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Bush in Bagdad for Thanksgiving
Topic Started: Nov 27 2003, 01:58 PM (827 Views)
Fesarius
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Admiral
Admiral,

Thanks. The LBJ element has intrigued me for some time. But, I've based my negative opinions of him on snippets I've heard and read. Perhaps I will have a look at this book.

You know, I've slowed the Zapruder film down several times, seen different versions of it, focused on several of the frames, etc., and have wondered for nearly ten years what was going on in the front seat (driver and passenger sides) of the automobile in which Kennedy was a passenger. I realize that the theories regarding Kellerman and Greer are often far-fetched, but something really doesn't seem right about it. (Of course, the President is being shot, so everything is in a tizzy anyway....)
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Dandandat:
Quote:
 
But then the question by Wichita stands. If ImpulseEngine does not think it was wrong for Clinton to have done what he was alleged to have done. Yet ImpulseEngine believes that a similar action perpetrated by Bush is wrong. Than the process of coming to a conclusion of wrong or right in ether case by ImpulseEngine is suspect to (suspect to not proof of) hypocrisy if the conclusions are different.

This would be true IF the situations were "similar". But they aren't and I already explained why in a reply above. So I HAVE answered it. And, if you read that reply carefully, I didn't say I AGREE with Clinton's decision. I only said I respect a person for acting on his conscience. Bush didn't stand up and say "I don't believe in this war and so I'm not going to fight." He said he WANTED to fight, but yet he avoided the draft, lost his flight status by missing a physical, and didn't show up for duty for over a year, among other things. There was no acting on conscience or honesty. There was cowardice and lying. It's completely different.

As for the sources backing up my statement I gave one in this thread. I have given others in past discussions.

Wichita:
Quote:
 
Are you saying I don't have your permission to ask a question if it's not - in your opinion - "within the scope of this discussion"? I don't know about you, but I haven't noticed too many threads on this board staying strictly on topic.

That's a ludicrous interpretation and you know it. I'm saying, in the interest of maintaining coherency on my side of the discussion, I don't feel obligated to answer a tangent (even though I already HAVE answered it at least TWICE now... sorry if I haven't given precisely the answer you WANT to hear. That's life and I don't have to agree with you. :rolleyes: )
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
ImpulseEngine
Dec 2 2003, 05:32 PM
Dandandat:
Quote:
 
But then the question by Wichita stands. If ImpulseEngine does not think it was wrong for Clinton to have done what he was alleged to have done. Yet ImpulseEngine believes that a similar action perpetrated by Bush is wrong. Than the process of coming to a conclusion of wrong or right in ether case by ImpulseEngine is suspect to (suspect to not proof of) hypocrisy if the conclusions are different.

This would be true IF the situations were "similar". But they aren't and I already explained why in a reply above. So I HAVE answered it. And, if you read that reply carefully, I didn't say I AGREE with Clinton's decision. I only said I respect a person for acting on his conscience. Bush didn't stand up and say "I don't believe in this war and so I'm not going to fight." He said he WANTED to fight, but yet he avoided the draft, lost his flight status by missing a physical, and didn't show up for duty for over a year, among other things. There was no acting on conscience or honesty. There was cowardice and lying. It's completely different.

As for the sources backing up my statement I gave one in this thread. I have given others in past discussions.

Wichita:
Quote:
 
Are you saying I don't have your permission to ask a question if it's not - in your opinion - "within the scope of this discussion"? I don't know about you, but I haven't noticed too many threads on this board staying strictly on topic.

That's a ludicrous interpretation and you know it. I'm saying, in the interest of maintaining coherency on my side of the discussion, I don't feel obligated to answer a tangent (even though I already HAVE answered it at least TWICE now... sorry if I haven't given precisely the answer you WANT to hear. That's life and I don't have to agree with you. :rolleyes: )

So you are saying that the answer to the following question -

If George Bush (and incidentally, Howard Dean) got out of active duty due to "influence", how the hell does a person in his early 20's from a small town in Arkansas with no apparent family connections, get a draft notice, negotiate a last minute National Guard position directly with the head of the state National Guard, renege on both and NOT get prosecuted?

- is "I don't agree with it, but I respect his decision." Is that what you are saying?

Fascinating response ... The reason that someone, with no discernible influence, can avoid the draft AND renege on a National Guard PROMISE, and not be prosecuted (as so many others were) is that "I don't agree with it, but I respect his decision."

Let me quote you in response ....

Quote:
 
That's a ludicrous interpretation and you know it.


- :rolleyes: -









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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
^^^
Wichita,
Let take a different approach. Since you claim I am not answering your question (and by your interpretation you don't seem to understand my answer) and I claim I am answering it, maybe we're just not communicating.

So how about if you state your point instead of asking me a question. How do you answer your own question? Where is the contradiction?

(and is anyone besides me having problems with this board today? It is VERY slow...)
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Fesarius
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Admiral
Without getting too involved (I refrain from doing that most of the time), I'd just like to say that Rose and ImpulseEngine are to be commended for debating in a courteous and civil manner, regardless of whether they understand what the other is writing.... ;)
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
ImpulseEngine
Dec 2 2003, 06:33 PM
^^^
Wichita,
Let take a different approach. Since you claim I am not answering your question (and by your interpretation you don't seem to understand my answer) and I claim I am answering it, maybe we're just not communicating.

So how about if you state your point instead of asking me a question. How do you answer your own question? Where is the contradiction?

(and is anyone besides me having problems with this board today? It is VERY slow...)

IE, nice idea, but the problem is that my point IS that I have a question.

Often times on this board, different people have alluded to "Bush's influence", "Bush's family influence", "the Congressman's influence", etc. This said "influence" has been used to explain away virtually every action in his life.

*No evidence of cocaine bust? "Bush's influence" must have gotten it erased...

*Bush got into Harvard Business School? "Bush's father was a Congressman and his influence got him in" (although he wasn't a Congressman at the time and hadn't been for couple of years :P )...

*Bush got into the Texas National Guard? Must have been the "Bush Family influence" ....

"Influence" is used as an explanation for many things even in situations where there has been no attempt even made to demonstrate that "influence" was even used - or, for that matter, that the event actually took place at all.

Even last night in a post, you said something about "it must have been Bush's influence..." (not a direct quote). The issue of "influence" is assumed.

So my question is ...

If "influence" is the supposed only explanation for how Bush was supposedly treated, how does someone WITHOUT that apparent "influence" get treated even better?

In other words ...

If George Bush (and incidentally, Howard Dean) got out of active duty due to "influence", how the hell does a person in his early 20's from a small town in Arkansas with no apparent family connections, get a draft notice, negotiate a last minute National Guard position directly with the head of the state National Guard, renege on both and NOT get prosecuted?

Literally I am asking HOW Bill Clinton did what he did and NOT get prosecuted. If he or his family are without the "influence" that is used to explain the George Bush's and Howard Dean's of the world, then who had the "influence" to make it happen? The follow-up question would then be "What did it cost Bill Clinton?"
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Wichita,
Ah, we WERE miscommunicating. I honestly don't know the answer to your question then so I can only speculate. I think the answer is that Clinton and/or his family did have influence. Maybe it was not the depth of influence that the Bush family has, but he had enough influence to avoid fighting in the war and avoid prosecution. I have seen articles on the internet that say he must have had important contacts and was able to pull strings. One article said his uncle had pulled strings for him. (Sorry, this is from memory so I don't have links.) But I don't remember seeing anything about the National Guard. Maybe you mean ROTC?
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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
The following is Colonel Eugene Holmes's September 1992 affidavit concerning Bill Clinton and the draft. Col. Holmes was the ROTC Director for the University of Arkansas system.

Colonel Eugene Holmes is a highly decorated officer of the United States Army. He is a survivor of the Bataan Death March and three and a half years as a POW of the Japanese. He served 32 years in the army before retiring with 100% disability. His decorations include the Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Legions of Merit, the Army Commendation Medal and many others. During the Vietnam War, he personally inducted both his sons into the service--one for 3 years as a regular army enlisted man, and the other as a commissioned officer (after he had completed ROTC training).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There have been many unanswered questions as to the circumstances surrounding Bill Clinton's involvement with the ROTC department at the University of Arkansas. Prior to this time I have not felt the necessity for discussing the details. The reason I have not done so before is that my poor physical health (a consequence of participation in the Battan Death March and the subsequent three and a half years interment in Japanese POW camps) has precluded me from getting into what I felt was unnecessary involvement. However, present polls show that there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft dodger becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. While it is true, as Mr. Clinton has stated, that there were many others who avoided serving their country in the Vietnam war, they are not aspiring to be the President of the United States.

The tremendous implications of the possibility of his becoming Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces compels me now to comment on the facts concerning Mr. Clinton's evasion of the draft. This account would not have been imperative had Bill Clinton been completely honest with the American public concerning this matter. But as Mr. Clinton replied on a news conference this evening (September 5, 1992) after being asked another particular about his dodging the draft, "Almost everyone concerned with these incidents are dead. I have no more comments to make". Since I may be the only person living who can give a first hand account of what actually transpired, I am obligated by my love for my country and my sense of duty to divulge what actually happened and make it a matter of record.

Bill Clinton came to see me at my home in 1969 to discuss his desire to enroll in the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas. We engaged in an extensive, approximately two (2) hour interview. At no time during this long conversation about his desire to join the program did he inform me of his involvement, participation and actually organizing protests against the United States involvement in South East Asia. He was shrewd enough to realize that had I been aware of his activities, he would not have been accepted into the ROTC program as a potential officer in the United States Army.

The next day I began to receive phone calls regarding Bill Clinton's draft status. I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC program. I received several such calls. The general message conveyed by the draft board to me was that Senator Fullbright's office was putting pressure on them and that they needed my help. I then made the necessary arrangements to enroll Mr. Clinton into the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas.

I was not "saving" him from serving his country, as he erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England (dated December 3, 1969). I was making it possible for a Rhodes Scholar to serve in the military as an officer. In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of following through with his agreement to join the Army ROTC program at the University of Arkansas or to attend the University of Arkansas Law School. I had explained to him the necessity of enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a student in order to be eligible to take the ROTC program at the University. He never enrolled at the University of Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale after attending Oxford. I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification.

The December 3rd letter written to me by Mr. Clinton, and subsequently taken from the files by Lt. Col. Clint Jones, my executive officer, was placed into the ROTC files so that a record would be available in case the applicant should again petition to enter the ROTC program. The information in that letter alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from ever qualifying to be an officer in the United States Military. Even more significant was his lack of veracity in purposefully defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his counterfeit intentions for later military service. These actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his integrity. When I consider the calabre, the bravery, and the patriotism of the fine young soldiers whose deaths I have witnessed, and others whose funerals I have attended.... When I reflect on not only the willingness but eagerness that so many of them displayed in their earnest desire to defend and serve their country, it is untenable and incomprehensible to me that a man who was not merely unwilling to serve his country, but actually protested against its military, should ever be in the position of Commander-in-Chief of our armed Forces.

I write this declaration not only for the living and future generations, but for those who fought and died for our country. If space and time permitted I would include the names of the ones I knew and fought with, and along with them I would mention my brother Bob, who was killed during World War II and is buried in Cambridge, England (at the age of 23, about the age Bill Clinton was when he was over in England protesting the war). I have agonized over whether or not to submit this statement to the American people. But, I realize that even though I served my country by being in the military for over 32 years, and having gone through the ordeal of months of combat under the worst of conditions followed by years of imprisonment by the Japanese, it is not enough. I'm writing these comments to let everyone know that I love my country more than I do my own personal security and well-being. I will go to my grave loving these United States of America and the liberty for which so many men have fought and died. Because of my poor physical condition this will be my final statement. I will make no further comments to any of the media regarding this issue.

Eugene Holmes
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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
I almost forgot... Clinton did have a little pull. He worked as a staffer for Senator J. William Fullbright (D-AR) while at Georgetown. He contacted Fullbright aide Lee Williams, who contacted Col. Holmes on Clinton's behalf.
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ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Admiralbill,
Thanks for this information. After reading your post, I relocated and reread this letter to Colonel Holmes and I find them to fit together fairly consistently. I had read the letter before, but had never seen Holmes statement that you posted here which does cast a new light on it. It does show some lack of honesty on Clinton's part.

Still though, he was in a no-win situation. His choices were:
1) Fight in a war he didn't believe in - i.e., violate his own conscience
2) Openly avoid the draft - i.e., break the law, face prosecution, and ruin his future political asperations
3) Covertly avoid the draft - the choice he made - which required dishonesty.

From his perspective, the choice he made was the lesser of the evils. I'm not sure I blame him. This is a problem with the draft which leaves many with a choice of violating their own conscience or prosecution.

I would not blame Bush for avoiding the draft if he disagreed with the war itself. But that is not what he has says. He says he had wanted to fight and was willing to undergo whatever training was necessary to do so. Based on his actions, I don't buy it. I'm guessing self-preservation is why he avoided the draft. That's not exactly what I would call supporting the troops. And that's why I find the claim of supporting our troops hard to believe now. Self-preservation and selfish interests is what he and his family have always been about. He supports the troops to the degree that it serves his own interests to do so.
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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
That's just it... he didn't avoid the draft. George Bush actually SERVED in the military. Did you know that several national guard and air national guard units served in Vietnam?

Personally, I think the reason he chose the Texas ANG was because their scholastic requirements were a little less stringent than the Air Force. Bush wanted to be a pilot like his father. He was a C+ student at Yale. Have you ever thought that he wouldn't have been accepted as a pilot cadet in the Air Force because of his less-than stellar grades? Why am I thinking this? Because to be a Navy pilot, you had to have had a 3.0 average in college before joining. A C+ is what, a 2.3? He couldn't have flown in my branch, and I'd be willing to bet that it was the same in the USAF. If you want to be a pilot, which does get the girls, but realize you'd probably be a supply officer in Dungheap, North Dakota, what would you do?

Think of this objectively (which, to be honest, you haven't been doing in this thread).
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
Thanks to IE and Admiral Bill for filling in the blanks for me on this particular issue. Yes, I did mean the ROTC instead of the National Guard. I assumed a mistake had been made in the material I read because I had never heard of Bill Clinton expressing an interest in attending school in Arkansas. In order to be part of the program he would have had to have been.

Although we have come to some type of understanding IE, we still have not come to an agreement and I doubt that we ever shall. It appears to me that you are engaging in a situational type of judgement in declaring George Bush, who served in the Guard, dishonest for "avoiding" service while declaring Bill Clinton, who you acknowledge employed some dishonesty to avoid service, moral because he claimed his reasons had to do with objection to the war and not saving his own skin.

I remember those years. The choices you listed were virtually the same for every draftee of that war. Given a choice, my brother would have offered to buy everyone on both sides a beer rather than to have to go and fight. Once there, he volunteered for duty that would keep him from having to use his weapon even in self-defense - which is probably why he got shot. :( I think he loved his country and family too much to go to Canada and could not morally say that he was opposed to war enough to go the CO route.

Bill Clinton could have avoided service in a number of ways - some he listed in his own letter. His overiding concern, however, was maintaining political viability above all else - including any "moral" opposition to the war.

I can't remember the name of the book now (written by a former military attache), but his Presidency had a reputation for displaying disdain to the those who served in uniform in the White House. Given that, his public displays of support for the military are what seem hollow and self-serving to me now.





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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
The book was "Unlimited Access" by Gary Aldritch (former FBI agent).
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
That's not the one I was thinking of in this case. The book I was thinking of was released more recently - like in the last six months. I believe the writer was an Air Force military attache for the White House.

Edit:

Dereliction of Duty by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson (retired)
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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
Ah so! I haven't read that one yet. Thanks, Rose :)
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