Recently, President Bush has come under fire for including images of 9.11 in his TV ads.

Does Bush have a legitimate right to use these images because of the effect that 9.11 had on his presidency, or is he exploiting a national tragedy for his own self-interests?

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I truly believe that he is exploiting a national tragedy for his own self-interest.

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I see nothing illegitimate with it. Morally, however, this decision is appalling

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I see no problem in Bush identifying himself with 9.11. It has defined his presidency and is the seminal event of the past 14 years. It is no different than Kerry using Vietnam, or Roosevelt using WWII.

I don't see a moral contradiction either. Perhaps it depends upon how you view 9.11. I see it as the first strike in a war. A national tragedy, to be sure. However, no more a national tragedy than Pearl Harbor.

I disagree. All loss of life is terrible, but I think an intentional attack on civilians is more a national tragedy than an attack on the military. Even close to home, when a person joins the military, he or she voluntarily places himself or herself in harm's way. Other than the soldiers working at the Pentagon no one who died on 9.11 accepted that risk.

Although I do agree with you that Bush has a legitimate reason to use the tragedy so long as he does so respectfully.

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Appart from the moral aspect, I can't understand why he wants to remind the US people that he failed to prevent this tragedy. After all, he was in charge at that time and ultimatelly responsible for people safety.

The democrats rallied support for Bush after 9/11. The use of images from the tragedy is deplorable, as it identifies only one group, when it was a whole nation that got united.

what disturbs me most about this is that these images have been overused in my
opinion. practically everything bush says or does is compared or explained with 9/11.
i don't think that this is in the best ineterest of the relatives of those who died that
day. instrumentalising such a tragedy in this way just doesn't seem morally right.

however from a legal point of view i don't think that anything could be said against the
use of these images. i only hope that this will have some negative effect in terms of
votes. in fact i hope that many things will backfire in some way or another, but that's
just me... ;)

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Different times - different wars. Before the American Revolution, no army marched in the winter. Washington changed all that with his attack on the Hessians in Trenton. In 1941 it wasn't "honorable" to attack another country unless war was declared formally first. Japan botched this, they never meant it to be the utter surprise it was.

If you feel 9.11 was more a national tragedy then get used to "national days of mourning", because the wars we fight in the future won't be confined to battlefields and military installations.

I think it's morally a bit questionable, but as I have not seen the ads in question I cannot say whether I found them offensive or not.

What I do find offensive, though, are these recurring comments as to the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq as being a "war". There was no war on Iraq, as far as I am concerned, only an unprovoked attack and a crime against humanity.

I am not surprised, though, that Bush uses 9/11 as part of his campaign, considering he hasn't made a single decent political move since that tragedy. He sure as hell isn't going to talk about how Osama got away, or how he lied about the WMDs.

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