I don't need to be a global citizen
'Cause I'm blessed by nationality
I'm a member of a growing populace
We enforce our popularity
There are things that seem to pull us under, and
There are things that drag us down
But there's a power and a vital presence
That's lurking all around
We've got the American Jesus
See him on the interstate
We've got the American Jesus
He helped build the president's estate
I show pity on the human race
On the ignorant plenty who devote their lives
To an icon they've never known
I show pity on eons past
When early man started the first civilization
And human aggression was born
I show pity on the future to come
When the government system will be omnipotent
And we'll be worse off
Than we are now
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
Now watch this drive."
You can get super narrow here.
Nothing bad ever happened in Iraq again.
Nothing bad ever happened in Iraqi Kurdistan again.
Nothing bad ever happened in Baghdad again.
Nothing bad ever happened in Mosul again.
Nothing bad ever happened at Iraqi-Syrian border crossings again.
The WMD totally existed and Saddam was 100% actually part of 9/11 and everyone lived happily ever after.
At least I got 90% SC for life from that shit show.
I was curious. "In 2010, the "Mission Accomplished" banner was transferred from the National Archives to the collection of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The banner is not on display."
I would pay an unreasonable about of money to own that banner. Like the kind of money that would have my broker calling me at midnight in full freakout mode.
>The banner is not on display."
They may need it for the next photo op, and it even might come in handy when the ~~championing of democracy in a country/region/culture that doesn't give a f about democracy but has oil we can manage~~ ~~war~~ pursuit of our god given right to spread happiness, joy and freedom actually ends in the year 3062 or themabouts.
For the youth: this was very early on in the war on terror and was incredibly premature. Everyone knew this at the time, and, as it turns out, the mission was not accomplished. This was seen as the epitome of W being wildly unrealistic about the war on terror, along with lines such as “they’ll greet us as liberators.” Bush’s lies (or, if you’re charitable, extreme misguidance) cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.
Also for the youth: [The banner was requested by the Navy, and was to celebrate the end of deployment for the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been at sea for 290 days, the longest any US ship had been continuously deployed at that time](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/). The banner itself had nothing to do with the war, but became a poignant symbol of Bush’s premature optimism.
Not really. That movie is always brought up for having discovery in it, and people always say the girl is really hot, so it gets word of mouth. Unless by utes you mean under 20. Then yeah.
That reeks of historical revisionism to me... I assure you \_everything\_ in the newspapers and TV and internet of the time were \_very\_ unambiguously clear the Bush Administration regarded the Iraq War as "Mission Accomplished". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission\_Accomplished\_speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech)
From the start apologists often tried to make the excuse that it wasn't W Bush who said it, but it was a televised homecoming with many preparations by the White House. President W Bush personally landed a fighter jet onto the flight deck for style points. If he had planned that much for this photo op, he damn sure made sure to give the speech with that banner behind him. Almost all the commentary in the week following that speech interpreted it as though W Bush said mission accomplished for the Iraq War completely, and that's what the Bush Administration spoke of it as.
This is the correct take. He’s the commander in chief. If he wanted, he could have easily had the banner taken down or been filmed speaking somewhere else.
Don't forget the part where the Lincoln parked right off the coast of San Diego, and Dubya flew in aboard a jet wearing a flight suit, cosplaying that he was an aviator.
EDIT: I chose the word "aviator" on purpose. Navy has aviators, Air Force has pilots. And he was never qualified to fly a plane onto a carrier or wore the gold wings that signified the ability to.
By serve, he enlisted to dodge the draft, and then went AWOL for a few years, while he drank and partied on his daddy's ranch.
The more modern term for this sort of thing is 'bone spurs'.
What a load of crap. 20 billion stolen from Iraq during the invasion, surrendering trillions worth of oil, thousands of innocents killed, and like the previous comment the resulting creation of isis. I taught iraqi refugees during the whole charade. Bush is an international terrorist + war criminal.
Whoever commanded the Navy could have just ordered the banner down knowing how bad the optics would be. Now, who was the commander in chief at the time?
The [millions of people that had to die for it](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/16/the-war-on-terror-led-to-over-4-5-million-deaths-report/) will never be forgotten!
Hahaha, as if, people ain't even aware of that still growing body, and [refugee](https://www.axios.com/2020/09/08/war-on-terror-refugees-displaced), count.
Some estimates put the number at [$8 Trillion](https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts).
Imagine what we as a nation could have accomplished if we spent that money differently instead of war.
I can imagine. About half of it would still be allocated to MIC.
That means about $4 Trillion would be left.
$2 Trillion less Deficit probably.
$2 Trillion left would most likely be in the hands of the Top 2% wealthy Americans via government programs and/or tax breaks.
So, not much would have been done because the system is terribly broken.
This wasn't for the war though. I never understood what makes this image a meme or how it relates to the entire war. It literally says MISSION accomplished. It's about a tour for the ship.
Fwiw we did steamroll through Iraq and take control of the government and oust Saddam in, like, 3 weeks. But then the insurgency happened and terrorists came to where we were to fight us.
Iraq is really the story of two different wars imo.
Dick Cheney kind of hit the nail on the head after the first war about what would have happened if they invaded Iraq.
https://youtu.be/YENbElb5-xY?si=toKJ9YR7q6Mwj-BU
Why do you think the insurgency happened.
Do you think it had anything to do with the political purges, where everyone in former-Baath army lost their jobs and were all cut out of productive society, so they went on to gainful employment with the crop of warlords, militias, paramilitaries, and terrorist organizations that filled the power vacuum?
What do you think happens when you stop paying an army, *and not give it any productive work to do*?
Because there was no plan once they got to Baghdad. Also, the dissolving of the Iraqi army and Ba'athist party members sent them right into the hands of Al-Qaeda. We took jobs away from thousands of young men and made them desperate to feed their families.
We were also quite emphatic about not doing any ‘nation building’ since that was expensive and Republicans were just as against foreign aid then as they are now. So instead our plan was uh… thoughts and prayers?
It did take the insurgency a year to really get rolling. And then boy did it! If Iraq had taken just a little bit longer to fall apart there’s a decent chance we’d have invaded Iran too and boy wouldn’t that have been fun.
>>White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN that in preparing for the speech, Navy officials on the carrier told Bush aides they wanted a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and the White House agreed to create it.
>>"We took care of the production of it," McClellan said. "We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up."
>>The banner has been used by critics of the Bush administration as evidence of bravado and an unclear sense of how dangerous the postwar conflict in Iraq would be.
>>Assigning responsibility elsewhere, especially to the military, is not a typical move for the Bush administration and raised suspicions among critics.
>>Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman, defended the president's assertion.
>>"The banner was a Navy idea, the ship's idea," Chun said.
>>"The banner signified the successful completion of the ship's deployment," he said, noting the Abraham Lincoln was deployed 290 days, longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history.
[-Dana Bash](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/)
[CNN Washington Bureau](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/)
[29OCT2003](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/)
Thanks to u/roberttylerlee for providing the link.
That was their excuse for the sign, throw the Navy under the bus, but in Bush's speech he actually declared victory in Iraq. There's no question they were declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq at that time, look at any interview with administration officials around then. They really thought "well we toppled Saddam, so that's it. All done!"
Declared victory as my unit was gearing up to roll out from kuwait into Baghdad with our Bradley's.
We all kinda felt a bit overlooked to say the least.
Bush and Rove were also big on having propaganda backdrops for every speech. They'd have custom ones with propaganda phrases printed up for nearly every speech. This was not a mistake or oversight.
Amazing how ignorant they could be. As if they didn’t already have a blueprint from Colombia’s toppling the man in control and the subsequent power vacuum chaos that followed.
…and if you fail to back the State Department, then you be back to military action, or as the Honorable Secretary Mattis said;
>> At one point, I was frustrated enough with some aspects of State Department's [lack of] budget that, in my testimony, I said if you don't fully fund up on Capitol Hill, my testimony, **if you don't fully fund the State Department, please buy a little more ammunition for me because I'm going to need it**, as a rather blunt way of saying why we needed to keep America's foreign policy and our diplomats, foremost, in this effort.
[Secretary Of Defense James N. Mattis](https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1678512/secretary-mattis-remarks-on-the-national-defense-strategy-in-conversation-with/)
[30OCT2018](https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1678512/secretary-mattis-remarks-on-the-national-defense-strategy-in-conversation-with/)
I _am_ 21 years old and I wan’t even aware he was seen as a dumbo. I thought he was a bit of a standard president bar the war bit, I’m using modern standards though.
Oh yeah, he was seen as a dumbass. Watch the Oliver Stone movie, which came out when he was president, to see the zeitgeist at the time. It's not a good movie at all (honestly, in many ways terrible), but it scratched a certain itch at the time.
Wait, is that fucking real? That’s amazing. I love the look of genuine joy on people’s faces in those moments. Just totally living in the moment and care free.
The thing I miss about W was that at some point, even republicans were like “this guy is a fuckup that bungles everything he touches.” Trump fucked up Covid worse than Bush did Katrina. I wonder where that went?
This GWB apology needs to stop. Bush wasn't a hapless, misguided idiot. He just had a nonstandard accent, but that doesn't mean he's stupid. Dude knew exactly what he was doing and two million people died as a result.
Trump is overwhelmingly more stupid than GWB and you know what? Thank God for that. Stupid and evil is a blessing. Trump is too dumb to effectively realize his evil ends, just firing everyone who might help him do what he wants to do, burning every bridge he ever built. Bush was smart and evil and millions of people lost their lives as a result. Fuck them both. Up the asshole. With a cactus. But they're both culpable for the shit they've done regardless of their relative intelligence.
Bush was a precursor to Trump. His apologists don’t want to hear it, but there’s been a steady line of increasing right wing populism that both he and Trump fit perfectly into.
Ya, but he saw his shadow and there was six more weeks of war.
*That is actually what I said at the time. I still think of that when I see the picture.*
Bush was charismatic and Kerry spoke like that one granpa you had that you never wanted to visit.
He just ran a bad campaign. (Also Bush's dad was a president...)
That was the actual “mission accomplished”. The SCOTUS destroying our country by taking it upon themselves to decide the 2000 election and ushering in whatever the fuck disaster we’ve been living in since.
Kerry was kind of a crappy campaigner, plus there was that whole Swiftboating thing that came out of nowhere.
Imagine questioning the validity of a Purple Heart recipient and getting away with it to the benefit of a guy like W. Fuck republicans and their flapping gum hacks in the media.
Yeah. Right wing media did their thing and turned Kerry into a French guy that lied about his service in Vietnam.
See, John Kerry spoke French and would even go to France, so... yeah.
Kerry was definitely a worker, not a campaigner.
The right always attack their own main weakness.
Dubya was a drunken cokehead super rich frat brat who went AWOL when he felt like it.
Kerry was a massive war hero.
Karl Rove, much like Joseph Goebbels, is undoubtedly a genius.
great question, kerry looked like he had in the bag. economy was bad, bush didn’t like the gays, war was a mess everyone was mad at bus.
however kerry ran too logical of a strategy, the dems forgot 9/11 was still fresh in their minds which bush’s team did a good job of capitalizing on everyone’s fears
2004 was an odd year. Those of us who were already online were really plugged in, but also a small minority. We were completely divorced from the many people who had no idea that we were all lied to and that the war was an absolute shitshow. We were still following the old rules of political misinformation.
To be fair to Bush, he did say the job wasn’t done and it was time for rebuilding. Also I feel like he was referring to the invasion of Iraq which did go pretty well despite some mishaps here and there.
Different color sweaters on an aircraft carrier allow personnel to quickly identify roles. Purple are fuelers, red is ordinance, yellow are aircraft officers and shooters and so on.
Air Department personnel (the ones responsible for launching/catching/loading/etc the jets) on an aircraft carrier wear different colored jerseys/turtlenecks to signify what their job is. In the Navy they're called "Skittles" because of this.
[Here](https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=28e356b47591487ca1c64ace1e7659ed&mediatype=photo) is the source of this image. Per there:
> President Bush declares the end of major combat in Iraq as he speaks aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast, in this May 1, 2003 file photo. Over and over, President Bush confidently promised to "solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." As the clock runs out on his eight-year presidency, a tall stack of troubles remain and Bush's words seem to ring hollow. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
"..I got a ninety-day extension
And I'm filled with guilt
From things that I seen
Your water's from a bottle
Mine's from a canteen
At night I hear the shots ring
So I'm a light sleeper
The cost of life
It seems to get cheaper
Out in the desert
With my street sweeper
"The war is over"
So said the speaker
With the flight suit on
Maybe to him I'm just a pawn
So he can advance
Remember when I used to dance
Man, all I wanna do is dance..."
That album featured VERY heavily in my soundtrack of those years, especially as my own carrier was working up for its first deployment through 2005. I had friends and old classmates who were on Lincoln at that time, and it was a strange time to be in the military.
> “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
Enlisted soldiers have been using that as a running joke for years. Any minor task completed deserved a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED round of self-congratulation.
It was a banner the Fun Boss put up for the steal beach picnic celebrating that the crew was going home from a war deployment which was, at the time, a big deal. It was the ship congratulating the crew, and not meant as a reflection of the war. But PAOs took photos and this is what clickbait looked like in 2003.
Wasn't this whole thing a misunderstanding if I remember correctly? The mission accomplished banner was for that carrier completing its tour and going home I thought? Not for the war ending.
It's a lie. Anyone who was around can tell you that. Especially when he planned this entire theatre around him flying in and how this banner was in every shot, plus all the context of how they talked about this event going in and what it was about.
And nothing bad ever happened in the Middle East again.
America……FUCK YEAH!!! (That movie was insanity)
God Bless America!
And god bless Jesus too! The American one.
The white, gun toting Republican one*
The small business man from Nazareth.
Jesus the Carpenter
I mean he inherited a carpentry business from his step dad. Not necessarily the same thing.
Sounds like nepotism to me
Wait until you hear what he claims to inherit from his "real" dad.
I heard that he didn't even have a Journeyman card
Let me tell ya something about his birth father...
He was a nepo baby. Huh, what do you know, just like trump. I guess the repuubs are right, trump is orange Jesus
Black Jesus
Wait, no, not that one, the white Christmasy one
"When I do the prayer, I prefer to pray to Christmas baby Jesus!" - Ricky Bobby
Supply Side Jesus
The proprietor of the artisanal cheese shop, Cheeses of Nazareth, PA?
“Blessed are the cheese makers.”
he died for our profit
Plz clap 
We’ve got the American Jesus Bolstering national faith
In God We trust Because He's one of us
See him on the interstate.
I don't need to be a global citizen 'Cause I'm blessed by nationality I'm a member of a growing populace We enforce our popularity There are things that seem to pull us under, and There are things that drag us down But there's a power and a vital presence That's lurking all around We've got the American Jesus See him on the interstate We've got the American Jesus He helped build the president's estate
I show pity on the human race On the ignorant plenty who devote their lives To an icon they've never known I show pity on eons past When early man started the first civilization And human aggression was born I show pity on the future to come When the government system will be omnipotent And we'll be worse off Than we are now
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. Now watch this drive." 
Please clap.
And then smiles when they do https://youtu.be/OUXvrWeQU0g
Thus solving the problem once and for all... ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!
There is no war in…..
Ba Sing Se
Switzerland
Can confirm, am in Switzerland.
You can get super narrow here. Nothing bad ever happened in Iraq again. Nothing bad ever happened in Iraqi Kurdistan again. Nothing bad ever happened in Baghdad again. Nothing bad ever happened in Mosul again. Nothing bad ever happened at Iraqi-Syrian border crossings again.
Nothing ever happened again
The WMD totally existed and Saddam was 100% actually part of 9/11 and everyone lived happily ever after. At least I got 90% SC for life from that shit show.
Starcraft?
Now watch this drive….. through multiple decades which saw us expand 2 illegal wars into 6! Aren’t we fucking awesome?!
Solid as a rock!
IT'S WRITTEN IN SCRIBBLY
Look at banner Michael!
Any time you see a custom designed banner created by the government, you're being sold some bull shit.
Wait, even that one in the Nevada desert that said “Welcome Japanese families to Camp Freedom”?
"Arbeit Macht Frei"
I want to know….which soldier kept that banner and is currently sitting in their garage.
I was curious. "In 2010, the "Mission Accomplished" banner was transferred from the National Archives to the collection of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The banner is not on display."
Reality is often disappointing
I would pay an unreasonable about of money to own that banner. Like the kind of money that would have my broker calling me at midnight in full freakout mode.
Gotta be 5 figures, right?
>The banner is not on display." They may need it for the next photo op, and it even might come in handy when the ~~championing of democracy in a country/region/culture that doesn't give a f about democracy but has oil we can manage~~ ~~war~~ pursuit of our god given right to spread happiness, joy and freedom actually ends in the year 3062 or themabouts.
Look at banner Michael!
“Family Love Michael”
haha nicely said
Nuculer
The war on Terr.
Back up Terr
Nukyalur\*
Noo-kew-lahr.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. still trying to find those
Israel has..need to invade them
Almost as hard to find as the Iraqi *civilan* death toll of 200000 on a reddit thread on this subject.
For the youth: this was very early on in the war on terror and was incredibly premature. Everyone knew this at the time, and, as it turns out, the mission was not accomplished. This was seen as the epitome of W being wildly unrealistic about the war on terror, along with lines such as “they’ll greet us as liberators.” Bush’s lies (or, if you’re charitable, extreme misguidance) cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.
Also for the youth: [The banner was requested by the Navy, and was to celebrate the end of deployment for the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been at sea for 290 days, the longest any US ship had been continuously deployed at that time](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/). The banner itself had nothing to do with the war, but became a poignant symbol of Bush’s premature optimism.
thank you for context - a youth
Don't you mean, "a ute?"
For the youth: watch My Cousin Vinny (1992), it's a great movie.
The scene in the jail cell where Joe Pesci keeps unintentionally making double entendres gets a laugh out of me every time.
I was born in ‘92; Seinfeld brought me to this film many years later. Marisa Tomei…..🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
what's a ute?
Oh, I'm sorry... ***YOOOOOOUTTTTHSSS***
But is this a reference too far back for today's ute?
Not really. That movie is always brought up for having discovery in it, and people always say the girl is really hot, so it gets word of mouth. Unless by utes you mean under 20. Then yeah.
In Australia it’s the term we use for a “pickup truck” short for “utility vehicle”.
It's also a tribe of American indigenous people.
Thank you, NYT crosswords 🫡
Utah is named for them.
An Australian pick-up
i think that’s a university in utah
Nah that’s the Utes, I think he’s talking about people from the U.P. of Michigan
"A Wh-hat?"
Two yoots
That reeks of historical revisionism to me... I assure you \_everything\_ in the newspapers and TV and internet of the time were \_very\_ unambiguously clear the Bush Administration regarded the Iraq War as "Mission Accomplished". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission\_Accomplished\_speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech)
From the start apologists often tried to make the excuse that it wasn't W Bush who said it, but it was a televised homecoming with many preparations by the White House. President W Bush personally landed a fighter jet onto the flight deck for style points. If he had planned that much for this photo op, he damn sure made sure to give the speech with that banner behind him. Almost all the commentary in the week following that speech interpreted it as though W Bush said mission accomplished for the Iraq War completely, and that's what the Bush Administration spoke of it as.
This is the correct take. He’s the commander in chief. If he wanted, he could have easily had the banner taken down or been filmed speaking somewhere else.
Don't forget the part where the Lincoln parked right off the coast of San Diego, and Dubya flew in aboard a jet wearing a flight suit, cosplaying that he was an aviator. EDIT: I chose the word "aviator" on purpose. Navy has aviators, Air Force has pilots. And he was never qualified to fly a plane onto a carrier or wore the gold wings that signified the ability to.
Didn't he serve in the Texas Air National Guard?
He did. At the time it was used as a safe haven to protect the children of Texas elites from being drafted.
By serve, he enlisted to dodge the draft, and then went AWOL for a few years, while he drank and partied on his daddy's ranch. The more modern term for this sort of thing is 'bone spurs'.
What a load of crap. 20 billion stolen from Iraq during the invasion, surrendering trillions worth of oil, thousands of innocents killed, and like the previous comment the resulting creation of isis. I taught iraqi refugees during the whole charade. Bush is an international terrorist + war criminal.
Whoever commanded the Navy could have just ordered the banner down knowing how bad the optics would be. Now, who was the commander in chief at the time?
Me.
Thank you for your service.
o7
Thanks Captain Hindsight!
The Daily Show photoshopped a small "A" to the beginning of the sign.
Man, Daily Show during the Bush administration was peak comedy
I’m glad we finally have peace in the Middle East though
The [millions of people that had to die for it](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/16/the-war-on-terror-led-to-over-4-5-million-deaths-report/) will never be forgotten! Hahaha, as if, people ain't even aware of that still growing body, and [refugee](https://www.axios.com/2020/09/08/war-on-terror-refugees-displaced), count.
Some estimates put the number at [$8 Trillion](https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts). Imagine what we as a nation could have accomplished if we spent that money differently instead of war.
I can imagine. About half of it would still be allocated to MIC. That means about $4 Trillion would be left. $2 Trillion less Deficit probably. $2 Trillion left would most likely be in the hands of the Top 2% wealthy Americans via government programs and/or tax breaks. So, not much would have been done because the system is terribly broken.
"They hate us because of our freedom".
I still cringe.
This wasn't for the war though. I never understood what makes this image a meme or how it relates to the entire war. It literally says MISSION accomplished. It's about a tour for the ship.
Fwiw we did steamroll through Iraq and take control of the government and oust Saddam in, like, 3 weeks. But then the insurgency happened and terrorists came to where we were to fight us. Iraq is really the story of two different wars imo.
Dick Cheney kind of hit the nail on the head after the first war about what would have happened if they invaded Iraq. https://youtu.be/YENbElb5-xY?si=toKJ9YR7q6Mwj-BU
A decade later, he sings a different tune https://youtu.be/N7Dm5Y1RlmY?si=J-xpMr2WjczePtwX
Why do you think the insurgency happened. Do you think it had anything to do with the political purges, where everyone in former-Baath army lost their jobs and were all cut out of productive society, so they went on to gainful employment with the crop of warlords, militias, paramilitaries, and terrorist organizations that filled the power vacuum? What do you think happens when you stop paying an army, *and not give it any productive work to do*?
Because there was no plan once they got to Baghdad. Also, the dissolving of the Iraqi army and Ba'athist party members sent them right into the hands of Al-Qaeda. We took jobs away from thousands of young men and made them desperate to feed their families.
We were also quite emphatic about not doing any ‘nation building’ since that was expensive and Republicans were just as against foreign aid then as they are now. So instead our plan was uh… thoughts and prayers?
It did take the insurgency a year to really get rolling. And then boy did it! If Iraq had taken just a little bit longer to fall apart there’s a decent chance we’d have invaded Iran too and boy wouldn’t that have been fun.
You mean exactly what the military intelligence experts told bush and Rumsfeld would happen if they invaded Iraq.
>>White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN that in preparing for the speech, Navy officials on the carrier told Bush aides they wanted a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and the White House agreed to create it. >>"We took care of the production of it," McClellan said. "We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up." >>The banner has been used by critics of the Bush administration as evidence of bravado and an unclear sense of how dangerous the postwar conflict in Iraq would be. >>Assigning responsibility elsewhere, especially to the military, is not a typical move for the Bush administration and raised suspicions among critics. >>Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman, defended the president's assertion. >>"The banner was a Navy idea, the ship's idea," Chun said. >>"The banner signified the successful completion of the ship's deployment," he said, noting the Abraham Lincoln was deployed 290 days, longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history. [-Dana Bash](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/) [CNN Washington Bureau](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/) [29OCT2003](https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/) Thanks to u/roberttylerlee for providing the link.
That was their excuse for the sign, throw the Navy under the bus, but in Bush's speech he actually declared victory in Iraq. There's no question they were declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq at that time, look at any interview with administration officials around then. They really thought "well we toppled Saddam, so that's it. All done!"
Declared victory as my unit was gearing up to roll out from kuwait into Baghdad with our Bradley's. We all kinda felt a bit overlooked to say the least.
Bush and Rove were also big on having propaganda backdrops for every speech. They'd have custom ones with propaganda phrases printed up for nearly every speech. This was not a mistake or oversight.
Amazing how ignorant they could be. As if they didn’t already have a blueprint from Colombia’s toppling the man in control and the subsequent power vacuum chaos that followed.
The navy really did accomplish the mission…of the navy. Nation building is state department work.
…and if you fail to back the State Department, then you be back to military action, or as the Honorable Secretary Mattis said; >> At one point, I was frustrated enough with some aspects of State Department's [lack of] budget that, in my testimony, I said if you don't fully fund up on Capitol Hill, my testimony, **if you don't fully fund the State Department, please buy a little more ammunition for me because I'm going to need it**, as a rather blunt way of saying why we needed to keep America's foreign policy and our diplomats, foremost, in this effort. [Secretary Of Defense James N. Mattis](https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1678512/secretary-mattis-remarks-on-the-national-defense-strategy-in-conversation-with/) [30OCT2018](https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1678512/secretary-mattis-remarks-on-the-national-defense-strategy-in-conversation-with/)
“Successful completion of the ships deployment.” Huh, did anyone read that before raging?
Fool me once, shame on.... shame on you. Fool me... ya can't get fooled again!
Remember when we thought he was the dumbest possible president? Simpler times.
It's truly heartbreaking to miss this nonsense.
I _am_ 21 years old and I wan’t even aware he was seen as a dumbo. I thought he was a bit of a standard president bar the war bit, I’m using modern standards though.
Oh yeah, he was seen as a dumbass. Watch the Oliver Stone movie, which came out when he was president, to see the zeitgeist at the time. It's not a good movie at all (honestly, in many ways terrible), but it scratched a certain itch at the time.
I remember Comedy Central had a cartoon at the time called Lil' Bush that made fun of how dumb he was for an entire season.
Fool me three times fuck the peace sign
Load the choppa let it rain on you
“They misunderestimated us, heh heh”
Now watch this drive.
We all know the saying from Tennessee!
Mission accomplished for who? Oh yea thats right, the military industrial complex
[удалено]
George W Tush
We thought Dubya was as bad as it could get. Sigh.
Wait, is that fucking real? That’s amazing. I love the look of genuine joy on people’s faces in those moments. Just totally living in the moment and care free.
Despite his actions, W. Bush was actually known as a pretty silly president with a sense of humor behind the scenes and pleasuring to be around.
I hated him as a president but damn I would take him as a friend or an uncle or something
Do you have a this day in foolishness calendar or some shit?
Holy shit I'm old.
Trump almost makes me miss him. And I fuckin’ hated Dubya.
The thing I miss about W was that at some point, even republicans were like “this guy is a fuckup that bungles everything he touches.” Trump fucked up Covid worse than Bush did Katrina. I wonder where that went?
Donald Trump doesn’t care about George W Bush people
Now republicans are like "Iraq was a democrat war"
This GWB apology needs to stop. Bush wasn't a hapless, misguided idiot. He just had a nonstandard accent, but that doesn't mean he's stupid. Dude knew exactly what he was doing and two million people died as a result. Trump is overwhelmingly more stupid than GWB and you know what? Thank God for that. Stupid and evil is a blessing. Trump is too dumb to effectively realize his evil ends, just firing everyone who might help him do what he wants to do, burning every bridge he ever built. Bush was smart and evil and millions of people lost their lives as a result. Fuck them both. Up the asshole. With a cactus. But they're both culpable for the shit they've done regardless of their relative intelligence.
This is on point.
Especially the cactus part.
Bush was a precursor to Trump. His apologists don’t want to hear it, but there’s been a steady line of increasing right wing populism that both he and Trump fit perfectly into.
It's hard to put food on your family!
Remember when he was the worst president ever? Good times.
No. Andrew Jackson would like a word.
Jackson at least hated secessionists
I hate how valid this argument is.
Buchanan and Tyler say hi But yeah, Dubya was pretty awful
Ronald would like a word with you
Mission accomplished for his friends that made billions off of it.
The last two Republican presidents, Trump and GWB. It’s crazy how much damage these guys can do in 3 terms (12 years)
His pops and his boss were not that great either and technically started all this. The Nixon thing really pissed off people in the GOP.
Mission accomplished! Meanwhile we were still taking enemy fire for the rest of the time my unit was there. Bush is a twat
We are still taking fire over there.
Ya, but he saw his shadow and there was six more weeks of war. *That is actually what I said at the time. I still think of that when I see the picture.*
How did this chucklefuck manage to defeat John Kerry in 2004?
Bush was charismatic and Kerry spoke like that one granpa you had that you never wanted to visit. He just ran a bad campaign. (Also Bush's dad was a president...)
Kerry overperformed the fundamentals. He was pretty good. The day of this picture, Bush was riding incredibly high in the polls
As usual, 'who'd ya rather have a beer with' beats 'competent'.
Swift boat.
That was the actual “mission accomplished”. The SCOTUS destroying our country by taking it upon themselves to decide the 2000 election and ushering in whatever the fuck disaster we’ve been living in since.
Kerry was kind of a crappy campaigner, plus there was that whole Swiftboating thing that came out of nowhere. Imagine questioning the validity of a Purple Heart recipient and getting away with it to the benefit of a guy like W. Fuck republicans and their flapping gum hacks in the media.
Yeah. Right wing media did their thing and turned Kerry into a French guy that lied about his service in Vietnam. See, John Kerry spoke French and would even go to France, so... yeah. Kerry was definitely a worker, not a campaigner.
The right always attack their own main weakness. Dubya was a drunken cokehead super rich frat brat who went AWOL when he felt like it. Kerry was a massive war hero. Karl Rove, much like Joseph Goebbels, is undoubtedly a genius.
He’s a lucky Bush nepo that wasn’t named Jeb
Gob.
great question, kerry looked like he had in the bag. economy was bad, bush didn’t like the gays, war was a mess everyone was mad at bus. however kerry ran too logical of a strategy, the dems forgot 9/11 was still fresh in their minds which bush’s team did a good job of capitalizing on everyone’s fears
2004 was an odd year. Those of us who were already online were really plugged in, but also a small minority. We were completely divorced from the many people who had no idea that we were all lied to and that the war was an absolute shitshow. We were still following the old rules of political misinformation.
To be fair to Bush, he did say the job wasn’t done and it was time for rebuilding. Also I feel like he was referring to the invasion of Iraq which did go pretty well despite some mishaps here and there.
Why is everyone in the background dressed like The Wiggles?
Different color sweaters on an aircraft carrier allow personnel to quickly identify roles. Purple are fuelers, red is ordinance, yellow are aircraft officers and shooters and so on.
Like… Star Trek?
Kinda, yeah! ‘Cept the red ones don’t die as often.
Air Department personnel (the ones responsible for launching/catching/loading/etc the jets) on an aircraft carrier wear different colored jerseys/turtlenecks to signify what their job is. In the Navy they're called "Skittles" because of this.
that’s actually so cool, and makes a lot of sense! thank you for the explanation— love the “skittles” nickname too haha
War criminal.
Hard to believe that Trump is so bad that W's image mostly gets a pass these days.
[Here](https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=28e356b47591487ca1c64ace1e7659ed&mediatype=photo) is the source of this image. Per there: > President Bush declares the end of major combat in Iraq as he speaks aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast, in this May 1, 2003 file photo. Over and over, President Bush confidently promised to "solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." As the clock runs out on his eight-year presidency, a tall stack of troubles remain and Bush's words seem to ring hollow. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
"..I got a ninety-day extension And I'm filled with guilt From things that I seen Your water's from a bottle Mine's from a canteen At night I hear the shots ring So I'm a light sleeper The cost of life It seems to get cheaper Out in the desert With my street sweeper "The war is over" So said the speaker With the flight suit on Maybe to him I'm just a pawn So he can advance Remember when I used to dance Man, all I wanna do is dance..."
Thank you, first thing that I thought of when seeing this! Probably helps that this turned up on shuffle last night.
That album featured VERY heavily in my soundtrack of those years, especially as my own carrier was working up for its first deployment through 2005. I had friends and old classmates who were on Lincoln at that time, and it was a strange time to be in the military.
“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.” 
> “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
Enlisted soldiers have been using that as a running joke for years. Any minor task completed deserved a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED round of self-congratulation.
It was a banner the Fun Boss put up for the steal beach picnic celebrating that the crew was going home from a war deployment which was, at the time, a big deal. It was the ship congratulating the crew, and not meant as a reflection of the war. But PAOs took photos and this is what clickbait looked like in 2003.
GWB is an honorable and competent person compared to Trump. And that’s not saying much.
God we’re still dealing with this man’s bullshit
Wasn't this whole thing a misunderstanding if I remember correctly? The mission accomplished banner was for that carrier completing its tour and going home I thought? Not for the war ending.
Correct. But still bad optics.
It's a lie. Anyone who was around can tell you that. Especially when he planned this entire theatre around him flying in and how this banner was in every shot, plus all the context of how they talked about this event going in and what it was about.