Sunday, March 04, 2007

Bush in 2003: Walter Reed "operates in a way that makes me proud."

President Bush is attempting this weekend to put out the fire that's swirling around him because of the disgraceful conditions that wounded combat troops found themselves living in at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where "soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered neglect, bureaucratic intransigence and infestations of rats, cockroaches and mould."

What makes this treatment of veterans so scandalous is that this is a President who, more than any other I can think of, has used the troops disgracefully. Either by sending them into dangerous wars of choice that he has manufactured through carefully constructed lies, or as extras in a backdrop to almost every speech he has made in the War on Terror.

And yet, despite this, he has managed to sound as if he is their protector; even if, as when he recently vowed to "protect the troops", he was actually looking for ways to engage them in Iran.

It is for this reason that he is now seeking to find others to blame for the shabby conditions that these wounded veterans found themselves living in.

But even the veterans at Walter Reed have previously been used as backdrops for Bush's photoshoots.

Fox News reported as recently as December 22nd, 2006 that Bush had visited Walter Reed and helped "wrap Christmas presents."
Seeing troops with amputated limbs and other serious wounds, the president asked them how they were feeling and if their care was adequate, and talked with family members and medical staff, said spokeswoman Dana Perino.
This is why I found Bush's radio address so extraordinary. In it he claims that:
On hearing the reports about Walter Reed, I asked Secretary of Defense Bob Gates to assess the situation firsthand and report back to me. He confirmed that there are real problems at Walter Reed, and he's taken action to hold people accountable, including relieving the general in charge of the facility.
Listening to that, one could be forgiven for assuming that this was a facility that Bush had never been to, instead of one that he described in 2003 as, "a place of love and healing and great compassion." Indeed, he even thanked the staff "who make this fantastic facility operate in a way that makes me proud".

So even the Walter Reed Medical Centre has previously been used by Bush as a backdrop for his faux compassion.

So, on his many previous visits, did he seriously not notice the conditions there? Or were there parts of the facility that he was kept away from, which almost certainly implies that someone knew the conditions in some parts of the place were unsavoury.

Indeed, even during his radio address he couldn't stop himself from, once again, using the wounded soldiers as little more than props in his sugar coated depiction of the War on Terror:

The men and women recovering at Walter Reed and our other military hospitals are remarkable individuals. Many have suffered wounds that even time will never fully heal. Yet they're facing the future with optimism, and a determination to move forward with their lives.

One of these brave warriors is Army Specialist Eduardo Leal-Cardenas. He was injured when an improvised explosive device blew up his vehicle in Iraq. The blast shattered bones in both legs, broke his ribs, and broke his back and neck. Some questioned whether he would ever regain the ability to walk. There was no doubt in Eduardo's mind, and he began his rehab while still bedridden. Today, he's left Walter Reed, he's walking again, and he has something else he is proud of -- during his recovery, Eduardo became a U.S. citizen. I was proud to be with him at Walter Reed when he took his citizenship oath. If you ask Eduardo what American citizenship means to him, he answers with just one word: "Freedom."

That really sums up how Bush sees the troops. Even whilst (I nearly typed apologising, but that would be a lie) assigning blame for their treatment to other people, he can't resist using them as convenient props. As proof that, no matter how they have suffered or what they have lost, his vision is still one that they share. They exist, in his mind, as tools to be used to validate his warped world view.

If he gave a toss about them, he would have issued a sincere apology. He didn't.

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