The apology Bush owes Dan Rather
CBS pandered to the Republican party by giving its anchorman the boot for revealing the truth about the president's war record
Ian Williams
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008 21.00 GMT
As George Bush shuffles off to a long absence that is not only with leave but with a heartfelt global sentiment that it is long overdue, he leaves behind a lot of unfinished business. One wonders whether, just in case, he will smuggle in a pardon for himself for his technical desertion and very definite absence without leave from the Texas Air National Guard.
What is really in order is some sort of pardon and apology to Dan Rather, who CBS's cowardly management squeezed from 60 Minutes for telling the truth about Bush's war record. Rather's suit against them, with its accompanying subpoenas, has now revealed that in their eagerness to throw a sacrificial victim to the swiftboating bloggers with their escorting media sharks, CBS management actually considered such paragons of journalistic objectivity as Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, William Kristol, William Safire and William Buckley for the investigating panel. Their concern was to counter the "reputation" of the network's liberal bias.
In the end, they settled on Dick Thornburgh, the Republican former attorney general appointed by the deserter-in-chief's dad, although apparently Roger Ailes, Fox News's brain was also under consideration.
Indeed, since they discussed the composition of this panel with the Republican party and Viacom's Washington lobbyists, it may even have been Republican operatives who had the good sense to realise that a Limbaugh or Coulter may not have the desired "reputation" of objectivity and credibility.
The investigation carefully did not consider the veracity of the charges against Bush, simply the provenance of the scrap of paper, but by the time it was over, many people who should have known better assumed that the story of Bush's desertion was refuted.
In fact, the evidence was compelling. Many others, myself included in my book, Deserter, had proved that George Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard with nepotistic backing in order to avoid service in Vietnam, a war that he agreed with. And then he went missing and failed to fulfill the terms of his service, an offence for which other less well-connected people were going to prison or being drafted to the jungle.
Let us consider the sins of Rather. Firstly, he admitted openly what everyone knew – that anchormen are performers not journalists. Secondly, 60 Minutes pandered to the television need for a McGuffin to wave around. However, it is still not proven that the memo under consideration was a forgery. What has been proven beyond doubt was that the information in it was accurate. The very secretary who said that she had not typed that particular piece of paper attested that she had typed exactly that same message.
The kindest explanation for CBS, other than outright political complicity, is that it paid the Danegeld, yet again, to keep the conservative hordes off its back by pandering to the Republican party. In a sense, it was not unique since most of the media were in post-9/11, post-Iraq mode mesmerised into thinking that any criticism of the Bush administration was treachery in the face of the enemy. It is not as if the Democratic benches hosted a swelling chorus of dissent either.
Rupert Murdoch cited the case last week: "Far from celebrating this citizen journalism, the establishment media reacted defensively. During an appearance on Fox News, a CBS executive attacked the bloggers in a statement that will go down in the annals of arrogance. '60 Minutes,' he said, was a professional organisation with 'multiple layers of checks and balances'. By contrast, he dismissed the blogger as 'a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing'. But eventually it was the guys sitting in their pajamas who forced Mr Rather and his producer to resign."
No it was not. It was because the "mainstream media" – not least Murdoch's – took up the bloggers against Rather and amplified their case. In a sense, this defines the essence of swiftboating as an Olympic event. The bloggers, backed by Fox, the rightwing talk radio jocks and the editorial pages of the WSJ with their hangers-on at the Standard, National Review etc, will conjure up a perfect storm of vituperation against their target, be it Kerry, Kofi Annan, or Dan Rather, and put everyone on the defensive. The technique is to generate so much smoke that no one notices that there is no fire.
But for some reason the evidence against Bush, abounding in small and regional publications and on the web, was not taken up with the same assiduity. So much for Murdoch's concern for blogs – and for CBS's journalistic standards in the face of its owner Viacom's need to keep in with the Bush White House.
Showing posts with label Bush. Deserter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Deserter. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Prisoner of Conscience
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > Ian Williams
Ian Williams
Prisoner of conscience
Scott McClellan's memoir shows him to be more of a Bush loyalist than the criticisms of his former White House colleagues would let on
Ian Williams
June 3, 2008 10:45 PM Guardian Comment is Free
He might not be up there with St Augustine, but former White House press secretary Scott McClellan give an honest depiction in his book of someone wrestling with his conscience. He is legibly torn between his loyalties to his country and to the president he helped elect. As Mr Everyconservative, his signposts on his personal road to Damascus are indeed those that define why the American public lost faith in the administration: the still unexplained rush to war in Iraq, the abysmal handling of the occupation and the inept response to Katrina.
The media reaction to his revelations on the duplicity of the Bush regime led to some unkind thoughts of front-page headlines on ursine defecation in the woods and papal Catholicism. Five years on, it is hardly the stuff of Pulitzers that the White House was not entirely candid over Iraqi WMDs and the Niger uranium letter, or had played a role in the vindictive outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
The surprised reaction to his book tends to weaken his argument that most of the press were doing a fine job all along. In fact, Arianna Huffington's new book has an honour roll of the press who did not go dizzy with the spin from McClellan and his colleagues. (In a spirit of full disclosure, she includes me in her list).
McClellan and his former chums were doing their job, which was to be as parsimonious with the truth as possible in what they fed to the White House press corps, which in turn seems to have bought the overall picture. While his apostasy from unwavering belief in a personal GOP with all the answers is impressive in itself, the sound of silence is still deafening. Perhaps the most egregious example, both of selective silence and of his professional stonewalling is his evasive refusal to answer veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas's questions about whether Bush had been sentenced to community service while he was supposed to be serving in the Texas Air National Guard. After 15 minutes, in February 2004, McClellan had not conceded a single word of substance.
Remarkably, neither Thomas herself nor the incident appear in McClellan's book. Also absent is mention of her exclusion, together with correspondents like her, from McClellan's list of journalists who were safe for the president to call on at his few and nugatory press encounters.
It seems that McClellan has not yet completed the 12-step programme to break his Bush dependence. McClellan shows he is still under the spell when he mentions the CBS 60 Minutes scandal over Bush's war record. He mentions it en passant, calling the documentary evidence "dubious". But the programme showed what others had demonstrated - that the story was substantially correct. Bush did dodge the Vietnam war, he did not fulfil his National Guard duty. And throughout, his answers were the presidential equivalent of pleading the Fifth Amendment.
McClellan explains how he began working for Bush because he thought the Texas governor would work in the White House in the chummy, bipartisan way that McClellan saw him at work in Texas. He is Texan himself, so he perhaps does not realise how anomalous the cozy condominium betweens the Dems and the GOP was, spanning as they do the full political spectrum from centre right to John Birchite.
Nevertheless, McClellan's honesty comes through - even though one has to wonder, first at finding a Texan Republican opposed to the death penalty, as he was, and secondly how he could work for a governor who put down more humans than most vets have cats.
He is still conflicted about Bush, in whom he sees reserves of intelligence, if not quite intellect, that most have not. He clearly has a point. Vituperation apart, it was Bush and not the more visibly cerebral John Kerry or Al Gore who is just finishing two terms in the White House. Even allowing for Cheney and Rove as puppet masters, which McClellan does not really see, McClellan is surely right that Bush is not as stupid as may appear to the rest of us.
But there is a complexity to Bush and his past, which McClellan hints at without really explaining. The British political euphemism "economical with the truth" never had a stauncher practitioner than the president, who carries an Orwellian memory hole in his jeans pocket. McClellan mentions that when he wanted to get Bush to sign a bill on drunk driving, longtime aide Karen Hughes told him that the president wouldn't because of "something in his past".
The precise issues came up later when he 'fessed up to a DUI citation, which was then cemented over far more hermetically than Clinton's tortured smoking without inhaling. Incrementally, under questioning, Bush put back the years to which he was prepared to say he had not used cocaine, but miraculously escaped answering the direct question whether or not he had used it.
McClellan recounts his growing doubts about the methods used to get into and get out of Iraq, and loyally but unconvincingly explains that while Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons all had their different reasons, the president's concern was for freedom and democracy in Iraq. He begs the question of why Iraq should be the sole country out of so many with a democratic deficit that needed such attention. Sometimes, one supposes, freedom's just another excuse when there's nothing else to use.
The Joseph Wilson/Plame outing was the real turning point for McClellan, who was loyally prepared to be parsimonious with facts when ordered and happily took an asymptotic line with his statements, which may have approached the sphere of lies but never quite touched it. The president, Cheney and Rove cozened him into telling absolute lies about the leak, which clearly hit his own personal integrity and his sense of loyalty to country rather than dynasty.
He is still prevaricating about whether Bush knew about the leak, but he should have read up on Henry II's meant-to-be-overheard exclamation about Becket: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"
Bush's attachment to fixed ideas like invading in Iraq, combined with his impatience with nuance, may have occasionally seemed to his many opponents like a convincing display of retardation, but if he seemed moronic, there is obviously method in it, allowing him to disclaim the messy details needed to fulfil his eschatological visions.
But in the end, McClellan's book is well worth reading. For anyone connected with any recent administration to admit that they were wrong is a major step forward for Beltwaykind. And one cannot help suspecting that as he clears his mental lungs of the mephitic atmosphere of the White House, his recollections and analysis will improve even more.
Ian Williams
Prisoner of conscience
Scott McClellan's memoir shows him to be more of a Bush loyalist than the criticisms of his former White House colleagues would let on
Ian Williams
June 3, 2008 10:45 PM Guardian Comment is Free
He might not be up there with St Augustine, but former White House press secretary Scott McClellan give an honest depiction in his book of someone wrestling with his conscience. He is legibly torn between his loyalties to his country and to the president he helped elect. As Mr Everyconservative, his signposts on his personal road to Damascus are indeed those that define why the American public lost faith in the administration: the still unexplained rush to war in Iraq, the abysmal handling of the occupation and the inept response to Katrina.
The media reaction to his revelations on the duplicity of the Bush regime led to some unkind thoughts of front-page headlines on ursine defecation in the woods and papal Catholicism. Five years on, it is hardly the stuff of Pulitzers that the White House was not entirely candid over Iraqi WMDs and the Niger uranium letter, or had played a role in the vindictive outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
The surprised reaction to his book tends to weaken his argument that most of the press were doing a fine job all along. In fact, Arianna Huffington's new book has an honour roll of the press who did not go dizzy with the spin from McClellan and his colleagues. (In a spirit of full disclosure, she includes me in her list).
McClellan and his former chums were doing their job, which was to be as parsimonious with the truth as possible in what they fed to the White House press corps, which in turn seems to have bought the overall picture. While his apostasy from unwavering belief in a personal GOP with all the answers is impressive in itself, the sound of silence is still deafening. Perhaps the most egregious example, both of selective silence and of his professional stonewalling is his evasive refusal to answer veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas's questions about whether Bush had been sentenced to community service while he was supposed to be serving in the Texas Air National Guard. After 15 minutes, in February 2004, McClellan had not conceded a single word of substance.
Remarkably, neither Thomas herself nor the incident appear in McClellan's book. Also absent is mention of her exclusion, together with correspondents like her, from McClellan's list of journalists who were safe for the president to call on at his few and nugatory press encounters.
It seems that McClellan has not yet completed the 12-step programme to break his Bush dependence. McClellan shows he is still under the spell when he mentions the CBS 60 Minutes scandal over Bush's war record. He mentions it en passant, calling the documentary evidence "dubious". But the programme showed what others had demonstrated - that the story was substantially correct. Bush did dodge the Vietnam war, he did not fulfil his National Guard duty. And throughout, his answers were the presidential equivalent of pleading the Fifth Amendment.
McClellan explains how he began working for Bush because he thought the Texas governor would work in the White House in the chummy, bipartisan way that McClellan saw him at work in Texas. He is Texan himself, so he perhaps does not realise how anomalous the cozy condominium betweens the Dems and the GOP was, spanning as they do the full political spectrum from centre right to John Birchite.
Nevertheless, McClellan's honesty comes through - even though one has to wonder, first at finding a Texan Republican opposed to the death penalty, as he was, and secondly how he could work for a governor who put down more humans than most vets have cats.
He is still conflicted about Bush, in whom he sees reserves of intelligence, if not quite intellect, that most have not. He clearly has a point. Vituperation apart, it was Bush and not the more visibly cerebral John Kerry or Al Gore who is just finishing two terms in the White House. Even allowing for Cheney and Rove as puppet masters, which McClellan does not really see, McClellan is surely right that Bush is not as stupid as may appear to the rest of us.
But there is a complexity to Bush and his past, which McClellan hints at without really explaining. The British political euphemism "economical with the truth" never had a stauncher practitioner than the president, who carries an Orwellian memory hole in his jeans pocket. McClellan mentions that when he wanted to get Bush to sign a bill on drunk driving, longtime aide Karen Hughes told him that the president wouldn't because of "something in his past".
The precise issues came up later when he 'fessed up to a DUI citation, which was then cemented over far more hermetically than Clinton's tortured smoking without inhaling. Incrementally, under questioning, Bush put back the years to which he was prepared to say he had not used cocaine, but miraculously escaped answering the direct question whether or not he had used it.
McClellan recounts his growing doubts about the methods used to get into and get out of Iraq, and loyally but unconvincingly explains that while Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons all had their different reasons, the president's concern was for freedom and democracy in Iraq. He begs the question of why Iraq should be the sole country out of so many with a democratic deficit that needed such attention. Sometimes, one supposes, freedom's just another excuse when there's nothing else to use.
The Joseph Wilson/Plame outing was the real turning point for McClellan, who was loyally prepared to be parsimonious with facts when ordered and happily took an asymptotic line with his statements, which may have approached the sphere of lies but never quite touched it. The president, Cheney and Rove cozened him into telling absolute lies about the leak, which clearly hit his own personal integrity and his sense of loyalty to country rather than dynasty.
He is still prevaricating about whether Bush knew about the leak, but he should have read up on Henry II's meant-to-be-overheard exclamation about Becket: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"
Bush's attachment to fixed ideas like invading in Iraq, combined with his impatience with nuance, may have occasionally seemed to his many opponents like a convincing display of retardation, but if he seemed moronic, there is obviously method in it, allowing him to disclaim the messy details needed to fulfil his eschatological visions.
But in the end, McClellan's book is well worth reading. For anyone connected with any recent administration to admit that they were wrong is a major step forward for Beltwaykind. And one cannot help suspecting that as he clears his mental lungs of the mephitic atmosphere of the White House, his recollections and analysis will improve even more.
Monday, June 02, 2008
The Sound of Silence
Neither Helen Thomas, the resolute questioner at this briefing, nor the briefing itself in February 2004, is mentioned in Scott McClellan's new book which I will be writing about in the Guardian CiF, so this by way of background. The transcript is also reprinted as an appendix to my book "Deserter."
Q: Did the President ever have to take time off from Guard duty to do community service?
Scott McClellan: To do community service? I haven't looked into everything he did 30 years ago, Helen. Obviously, there is different community service he has performed in the past, including going back to that time period --
Q: Can you find out if he actually had --
Scott McClellan: Helen, I don't think we remember every single activity he was involved in 30 years ago.
Q: No, this isn't an activity. Was he forced to do community service at any time while he was on --
Scott McClellan: What's your interest in that question? I'm sorry, I just --
Q: Lots of rumors. I'm just trying to clear up something.
Scott McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: Pardon?
Scott McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: About the President having to do community service while he was in the National Guard, take time out for that.
Scott McClellan: I'm not aware of those rumors. But if you want to --
Q: Could you look it up? Would you mind asking him?
Scott McClellan: That's why I'm asking what's your interest in that? I just don't understand your interest in that.
Q: It's what everybody is interested in, whether we're getting the true story on his Guard duty.
Scott McClellan: Well, you have the documents that show the facts.
Q: I'm asking you to try to find out from the President of the United States.
Scott McClellan: Like I said, it's well known the different jobs he had and what he was doing previously, that we know. That goes back to --
Q: I didn't say "previously." I said, while he was on Guard duty.
Scott McClellan: But you're asking me about 30 years ago. I don't think there's a recollection of everything he was doing 30 years ago.
Q: Well, he would know if he had to take time out.
Scott McClellan: Again, I mean, the issue that was raised was whether or not the President was serving while he was in Alabama. Documents reflect that he
was --
Q: Well, this is another issue.
Scott McClellan: -- hold on -- that he was serving in Alabama. That was the issue that was raised. We went through, four years ago, other issues related to this.
Q: So you won't answer the question or you won't try to find out?
Scott McClellan: Well, I'm asking you, what's your interest in that question? I'm just curious, because rumors --
Q: Did he have to do any community service while he was in the National Guard?
Scott McClellan: Look, Helen, I think the issue here was whether or not the President served in Alabama. Records have documented --
Q: I'm asking you a different question. That's permissible.
Scott McClellan: Can I answer your question? Sure it is. Can I ask you why you're asking it? I'm just -- out of curiosity myself, is that permissible?
Q: Well, I'm interested, of course, in what everybody is interested in. And we have a very --
Scott McClellan: Let me just point out that we've released all the information we have related to this issue, the issue of whether or not he served while in Alabama. Records have documented as false the outrageous --
Q: I asked you whether he had to do any community service while he was in the National Guard.
Scott McClellan: Can I walk through this?
Q: It's a very legitimate question.
Scott McClellan: And I want to back up and walk through this a little bit. Let's talk about the issue that came up, because this issue came up four years ago, it came up four years before that -- or two years before that, it came up four years before that --
Q: Did my question come up four years ago, and was it handled?
Scott McClellan: Helen, if you'll let me finish, I want to back up and talk about this --
Q: Don't dance around, just give us --
Q: It's a straightforward question.
Q: Let's not put too fine a point on it. If I'm not mistaken, you're implying that he had to do community service for criminal action, as a punishment for some crime?
Q: There are rumors around, and I didn't put it in that way. I just --
Q: Could you take that question? I guess apparently that's the question, that he had to take time out to perform community service --
Scott McClellan: That's why I wanted to get to this because --
Q: -- as a sentence for a crime.
Scott McClellan: No, that's why I wanted to get to this because I want to step back for a second. I want to go back through a few things. Look, the -- I think we've really exhausted the issue that came up. The issue that came up was related to whether or not he had served while he was in Alabama. Records have documented as false the outrageous, baseless accusation that he did not serve while in Alabama. The conspiracy theory of one individual, that the National Guard cleansed documents, has been discredited.
Q: How so?
Scott McClellan: Read The Boston Globe today.
Q: Well, we want answers from you, not --
Scott McClellan: Read the Boston Globe. No, the answers are from the people that would have knowledge of that. But read --
Q: Why do you think this person made those allegations?
Scott McClellan: Hang on, hang on.
Q: What? Just read The Boston Globe --
Scott McClellan: Just read The Boston Globe. Read The Boston Globe. I would draw your attention to that. What I think we're seeing now is just politics. And we're not going to engage in it, because there are great challenges facing our nation, and there should be an honest discussion of the actions the President is taking to make our world safer and better and make America more prosperous and secure.
You want me to go --
Q: -- the personal record of a President is --
Scott McClellan: No, hang on, Helen, hang on. I've said from this podium, if we have new information that comes to our attention that relates to this issue, we have made it clear we will share that information. You're asking me to go and chase rumors. There was a conspiracy theory --
Q: I think --
Scott McClellan: Hold on, hold on, Helen. There was a conspiracy theory made by one individual, when everybody he accused of being involved in that said, it's ridiculous, didn't happen.
Q: This is not based on a conspiracy theory.
Scott McClellan: And there was a lot of attention given to this individual, and he's been discredited. There's a Boston Globe article on it this morning. And there are some --
Q: That says what? Your point --
Scott McClellan: You can go read it. I mean, we've got other things to move on to. I mean, you can go read it. But there are some, unfortunately, who simply are not interested in the facts. Again, the documents -- the records document that he did serve while in Alabama. And now there are people that are bringing up issues that were addressed four years ago.
Q: But you still haven't answered Helen's question. She asked you a simple question.
Scott McClellan: There are people that want to replay the 2000 campaign all over again, Bill, and --
Q: You still haven't answered her question about community service.
Scott McClellan: -- there are too many important -- there are too many important policies and decisions that are being made that we need to discuss.
Q: Why does a "yes" or "no" elude you on this?
Scott McClellan: I didn't say that. I said that these were all issues addressed four years ago. If there's additional information --
Q: This issue quite obviously wasn't addressed four years ago.
Scott McClellan: Oh, issues -- these issues were addressed four years ago.
Q: This issue was? The community service issue was addressed four years ago?
Scott McClellan: The issues -- the issues that we're going to here --
Q: I don't recall --
Scott McClellan: This is called chasing a rumor. And I'm not going to engage in this kind of politics, Bill.
Q: -- finding out whether a rumor is true or false.
Scott McClellan: No, this issue, absolutely --
Q: Why can't you say whether or not he performed community service?
Scott McClellan: Absolutely, this issue came up four years ago. And if you all want to play politics, then go call the RNC, call the campaign.
Q: The best defense is offense. We know that. Just, all you've got to say is you don't know.
Scott McClellan: Helen, it was -- this issue was addressed four years ago. I think people that were involved in the campaign will know --
Q: -- if they know --
Scott McClellan: -- that the issue that you're trying to bring up was addressed four years ago. It's about chasing rumors.
Q: It isn't a question of four years ago. The issue has come up now, very large.
Scott McClellan: I'm not going to get into chasing rumors.
Q: Headlines.
Scott McClellan: I'm not going to get into chasing rumors.
Q: So you refuse to answer the question?
Scott McClellan: You're saying that people said he was forced to do something, and you're asking me to chase a rumor.
Q: Everything is politics today, of course.
Q: She asked you a "yes" or "no" question.
Scott McClellan: Look, if you all want to -- this is just politics. That's what this is. And if there's any more information I have to share with you all, I will always -- I will do that.
Q: Scott, I have a question of this individual, and I confess, I haven't read the Boston article. But who -- what do you believe was this person's motivation, that if they have been discredited, for making these allegations?
Scott McClellan: Just -- I would read The Boston Globe. Everybody that he accused of being involved in this has said it was totally ridiculous. And there are others that --
Q: So are you saying -- was it politically motivated?
Scott McClellan: There are others that are quoted in The Boston Globe today, that you might want to see what they said.
Q: Speaking of politics, has the President authorized his campaign --
Scott McClellan: And we've got to --
Q: -- to release a video attacking Senator Kerry?
Scott McClellan: You need to talk -- you need to talk to the campaign. But let me go to the week ahead because we've used up more than 15 minutes.
Q: So the President did authorize --
Q: Scott, I've got --
Scott McClellan: I'm going to go to the week ahead.
Q: Did the President ever have to take time off from Guard duty to do community service?
Scott McClellan: To do community service? I haven't looked into everything he did 30 years ago, Helen. Obviously, there is different community service he has performed in the past, including going back to that time period --
Q: Can you find out if he actually had --
Scott McClellan: Helen, I don't think we remember every single activity he was involved in 30 years ago.
Q: No, this isn't an activity. Was he forced to do community service at any time while he was on --
Scott McClellan: What's your interest in that question? I'm sorry, I just --
Q: Lots of rumors. I'm just trying to clear up something.
Scott McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: Pardon?
Scott McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: About the President having to do community service while he was in the National Guard, take time out for that.
Scott McClellan: I'm not aware of those rumors. But if you want to --
Q: Could you look it up? Would you mind asking him?
Scott McClellan: That's why I'm asking what's your interest in that? I just don't understand your interest in that.
Q: It's what everybody is interested in, whether we're getting the true story on his Guard duty.
Scott McClellan: Well, you have the documents that show the facts.
Q: I'm asking you to try to find out from the President of the United States.
Scott McClellan: Like I said, it's well known the different jobs he had and what he was doing previously, that we know. That goes back to --
Q: I didn't say "previously." I said, while he was on Guard duty.
Scott McClellan: But you're asking me about 30 years ago. I don't think there's a recollection of everything he was doing 30 years ago.
Q: Well, he would know if he had to take time out.
Scott McClellan: Again, I mean, the issue that was raised was whether or not the President was serving while he was in Alabama. Documents reflect that he
was --
Q: Well, this is another issue.
Scott McClellan: -- hold on -- that he was serving in Alabama. That was the issue that was raised. We went through, four years ago, other issues related to this.
Q: So you won't answer the question or you won't try to find out?
Scott McClellan: Well, I'm asking you, what's your interest in that question? I'm just curious, because rumors --
Q: Did he have to do any community service while he was in the National Guard?
Scott McClellan: Look, Helen, I think the issue here was whether or not the President served in Alabama. Records have documented --
Q: I'm asking you a different question. That's permissible.
Scott McClellan: Can I answer your question? Sure it is. Can I ask you why you're asking it? I'm just -- out of curiosity myself, is that permissible?
Q: Well, I'm interested, of course, in what everybody is interested in. And we have a very --
Scott McClellan: Let me just point out that we've released all the information we have related to this issue, the issue of whether or not he served while in Alabama. Records have documented as false the outrageous --
Q: I asked you whether he had to do any community service while he was in the National Guard.
Scott McClellan: Can I walk through this?
Q: It's a very legitimate question.
Scott McClellan: And I want to back up and walk through this a little bit. Let's talk about the issue that came up, because this issue came up four years ago, it came up four years before that -- or two years before that, it came up four years before that --
Q: Did my question come up four years ago, and was it handled?
Scott McClellan: Helen, if you'll let me finish, I want to back up and talk about this --
Q: Don't dance around, just give us --
Q: It's a straightforward question.
Q: Let's not put too fine a point on it. If I'm not mistaken, you're implying that he had to do community service for criminal action, as a punishment for some crime?
Q: There are rumors around, and I didn't put it in that way. I just --
Q: Could you take that question? I guess apparently that's the question, that he had to take time out to perform community service --
Scott McClellan: That's why I wanted to get to this because --
Q: -- as a sentence for a crime.
Scott McClellan: No, that's why I wanted to get to this because I want to step back for a second. I want to go back through a few things. Look, the -- I think we've really exhausted the issue that came up. The issue that came up was related to whether or not he had served while he was in Alabama. Records have documented as false the outrageous, baseless accusation that he did not serve while in Alabama. The conspiracy theory of one individual, that the National Guard cleansed documents, has been discredited.
Q: How so?
Scott McClellan: Read The Boston Globe today.
Q: Well, we want answers from you, not --
Scott McClellan: Read the Boston Globe. No, the answers are from the people that would have knowledge of that. But read --
Q: Why do you think this person made those allegations?
Scott McClellan: Hang on, hang on.
Q: What? Just read The Boston Globe --
Scott McClellan: Just read The Boston Globe. Read The Boston Globe. I would draw your attention to that. What I think we're seeing now is just politics. And we're not going to engage in it, because there are great challenges facing our nation, and there should be an honest discussion of the actions the President is taking to make our world safer and better and make America more prosperous and secure.
You want me to go --
Q: -- the personal record of a President is --
Scott McClellan: No, hang on, Helen, hang on. I've said from this podium, if we have new information that comes to our attention that relates to this issue, we have made it clear we will share that information. You're asking me to go and chase rumors. There was a conspiracy theory --
Q: I think --
Scott McClellan: Hold on, hold on, Helen. There was a conspiracy theory made by one individual, when everybody he accused of being involved in that said, it's ridiculous, didn't happen.
Q: This is not based on a conspiracy theory.
Scott McClellan: And there was a lot of attention given to this individual, and he's been discredited. There's a Boston Globe article on it this morning. And there are some --
Q: That says what? Your point --
Scott McClellan: You can go read it. I mean, we've got other things to move on to. I mean, you can go read it. But there are some, unfortunately, who simply are not interested in the facts. Again, the documents -- the records document that he did serve while in Alabama. And now there are people that are bringing up issues that were addressed four years ago.
Q: But you still haven't answered Helen's question. She asked you a simple question.
Scott McClellan: There are people that want to replay the 2000 campaign all over again, Bill, and --
Q: You still haven't answered her question about community service.
Scott McClellan: -- there are too many important -- there are too many important policies and decisions that are being made that we need to discuss.
Q: Why does a "yes" or "no" elude you on this?
Scott McClellan: I didn't say that. I said that these were all issues addressed four years ago. If there's additional information --
Q: This issue quite obviously wasn't addressed four years ago.
Scott McClellan: Oh, issues -- these issues were addressed four years ago.
Q: This issue was? The community service issue was addressed four years ago?
Scott McClellan: The issues -- the issues that we're going to here --
Q: I don't recall --
Scott McClellan: This is called chasing a rumor. And I'm not going to engage in this kind of politics, Bill.
Q: -- finding out whether a rumor is true or false.
Scott McClellan: No, this issue, absolutely --
Q: Why can't you say whether or not he performed community service?
Scott McClellan: Absolutely, this issue came up four years ago. And if you all want to play politics, then go call the RNC, call the campaign.
Q: The best defense is offense. We know that. Just, all you've got to say is you don't know.
Scott McClellan: Helen, it was -- this issue was addressed four years ago. I think people that were involved in the campaign will know --
Q: -- if they know --
Scott McClellan: -- that the issue that you're trying to bring up was addressed four years ago. It's about chasing rumors.
Q: It isn't a question of four years ago. The issue has come up now, very large.
Scott McClellan: I'm not going to get into chasing rumors.
Q: Headlines.
Scott McClellan: I'm not going to get into chasing rumors.
Q: So you refuse to answer the question?
Scott McClellan: You're saying that people said he was forced to do something, and you're asking me to chase a rumor.
Q: Everything is politics today, of course.
Q: She asked you a "yes" or "no" question.
Scott McClellan: Look, if you all want to -- this is just politics. That's what this is. And if there's any more information I have to share with you all, I will always -- I will do that.
Q: Scott, I have a question of this individual, and I confess, I haven't read the Boston article. But who -- what do you believe was this person's motivation, that if they have been discredited, for making these allegations?
Scott McClellan: Just -- I would read The Boston Globe. Everybody that he accused of being involved in this has said it was totally ridiculous. And there are others that --
Q: So are you saying -- was it politically motivated?
Scott McClellan: There are others that are quoted in The Boston Globe today, that you might want to see what they said.
Q: Speaking of politics, has the President authorized his campaign --
Scott McClellan: And we've got to --
Q: -- to release a video attacking Senator Kerry?
Scott McClellan: You need to talk -- you need to talk to the campaign. But let me go to the week ahead because we've used up more than 15 minutes.
Q: So the President did authorize --
Q: Scott, I've got --
Scott McClellan: I'm going to go to the week ahead.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
War Resistors and Larry Flynt
This is the text of the article I wrote for Hustler magazine a few months ago. In recursive fashion, I wrote about writing for Hustler for the Guardian afterwards. Now the blogosphere has decided to republish the original Hustler article, so I may as well. They are also using it as a stick to beat the Nation with. The Nation has many palpable faults, but I cannot say they turned this idea down. Rather Hustler came to me based on my book "Deserter" (see the Amazon button to the left). On the other hand, the Nation while keeping me listed on the editorial page as their UN Correspondent, has not accepted a piece from me on the book pages for some four years, and in the main magazine for over one. So there may be some point there, even if I am not sure what. Apparently I upset the editor by describing the Nation as a socialist magazine on the O'Reilly Factor, which I meant as a compliment but she and Bill O both took differently!
So here goes.
Hell No, They Won't Go!
________________________________________
Soldiers talk to Ian Williams on going AWOL, deserting and resisting Bush’s military.
Pablo Paredes, an ex-Navy petty officer who refused to board the Iraq-bound USS Bonhomme Richard in December 2003, estimates that up to 40,000 U.S. servicemen and -women have either gone AWOL (absent without leave) or deserted since 2000. The number of deserters from the Iraq War alone is estimated at around 10,000. The GI Rights Helpline—where The Bronx, New York, resident works—gets 40,000 calls a year—half from military personnel who’ve gone AWOL and want advice on their options. Paredes assumes that at least the same number do not call.
“Every time we pick up the phone, it’s a horror story,” Paredes relates. “They’ve all seen something incredibly traumatic; they’ve watched friends die, civilians die, women assaulted and raped. They’ve had enough. Some of them have been officially diagnosed with psych issues,” Paredes continues, “and the military tries to get them to suck it up and send them straight back to Iraq. Some have done three, four or even five tours of duty, and they are not going back to risk their lives a sixth time. They don’t want to lose their lives for an insane war.”
Court-martialed for refusing to ship out to the Gulf, Paredes was administratively discharged after receiving a relatively light sentence and serving no time in the brig.
The Pentagon is evasive about revealing numbers. By 2004 the Defense Department admitted to 8,500 deserters—not including Marines. On December 2, 2006, CNN reported that 9,500 servicemen and -women had deserted since the start of the Iraq War and that 2,500 to 3,000 had gone AWOL. While anyone absent without leave for more than 30 days is technically classified a deserter, Paredes has had callers who have been on the lam for six months without being officially listed.
The numbers involved are the highest since the Vietnam War, during which an estimated 1.5 million soldiers deserted and went AWOL. Back then, George W. Bush moved to Texas and used his family connections to dodge combat duty while less-well-connected Americans flocked by the thousands to Canada. Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau rolled out the red carpet for them, saying, “Canada should be a refuge from militarism.” Up to 100,000 went north, 30,000 settling there permanently.
One of them, Jeffry House, became a lawyer and now handles the cases of over 30 contemporary GIs who have applied for refugee status to avoid service in Iraq. He estimates that there are another 200 in Canada who have not yet applied formally.
Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía was the first combat veteran who refused to return to Iraq, staying Stateside to denounce the war. He gave himself up and received a year sentence, but is still fighting. “I’m appealing my conviction, so I’m still in the military, although I’m not in uniform or being bossed around by a military superior,” says Mejía, who seems haunted by the things he did and saw in Iraq.
“It’s a pretty messed- up thing, so you can’t really say I have no regrets. But after all, I’m in a better position. The experience has allowed me to grow, to speak out against the war, to educate others. I’ve had some contact with people from my squad in Iraq, and they have been very supportive. They know it was not a matter of cowardice, because we have been through so much together, and I did my job as a squad leader. I proved myself to them in combat; they know me very well.”
Mejía, the son of Sandinista revolutionaries, ruled out fleeing. “I weighed the idea of Canada, but I also had dual Nicaraguan and Costa Rican citizenship, so I could have gone back to either of those countries and had a comfortable middle-class life. It was not just to save my own skin. The best way to make my voice heard was to go public and take my place in court, and eventually it may go all the way to the Supreme Court, if the military refuses to recognize my rights as a conscientious objector.”
In this war, the stakes are higher for those crossing the border. These resisters are a new and tougher breed. Unlike most Vietnam-era servicemen, they volunteered for the military, and most expressed their willingness to go to equally dangerous combat zones in Afghanistan, but they all unite in condemning the war in Iraq as immoral, illegal and futile. And they should know: Many of them have been there.
By 1969, all an American GI had to do was cross the border and register as an immigrant, since Trudeau’s government guaranteed no one would be sent back. Since then, Canada has raised its immigration barriers. Would-be immigrants have to apply from their own countries and are required to show education, training and financial assets before emigrating to Canada—a process that can take two years.
Today arriving GIs must apply for political asylum on the grounds of persecution for refusing to take part in an illegal war. Three years ago, former Private First Class Jeremy Hinzman was the first American to apply for this status. His case is being laboriously fought by the Canadian government, which is now conservative and has so far persuaded the courts to ignore the question of whether or not the Iraq War is illegal. The lower level Immigration and Refugee Boards and courts have ruled against Hinzman, who, if successful, would reportedly be Canada’s first ever certified political refugee from the U.S.
Hinzman headed north with his wife and toddler at the beginning of 2004. Now working as a bike courier in Toronto, he has already survived several of Ontario’s ferocious winters. “The government didn’t roll out a red carpet for us,” Hinzman says, “but we like it up here, and there’s a lot of support for what we have done.”
The ex-soldier adds, “We’ve adapted pretty well. The fact that there is free healthcare is a big plus, but in general it’s not that different from home. Everyone has equal opportunities. We’re not rich, but we’re not poor—comfortable.”
Hinzman has no regrets. He joined the Army for the college funding, but was so horrified by the bloodthirsty values of basic training that he applied for conscientious objector status. Pending his appeal, he served in a noncombatant post with the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. After returning home, Hinzman heard that his application had been denied and that he was being deployed to Iraq. So he flew the coop to the Great White North.
“It was an illegal war,” Hinzman insists. “We did the right thing by deciding to fight it. Canada refused to fight in the war. To me that said they thought the war was illegal and immoral. When we came here, we knew that the chances were we may not be able to go back to America.”
Hinzman attends meetings of the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada, but the ex-GIs do not cling together obsessively like expatriates in a foreign country. “It’s not like we are the army north of the border,” Hinzman laughs. In addition to those who have asked for political asylum, other deserters who fled to Canada are trying to make up their minds. House says over 100 have contacted him, and he knows of more on Canada’s West Coast and in Quebec.
House describes Ottawa’s dilemma: “The Canadian government doesn’t want to send a signal to the U.S. Army: ‘Come here!’ Individual officials come up to us and whisper sympathy. But that’s not the official line, which is that the war is not obnoxious or illegal enough for you to stay here.”
In a recent poll, 74% of Canadians saw George W. Bush as a threat to world peace. About the same number said the Iraq War was not justified, so there’s lots of support for the GIs, restraining any attempts by Canada’s new right-tilting government to send them back. It helps, says House, that the war resisters “are very presentable, intelligent, thoughtful and articulate; they have been through things.”
House is confident of eventual success, even if the issue has to go all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. He cites the ironic precedent of a decade ago in which the Court ruled in favor of Mohamed Al-Maisri, a Yemeni deserter from Saddam Hussein’s army at the time of the first Gulf War. In other words, it’s not illegal to desert from an army that stages unprovoked attacks.
Hinzman’s case has now been followed by around three dozen more, and none of his counterparts feel any pressure to leave. Applicants for refugee status get work permits, access to the school system and—something mentioned enthusiastically by all I spoke to—Canada’s free healthcare.
Kyle Snyder headed to British Columbia when he returned from Iraq on leave. Snyder was already disaffected with the military due to family problems, but adds, “I saw a lot of things that were changing my mind about this war. I made a conscious choice that I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed in Iraq. I felt it was evil, the things that were happening. We were not doing anything positive for the Iraqi people.”
Then, after 18 months in Canada, Snyder heard that another resister, Darrell Anderson, had negotiated a deal that would have him quickly discharged if he went south and gave himself up. Snyder retained Anderson’s attorney, Jim Fennerty, who’d worked out the same offer with Major Brian Patterson at Fort Knox in Kentucky. “I gave up my job in Canada, gave up my healthcare and my refugee status,” Snyder states. “In fact, I gave up the life I had started over the last 18 months on a chance of a discharge that they would just let me out.”
However, when Snyder reported to Fort Knox, instead of the less-than-honorable discharge he was promised, Snyder says, “The whole attitude changed. It was ‘We are going to fuck you, we will send you back to your unit, and you will probably be redeployed back to Iraq.’”
Soldiers from Fort Knox dropped him off at the Greyhound station for a trip to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Snyder recalls thinking, “I’m, like, fuck this. I’m not getting on that bus.”
Instead, when I eventually spoke to him, he was in New Orleans. “I’m going to help Iraq Veterans Against the War reconstruct, like we should have done when Katrina hit,” he declared. “It’s still a disaster area here; I don’t see why there aren’t troops here. It takes me running away from the military to do a job the military should have been doing in the first place.”
And after only a few weeks, he missed Canada. “We were loved up there. I miss it. I do.”
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came….
Manhattan-based Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past and Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. The U.N. correspondent for The Nation magazine and many other publications around the world, Williams covered both Gulf wars. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, Scarborough Country, Hardball, Lou Dobbs Tonight and Your World w/ Neil Cavuto. “I’m the liberal lion they throw to the Christian Right,” Williams quips.
So here goes.
Hell No, They Won't Go!
________________________________________
Soldiers talk to Ian Williams on going AWOL, deserting and resisting Bush’s military.
Pablo Paredes, an ex-Navy petty officer who refused to board the Iraq-bound USS Bonhomme Richard in December 2003, estimates that up to 40,000 U.S. servicemen and -women have either gone AWOL (absent without leave) or deserted since 2000. The number of deserters from the Iraq War alone is estimated at around 10,000. The GI Rights Helpline—where The Bronx, New York, resident works—gets 40,000 calls a year—half from military personnel who’ve gone AWOL and want advice on their options. Paredes assumes that at least the same number do not call.
“Every time we pick up the phone, it’s a horror story,” Paredes relates. “They’ve all seen something incredibly traumatic; they’ve watched friends die, civilians die, women assaulted and raped. They’ve had enough. Some of them have been officially diagnosed with psych issues,” Paredes continues, “and the military tries to get them to suck it up and send them straight back to Iraq. Some have done three, four or even five tours of duty, and they are not going back to risk their lives a sixth time. They don’t want to lose their lives for an insane war.”
Court-martialed for refusing to ship out to the Gulf, Paredes was administratively discharged after receiving a relatively light sentence and serving no time in the brig.
The Pentagon is evasive about revealing numbers. By 2004 the Defense Department admitted to 8,500 deserters—not including Marines. On December 2, 2006, CNN reported that 9,500 servicemen and -women had deserted since the start of the Iraq War and that 2,500 to 3,000 had gone AWOL. While anyone absent without leave for more than 30 days is technically classified a deserter, Paredes has had callers who have been on the lam for six months without being officially listed.
The numbers involved are the highest since the Vietnam War, during which an estimated 1.5 million soldiers deserted and went AWOL. Back then, George W. Bush moved to Texas and used his family connections to dodge combat duty while less-well-connected Americans flocked by the thousands to Canada. Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau rolled out the red carpet for them, saying, “Canada should be a refuge from militarism.” Up to 100,000 went north, 30,000 settling there permanently.
One of them, Jeffry House, became a lawyer and now handles the cases of over 30 contemporary GIs who have applied for refugee status to avoid service in Iraq. He estimates that there are another 200 in Canada who have not yet applied formally.
Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía was the first combat veteran who refused to return to Iraq, staying Stateside to denounce the war. He gave himself up and received a year sentence, but is still fighting. “I’m appealing my conviction, so I’m still in the military, although I’m not in uniform or being bossed around by a military superior,” says Mejía, who seems haunted by the things he did and saw in Iraq.
“It’s a pretty messed- up thing, so you can’t really say I have no regrets. But after all, I’m in a better position. The experience has allowed me to grow, to speak out against the war, to educate others. I’ve had some contact with people from my squad in Iraq, and they have been very supportive. They know it was not a matter of cowardice, because we have been through so much together, and I did my job as a squad leader. I proved myself to them in combat; they know me very well.”
Mejía, the son of Sandinista revolutionaries, ruled out fleeing. “I weighed the idea of Canada, but I also had dual Nicaraguan and Costa Rican citizenship, so I could have gone back to either of those countries and had a comfortable middle-class life. It was not just to save my own skin. The best way to make my voice heard was to go public and take my place in court, and eventually it may go all the way to the Supreme Court, if the military refuses to recognize my rights as a conscientious objector.”
In this war, the stakes are higher for those crossing the border. These resisters are a new and tougher breed. Unlike most Vietnam-era servicemen, they volunteered for the military, and most expressed their willingness to go to equally dangerous combat zones in Afghanistan, but they all unite in condemning the war in Iraq as immoral, illegal and futile. And they should know: Many of them have been there.
By 1969, all an American GI had to do was cross the border and register as an immigrant, since Trudeau’s government guaranteed no one would be sent back. Since then, Canada has raised its immigration barriers. Would-be immigrants have to apply from their own countries and are required to show education, training and financial assets before emigrating to Canada—a process that can take two years.
Today arriving GIs must apply for political asylum on the grounds of persecution for refusing to take part in an illegal war. Three years ago, former Private First Class Jeremy Hinzman was the first American to apply for this status. His case is being laboriously fought by the Canadian government, which is now conservative and has so far persuaded the courts to ignore the question of whether or not the Iraq War is illegal. The lower level Immigration and Refugee Boards and courts have ruled against Hinzman, who, if successful, would reportedly be Canada’s first ever certified political refugee from the U.S.
Hinzman headed north with his wife and toddler at the beginning of 2004. Now working as a bike courier in Toronto, he has already survived several of Ontario’s ferocious winters. “The government didn’t roll out a red carpet for us,” Hinzman says, “but we like it up here, and there’s a lot of support for what we have done.”
The ex-soldier adds, “We’ve adapted pretty well. The fact that there is free healthcare is a big plus, but in general it’s not that different from home. Everyone has equal opportunities. We’re not rich, but we’re not poor—comfortable.”
Hinzman has no regrets. He joined the Army for the college funding, but was so horrified by the bloodthirsty values of basic training that he applied for conscientious objector status. Pending his appeal, he served in a noncombatant post with the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. After returning home, Hinzman heard that his application had been denied and that he was being deployed to Iraq. So he flew the coop to the Great White North.
“It was an illegal war,” Hinzman insists. “We did the right thing by deciding to fight it. Canada refused to fight in the war. To me that said they thought the war was illegal and immoral. When we came here, we knew that the chances were we may not be able to go back to America.”
Hinzman attends meetings of the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada, but the ex-GIs do not cling together obsessively like expatriates in a foreign country. “It’s not like we are the army north of the border,” Hinzman laughs. In addition to those who have asked for political asylum, other deserters who fled to Canada are trying to make up their minds. House says over 100 have contacted him, and he knows of more on Canada’s West Coast and in Quebec.
House describes Ottawa’s dilemma: “The Canadian government doesn’t want to send a signal to the U.S. Army: ‘Come here!’ Individual officials come up to us and whisper sympathy. But that’s not the official line, which is that the war is not obnoxious or illegal enough for you to stay here.”
In a recent poll, 74% of Canadians saw George W. Bush as a threat to world peace. About the same number said the Iraq War was not justified, so there’s lots of support for the GIs, restraining any attempts by Canada’s new right-tilting government to send them back. It helps, says House, that the war resisters “are very presentable, intelligent, thoughtful and articulate; they have been through things.”
House is confident of eventual success, even if the issue has to go all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. He cites the ironic precedent of a decade ago in which the Court ruled in favor of Mohamed Al-Maisri, a Yemeni deserter from Saddam Hussein’s army at the time of the first Gulf War. In other words, it’s not illegal to desert from an army that stages unprovoked attacks.
Hinzman’s case has now been followed by around three dozen more, and none of his counterparts feel any pressure to leave. Applicants for refugee status get work permits, access to the school system and—something mentioned enthusiastically by all I spoke to—Canada’s free healthcare.
Kyle Snyder headed to British Columbia when he returned from Iraq on leave. Snyder was already disaffected with the military due to family problems, but adds, “I saw a lot of things that were changing my mind about this war. I made a conscious choice that I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed in Iraq. I felt it was evil, the things that were happening. We were not doing anything positive for the Iraqi people.”
Then, after 18 months in Canada, Snyder heard that another resister, Darrell Anderson, had negotiated a deal that would have him quickly discharged if he went south and gave himself up. Snyder retained Anderson’s attorney, Jim Fennerty, who’d worked out the same offer with Major Brian Patterson at Fort Knox in Kentucky. “I gave up my job in Canada, gave up my healthcare and my refugee status,” Snyder states. “In fact, I gave up the life I had started over the last 18 months on a chance of a discharge that they would just let me out.”
However, when Snyder reported to Fort Knox, instead of the less-than-honorable discharge he was promised, Snyder says, “The whole attitude changed. It was ‘We are going to fuck you, we will send you back to your unit, and you will probably be redeployed back to Iraq.’”
Soldiers from Fort Knox dropped him off at the Greyhound station for a trip to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Snyder recalls thinking, “I’m, like, fuck this. I’m not getting on that bus.”
Instead, when I eventually spoke to him, he was in New Orleans. “I’m going to help Iraq Veterans Against the War reconstruct, like we should have done when Katrina hit,” he declared. “It’s still a disaster area here; I don’t see why there aren’t troops here. It takes me running away from the military to do a job the military should have been doing in the first place.”
And after only a few weeks, he missed Canada. “We were loved up there. I miss it. I do.”
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came….
Manhattan-based Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past and Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. The U.N. correspondent for The Nation magazine and many other publications around the world, Williams covered both Gulf wars. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, Scarborough Country, Hardball, Lou Dobbs Tonight and Your World w/ Neil Cavuto. “I’m the liberal lion they throw to the Christian Right,” Williams quips.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Bush's Brain on the lam
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/08/bushs_brain_has_truly_gone.html
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Hail the deserter-in-chief
Here is the full text of Guardian CiF on US desertions and Bush
Desertions are rising in the US army - and so are prosecutions. Maybe George Bush should be reminded about his own personal exit strategy.
Ian Williams
April 18, 2007
A working definition of chutzpah: a Bush administration prosecuting deserters.
Bill Clinton spent two terms of his presidency on the defensive because he had, in typical Clintonian fashion, prevaricated between his ethics and his political future on whether or not to register for the draft during Vietnam. In the end, he registered but was not called up.
It is interesting that people like the newly recess-appointed US Ambassador to Belgium, Sam Fox, spent so much time and money examining the military careers of people like Kerry, but are so uninterested in the eloquent lack of a military career for George Bush. But he won his ambassadorship the same way that Bush won his exemption - with cash and connections.
Back in the day, during the Vietnam war that he supported, young George Bush, "Googen" to his family, abused his family ties to join the Texas Air National Guard, which in those halcyon days guaranteed a free pass from the draft and deployment to Indo-China. He had to do that because President Lyndon Baines Johnson had abolished the graduate student deferment that so many other members of the Bush cabinet had already abused.
Towards the end of his five-year term, young W went missing, and failed to turn up for the occasional duties demanded. The technical term for someone absent without leave for such an extended period is desertion. But Texans are great believers in redemption - at least for sons of important political families - and the local establishment covered up his desertion.
He is now commander-in-chief of the most disastrous war since, well ... Vietnam. Things have changed. Congressmen's sons do not get protection any more. They do not need it since none of them are in the forces. National Guards are posted overseas in Iraq - over and over again. They and regular army recruits have discovered the small print in their contracts that says that they can't leave when they thought they could.
Now George Bush rarely misses a chance to turn up at a military base or a veterans gathering donning some item of military attire. Thankfully, he has not been seen in his Navy fliers outfit since the day he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to proclaim "Mission Accomplished" - four years ago.
The Pentagon, struggling to cope with neocon dreams of global military hegemony, has steadily reduced its recruitment standards. It has tried to recycle the medically unfit back into the war.
But while many of the military seemed to accept that a war-dodging hawk deserved their loyalty, increasing numbers of them are discovering that they have been lied to about the war - and about the gratitude of the government that sent them as the war wounded discovered in the Walter Reed hospital. It will not help that this week Washington announced that it was lengthening tours of duty in Iraq from 12 months to 15 months.
Consequently desertions are rising - as are prosecutions. In the last five years desertions trebled compared with the previous five years - and they are still rising.
Last year the army reported 3,196 soldiers deserted, compared with 2,357 in 2004. It may be more. Some units reportedly try to cover up as much as possible so the figures may be under-reported.
So what can they do? In fact, several hundred have rediscovered Canada, to the profound embarrassment of Bush ally Stephen Harper. Canadians were against the war even before their southern neighbours saw the light, so it cannot send them back. Once they have registered as political refugees they get full Canadian benefits, work rights, and free healthcare that is a cut above what the Veterans Administration would offer them back home. Ottawa is wriggling. Their cases are going through the system until they meet the embarrassing precedent: Canadian judges granted asylum to a deserter from the Iraqi army because he had been ordered to take part in an illegal war against Kuwait. Ottawa does not want to see Kofi Annan in a witness stand testifying to the legality of Bush's war.
In fact, even if W's own personal exit strategy no longer applies, Bill Clinton has left a legacy for dissatisfied GI's. Bullied by the Pentagon over his own war record, Clinton acquiesced in its shameless prejudice that gay people like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and the like were unfit to be soldiers. He introduced the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy. Any GI having a change of heart about the great crusade for democracy simply has to tell the commanding officer that he or she is gay or lesbian to get an automatic honourable discharge. To be derided as a "fag" or to be disenfranchised as a felon. A no-brainer, I'd have thought.
Desertions are rising in the US army - and so are prosecutions. Maybe George Bush should be reminded about his own personal exit strategy.
Ian Williams
April 18, 2007
A working definition of chutzpah: a Bush administration prosecuting deserters.
Bill Clinton spent two terms of his presidency on the defensive because he had, in typical Clintonian fashion, prevaricated between his ethics and his political future on whether or not to register for the draft during Vietnam. In the end, he registered but was not called up.
It is interesting that people like the newly recess-appointed US Ambassador to Belgium, Sam Fox, spent so much time and money examining the military careers of people like Kerry, but are so uninterested in the eloquent lack of a military career for George Bush. But he won his ambassadorship the same way that Bush won his exemption - with cash and connections.
Back in the day, during the Vietnam war that he supported, young George Bush, "Googen" to his family, abused his family ties to join the Texas Air National Guard, which in those halcyon days guaranteed a free pass from the draft and deployment to Indo-China. He had to do that because President Lyndon Baines Johnson had abolished the graduate student deferment that so many other members of the Bush cabinet had already abused.
Towards the end of his five-year term, young W went missing, and failed to turn up for the occasional duties demanded. The technical term for someone absent without leave for such an extended period is desertion. But Texans are great believers in redemption - at least for sons of important political families - and the local establishment covered up his desertion.
He is now commander-in-chief of the most disastrous war since, well ... Vietnam. Things have changed. Congressmen's sons do not get protection any more. They do not need it since none of them are in the forces. National Guards are posted overseas in Iraq - over and over again. They and regular army recruits have discovered the small print in their contracts that says that they can't leave when they thought they could.
Now George Bush rarely misses a chance to turn up at a military base or a veterans gathering donning some item of military attire. Thankfully, he has not been seen in his Navy fliers outfit since the day he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to proclaim "Mission Accomplished" - four years ago.
The Pentagon, struggling to cope with neocon dreams of global military hegemony, has steadily reduced its recruitment standards. It has tried to recycle the medically unfit back into the war.
But while many of the military seemed to accept that a war-dodging hawk deserved their loyalty, increasing numbers of them are discovering that they have been lied to about the war - and about the gratitude of the government that sent them as the war wounded discovered in the Walter Reed hospital. It will not help that this week Washington announced that it was lengthening tours of duty in Iraq from 12 months to 15 months.
Consequently desertions are rising - as are prosecutions. In the last five years desertions trebled compared with the previous five years - and they are still rising.
Last year the army reported 3,196 soldiers deserted, compared with 2,357 in 2004. It may be more. Some units reportedly try to cover up as much as possible so the figures may be under-reported.
So what can they do? In fact, several hundred have rediscovered Canada, to the profound embarrassment of Bush ally Stephen Harper. Canadians were against the war even before their southern neighbours saw the light, so it cannot send them back. Once they have registered as political refugees they get full Canadian benefits, work rights, and free healthcare that is a cut above what the Veterans Administration would offer them back home. Ottawa is wriggling. Their cases are going through the system until they meet the embarrassing precedent: Canadian judges granted asylum to a deserter from the Iraqi army because he had been ordered to take part in an illegal war against Kuwait. Ottawa does not want to see Kofi Annan in a witness stand testifying to the legality of Bush's war.
In fact, even if W's own personal exit strategy no longer applies, Bill Clinton has left a legacy for dissatisfied GI's. Bullied by the Pentagon over his own war record, Clinton acquiesced in its shameless prejudice that gay people like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and the like were unfit to be soldiers. He introduced the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy. Any GI having a change of heart about the great crusade for democracy simply has to tell the commanding officer that he or she is gay or lesbian to get an automatic honourable discharge. To be derided as a "fag" or to be disenfranchised as a felon. A no-brainer, I'd have thought.
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