’s hard to imagine a more positive vision, or a clearer way to say “We support the troops”. Don’t you think?
Here’s another take on the story with more details and a lame attempt at justification.
Democrats defend Web video showing coffins of war dead
By JENNIFER McKEE Missoulian State Bureau
The one-minute video shows a variety of images, including flag-draped military coffins and a machine gun stuck in the sand with a helmet on it, along with images of New Orleans flood victims and gas station signs showing the rising cost of fuel.
So who’s selling fear? What else could be the purpose of such imagery?
Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the Democratic group, defended the images.
“Republicans have gone to great lengths to obscure the pictures of these brave young men and women who come having paid the ultimate sacrifice,” she said in a statement. “Perhaps if these Republicans had been able to summon up this same level of outrage when President Bush sent our troops off to war without the body armor they needed and the Humvee armor they required, so many wouldn’t have come home in flag-draped coffins or with life-changing injuries.”
Obscure the pictures? No. The military took them and released them. Anyone who wants to can see them. There is no need to “summon up outrage”. It comes quite naturally to anyone who asks: What good comes from publicizing them? Why put them in a political advertisement? What is the message?
If the pacifists care so much about our war dead then why don’t they demonstrate an honest interest in who and what really kills them? Bush? Armor? Do they really believe this? Do they know nothing about our brutal enemy or the intolerant nihilist ideology that drives them? That this enemy kills Americans and anyone else who resists their jihad, and if we didn’t resist they’d kill us anyway?
Apparently not. And in retrospect we should not be surprised by the thoughtless actions of these pacifists. These are after all the same people who show their support, respect, and compassion for the soldiers dying to protect us by acting as if Bush is Nixon, Iraq is Vietnam, Abu Ghraib is Auschwitz, Gitmo is a gulag, Haditha is My Lai, and our wounded soldiers are politcal tools.
So here we have anti-war Democrats exploiting pictures of coffins to spread their message of defeat and retreat. Damn those who have put their lives on the line to win, and damn those who will suffer if we should lose. Message received, loud and clear.
Tanstaafl done wroted:
“So who’s selling fear? What else could be the purpose of such imagery [flag-draped coffins of US soldiers]?”
You gotta be kidding! Ask yourself one simple question. Who’s idea was it to send the occupants of those flag-draped coffins to Afghanistan and Iraq, to be shipped back in unidentifiable bundles, while you whine about or sneer at other people’s patriotism? It wasn’t my idea, buddy. It was yours. You supported all the Rumsfeld/Cheney non-visionary decisions. I didn’t. And now you dolts are so desperate to hide your failures, you’re starting to blame the Democrats for the corpses you created?
I got an idea. Why don’t you host a flag party and invite all the corpses you’ve created to sit around and sing patriotic songs with you? Good idea, huh?
You and your president are the chief architects of the hell that has broken out all over the Middle East. (Sure, Hezbollah’s an army of lunatics and psychos, but, then again, frauds like you encourage Hezbollah’s actions, same as you encourage Israel’s, same as you encourage the actions of our troops.
You’re just another blabbermouth who’s ruined the United States. Go back to Tasmania with Michelle Malkin.
Your reasoning is shallow. You ask one question (who sent the soldiers) but don’t go any further (why were they sent). Do you think it might be something besides “steal the oil” and “avenge daddy”?
You concern for the United States and its soldiers is disingenuous. It’s clear for instance how much you care about the “corpses”. To you and those who made that commercial dead soldiers are nothing but a bludgeon to beat your political adversaries with.
You also apparently live in a bubble. The “hell” that has “broken out all over the Middle East” has been going on in one form or another for 1400 years. Jihad, anti-semitism, and Arab-Israeli wars apparently don’t fit in your bubble. Read some history. Maybe you could make some room if you jettisoned a bit of the Rumsfeld/Cheney bile? Don’t transfer your frustration at how small a person you are onto others. These men are only the most recent in a long line of civil servants trying to navigate the US through the barbarism that continues to stream from the cesspool Mohammed created.
What encourages our enemies is weakness. The kind of weakness that sees our soldiers in only two roles: at home or in coffins. Some things are worth fighting for. Sometimes a bigger fight later can be prevented by a smaller fight now. Did these things not occur to you?
Salmonella5000,
Our president is not responsible for “the hell that has broken out all over the Middle east” and neither is America. The liberals and the democratic party are not responsible. The jihadists are responsible. Our country has only one choice, one chance, and that is to take the fight to them. Appeasement does not work. Islamic extremists want us dead because of who we are, not because of what we do. Changing our behavior will not save us unless we all convert and become a Muslem nation.
It’s a common liberal theme to blame the US for all that is wrong in the world. According to the democrats the U.S. is responsible for: 9/11, incompetent U.N., Katrina, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and the list goes on and on. This is not only tiresome it’s simply flat wrong and only underscores the total lack of patriotism and the intense self loathing that the left basks in.
Christians and Hebrews are taught to convert but if you cannot then tolerance and peace. Islam is fundamentally different–convert and if not die. There is no tolerance for those who do not decide to follow Mohomed, only death. Islamic extremists are responsible for killing our soldiers and causing war in the middle east, not our president.
Regarding “desperate to hide your failures” these images are available to anyone who wishes to see them. The military has not hidden them. It is the Democrats who seek to EXPLOIT them for political gain–it was a political ad after all. Americans are bravely dying in World War III and Democrats are exploiting them for political gain. That’s an undisputable fact. I’m glad to see it makes you uncomfortable enough to try to shift blame. The rest of us are uncomfortable with it too, but we prefer to let the blame lie upon the shoulders of those who created the advertisement.
“[F]rauds like you encourage Hezbollah’s actions…] demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Islamic extremism. An infidel such as myself or any other conservative, or you and any other liberal means nothing to an Islamic extremist except as someone to convert or kill. The only way we “encourage” them is not by our actions, for our actions mean not one wit to them, the way we encourage them is by the mere fact that we EXIST. Our existence is enough. There is no way to negotiate or co-exist with that. When the enemy says “convert or die” there is no room for compromise.
There are many Americans that simply do not understand this basic fact. I think it’s mainly due to our western religious background as well as our liberal public school system that have pounded into our heads since infancy that we should be tolerant and accepting of others and their differences. This is a GOOD thing for our society. It’s a fundamental reason why America, the melting pot, works and works as well as it does as a democracy. But it is also a huge weakness in the war on terror because it makes it extremely hard for Americans to get their heads around the fact that no changing of our behavior will alter the fact that Islamic extremists want to kill us. There is this mistaken notion that we just need to show more tolerance, or cow-tow more in the UN, or act more humble and contrite internationally, or not defend ourselves once attacked (as others urge Israel to do) and that the Islamic extremists will be happy and we’ll be safe. That’s wrong because we are still not Muslem and as long as we are not Muslem we must die. The answer is to become Muslem or fight. Our president, our country, have chosen to fight. Freedom. Amen.
Dont worry, the ad is being pulled until September and will be re-aired without the coffins.
We thank you for your active participation in this test.
Beedee beedee beedee,
But Buck!