The Truth About GWB's Military Service

[idd]

"Chickenhawks": I love it. Rightness or wrongness of a decision depends on one's background, eh? No way a man who hadn't been in battle could ever tell right from wrong. Yep.

Bush went AWOL. Dick Cheny, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Bob Dornan and many other Republican leaders and propagandists actively avoided military service. They have no problem sending *others* off to the jungles of Southeast Asia or the deserts of the Middle East, but when it came their time, they chickened out.

They're all for war - so long as other people's kids do the actual fighting and dying. Kinda like how they scream for zero tolerance - unless it's their own kids who get caught up in the dragnet. And how they got all upset about Bill Clinton lying about his girlfriend - but are unperturbed about Bush's systematic lying about Iraq's "WMD," lies that actually matter. How they hate it when convicted felons criminal get off on a techinicality - unless said criminals are named Oliver North or John Poindexter.

Just depends on whose oxe is getting gored.

 

[bountyhunter]

To Try to Put the Thread on Track

This isn't about Slick Willie, ted kennedy or any other bozo from the demo's closet. The issue of GWB's military record is relevant because:

1) In 2000, he was asked by McCain to make his military record public and GWB refused. Guess why. I don't know who or why it was not more vigorously pursued by the media then but that is really irrelevant to what the truth was, is and remains.

2) It's relevant now because John Kerry (who served in Viet Nam and had an honorable combat record) is being attacked as a commie by a political machine which is trying to secure the re-election of a man who hid out during the war in the national Guard and (by the Guard records from the time) failed to honor his commitment.

I question the hypocrisy of a draft dodger who spent the war drinking beer slinging poop on a guy who served honorably. I agree that some of what Kerry said after the war was bad, but he served his time in country and earned the right to criticize what history has judged to be a huge mistake.

What this is about is whether voicing opposition to a war makes you a communist (I don't think so) and whether we should hail as hero a man who is still lying about his military service record, at least as far as the documentation proves. And most of all, it's about the hypocrisy of "reagan Hawks" who hide in the guard during a war and then set themselves up as military champions when they are too old to serve. It's also about a CIC who foolishly sent troops into war on bad information (at best). Lied about having proof he did not have, and to this day remains bull-headed that he has done nothing wrong.

I think Bush owes this country an apology for many things, the largest of which is not listening to our own intelligence analysts who ALL said their was no imminent threat (the head of the CIA repeated that yesterday). Bush owes us an apology for lying about Iraq being behind the 9/11 attacks and supporting Al Qaeda, both of which he and Cheney have publicly admitted are false. Bush owes us an apology for the spectacle of him strutting onto a flight deck declaring victory while our troops were (and are) still being killed. More US soldiers have died AFTER Bush declared victory than died up to that time... and many more will die before the end of this mess. Bush owes us and our allies an apology for attacking them for not supporting this war, and for the arm twisting to get them involved. Most of all, Bush owes us an apology for creating the horrific mess that now exists in Iraq where three ethnic groups are waging attacks on each other for control and Al Qaeda cells have set up shop and use it as a shooting gallery to ambush US forces.

What Bush doesn't need to be doing is pooping on somebody with a REAL military experience at war.

 

[fix]

idd

Bush went AWOL. Dick Cheny, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Bob Dornan and many other Republican leaders and propagandists actively avoided military service. They have no problem sending *others* off to the jungles of Southeast Asia or the deserts of the Middle East, but when it came their time, they chickened out.

Facts please. Back up that string of names with facts.

By the way...did you serve?

 

[Correia]

"The only thing that's interesting about this story is how the "liberal" media buried it in 2000." -Malone Laveigh

The media didn't want to do anything with this story in 2000 because Gore (thier boy) had an even shoddier and more questionable service record. Clinton vs. Dole, the media pretty much ignored Dole getting his arm blown off. Clinton vs. Bush sr. the media pretty much ignored Bush's really impressive war record.

So tell me now why the "unbiased" media is making an issue out of Bush's record in '04 when he just happens to have a front runner with a service record?

 

[idd]

Dick Cheney took advantage of student and then marriage deferments, and explained to George C. Wilson his reason for avoiding military service. "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

George Will avoided Vietnam by hiding out in divinity school.
Rush Limbaugh got a medical deferment by claiming that he suffered from "anal cysts."
Paul Wolfowitz was busy getting his BA at Cornell.
Bill O'Reilly graduated high school in 1967 and spent the net four years in college avoiding the war.
Richard Perle sat out the Vietnam War at the University of CHicago.

See the Chickenhawk Database

By the way...did you serve?

When I turned 18 I registered for the draft but was never called.

 

[fix]

I don't consider going to college draft dodging unless there are other circumstances involved. You also missed a few names there. If you are going to come in here and toss around allegations, you'd better be able to back them up. Your chickenhawk reference makes plenty of vague references, but I don't see many facts that aren't clouded by partisanship.

When I turned 18 I registered for the draft but was never called.

Well, why didn't you volunteer? You apparently expected these gentlemen to quit school and hop on the first thing smoking. Sean Hannity turned 18 and registered for the draft, yet you lump him in there. Should we add your name to the list? Your buddies at the New Hampshire Gazette even saw fit to include Ann Coulter in their database.

 

[moa]

Well, I got drafted into the Army in 1966. I was against the war too, but for different reasons. I could tell by Pres. LBJ's speech in late 1965 that he had no intention of actually effectively winning that war. Vietnam was going to become another Korean War style stalemate at best, a war of meaningless attrition.

LBJ actually said that he was not pursuing a military victory. Listening to Presidental historians, LBJ knew by February 1965 that victory in Vietnam was not possible without widely expanding the war and invading North Vietam. That could have meant a confrontation with Red China and maybe the Soviet Union.

 

[Art Eatman]

Repetitive and repetitive and repetitive...