US Pilot to Bush: We're Not Getting Enough Training, Time At Home

Posted by Adam Howard at 9:42 AM on September 3, 2007.

Adam Howard: President Bush makes a surprise visit to Iraq, and gets served some reality from one of the many troops he's failed to support.

As you may already know President Bush is on one of his surprise photo opportunity-filled trips to Iraq. The last was in June of '06, and nothing can top the fake turkey event of November 2003, but this visit seems the most, I don't know, desperate. I wish Bush was in Iraq more often, in fact, I wish he was there all the time. The AP reports.

President Bush and his national security team made a first-hand assessment of the war in Iraq and prospects for political reconciliation Monday before a showdown with Congress over the U.S. troop buildup.

The temperature topped 110 degrees as Bush stepped off Air Force One. The president stopped at a small building where a Marine Cobra pilot briefed him about the positives and negatives of current troop rotations. He told the president that troops were not getting enough time at home and did not have enough time for training.

Bush then pushed the soldier (not unlike when he pushed Senator Jim Webb to tell him how his son was, after Webb made a remark about troop withdrawal last year) to say what morale was like. Naturally the soldier said, "very high", God knows what he would have endured at the hands of his superiors had he said "low as hell sir."

But the point is Bush didn't bother to address what the soldier said, or at least he didn't appear to, which is so typical of this president's attitude towards Americans that serve in the military. I'll use you as a prop or as a political weapon but don't actually ask for anything from me directly because I will just ignore you.

Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars also points out:

The truth of the matter is that the president is nowhere near an Iraqi city, he’s tucked away in a remote area and safe — surrounded by soldiers. I guess this is the best spin they could put on this seeing as how after four years of U.S. occupation, it still isn’t safe enough for him to fly into Baghdad.

Source: AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: US Pilot to Bush: We're Not Getting Enough Training, Time At Home

 

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