Kerry - a Shirker
Sun August 29th, 2004 00:22 MSTKerry has been running as a war hero, but now we know he was a shirker.
He left Vietnam after four months on the day his first purple heart (which showed up third) was awarded.
It is now clear that award was fraudulent, although Kerry refuses to authorize release of related paperwork. But we know that the scratch that led to the award happened in an incident where there was no enemy fire. Purple Hearts can only be awarded during combat.
In the mliitary, a shirker is a low-life who gets out of combat improperly.
Kerry is a shirker.
Shirkers are bad enough, but Kerry is worse: He’s a habitual liar.
Everything John Kerry did after he returned now aligns with his performance on the scene. Even in 1971, I thought the man was a fraud, and not because I was uninformed about his claims. Kerry did more, however, than describe isloated events, and all of us felt the lash as Americans as well as veterans.
Every man who spent time there heard about atrocities long before Calley was exposed and prosecuted, but each account had the clear mark of a Hollowe’en horror tale, and if you were “on the ground” there, you could spot the truth when you hear it. Your neighbor doesn’t bury bodies in his yard without you knowing it, even if he tells you he did it.
But Kerry shirks his duty even today. He did so with his recent vote against the appropriations bill for the forces in Iraq after voting for the authorization to use force. Keep in mind that only three other Senators voted this way. Kerry, Edwards, the powdered and lip-glossed cretin Ernest Hollings, and the petroleum-based moron Tom Harkin.
Again, Harkin should be remembered this way: At the Wellestone Necrofesitval, Fund Raiser and Purge Party, Harkin was there with his eyes rolled back in his head, howling about evil Republicans. Harkin, Carter and Gore endorsed the mad doctor Howard Dean, and then ran from the flames when Dean self-ignited and earlier, Harkin LIED ABOUT BEING IN VIETNAM (he was NEVER there), while he called Dick Cheney and others “cowards” for not having been there either.
This a Kerry thread, but you’re also judged by the company you keep. Harkin is the perfect twin for Kerry.
Since the readers of this site are apparently interested in an accurate reporting of history, they might consider taking the following quiz designed for use in the upcoming presidential debtes- unless they don’t want to be confused by the facts:
PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE QUESTIONS FOR DUMMIES
The Presidential debates are not going to be compelling television. Everybody knows that President Bush can’t handle simple questions at a press conference, so getting a coherent answer out of him in a debate will be well nigh impossible. Which is why I have come up with an improvement on our system of panelists asking open ended questions and candidates misunderestimating (joke!) them, ignoring them or sidestepping them. Here is my new, improved, debate format for dummies: multiple choice questions. I have 10 sample questions for the debate panelists to ask President Bush during the upcoming debates. Answers to the questions are at the end. (Hint: you won’t go wrong with the second letter of the alphabet.)
1. Mr. President, on June 7, 1981, Israel sent a strike force of eight F-16’s which destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in Osirik just before it came online and started enriching the plutonium necessary for Iraq to manufacture nuclear bombs. I’m not going to ask you to say the word “nuclear,” so you can relax. When President Ronald Reagan, whom you recently declared is one of the greatest presidents in history, learned of Israel’s pre-emptive strike on a country which was determined to wipe Israel off the map, he:
(a) Praised Israel’s courage and initiative in removing an imminent nuclear threat from the arsenal of a genocidal madman who would assuredly have instigated a nuclear war in the Middle East.
(b) Angrily condemned the Israeli raid and cut off American arms sales to Israel because it had used American built jet fighters on the raid.
2. Mr. President, on December 20, 1983, Ronald Reagan sent special envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who is now your Secretary of Defense, to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Rumsfeld met with Saddam, he:
(a) Informed him of the United States’ displeasure with Iraq’s starting a war against Iran to seize its oil fields and then condemned Saddam’s horrible human rights record, including Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers in violation of international law.
(b) Shook hands with Saddam, renewed U.S. ties with Iraq, and asked Saddam what assistance in addition to military satellite intelligence and other support the United States could secretly provide to Iraq.
3. Mr. President, in 1990, four days before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, after Saddam had gassed tens of thousands of Iranians and Kurds, your father, President George H. W. Bush, and his Secretary of State, James Baker, had our ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, tell Saddam:
(a) “Kuwait is a sovereign nation and our country will not allow Iraq to wage aggressive war to invade Kuwait’s territory or seize its oil wells.”
(b) “I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country…. We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.”
4. Mr. President, during the 2000 campaign you said that you wanted to return a large part of the surplus in tax cuts targeted towards the wealthiest taxpayers because it was their money. If most of the surplus belonged to the rich, then your Administration’s policies indicate that you think the biggest part of the $500 billion annual deficit and the $7 trillion national debt belongs to and should be repaid by:
(a) The wealthiest Americans.
(b) Our children and grandchildren.
5. Mr. President, your position on government funded national catastrophic health insurance that would cover little children who need to raise tens of thousands of dollars for life saving operations is:
(a) We need to provide catastrophic health insurance for the children who are uninsured, because if we can afford to spend $100 billion a year rebuilding Iraq, including its hospitals and health care system, then we certainly can afford to take care of helpless children who need money for lifesaving operations.
(b) They are on their own, and their family and friends can try to raise the money for a life saving operation by putting out penny jars in local stores.
6. Mr. President, your economic policies and tax cuts for the wealthy have resulted in:
(a) A booming economy which has lifted all boats and brought unparalleled good times to the American people.
(b) A net loss of jobs for the first time since Herbert Hoover’s administration, the largest trade deficits in history, the highest gasoline and oil prices in American history, the largest annual deficits in history, a large increase in the numbers of Americans without health insurance, and the collapse of huge corporations such as Enron and Worldcom.
7. Mr. President, in your last State of the Union speech you proposed an amendment to the Constitution which would:
(a) Eliminate the electoral college and allow the direct election of the President by the popular vote so that the candidate with the most votes will be elected.
(b) Prohibit States from determining which of their citizens may legally enter into marriage contracts.
8. Mr. President, on August 6, 2001, you were given a presidential daily brief with the title “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Within the United States.” Upon receiving this news that the world’s most wanted terrorist, who had orchestrated attacks on our embassies in Africa in 1998 and on the U.S. Cole near Yemen in 2000, intended to attack inside the United States you:
(a) Convened a meeting of the National Security Council, discussed plans for protecting Americans from terrorist attacks within our borders, then ordered the FBI and CIA to take every measure to coordinate their efforts and step up intelligence gathering operations.
(b) Left on August 7, 2001, for a month long vacation at your ranch in Crawford, Texas and took no action to protect the American people from the attacks which occurred on September 11th.
9. Mr. President, three years ago, on September 17, 2001, you said that you would get Osama bin Laden, “dead or alive.” After making that promise you:
(a) Kept American forces focused on catching Osama bin Laden and brought him to America to stand trial for murder.
(b) Removed American Special Forces and their air support from the hunt for Osama in Afghanistan and sent them to Iraq to try to find an elusive Saddam Hussein.
10. Mr. President, the morning of September 11, 2001, after your chief of staff, Andrew Card, informed you that the nation was under attack, and during the time that two large buildings in New York were struck by airliners and were burning, the Pentagon was about to be hit by a third hijacked airliner, and a fourth plane was flying over Pennsylvania heading towards Washington, your reaction was to:
(a) Immediately get as much information on the situation as you could, find out what targets had been hit, how many more planes were reported hijacked or missing, what their potential targets were, and make the hard decision to have Air Force fighters divert or shoot down hijacked planes attacking American cities.
(b) sit on a stool in a 1st grade classroom for seven minutes and listen to a student read My Pet Goat.
ANSWERS: The answers to 1 through 10 are all (b).
The Finklestein post is sadly that kind of BS that pro Kerry supporters are reduced to. I know it will get a great deal of positive reinforcement on this site (that is sarcastic).
John, Greyhawk’s post today has a good suggestion for those who hate Bush so. Vote for Nader. He presents an alternative for those who believe Bush is hopeless.
I think it is time for VN vets to organize a “Vietnam Veterans for Truth” with the primary goals to publicize two points that I think the overwhelming majority of us believe:
1) That John Kerry’s Vietnam service, whatever else it says about him does not qualify him to “report for duty” as commander in chief.
2) That John Kerry’s anti war activities (about which there is no doubt whatever) demonstrate he is “unfit to serve” as commander in chief while the nation is engaged in a war against Islamic radicalism.
Had he not put Vietnam at the top of his ticket and tried to rub salt in our collective wounds, this might be unnecessary.
James Finkelstein running for the Senate, against whom ? According to all the news accounts from Georgia Denise Majette is the demo nominee. So how many democrat parties are ther in Georgia ? Maybe you should go back to Pennsylvania and try again.
As a lawyer, you should know better than make statements like this.
But I will take on only one of your points. You state that the President continued to read for 7 minutes to a class of children. Can you tell us what your hero John Kerry did for the first 30 minutes when he found out ?
Had you been a member of the Senate how would have used that 7 minutes ?
Get more information so that you were completely informed or as a Senator recommend a nuclear strike on Baghdad ?
Hindsight is 20/20 and the 9-11 commision has absolved the president of neglect, That wonderful 9-11 commision that had panel members who should have been witnesses instead of panel members
You present no facts but half-truths, and typical DNC talking points.
But for you democrats it is better for you to condemn the United States and find fault with everything we do.
Try rooting for the good guys for a change you liberal Moron.
Finally Thank your son for his service to our country.
Mark
The contrived and rickety world-view of James Finkelstein simply cannot be repaired, so it’s useless to try. It has a few sound bolts underpinning a useless and compromised structure, and pull a few out and it collapses. This is leftist engineering, and it’s delusional; they really believe what they say.
James: Try this: The world is a dynamic place, things change, nothing is revealed through ideology (only observation), and prejudice and disconnected pre-conceptions are not a substitute for logic or clear-eyed thinking.
A few stops along the history trail (Hoover, Enron, Worldcom, CIA and FBI sinisteria and a lot of other things that sort of float in space, without anchors) is simply an arrangement of totems and spirit chasers for you, and really clutter up your perception of the world.
Try to put together a really cohestive philosophy sometime before its too late. We can help.
Oh yes. And thank you, Mr. F for referring to us as Dummies. Among all the loose and uncontrolled bigotries of The Left is the dense and congealed belief that people who think otherwise are stupid.
Leftism is built on a foundation of snobbery and arrogance, and everything else hangs on this foundation of self-importance and the need to control and arrange the world as they wish it to be.
It isn’t an ideology, it’s a pathology, and Mr. Finkelstein in his assumptions, tight pre-conclusions, overarching snobbishness and regard for himself has undercut any possibility of discussing the issue he raises. He’s just too damnned important to be refuted, you see.
vnjagjet
There already is a Vietnam Vets for the Truth. We are having a rally in DC on September 12th. Click on my name to get to the website (I’m the webmaster).
Or go to kerrylied.com
Me again. Bush is doomed…Syrian TV has reported that a miracle has occurred in Falujah.
An Islamic miracle. Giant Spiders are killing Marines by the thousands.
Just a brush with the hair on these spiders makes the red blood cells explode, and au revoir Marine.
This was reported on Evil Pundit of Doom as Attack of The Giant Islamofascist Spiders.
This is no joke, and I’m waiting for Mr. Finkelstein to pick it up as a reason against invading Iraq.
John:
Is there anyone from this group in Atlanta?
Rhod:
… And on the seventh day he rested, Marines filled sandbags.
Spiders ?? U.S.M.C. 100% WHOOPASS !
Semper Fi
Mark
Ah, Finkelstein. Aren’t you a clever ducks, making up a quiz with trick answers and no answers. Sometimes B is the right answer and so what?; sometimes A is right; sometimes B isn’t right; and sometimes B isn’t even wrong.
Before you grade this quiz or write another one, you might want to study up on the fallacy of compositon, the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, and the fallacy of begging the question. Just using Google to seach for “fallacies” will turn up a multitude of tutorial sites for all levels. In particular, the Fallacy Files analyzes many practical examples drawn from the day’s news.
Finkelstein, I suggest you take your quiz, fold it up, and put it in your wallet. Then any time you start to dismiss an opinion as simplistic or judgmental, take out your quiz and use it to remove the beam in your eye.
To get you started, take a look at my web log.
243 days–YES 4 years–NO.
Dear guys: thanks for the positive feedback! But seriously, a few points do deserve a response:
(1) I agree that Republicans disgusted with Bush (and they do exist) should seriously consider voting for Nader. And I do hope Nader is present at the debates- without him, they will be boring tripe.
(2) Like Jon Stewart, I prefer the Kerry of 1971 to the Kerry of 2004. A bit of history here: in 1969, I was a very young (17 as a freshman) Ivy League student who was virtually alone in supporting the U.S. role in Vietnam. Turned out I was wrong and Kerry was right. And yes, there were American war crimes. William Calley was tried right up the road at Ft. Benning for the My Lai massacre. After reading Neil Sheehan’s “John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam,” which was recommended to me by a friend who served in Vietnam, and David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest” I realized I was wrong in the 1960’s in my support for our military presence in Vietnam.
(3) Yes, I did run for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. The primary was July 20th, and Denise Majette defeated Cliff Oxford in the runoff on August 10th. To see the candidates’ televised debate on Georgia Public Television on July 18th, go to http://www.gpb.org/gptv/programs/index.asp?progid=370
and click on “Sunday July 18th U.S. Senate Democratic Candidates.”
(4) I do go back to my old home town in Pennsylvania to visit my Dad. Last month he accompanied me to D.C. to watch his grandson, my son, sworn in as a 2nd Lt. in the U.S.M.C. in front of the National Marine War Memorial (the Iwo Jima sculpture). Earlier that afternoon, Dad got to visit the WWII Memorial on the Mall to honor his fellow veterans who didn’t make it home.
(5) On 9-11-01 I would have expected all 100 members of the Senate and all 435 members of the House to have immediately removed themselves to a position of safety. They are not in the chain of command of either military or civilian authorities- they are legislators who don’t make decisions to respond to terrorist attacks. On the other hand, I would have expected the President to have chosen option (a). At the very least, he should have immediately been taken to a position of safety by the Secret Service while communicating with FAA and Air Force officials to ascertain the facts and decide on a response to other civilian jetliners being used to attack American cities. And he should have made sure that other potential targets (the White House, the Capitol, etc.) were promptly evacuated.
(6) I didn’t object to the goal of removing Saddam, freeing the Iraqi people, and removing a threat to other countries in the region. However, it was 22 years too late to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iranians, Kurds, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis. I did strongly object to the manner and timing of the President. He used the worst possible means, unnecessarily costing the lives of American soldiers and Marines, Iraqi civilians, costing us over $150 billion dollars, straining our military to the breaking point so that we now have to use a backdoor draft on National Guardsmen, Reservists, and active duty soldiers whose enlistments have ended. It also cost us the goodwill among other nations necessary to fight global terrorism and to deal with other issues, such as energy, the environment, and trade. He also has done more to revitalize Islamic terrorists than anything bin Ladin had done since September 11th. And he diverted out attention and forces from Afghanistan at a critical moment.
(7) For those who took the time to check my website, read my proposal for dealing with Iraq. Then explain why it would be a bad thing to prohibit future Iraq governments from having a military or regaining control of the oil fields which Saddam had used to finance his wars in the last 25 years. Or why it would be bad to have Arabic speaking Islamic peacekeepers- an idea apparently recently embraced by some members of the Bush Administration.
(8) My philosophy is pretty cohesive (and coherent): ignore domestic political considerations in dealing with foreign terrorists who are killing people. Clinton did too little in 1998 when our embassies were bombed because of the “Wag the Dog” scenario. In fact, Tom Delay and other Republicans opined that Clinton’s ordering air strikes on Iraq’s WMD sites in December of 1998 was one more reason to impeach him- they claimed he was trying to distract the nation from his own political travails. And in 2002, Cheney and Rove cooked up the Iraq WMD scare because of a very real fear that the Republicans were about to lose the House along with the Senate which was already narrowly controlled by the Democrats. It worked- fear trumped logic, and Kerry and Edwards, among others, voted on October 11, 2002, three weeks before the mid-term elections, out of political convenience to avoid being painted as liberal wusses. I considered that an act of political cowardice almost as venal as that of Bush, Cheney, et al. who hoked up the WMD scare in the first instance.
(9) “Dummies” refers to the candidates. Although any reader who didn’t figure that out… well, I’ll be nice and not go there.
(10) “Snobbery and arrogance?” “the need to control and arrange the world as they wish to be?” Methinks thou dost confuse liberals with Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Perle. They dreamed up the Iraq invasion scenario in the mid 1990’s as a scheme to project American power in the oil rich Middle East.
(11) I’m parroting DNC talking points? I can only wish. Nope, my stuff’s original. But if the DNC does pick any of it up, please let me know and I will celebrate!
As for a few snippets of history, I’m not writing a book here- but I’m getting uncomfortably close. However, the truth apparently struck a nerve. I noticed that no one actually pointed out how the quiz had factual errors. Those were all real events that occurred- and I remember most of them, because I was already an adult. I still remember June 7, 1981, and how thrilled I was that Israel had taken out Saddam’s nuclear reactor before it came online.
Finally, I would like to know why liberals seem to have a better sense of humor, self deprecation, and an ability to laugh at ourselves than right wing conservatives do. Which is why I enjoy the Daily Show so much that I suggested to a Kerry press aide last March that Kerry hire the Daily Show’s writers to do their commercials. Although I must say I did enjoy the Syrian spider comments- that was a good one!
Sincerely,
James Finkelstein
Mr. F:
After being caught attempting to score political points with a freshman Creative Writing assignment, you fell back on something like a political philosophy.
“Methinks” still, rascal and loon, that thou art pretentious, bewitched and inflated, but who am I but the creature of point 9, about whom your better side will not contest. Are we going to argue in Elizabethan now?
You make a few good points, and actually stepped from behind the curtain long enough to make them, but reverted to type with your sophomoric and faculty lounge humor. I did not check your website because all your internet vanity was expressed in your debate post; it wasn’t necessary. You should really try to separate your mirror-gazing from your political views; it’s unbecoming.
Item 1. Really? What a choice!
Item 2. Wow. Jon Steward is your reference point. Next topic, so what?
Item 3. Boy, I can’t wait to get there.
Item 4. Your military creds are impeccable.
Item 5. Again. So What?
Item 6. Most of this is debatable, the rest is Vast Left Wing Conspiracy boilerplate.
Item 7. This is just ridiculous, and actually not worthy of you. How about bringing in the UN too? No, I didn’t check your vanity site. Who the hell are you anyway?
Item 8. Some of this is another So What. The rest is VLWC mythology.
Item 9. God bless you for your indulgent kindness.
Item 10. What can one say about all this BS?
Item 11. Write MacAuliffe. He could use you.
The rest. Well, where do I start?
You are not nearly as bright and perceptive as you think you are. You first post was fatuous and your second is at least honest, but I would be concerned about your fixation on The Daily Show.
And, a typo above refers to Jon Steward, not Jon Stewart. This will probably requre a release of Finkelstein’s hounds…gotta teach this nativist yob a few lessons in pop culture. Sittin’ on the porch here shootin’ at my brother, or cousin or whatever, at the same time I made my post. Sorry.
I forgot this one. Mr. F debated himself in post number one, provided terse and air-right answers to complex questions…therefore condeming Reagan, Bush, Rumsfeld and so forth. BUT, I know that Kerry’s charming ambivalence and inability to take a firm position on anything is understood as “nuance”, an an understanding of complexity. I get it now.
Almost Senator Finkelstein:
Yes I looked at your site I had to have an idea of what I was dealing with. We were always taught to ‘know your enemy’.
As far as I am concerned liberals are the enemy. They hate America and would prefer communism over the system we have, there method is state run everything, and that is communism, socialism at its best.
Now to your post. You say you would prefer Hanoi john kerry the 1971 version as opposed to the 2004 version, what gives you the idea there is any difference, because he has flip-flopped on the issues and does not convey the same view he did in 1971, oh but you are wrong he is still the same John kerry of 1971 just with more polishing from the likes of the leftests heroes like ted ‘didnt think to call the police ‘ kennedy.
It is hard for me to believe that any American would even consider Hanoi John for their president, to me it is inconceiveable.
You say you were pro-Vietnam until you heard Hanoi john speak and he was right and you were wrong , well if you are trying to piss us off that would do it.
First. He was in Vietnam, for 4 months and 12 days, the rest of the story has finally come out, from those who had the displeasure of serving with him.
Second. It is now from credible sources that all of his Medals/Ribbons, he doesnt seem to know the difference, are all suspect. He scammed and gamed the system until he bugged out on his troops, that in itself is despicable. He still owes the Swiftees 243 days, and when he said he was reporting for duty they thought he was going back to finish his tour.
Third. His testamony before the Senate committee on Foreign Relations was completely fabricated, in other words lies. These lies damaged and virtually destroyed 10s of thousands of Servicemen serving in Vietnam and who had served in Vietnam. The Winter Soldier investigation was the premise on which he based his statements. These investigations too, were found to be fraudulent. The people who gave testamony to the Winter Soldier investigation, were found out to be using the names of real soldiers and fabricated as many false tales as they could think of. In fact it got so bad the NCIS got involved in the investigation (Naval Criminal Investigative Service). The NCIS looked into the socalled Winter Soldier testamony which was held in a motel room in Detroit.
The most damaging finding, consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to detroit in his life. he did not know, he stated, who might have used his name.
The VVAW use of fake witnesses and the failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide curcial details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed desire to serve the causes of justice and humanity. It is more likely that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily political motives and goals.
Try reading the 1998 book ‘Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam generation was robbed of its heroes and its History, by B.G Burkett and Glenna Whitley, this book provides a powerful debunking of the supposed vitenam war veterans falsifying or exaggerating their service and the socalled attrocities they commited.
But you said it. This is the john kerry you support.
Mark
James Finkelstein made some points worth arguing. He’s wrong, but reasonable people can disagree about some of it. The rest of it is policy wrapped in smugness.
What annoys about Mr. Finkelstein is that he can’t stop campaigning. The ideas he advances aren’t worthy on their own; they are worthy because James Finkelstein has them. Personal pronouns are everywhere.
When he tells you he was virtually alone in supporting the Vietnam war in his Ivy League school, he’s not telling you he was pro-war, he’s telling you was Ivy League. When he tells you what brought him around to Kerry’s position, he tells you how well-read he is. (Halberstam’s book is the secular Bible of The Left, because the title describes how they describes themselves.)
We know what HE would have expected of Congress, what HE would do in Iraq, that HE has familial connections to the military, and so on.
This fortification of opinion by personal conceit is what makes dealing with liberals so difficult. The mire of subjectivity is so sticky and deep that no one escapes from it and nothing ever becomes known beyond the specialiness of the liberal in question.
“Finally, I would like to know why liberals seem to have a better sense of humor, self deprecation, and an ability to laugh at ourselves than right wing conservatives do”
Somebody must love himself so much that he becomes self-gay.
“The Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party has made much ado of President Bush’s decision to finish reading “My Pet Goat” to Florida schoolchildren for several minutes after he was informed of the terrorist attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. John Kerry picked up Moore’s goat droppings and his campaign is running with them–despite Kerry’s own admission on CNN’s Larry King Live that after the attacks, he, along with Sen. Tom Daschle, couldn’t think. The Washington Times reported:
[Kerry] recalled walking into the office of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, and watching the second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
“And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table, and then we just realized nobody could think,” Mr. Kerry recalled, “And then ‘Boom!’ Right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon.”
That was a span of roughly 35 minutes, according to precise timelines of the day…”
This is from Michele Malkins blogsite, the above is in quotes. Anyone saying that the President wasted 7 minutes because he was finishing a story to a class he was visiting …AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUT THERE LIKE G.S. PATTON DIRECTING TRAFFIC has not really a clue of the big picture.
As I said above hindsight and monday morning quarterbacking is easy after the game and being able to review all the film, but it is a hell of a lot different when you are under center at crunch time.
I have also read that the Lefts all time ‘Super- hero FDR was totally dumbfounded and speechless for more that 35 minutes on December 7, 1941. Why is this acceptable to the democrats, but then again the republicans joined forces with the dems to defeat a common enemy of this country, I guess only the dems are allowed to define who the enemy is.
The Left also has a penchant to forget that 9-11 actually happened at all. But the biggest joke of all was when some democrats were whinning about 9-11 not happening on Clintons watch, hell with clintons track record he would have surrendered . He was offered Bin Laden at least 3 times and refused to take him. And the lefties accuse Bush of wasting 7 minutes. Thats pure unadulterated Bull Sh*t.
Mark
TALES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE- WMD’s
“There was a time when the logic of this speech would have sounded pretty reasonable to me, but unfortunately for Dubya, that would have been before I made a promise to myself to leave alcohol behind.” e-mail from Journal reader, referring to President Bush’s State of the Union Speech.
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” George W. Bush.
***********
QUOTES FROM BUSH ADMINISTRATION 2001-2004
(note to stalwart Republicans: to paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men”, if you can’t handle the truth, don’t read this column.)
********
”He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit to Cairo, Egypt, February 24, 2001
“The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years…. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. … It has been contained.”
Colin Powell testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, May 15, 2001
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
Vice President Dick Cheney Speech to VFW National Convention, August 26, 2002
“Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.”
President George W. Bush Speech to UN General Assembly, September 12, 2002
“No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, September 19, 2002
“The Iraqi regime … possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.” —
George W. Bush on the campaign trail, Oct. 7, 2002.
“The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his ‘nuclear mujahideen’ — his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past.”–
George W. Bush, campaigning for Republicans in Congress, Oct. 7, 2002
“We know for a fact there are weapons there.” —
George W. Bush’s Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, White House, Jan. 9, 2003
“Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of Sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.” –
George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003
“My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism…”
“We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.” —
Colin Powell, Speech to United Nations Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003
“This is about imminent threat.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003
“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” —
George W. Bush, White House televised speech to America, March 17, 2003, two days before America launches missile attack on Baghdad and Gulf War II commences.
“Absolutely.” Answer to question whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,”
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, May 7, 2003
“For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Vanity Fair interview, May 28, 2003
“It was a surprise to me then — it remains a surprise to me now — that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.”
Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Press Interview, May 30, 2003
“What was it? One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?”
Secretary of State Colin Powell, TBLISI, Georgia,, January 24, 2004
“I don’t think they existed…”
David Kay, leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, who resigned on January 23, 2004
*******
If Rush Limbaugh or his ilk argue that it makes no difference that we found no WMD’s, and that the war was worth it because we freed the people of Iraq, then ask them one question: which is worse: that the highest officials in this country deliberately lied to us and took us to war, or that they are so incompetent that they mistakenly took us to war on the erroneous premise that Iraq posed a grave, imminent, military threat to America?
TALES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE- WMD’s
“There was a time when the logic of this speech would have sounded pretty reasonable to me, but unfortunately for Dubya, that would have been before I made a promise to myself to leave alcohol behind.” e-mail from Journal reader, referring to President Bush’s State of the Union Speech.
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” George W. Bush.
***********
QUOTES FROM BUSH ADMINISTRATION 2001-2004
(note to stalwart Republicans: to paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men”, if you can’t handle the truth, don’t read this column.)
********
”He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit to Cairo, Egypt, February 24, 2001
“The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years…. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. … It has been contained.”
Colin Powell testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, May 15, 2001
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
Vice President Dick Cheney Speech to VFW National Convention, August 26, 2002
“Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.”
President George W. Bush Speech to UN General Assembly, September 12, 2002
“No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, September 19, 2002
“The Iraqi regime … possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.” —
George W. Bush on the campaign trail, Oct. 7, 2002.
“The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his ‘nuclear mujahideen’ — his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past.”–
George W. Bush, campaigning for Republicans in Congress, Oct. 7, 2002
“We know for a fact there are weapons there.” —
George W. Bush’s Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, White House, Jan. 9, 2003
“Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of Sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.” –
George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003
“My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism…”
“We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.” —
Colin Powell, Speech to United Nations Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003
“This is about imminent threat.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003
“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” —
George W. Bush, White House televised speech to America, March 17, 2003, two days before America launches missile attack on Baghdad and Gulf War II commences.
“Absolutely.” Answer to question whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,”
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, May 7, 2003
“For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Vanity Fair interview, May 28, 2003
“It was a surprise to me then — it remains a surprise to me now — that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.”
Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Press Interview, May 30, 2003
“What was it? One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?”
Secretary of State Colin Powell, TBLISI, Georgia,, January 24, 2004
“I don’t think they existed…”
David Kay, leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, who resigned on January 23, 2004
*******
If Rush Limbaugh or his ilk argue that it makes no difference that we found no WMD’s, and that the war was worth it because we freed the people of Iraq, then ask them one question: which is worse: that the highest officials in this country deliberately lied to us and took us to war, or that they are so incompetent that they mistakenly took us to war on the erroneous premise that Iraq posed a grave, imminent, military threat to America?
Almost Senator finkelstein.
Oh well here we go again, your other theories didnt work so now you will try the W. lied trick. Where have you been on the leftest board Moveon.org polishing up your Bush lied rhetoric ?
Oh NOW there were no weapons of Mass destruction … But 6 years ago Ted ‘The Swimmer’ Kennedy said there were and so did Tom ‘Puff’ Dashle, and so did Dickie Gephardt and on and on and Bill Clinton also said Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction. However, fast forward 6 years and suddenly …poof they magically disappear becasue it is convenient for the Deficrat cause.
In 98′ the Deficrats drafted a bill that Slick Willie signed, that said in part that the Saddam regime must go because they had Weapons of Mass Destruction and were considered a threat to the United States.
Your heroes on the left had numerous opportunities to get Bin Laden, but Clinton was too busy ‘bin duckin’ the truth that he lied under oath and for that he was disbarred from the state of Arkansas.
You and your counterparts on the extreme left can not get your collective stories straight. But why bother with the truth. Even the ‘deficrat’ inspired 9-11 commision, the biggest waste of time since Bill Clinton bombed an Aspirin Factory to divert attention from the Lawinsky scandal, agreed that the President did NOT lie.
And, had they found ONE smidgeon of truth to the fact that Bush had lied , everybody in the entire universe would know about it by now. And your fellow travellers would be screaming to impeach the sitting War time president.
But there is no evidence that Bush lied in fact there is evidence that he told the truth ,,Ahaa… a politician actually telling the truth, now there is a switch. That really gets to the left somebody telling the truth, you just can’t deal with that I mean look at the left where you come from, John kerry now says he served TWO (2) tours in Vietnam not just (4) four but 24 months, and no one even bats an eye, kerry has more BS than carter has little pills.
I am really surprized I thought that you, being a lawyer you would know something about what truth is,, silly me to actually expect a left-wing-commie loving deficrat to actually know the difference between a lie and a truth.
But now you bring up that Bush was an alcoholic, he admits it,When is Ted Kennedy going to admit it, but he also knew it was time to stop. I would think that,that, in itself would make an impression on you, that he was man enough to admit a short coming, and change his life which he did. What is your excuse. But he didnt use a government program to fix his problem, instead he said something to the effect that it was G-d that had helped him … Ooooo the shame of it all to actually believe that there are indeed absolutes in this world.
You are a hollow person indeed, the State of Georgia is fortunate to have Denise Majette as their democrat candidate for the Senate; however, she wont win because you cant spell Win in Georgia without W.
Next time maybe you and Dennis Kucinich should team up for a run at the presidency, that would be a match made .. somewhere, you could be called, Hap and Hapless,
Speaking of WMD they have found some and still more will be found, but that is not the point. The point is WE liberated 25,000,000 people from the terrorism of Saddam Hussein, and Saddam is in jail where he belongs, his two loser sons are dead no more mass graves there, no more gassing of his own people that do not agrees with him. Thats right he gassed hundreds of thousands of Kurds with WMD, so where in the hell are you getting your information from the Rhodes Law firm ?
If you really want to make a difference try looking for the truth about your own candidate, the empty suit your side is running for president. Now if you can do that there may still be hope for you.
Here’s another quiz for all of you wanna be warriors. (This may be over your heads- if so, let me know and I’ll give you some hints.) What is the following quote from, what is the answer given by Su Wu, what is the modern analogous situation, is your hero, George W., aware of the answer, and if so, what actions taken by him show that he is aware of it?
“The King of Wu enquired of Sun Wu saying: ‘The enemy occupies the mountains and passes, and constantly uses his terrain advantage against us. He moreover has all he needs of supplies and provisions, and although we harass him he does not come out. And as soon as he sees an opening, he breaks through and pillages. What can we do about this?’”
Ok Fink, here s another one for you, who said, the enemy is on our right, he’s on our left, he’s on our front, he’s behind us, Now the Son of a Bitch can’t get away .
Now who said this.
Are you that desparate for attention ? You have gone from a flaming A$$hole to a raging Paranoiac.
A much better story.
One time, the bonze Quoc-Su of King Ly-Thanh-Ton has been challenged by an immature scholar to a knowledge enlightening duel at the royal court. He remained silence during the whole challenge regardless of how insulting and condescending words the challenger throwing at Quoc-Su in attempting to get Quoc-Su answered the challenger’s words. He did not even open his eye and remain deep in his lotus meditation pose. His pupils was so enraged when they saw his master being condescended but they could not do anything because their master had instructed them to stay quiet and let him handled the situation. After a long period of only the one side dialogue and irked all officers of the royal court, King Ly Thanh Ton finally lost his patience and intervened. He asked Quoc-Su why Quoc-Su remained silenced through out. Quoc-Su finally opened his eyes and replied: “Your highness, I cannot get myself down on my knees to bark to the dog for the dog might think I am a dog too”
There.
Mark: If I had to choose between O.P. Smith at Chosin or Gen. McCauliff at Bastogne, I’d go for Smith. But neither of them said it.
to Mr. Nguyen: arf right back at ya.
If you’ns are so smart, how come you don’t pick up on your own logical fallacies? And how come you never debate on the merits, but engage solely in ad hominem responses?
Boring.
Finkelstein:
I have dropped a salutation; you’ve proven yourself unworthy of it.
We can all show you our DD-214’s if it would help to prove that we are not wannabe warriors. All of us who have responed to you served in Vietnam, all of us in combat roles, and your stupid and puerile comment proves you are Kerry’s intellectual twin, a man bitter and accusatory toward men better than he is…and you are.
Nothing you have said here is over our heads, either (your own sophistry appears to be over yours). You’ve failed to respond to any of our remarks to you; instead have rolled out another series of quotes as compiled apparently by an anal-rententive Lefty who is compelled to convince himself that Bush is not the man he really is. This isn’t healthy for you, nor does it appear to be quite right.
What will forever disable and limit you is your smugness and arrogance, your dark and cynical need to prove your points with arguments so unresistingly stupid that it’s a wonder that even the Democratic Party, as low and reactionary as it is, accepts you as a plausible candidate.
What you fail at most clearly is the ability to envision any picture larger than one composed of letters and punctuation, a system used by every anxious scribbler and spell-caster from the beginning to time to broaden and explain his disjointed and confused world…to find signs and omens and hexes in non-contextual writings.
Listen, Finkelstein. If you expect to disparage or scorn the President on the issue of WMD’s, this is akin to avoiding sidewalk cracks or seeing demons in the clouds. It’s just silly, but then again, so are you.
Finkelstein:
You’re last churlish and insolent comment to Lan defines who you are.
The sadness here is that you REALLY do not recognize how pathetically specious your arguments are, and continue in claiming that they are worth refuting.
You again, in your infantile and preposterously stupid need to claim to be an intellectual, and in so doing resort to Southern idiom and vernacular to insult your opposition, further reveals you to be a self-regarding moron.
Michael Moore could use you…someone you are no doubt enthralled by and identify with. Whatever Moore happens to be, he’s smarter than you are.
STOP THE PRESSES! Finkelstein’s “case” shows up after his Odyssey above. He says this:
“If Rush Limbaugh or his ilk argue that it makes no difference that we found no WMD’s, and that the war was worth it because we free the people of Iraq, then ask them one question: Which is worse: that the highest officials in this country
lied to us and took us to war, or that they are so incompetent that they mistakenly took us to war on the erroneous premise that Iraq posed a grave, imminent, military threat to America”.
This is the best Finkelstein can do. Let’s turn some of this crap over so it can dry out.
1) What does Rush Limbaugh have to do with anything? Other than the talismanic value his name has for Lefties, nothing. Furthermore, Finkelstein reveals his inability or unwillingness to confront the extension of human freedom as a major Western issue, so he disparages it as a conservative viewpoint. This is disgraceful, but it explains everything you need to know about Finkelstein.
2) Then he poses a question, to which he provides two answers, both of which are irrelevant because, first, HIS PREMISE IS SOMETHING RUSH LIMBAUGHT MIGHT HAVE SAID! And second, an imbedded premise, which lurks somewhere beyond reason, is that Bush is a liar or incompetent, when EVERYONE (except fools like Finkelstein) has already admitted is untrue, including JOHN EDWARDS!
Finkelstein, you are in serious need of a tune-up, and if you wonder why we don’t respond to your nonsense, read this post over ten times, memorize it and get some education.
Mr. Finkelstein,
1) There is no such story in Vietnam History. I just invented that to indicate
a) Anything can be invented and twisted out of its orignal context
b) No one have time to waste checking all things everybody said, especially wasting their precious time to deal with unpleasant people. Credibility lends initial investment of time. Unpleasant people have no first credibility.
2) I just told a fake story and I did not call you a dog. I don’t even address that to you. It’s just a mere story can be interpreted equally by both sides. And you have jumped the gun to identify yourself first. Isn’t that interesting?
Lan:
Mr. Finkelstein has already told us he was “Ivy League” (I’m so impressed),and somewhere along the way he was introduced to the Socratic Method. The problem is, when you use this procedure you need to have an eye for the truth and a command of the issue.
You’ns is from Western Pa.
Y’all is from the South (singular).
All y’all is Southern plural.
No disrespect intended to Mr. Nguyen.
The quotes on WMD’s are from a newspaper column I wrote. If any of the sourced material was inaccurate, feel free to correct me.
Iraq’s people deserved to be freed. But Bush went about it the worst possible way at the worst possible time. My proposal- but not until after Osama was captured and Al Qaida dismantled- was to seize the Southern oil fields and hold them hostage until Iraq gave up Saddam. In the meantime, the objective would have been accomplished even if he stayed in power, because Iraq would have been deprived of the oil revenues esential for it to buy and build weapons systems. I agree 100% that had we lifted sanctions he would have tried to obtain the kind of weapons that would have thwarted a future American invasion, including biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. But in March of 2003, with sanctions in place and our troops in Turkey and Kuwait, with no fly zones over the country, and inspectors on the ground, Iraq was not a credible military threat to Kuwait or Iran, countries it had already attacked, let alone the United States.
In the meantime, I want American troops out of central Iraq as soon as possible (six months is probably the best time period) for the sake of both countries. I’m disappointed- and so are most Democrats- that John Kerry hasn’t adopted this position and hammered on it during the campaign. The neocons in the Bush Administration had no exit strategy because they wanted American troops there indefinitely in large numbers as part of their theoretical construct of a new world order of American primacy in the Middle East, including control of Iraq’s oil fields for our purposes. A new imperialism, as it were. Unfortunately for them and for a few thousand dead and wounded innocents (American and Iraqi), what sounded good in conservative think tanks in the mid 1990’s didn’t have any relationship to reality.
How do you think the Marines and soldiers who actually fought in this war feel about being sent back (even after their enlistments ended), given no clear mission, no concrete objectives, and put in the position of symbolic targets?
How do you plan in disarming North Korea and Iran of nuclear weapons without starting a nuclear holocaust or allowing them to pass on the finished nukes or the technology to Al Qaida or other shadow groups that will use them? What will you do when Pakistan, which already has nukes and a delivery system- becomes a radical Islamic theocracy and donates nuclear material and technology to its ideological brethren?
You folks can engage in all of the personal attacks you want on John Kerry- or me, for that matter- and it won’t change the fact that the Bush Administration has made it more likely, not less, that we will have a city in this country blown up by a nuclear weapon. And they have no plans that I have heard or read about to change that bleak future.
I’m not thrilled with Kerry- but he’ll get my vote under the principle of put the person in power who will do the least harm to the country.
Anybody reading this who was or is a member of the military should be outraged at the fact the Bush Administration cavalierly bypassed the Geneva Convention as “quaint” and “obsolete.” Colin Powell went ballistic when he read the memo by Alberto Gonzalez, Bush’s legal counsel, because he immediately understood the implications for American servicemen who become POW’s. And anybody reading this who knows people in the current military who served in Iraq last year should ask them whether our troops were properly equipped, properly supported, and properly led from the top (not field commanders) with regard to post invasion planning.
As for the Ivy League, Bush Sr. went to Yale, as did Clinton, George W. Bush, and John Kerry. Apparently going to an Ivy League school confers neither intelligence (especially if you are a legacy, as W. was), integrity (see Clinton and W. Bush) nor common sense (all four).
The Socratic method works- especially on cross examination. But you’ve got to try to answer the questions honestly for it to work. I haven’t seen a straight answer yet. It’s not a game of who’s the smartest- just who is paying attention, has an open mind, and is willing to admit- and learn from- mistakes.
Finklestein:
have you ever thought of changing that , yikes !!
The point is this, if you disagree with the Administration policy thats fine.. That I have no problem with.
What I have a problem with is with people who do more than disagree they invent items to make the administration look bad in front of the entire world .
First it undermines the effort by the troops and the goals of the administration, Overt criticism is suppose to stop at the waters edge, but with you democrats it does not. (this is not patriotic dissent but sedition, where it gives aid and comfort to the enemy)
The sole purpose of the democrats is to tarnish the president and this administration to further your own twisted need to return to power.
Second You claim kerry has a better plan, he would get the UN involved in this, which means he would pull our troops out with our tail tucked between our legs, and send in the Blue-hats, to get pushed around by the likes of Sadir and his ilk.
Third Have you ever heard of winning ? The last time this country pulled together we won WW II, But I suppose that was re-visionist history as far as you are concerned.
Since when does France and Germany represent such a huge part of the world that they need to be involved in anything WE do, Hell Germany started two world Wars and France got overrun twice and WE had to bail their butts out. Some ally.
But you call patriotism going over to France and trash Americas effort on the war on terror in front of the French,who would use anything against us, which is despicable, in front of the whole world and try to embarrass the US and the sitting president. The whole idea is despicable. You are despicable.
If the democrats were serious on the war on terror they would have come up with a candidate that has some substance, some character, some backbone, not just talking points.
I mean look at your track record, Carter now there was a study in courage, start an operation in the desert to free the hostages and after two choppers go down, he yellows out.
then Mondull, Dukakis, Clinton, the most prolific of all, then Gore another study in character, and now kerry . The dems are poll driven and have no compass nor no direction and worst of all NO New Ideas, they are still running a 60 year old playbook.
Your party and, you got to know it, has lost any credibility since back to Truman. Zell Miller is not an anomoly he is becoming the norm rather than the exception.
So Finkelstein, keep up with the Stupid Dem. talking points’, and you and your ‘ILK’ will continue to be on the outside looking in.
What dont you understand, SOCIALISM DOESN’T WORK.
If kids cant read your answer is, ‘ Throw more money at the problem’ democrats dont want anything to work, they just want to regenerate the problem into another form such that they will always be needed, NOW that is sick.
Mr. F:
This will be my last response to you, because it’s pointless. Your persistent claim that you aren’t answered can mean only that you aren’t reading our responses. Or that when you’re snared by your own words you decide to ingore the response entirely, drop back, and send up another seige machine loaded with more foolishness.
Point two among too many is that you never really know what you want to say. You use the freedom argument against Bush, and when called upon it you grudgingly concede that Iraq’s people “deserved to be freed”, but feint into the empty charge that Bush did it the wrong way. Your campaign proposal that the way to accomplish this was to seize the oil fields is silly in ways too numerous to mention.
Your second paragraph concerning announced withdrawl (six months) and the standard rant against the neo-cons is of real concern, because those of you who think this way haven’t adapted yourself even superficially to the changes around you. Practically all of your positions are of the September 10th variety. Reactionary, recidivist wishful thinking about the old days when you could still chatter amongst yourselves about your liberal virtues and how you are going to change the world. Your world is gone. Get over it. And forget about Limbaugh.
Your appeasement mentality really gets under way with the lefty fever dream that by attacking our enemies, we’ve made it more likely they will attack us. This is an amazing and disturbing understanding of the consequences of warfare, and somewhat contaminates everything else you say. It’s rooted primarily in the fantasy that really bad guys remain inertly bad if you leave them alone. This is Carterism and Clintonism writ large, and explains North Korea and Iran if you are able to think far back. But you obliquely blame the existence of these states on Bush.
North Korea and Iran are facts, facts which your side has established in the present because your type of thinking was operating in the past. Using the facts of either of these states as cudgels against Bush is dishonest and craven.
You should stay away from the matter of the military. I failed to mention this, but since your creds include a young Marine, mine include two paratroopers and a combat MP who served in two of the current war’s theatres. I have a witness to the things you mentioned, and you are wrong on all counts.
Your nasty and ignorant remark about wannabe warriors is part of the arsenal of the empty-headed left; you know nothing about us, but if you choose to emphasize war and things military in your posts, we can take you apart. We don’t do so out of courtesy and a natural reticence about our war. And if your idioms are Pennsylvanian, your scorn for us is plain old Lefty American.
Your cloaking device of ad hominem-ism is also transparent and useless. Your posts are slick with this lubricant, and if you understand the Latin, you’ll know that most of what you have said about Bush is ad hominem.
Finally, you strike me as one who thinks information is the same as knowledge, and opinion is the same thing as belief. The device of quoting Bush and others non-contextually as a means to stake a position is low and mean. And to believe the things you do in spite of the evidence is disconcerting. You crow about “open minds” but haven’t one yourself.
P.S. Mr F:
Your final paragraph with observations on the Socratic Method and the dense people you are dealing with is particularly dishonest.
If you have to answer questions honestly for it to work, then one must ask honest questions and wait for real answers. You do neither, which was the point. A corrupted form of Socratic questioning is the toy and tool of demagogues and deceivers. I accuse….
We’ve raised this issue before with you. You have neither answered the charge nor changed the approach. We take your silence as evidence of guilt, because you haven’t restated or reformed any of your twisted and loaded premises.
And BTW, you brought up your Ivy background in your display of plumage, I didn’t. It’s relevant, too, and I would take your admission that this background doesn’t necessarily confer the things you advertise about yourself. Nice try.
The purpose of this website appears to be to slander John Kerry and praise George Bush, regardless of the facts. Some of you who read this appear to be both intelligent and knowledgeable about military matters, so I thought I’d give a shot at putting out some truths that may be dissonance for people with your mind set. I was curious to see if anybody would change their opinions when faced with facts conflicting with their opinions. Apparently not- your responses have simply been to personally attack me rather than answer some simple questions. For instance: just answer these questions honestly, then defend George Bush’s actions. Don’t attack me for asking them- that won’t make your country safer or more free, just answer the questions, then state- honestly- how you would have reacted if one of your commanders, in a combat situation, had reacted the way President Bush did. Better yet, if you are really honest, admit that if John Kerry had reacted this way, your website would be vilifying him for it. I’ll repeat the format (since cut and paste is easier) I used in my proposed debate questions:
8. Mr. President, on August 6, 2001, you were given a presidential daily brief with the title “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Within the United States.” Upon receiving this news that the world’s most wanted terrorist, who had orchestrated attacks on our embassies in Africa in 1998 and on the U.S. Cole near Yemen in 2000, intended to attack inside the United States you:
(a) Convened a meeting of the National Security Council, discussed plans for protecting Americans from terrorist attacks within our borders, then ordered the FBI and CIA to take every measure to coordinate their efforts and step up intelligence gathering operations.
(b) Left on August 7, 2001, for a month long vacation at your ranch in Crawford, Texas and took no action to protect the American people from the attacks which occurred on September 11th.
10. Mr. President, the morning of September 11, 2001, after your chief of staff, Andrew Card, informed you that the nation was under attack, and during the time that two large buildings in New York were struck by airliners and were burning, the Pentagon was about to be hit by a third hijacked airliner, and a fourth plane was flying over Pennsylvania heading towards Washington, your reaction was to:
(a) Immediately get as much information on the situation as you could, find out what targets had been hit, how many more planes were reported hijacked or missing, what their potential targets were, and make the hard decision to have Air Force fighters divert or shoot down hijacked planes attacking American cities.
(b) sit on a stool in a 1st grade classroom for seven minutes and listen to a student read My Pet Goat.
Don’t tell me that John Kerry’s a fool or a shirker or he would have done worse- for all you know, I might agree with that statement. But if Vietnam is your concern and you are aggravated with Kerry as an alleged shirker, then you must be absolutely inflamed with anger at George W. Bush wrangling his way into the Texas Air National Guard, then going to Alabama where he never reported for duty to his unit, then failing to show up for his flight physical and being decertified from flying. And dragging into “work” on his father’s friend’s Alabama Senate campaign every morning bragging about how much alcohol he had consumed the night before. So while Kerry was collecting Purple Hearts and other medals in Vietnam, Bush and Cheney (he had other priorites) were collecting DUI’s back in the U.S. Does that make you proud of Bush? Does Cheney’s explanation for not serving please you?
As for my “creds,” I need none and don’t pretend that any past experience or degrees confer any more legitimacy to my arguments than if I were an 18 year old just out of high school. My only “cred” is that I have tried to pay attention during the last 40 years or so, since Vietnam got hot around 1964 and 1965. I have listened to people with opposing points of view- I once had a debate in my freshman dorm with a friend whose father happened to be America’s Ambassador to the Paris Peace Talks in 1970. In recent years I have done point-counterpoint television commentary with a young man who has twice been a Republican candidate for Congress. We debated various issues, during which (in early 1999) I called on President Clinton to resign for the good of the country. If you watch the archived July 18th GPTV debate (at the Atlanta Press Club website I posted above) you will see and hear me respond on the issue of Iraq and on domestic issues as well.
If you disagree with my ideas, then meet them on the merits. My arguments and points will stand and fall on their merits. But I change my position when the facts change or when I become better informed. I did so on Vietnam and on Clinton’s suitability for office. Can’t you do the same thing with President Bush- open your eyes and admit the truth about the disaster his presidency has been and how his foreign policy is totally without coherence?
By the way- if there are Democrat “talking points” let me know where I can find them. I think you are confusing us with the Republicans, who don’t hide the fact that they flood newspapers and talk shows with loyal soldiers parroting the same slogans.
As for the Ivy League thing, only people who didn’t go to an Ivy League school might think it was a big deal. The Ivy League is an athletic conference that does not award athletic scholarships. Period. The fact that some of them have bright students and good professors is a plus. But so do hundreds of schools not in the conference, including schools like Williams and Swarthmore, and Emory here in Georgia. I mentioned it only because in 1969 and 1970, there was virtually no one in my school who supported the War in Vietnam.
As for my name, Mark- it’s spelled Finkelstein.
As for tarnishing the President- no one has to do that. He’s done too good a job all by himself. If John Kerry did nothing other than run TV ads with video clips of Cheney, Bush and others saying one thing, then the opposite. i.e. the Zell Miller comment that no one said we were an occupying power coupled with Bush’s clip saying that we were an occupying power and he’d understand why the Iraqi’s might be upset, as he would be, at being occupied; or Cheny attacking Kerry for using the word “sensitive” in describing what his foreign policy would be, coupled with Bush saying that he will be more sensitive, and so on. Or Bush & Cheney talking about weapons of mass destruction and the need to invade Iraq, coupled with Rand Beers, Richard Clarke, David Kay, and others employed by the Bush Administration, testifying about the lack of threat from Iraq and the damage the Iraq War has done to the attempts to deal with Al Qaida and Bin Laden.
So, if you are reduced to attacking John Kerry because you can’t defend George Bush, then have the honesty and guts to admit it. Millions of Americans, many of them with far more experience in intelligence gathering, anti-terrorism, and foreign policy, have figured this out. It’s so blatant that Bush is a disaster that one wonders what motivates those who try to paint him otherwise- do we have a $465 billion dollar deficit this year from a $160 billion surplus in 2000, or not? Is Osama bin Laden still uncaptured or not? Do we have members of the Guard and Reserves who are now on active duty or not? Do we have soldiers from Ft. Benning and Ft. Stewart going back to Iraq for a second tour or not? Were members of the units sent to war equipped with vests but no ceramic inserts or not? Did they ride out on patrol in canvas topped Humvees that couldn’t stop a bullet, or not? Were they sent with M-16’s instead of M-4’s or not? Did they have a sufficient number of Arabic interpreters when they invaded or not? Was there an exit strategy that dealth with a potential guerilla insurgency or not? Did we change the CPA head within about one month of the occupation or not? Are our troops and diplomats in Iraq behind huge barricades in “green zones” or not? Is it safe for a non-Iraqi to ride the highways of Iraq or not?
These aren’t opinions, just facts. Did Bush invade Iraq on March 20, 2003, because of an allegation of an “imminent” threat of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction or not? Did he ever say, in one speech, one time, anywhere, prior to March 19, 2003, that it didn’t matter if Iraq had WMD’s, but that we should wage a pre-emptive invasion to free the Iraqi people and impose a democracy on the country? Did he ever tell us in any speech that it would cost well over $100 billion in the first year of our invasion and occupation? Didn’t he and Cheny and other top dogs in the Administration instead, say that the oil revenues would pay for the occupation and that we would be welcomed- it would be a cakewalk?
So which is worse: lying about sex with an intern, or lying to get us into war and causing the deaths of innocent Americans and Iraqis?
If I’ve caused even one person to think- to use their heads for something other than to support a hat- then I’ve accomplished my goal. And if you don’t agree with what I’ve said, at least answer the questions honestly, then try to justify your support for the worst U.S. President in history, using facts.
Mr. F:
I’ll break my promise not to respond just this once.
Paragraph One:
“Slander” Kerry and praise Bush? No, if you disagree with us on Kerry, why is it “slander”. If you disagree with us on Bush, why is it “praise”.
There you go again. We “appear” to be intelligent and knowledgegable, so you’re doing us the favor of introducting “dissonance”. How did we get along without you?
Question 8? Your interpretation of this event and the actions that could, or should, have been taken is at best hindsight. And in reality, it is your desire to reconfigure history, human fallibility and expectations to fit a conclusion you’ve already made. This is, again, unworthy of an objective observer, but you aren’t one.
Question 10. I don’t know what was going on in Bush’s mind at that time, but the small and mean interpretation is yours. Another one, equally valid, is that he believed it was essential to continue rather than alarm the kids. I don’t know, but on the scales of probability, a man bigger than you appear to be, would let the matter die. Instead, your furious self-importance won’t let this one go.
Whatever I think of Kerry, his paralysis during this period is of no concern to me. Kerry is a man with all the faults of lesser and better men, and my complaint with him is on larger things. Your jeweler’s eye for human failing apparently only applies to Bush. Would that we were all as spotless as James Finkelstein.
Your bitchy little tantrum about Bush, Cheney and others is also a projection of your hatred for Bush. You are too limited to comprehend the magnitude of our complaints about Kerry, and weigh them the same as Bush’s performance in the ANG.
This is mirror-imagining on your part. Bush is a shirker, so this cancels any complaints we SHOULD have about Kerry. This is ridiculous at so many levels that there is no convincing you otherwise. As to your questions, you are a September 10th person; I’m not. Bush is changing the world, I don’t care what he was. Kerry hasn’t changed, and I do care what he is.
In re your paragraph beginning “As for my ‘creds’”, please stop campaigning…and this applies to the three following paragraphs.
Your following paragraphs compose a rant about political disagreements, about which you celebrate as “facts”, and to which, for the most part, I reply so what? I can reply as to your exploitative sympathies about how our troops are equipped with a “fact” that it was your man, Clinton, who accomplished this amazing feat, and your party, which for twenty-five previous years reinforced the decline. You guys are responsible for this, not Bush or Bin Laden or Saddam.
Again, Finkelstein, you live in a static world, don’t understand continuing events, the evolution of policy, the consequence of ideology and action and are blaming the world and all its faults on those who arrived on the scene after the accident occurred. Your posts are the End of History, because you live in an eternal present tense.
I’ve read further, but my reaction borders on disgust at your dense credulity, your awful arrogance, hatred, and insistence upon accuracy in your opponents when you have none of your own. Your use of the “imminent threat” nonsense is an example. Bush did NOT SAY THIS! Cost proposals? Ridiculous.
And yeah, BJ’s under the desk are pretty bad, but as you travel through time, these types of events stand on their own, and are useless in comparison to events with have nothing to do with them. Randomness, to the Left, can always be tied to central causes. Republicans, conservatives, Bush and Rush Limbaugh.
I give up. You’re too far gone.
“So which is worse: lying about sex with an intern, or lying to get us into war and causing the deaths of innocent Americans and Iraqis? ”
.. From Finklestien:
President Bush did NOT lie.
Lying under oath is quite serious, but maybe for a slip and fall lawyer it is a matter of course.
If you have caused anyone to think yeah we have and think you are a shill for the democrat party and (probably working for George Soros, the multi-millionare supporting all communist organizations all over the world,)waiting for your turn in the barrel. It is a simple as that, you have no points you have a bunch of half-truth talking points and you think you have something.
Try rooting for the good guys for a change, your own country, instead of trying to destroy it from within. Your Commie crap just doesn’t cut it.
I would think that a super smart man like yourself would be able to see through this crap, but you repeat it so it makes you part of the problem and not the solution. The solution would be for everyone to work together and WIN a peace in Iraq then sort it out. But your ilk would rather shread the country first with your lies and distortions and half-truths than actually try to support your country…
Your mentality of Americas fault always is Bull Sh*t and the sad thing is you dont even know it.
I pity you.
Another P.S. to Finkelstein:
On at least four separate occasions I have taken you on point for point, and Mark has done the same.
These are followed by prolonged whines from you that we aren’t dealing with your “facts”, combined with accusations about our intelligence or willingess to defend our positions.
On not a single occasion have you responded to any of our dismissals of your ridiculous claims. This “fact” is completely lost to you.
What a joke this is.
I am still very interested in reading any of your proposals for dealing with the possibility that North Korea, Iran, and/or Pakistan will sell or transfer nuclear technology and materials to a group which will use it to blow up an American city. What is President Bush’s stated policy to deal with this threat? What actions has he already taken to forestall it? Has his inattention to Al Qaida in Afghanistan and removing thousands of American Special Forces from there in 2003 (not all of them) and the invasion of Iraq made this threat more or less likely? What is the factual basis for your answer?
If your response is to kill all the terrorists, then answer this for me: for each terrorist alive today, at what moment in his or her life, at what age, did he or she become a terrorist, and what was the transforming event? And why did others with similar or identical backgrounds and experiences not become terrorists? This information will be useful when you go out there, hunt them down, and kill all of them, don’t you think?
Or do you agree with my view that there are not a finite number of terrorists, and that Bush’s policies and a large American military presence in Islamic countries have helped create more of them who wish to target the United States?
As for Bill Clinton somehow managing to underequip the military and send them off to war in March of 2003, just how did he manage that after being out of office for 2 years and 2 months? Did Clinton decide to send a couple of hundred thousand troops to Kuwait in late 2002 and early 2003 without the proper equipment? Did Clinton give the order to invade Iraq in March of 2003 without having an exit strategy for getting back out? And considering that we have had a Republican controlled House & Senate from January 1, 1995, until Clinton left office, what does that say about how poorly our military was equipped, when the Constitution squarely places the responsibility for raising armies, appropriating money to pay for their needs, and declaring War, on Congress?
In any event, your assertion is incorrect. It was the Cold War peace dividend that caused President Bush #1 and Secretary of Defense Cheney to be the architects of a leaner military and base closings, not Clinton, who simply continued their policies. Of course, that’s not the real reason why reservists couldn’t target shoot their weapons in 2002 because there wasn’t enough money to pay for the bullets (and this was after 9-11-01). The real shame is that Congress was still appropriating absurd amounts of money to build Seawolf submarines at $2.3 billion per boat (including the one launched earlier this Summer) and develope F-22 Raptor jet fighters for $60 billion (for the whole program) when the Soviet Union had long since collapsed and no nation in the world possessed or was developing weapons to deal with what we already have in our arenal. And Democrats and Republicans alike are responsible for that debacle- if you will check, you will see that defense contractors have given just as much money to Tom Daschle as to Dennis Hastert, and the dollars flow right down the line, regardless of party affiliation. How do you feel about that? I know that some career Army guys at Ft. Stewart thought there should be a law against it, as well as a law against defense contractors hiring recently retired Pentagon type officers.
For my part, I think there should be complete public financing of all federal campaigns, and a total ban on all fund raising by candidates. It wastes their time and corrupts their judgment, which should be focused solely on what’s best for the country, not what they need to stay in office.
Oh yeah, check out Bruce Pitcairn Jackson. He’s a member of the 1996 Dole and 2000 Bush RNC delegations who was asked by the Bush team in 2002 to leave his job opening up foreign markets for Lockheed-Martin, and head up the “Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.” Jackson managed to help get us into the hot war in Iraq (see the letters of support he got signed by the Vilnius 10 in exchange for NATO membership in January of 2003), and in return, his “former” employer (Lockheed Martin) somehow managed to get a $4 billion contract to sell F-16’s to Poland (an Iraq war supporter), paid for by a loan from the U.S. taxpayers. That should make Republicans proud.
What I think we need to do is take a long, hard look at the terrorist events in Russia. Was it Beslan? Adjacent to Chechnya? I have my people working on anagrams for Beslan and Chechnya, although Chechnya is tough because its cyrilic. Our house numerologists are at work too, given leave from the DNC by Terry MacAuliffe.
Right now what we know is that “Beslan” is not directly translatable as “bush” or foliage but there are three letters, “b”, “s” and “e” that occur in George W. Bush. That’s enough for me; the rest can shake out on its own. Bush blew up that school, the lousy bastard.
I also question the timing of this event. Ten of them were apparently Arabs, which would be an easy transfer for the Bush administration of friendly terrorists (coerced and brainwashed in Guantanamo) to the arrogant and resistant Russian Federation for an act of killing children rather than reading to them.
It follows, doesn’t it? Fewer kids, fewer Democrats. That’s what a Democratic “strategist” (really) posited recently about abortion. Democrats are aborting their ideological heirs. Bush pick up the idea.
Putin was a problem, and Karl Rove obviously knew it. Oil money, baseball money, Haliburton money, old inherited money, all of it sprinkled over the heads of these reduced and addled terrorists and you have another Bush/Rove plot to prolong this phony war on terrorism, reduce the number of Democrats and disrupt the election.
France is next, then somewhere in Germany after we withdraw our troops for no solid reason. I would worry about a Kerry headquarters somewhere too, you know. Ash Can Harry of the White House and those money-grubbing New York neocons and their Israel fixation have got the guns, the means and the motive.
You can’t fool me.
A Loyal Democrat
Mr. Finkelstein,
1) You project a lot.
2) You can be technical correct on quotes but context wise, you might (or might not) commit intellectual dishonesty. Here is an example of that thing - technical correct but intellectual dishonest by Noam Chomsky taken by Oliver Kamm.
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/09/one_of_the_most.html
I have learned in my past experience that there is no use to debate with intellectual dishonest people. And projection and condescension raise a lot of red flags.
3)Aside of accusation and projection, the level of discussion you propose is deep and cover wide range of issues, from strategic to tactical actions including articulation of strategic and tactical goals to the world on War on Terror (which I grant you the Bush Administration did not do a good job). I suggest you to buy Thomas Barnett book “The Pentagon’s new map” or at least familiar with his theme on what we are facing. Here’s his webblog
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/
He addresses a lot of issues you are talking and he is not intellectual dishonest. He covers everything from economy, population, culture, energy of the world we are facing today vs the world we used to face in the past. There was a 3 hrs CSPAN on that subject on June, 2004.
Don’t worry. He claims that he will vote for John Kerry and I can deduce why (I disagree with him on that issue, but at least after so many years, I found one person on your side that I disagree respectfully).
4) When your posts getting less projection, less inference, less quoting things technical correct but contextual wise incorrect, less hindsight then we might be meet each other on merit of the issue. For now, we leave it as it is.
5) I was a Demo for more than 20 years, since 1980. My friend words “The Democrat party you belong is no longer exist” in 2003 made me change side. I am absolutely convinced that John Kerry character is flaw relative to George Bush. I don’t think this website slandering John Kerry. Logically and contextually, Kerry shows his character after his services in Vietnam, regardless how people trying to color their glasses. I doubt your conviction is consistent if you apply Kerry words and actions to your son claim something like this “Dad, there are rapists and murderers in town. You live in town, so you are a murderer and a rapist”
James Finkelstein:
I stand by my analysis of you. If the world was a segmented worm, you will still be complaining that the head is on the wrong end and there is an odd number of segments.
Everything relates to something else to something else and something else, life and politics is a continuum, not all of which is moved here and there by sinisteria. But I yield to the purity of your vision and suspect you’ll have a special place in the Democratic Party today.
Your party is nothing if not the repository of all civic virtue, insight, foresight, hindsight, and all that is radiantly perfect in politics today. That you oscillate between a murky sort of paranoia and celebratory pride in your hoarding of arcane political facts shouldn’t matter. It’s a resume enhancement.
When you run for President, I’ll vote for you.
Finkelstein,(sic) ‘will not join Veterans’ Day marches, waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who diedfor the “greater glory of the United States.’
No he would rather trash the country that gives him the liberty to say and think what he likes.
Regardless of the consequences, he calls this his patriotism, he is being patriotic when he call the president a liar,( Without any proof except for the talking points of Terry McAuliff and Max Cleland) he is being patriotic when he spits on the flag and calls it patriotism. After all this is his God given right to do. But dont you dare pray in public. and take that hideous ‘In God we trust’ off our currency.
He would always want to find fault with the United States first, afterall the United States is always the aggressor and is evil. But this is his kind of patriotism. It matters not that the United States liberated Europe and saved Millions of lives and on top of that rebuilt the same countries that started that damn war, no of course not it was in the United States own best interest.. Selfish Americans.
This is the scum we are dealing with here, someone who would berate his own country in front of the whole world for the sake of his own self-advancement. To an exalted position in the dimocrat party, again for his own self advancement he is polishing his rhetoric so he will fit in, with the ted kennedys the Hanoi johns, and the Richard Byrds, the most respected and admired scum of the once great dimwit party.
Now there is a group everyone needs to fit in with. a Murderer, a Racist, and an all out liar. But yet WE are the ones this ‘jerk’ is trying to influence….
I dont think so.
Finkelstein:
I just read where the ‘kerry goons’ have co-opted the Navy-Relief society.
John O’neill was going to donate all the proceeds from his book “Unfit for Command” to the Navy Relief but thanks to the democrats and kerry the Navy Relief will not accept them.
And this guy wants to be president ???? He wants it so bad he will threaten people, destroy lives, and shatter people with law suits and libel just to get there.
What a great bunch to be associated with, well FinkELstein thats YOUR party. ARE YOU PROUD to be democrat ???????????????????????????????????
Here are two recent articles that must raise the ire of all true patriots. Let’s rename this website: BUSH- DRUNKEN DESERTER
Bush’s National Guard File Missing Records
Sun Sep 5,11:55 PM ET
By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush (news - web sites)’s Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.
For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.
No such records have been made public and the government told The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it has released all records it can find.
Outside experts suggest that National Guard commanders may not have produced documentation required by their own regulations.
“One of the downfalls back then in the National Guard was that not everyone wanted to be chief of staff of the Air Force. They just wanted to fly or maintain airplanes. So the record keeping could have been better,” said retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver Jr., a former head of the Air National Guard. He said the documents may not have been kept in the first place.
Challenging the government’s declaration that no more documents exist, the AP identified five categories of records that should have been generated after Bush skipped his pilot’s physical and missed five months of training.
“Each of these actions by any member of the National Guard should have generated the creation of many documents that have yet to be produced,” AP lawyer David Schulz wrote the Justice Department (news - web sites) Aug. 26.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said there were no other documents to explain discrepancies in Bush’s files.
Military service during the Vietnam War has become an issue in the presidential election as both candidates debate the current wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites).
Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) commanded a Navy Swift boat in Vietnam and was awarded five medals, including a Silver Star. But his heroism has been challenged in ads by some veterans who support Bush.
The president served stateside in the Air National Guard during Vietnam. Democrats have accused him of shirking his Guard service and getting favored treatment as the son of a prominent Washington figure.
The AP talked to experts unaffiliated with either campaign who have reviewed Bush’s files for missing documents. They said it was not unusual for guard commanders to ignore deficiencies by junior officers such as Bush. But they said missing a physical exam, which caused him to be grounded, was not common.
“It’s sort of like a code of honor that you didn’t go DNF (duty not including flying),” said retired Air Force Col. Leonard Walls, who flew 181 combat missions over Vietnam. “There was a lot of pride in keeping combat-ready status.”
Bush has said he fulfilled all his obligations. He was in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973 and was trained to fly F-102 fighters.
“I’m proud of my service,” Bush told a rally last weekend in Lima, Ohio.
Records of Bush’s service have significant gaps, starting in 1972. Bush has said he left Texas that year to work on the unsuccessful Senate campaign in Alabama of family friend Winton Blount.
The five kinds of missing files are:
_A report from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush’s local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing. The government has released copies of those DD Form 44 documents for Bush for 1971 and earlier years but not for 1972 or 1973. Records from Bush’s draft board in Houston do not show his draft status changed after he joined the guard in 1968. The AP obtained the draft board records Aug. 27 under the Freedom of Information Act.
_Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status. When Bush skipped his 1972 physical, regulations required his Texas commanders to “direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination,” according to the Air Force manual at the time. An investigative report was supposed to be forwarded “with the command recommendation” to Air Force officials “for final determination.”
Bush’s spokesmen have said he skipped the exam because he knew he would be doing desk duty in Alabama. But Bush was required to take the physical by the end of July 1972, more than a month before he won final approval to train in Alabama.
_A written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received the orders grounding him. His Texas commanders were ordered to have Bush sign such a document; but none has been released.
_Reports of formal counseling sessions Bush was required to have after missing more than three training sessions. Bush missed at least five months’ worth of National Guard training in 1972. No documents have surfaced indicating Bush was counseled or had written authorization to skip that training or make it up later. Commanders did have broad discretion to allow guardsmen to make up for missed training sessions, said Weaver and Lawrence Korb, Pentagon (news - web sites) personnel chief during the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1985.
“If you missed it, you could make it up,” said Korb, who now works for the Center for American Progress, which supports Kerry.
_A signed statement from Bush acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to another guard unit after leaving Texas. The statement was required as part of a Vietnam-era crackdown on no-show guardsmen. Bush was approved in September 1972 to train with the Alabama unit, more than four months after he left Texas.
Bush was approved to train in September, October and November 1972 with the Alabama Air National Guard’s 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group. The only record tying Bush to that unit is a dental exam at the group’s Montgomery base in January 1973. No records have been released giving Bush permission to train with the 187th after November 1972.
Walls, the Air Force combat veteran, was assigned to the 187th in 1972 and 1973 to train its pilots to fly the F-4 Phantom. Walls and more than a dozen other members of the 187th say they never saw Bush. One member of the unit, retired Lt. Col. John Calhoun, has said he remembers Bush showing up for training with the 187th.
Pay records show Bush was credited for training in January, April and May 1973; other files indicate that service was outside Texas.
A May 1973 yearly evaluation from Bush’s Texas unit gives the future president no ratings and stated Bush had not been seen at the Texas base since April 1972. In a directive from June 29, 1973, an Air Force personnel official pressed Bush’s unit for information about his Alabama service.
“This officer should have been reassigned in May 1972,” wrote Master Sgt. Daniel P. Harkness, “since he no longer is training in his AFSC (Air Force Service Category, or job title) or with his unit of assignment.”
Then-Maj. Rufus G. Martin replied Nov. 12, 1973: “Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through 30 Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons.”
By then, Texas Air National Guard officials had approved Bush’s request to leave the guard to attend Harvard Business School; his last days of duty were in July 1973.
****
following from: http://radio.weblogs.com/0114406/categories/myWar/
Sept. 2, 2004 | NEW YORK — Before there was Karl Rove, Lee Atwater or even James Baker, the Bush family’s political guru was a gregarious newspaper owner and campaign consultant from Midland, Texas, named Jimmy Allison. In the spring of 1972, George H.W. Bush phoned his friend and asked a favor: Could Allison find a place on the Senate campaign he was managing in Alabama for his troublesome eldest son, the 25-year-old George W. Bush?
“The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy’s wing,” Allison’s widow, Linda, told me. “And Jimmy said, ‘Sure.’ He was so loyal.”
Linda Allison’s story, never before published, contradicts the Bush campaign’s assertion that George W. Bush transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to the Alabama National Guard in 1972 because he received an irresistible offer to gain high-level experience on the campaign of Bush family friend Winton “Red” Blount. In fact, according to what Allison says her late husband told her, the younger Bush had become a political liability for his father, who was t