Donald Rumdumb,"draftees added no value, no advantage"

[Hubert Flottz]

From Rumsfeld, an ugly smear and a giant fib

snip...

First, the smear of veterans. Speaking of the 11 million Americans who, during the Vietnam years, answered their country's draft call and the 2 million who served in Vietnam, Rumsfeld alleged that these draftees "added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

I'll say "then, they were gone!" Of the 58,152 Americans who gave their lives in Vietnam 20,352 of them were draftees. How dare the secretary of defense say these good and brave Americans "added no value, no advantage, to the United States armed services?"

Why would he slander the sacrifice of these brave men, dishonor their memory and rub salt in their families' wounds? MORE...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/column.shields.opinion.rumsfeld/index.html

Rumsfeld Apologizes for Remarks on Draft After Veterans Protest

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0122-03.htm

Rumsfeld: Dead Soldiers Count for Nothing

If the U.S. were a healthy parliamentary democracy, Donald Rumsfeld's remarks of January 7 would have brought down George Bush's government, necessitating new elections. Instead, the man with the demonic grin continues as the drum major for new foreign wars, even as he belittles a previous war's dead.

Conscript soldiers of years past added "no value, no advantage, really..." to the armed forces, the Secretary of Defense told reporters at his Pentagon briefing.

Draftees filled 30 percent of the body bags in Vietnam - but that's of little "value" to Rumsfeld, or to the chicken hawk media that cover the Pentagon. Apparently, the people who decide what is news in America share Rumsfeld's nonchalance on the subject of 17,725 American corpses.

There is something profoundly out of synch about a society in which the Secretary of Defense can violate with impunity the most sacred taboos concerning those who have died on the battlefield, while simultaneously fomenting war hysteria. The fact that Rumsfeld still has a job is shocking evidence of the near total disconnect between the ranks of the U.S. military and the classes that shape American policy and public opinion. MORE...

http://www.blackcommentator.com/27/27_commentary_2.html

The Rummy and the swift boaters, didn't worry about the draftee's feelings, or about Max Cleland's feelings, or about John Kerry's feelings. Now they are to a man, right up to the CIC out of their minds with RAGE about John Kerry telling the truth.

[joemurphy]

1. Rumsfeld owes Vietnam veterans an apology!

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Rumsfeld has ruined our military.

And the GOPers know it.

Edit...How do you think it makes the troops feel working for a CiC who went AWOL? Worse than just a regular chickenhawk.

[BrotherBuzz]

3. This dumb draftee doesn't want an apology from Rummy

I will settle for nothing less than his head on a pike in a public square (Agent Mike is even with me on this one).

[Hubert Flottz]

5. If I'd known that my service added no value, no advantage I'd have

Gone home and quit like Bush! Oh wait, my daddy wasn't rich and connected!

[lapauvre]

11. Tried to find the video, but couldn't

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/index.rumsfeld.html

Recently watched the video on CNN, which was lengthy, about Rumsfeld.

I was hoping to find a site where you could view it. I didn't make it, but I have no doubt that many of you can.

It appears that for whatever reason this invasion and occupation of a foreign country was begun, it was not a war, because war hadn't been declared. Ask Attorney General Gonzalez. According to Gonzalez, the rules of "war," a la Geneva Protocols, do not apply to "detainees" or "renditions" because we are NOT at war, even though it may be that many are calling it the War in Iraq. It isn't a war, folks. Get that straight.

Rummy, apparently, has a management style which may be suitable for business, but is applying it to military action.

Hire full time only a minimal number of employees for which you must be responsible, and call in "contract temporaries" to whom you give much higher pay, and for whom you do not have to be responsible, for the short haul.

Unfortunately, due to the stupidity of the initial invasion, these positive thinkers who expected rose petals to be thrown beneath our tanks, seemed convinced it was a short term endeavor. (The fools.)

So the minimal military was sent in as the full time (cheaply paid) employees, and the rest was going to be "temporary contracted personnel."

Remember Rummy's estimate was six weeks to three months. And here we are, three years later, and our forces, full time and contractors are being slaughtered. Even worse, some of our full timers are being slaughtered because part of their assignment is to "protect the temporaries."

Wanna throw up now, or can ya hold it?

Hope you can find the show on video. It's called Rumsfeld--at War. Was shown on CNN. I can't locate the video. If you can, please post here.

Thanks.

Lap

[jody]

4. Thanks for reminding me, I took a snippet and sent it to all on my email list. n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Rummy should have been fired on the spot for what he said!

But Bush's cronies don't need to be good at their jobs, as long as they kiss his ass!

[Blue_In_AK]

7. On behalf of my cousin who died in Vietnam

when he was barely 19, I demand an apology.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. The vets had to shame Rummy into an apology and then he acted

like it about killed him to do it. I wrote my congressman about him and I hope Bobby Byrd reamed him good for running his ungrateful, lying mouth.

[SammyWinstonJack]

9. We're not suppose to remember that he said that. How about when

GHWB called the Troops cannon fodder?

[Hubert Flottz]

10. GHWB's daddy was a Hitler enabler and appeaser who helped

Hitler kill thousands of American soldiers.

The Hitler Project

Bush Property Seized--Trading with the Enemy

In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces. Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son George, the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush.

snip...

By Oct. 26, 1942, U.S. troops were under way for North Africa. On Oct. 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.

U.S. forces landed under fire near Algiers on Nov. 8, 1942; heavy combat raged throughout November. Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S. partners to carry on the business.

These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were, tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with their well-known results. MORE...

http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm