OT no one talks about this hero

[ChezDaJez]

In November 2004, when the official number of wounded in Iraq was about 8000, there actually were 17,000 soldiers who were injured or ill enough to be put on airplanes and flown out of theater, and none of those casualties appear on any public casualty lists.

What do these have to do with the Purple Heart. The Purple Heart is only awrded to those wounded or killed in combat. The sick and injured (from non-combat causes) do not rate the Purple Heart.

Since you seem to be so good at coming up with data, maybe you can do better than Senator Chuck Hagel (Rep. -Nebraska, Vietnam vet and former deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration) when he tried to find out the total amount of Purple Hearts awarded to US military personnel in Iraq. That number is significant because it is an official record of the total number of battlefield casualties. When Senator Hagel asked, the reply he received was "the Department of Defense does not have the requested information."
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Maimed_ ... 021804.htm

There you go again, using outdated information from a website with an axe to grind and I can certainly do better than using 2 year old information. Can you? All the statements listed, assuming they are indeed correct, is from mid-2003, basically the first 6 months of the war.

And looking at Chuck Hagel's website, he makes no mention of having difficulty obtaining information. Indeed, on 29 July 2005 he and Hilary Clinton sponsered legislation supporting declaration of a "National Purple Heart" day. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and is awaiting action by the house.

And in case you don't know it, there is an awards process that medals such as this go through. They are first submitted by their unit commander and go up the chain. For the Purple Heart, medical records and unit after action reports are required. It can take months and occasionally mistakes are made where it takes longer. And just because an award gets turned down doesn't mean it was disapproved. It may simply need further amplifying data or the paperwork redone. As the Command Senior Chief of a Patrol Squadron, I sat on numerous awards boards where an individual had to wait longer for his award simply because of parperwok problems.

Try checking several sites on both sides of the fence before spewing crap.

Chez

[ladner]

I am sick of this left/right crap, the two parties have made a complete mess of this nation. Go ahead and hurl mud at each other and continue to delude yourself into thinking these selfserving SOBs in Washington are looking out for you just because they have a D or an R by their name. Until there are some different voices in the political arena, and a party willing to look at long term issues and gain and make sacrifices. Yes that is right sacrifices, you cannot run the treasury like an unlimited credit card and defer paying the bill, all I can say is, "God save the Republic."

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Slaughtermeyer

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Regarding the so-called WMD's, here is an independent "think-tank" assessment of Sadaam Hussein written and published before the second Iraqi war, but after the liberation of Kuwait.
FWIW, the entire world believed the weapons were there, including the effeminate and liberal U.N. (which has totally surrendered the terms of the charter by which the U.N was created.)
http://college.hmco.com/currentconflict ... ssein.html

...Hussein stood on his balcony and declared he would PERSONALLY pay the surviving families of ANY terrorists who had damaged Israel or the United States, twenty thousand dollars

It's quite a backpedal from making the unsubstantiated statement (which you claim as 'fact') that Saddam "would PERSONALLY pay the surviving families of ANY terrorists who had damaged Israel or the United States, twenty thousand dollars", to citing an "independent think tank" (a textbook publisher) which states (correctly) that Saddam had WMD's prior to the First Gulf War, and (also correctly) that "there are now claims by the Iraqi government that these arsenals have been destroyed, but many observers are skeptical."

I was skeptical too and believed that Iraq had WMD's, simply because I did not believe President Bush would deliberately lie to the American people. At the time I was not aware of the neo-conservative agenda which as early as Sept. 2001 asserted that it was not enough to annihilate the network of Osama bin Laden, but that it was also imperative to "remove Saddam Hussein from power" and to "retaliate" against Syria and Iran for supporting Hizbullah. A brief synopsis of the neocon agenda and its influence on the Bush administration has been made by Israeli former MK Uri Avnery:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article242.html

No backpedaling here..I don't know why the statement is not on the internet..I watched the event as it was "translated" on Tom Brokaw's newscast..It was also mentioned later that night on my local CBS affiliate.
I remember distinctly discussing it at a veterans group the following weekend..
I don't know why you don't remember such an astounding event right after the attack that September..Maybe you were a kid ??
During the Cuban missile crisis, I know I was glued to the set, even though I was not aware at the time just how important the event really was..
FWIW, what really has me upset is the absolute lack of coverage of the "Able Danger" meetings which started yesterday, and continue today, and the fact the Pentagon is trying to cover up the event !!!!!
As Jefferson said, I DO question authority, but when we are at war,(regardless of the circumstances), ANY lack of support for the war only serves to aid and give comfort to the enemy, and if you are not one of those on the ground, behind the rifle, I just cannot imagine how you can really understand the signifance of this..
For the sake of the poor guy on the ground, you really ought to let 'em fight it out, and then make your charges after our guys are no longer "in harms way".
It's enough that most of the world hates our guts...
Don't join 'em, just because you don't agree with the government..
Our grunts deserve better..............

[rogueusmc]

ORIGINAL: m10bob



It's enough that most of the world hates our guts...
Don't join 'em, just because you don't agree with the government..
Our grunts deserve better..............

Amen brother

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: ladner

I am sick of this left/right crap, the two parties have made a complete mess of this nation. Go ahead and hurl mud at each other and continue to delude yourself into thinking these selfserving SOBs in Washington are looking out for you just because they have a D or an R by their name. Until there are some different voices in the political arena, and a party willing to look at long term issues and gain and make sacrifices. Yes that is right sacrifices, you cannot run the treasury like an unlimited credit card and defer paying the bill, all I can say is, "God save the Republic."

Right there with you.

[Slaughtermeyer]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

In November 2004, when the official number of wounded in Iraq was about 8000, there actually were 17,000 soldiers who were injured or ill enough to be put on airplanes and flown out of theater, and none of those casualties appear on any public casualty lists.

What do these have to do with the Purple Heart. The Purple Heart is only awrded to those wounded or killed in combat. The sick and injured (from non-combat causes) do not rate the Purple Heart.

My point is that some of those wounded in combat may deceptively be listed as sick and injured (from non-combat causes). If any of those listed as sick and injured are receiving purple hearts then I think that's proof right there that there is deliberate deception being done about casualty reporting.

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez
And looking at Chuck Hagel's website, he makes no mention of having difficulty obtaining information. Indeed, on 29 July 2005 he and Hilary Clinton sponsered legislation supporting declaration of a "National Purple Heart" day. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and is awaiting action by the house.

Just because his difficulty in obtaining information about the number of purple hearts is not mentioned on his website does not mean it did not happen (and does not mean is still not happening given your apparent difficulty in finding official statistics about the number of purple hearts awarded in Iraq). He simply may not feel it appropriate to detail every act of deception that the Bush administration has committed about the Iraq war on his Senatorial website (which as a Republican he is expected to support).

Sen. Hagel does implicitly criticize the administration for deceptiveness and dishonesty in the following words (present on his website) that he delivered in a speech on June 24 2005:

I know there are comparisons made between Vietnam and Iraq. I don't think there are a lot of comparisons to be made there, but there are some parallels.

There is only one currency that matters in life with your spouse, friends, or business partners, and that's trust. If you debase that currency and people don't trust or believe what you've said, then you've lost. We learned that in Vietnam the hard way. You don't need be reminded anymore than listening to the tapes of President Johnson and Senator Russell back in the 1960s. President Johnson confided that we couldn¹t win in Vietnam, but we can't pull-out. He didn't know what to do. Senator Russell said get out. It was unfair to project this country into a situation where on the outside you're saying, stay steady, stay the course, the lights at the end of the tunnel, we can win when privately you are saying we can't win because you don't want to be the first President to pull-out of a war. That's wrong. That's how policy gets to a point where the American people and the Congress eventually don¹t believe in it.

What happened? In 1975, thirty years ago last April....I was in Washington working for Congressman John Y. McCollister, the Congress said they'd had enough and abruptly pulled the plug on Vietnam. Within hours the North had taken Saigon. It didn't have to happen that way. It should not have happened that way. It happened because eventually the American people felt they were lied to and the Congress reflects the American people.

A policy must be sustainable. For a policy to be sustainable, you must be honest. You must be honest about what's going on.
http://hagel.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Speeches.Detail&Speech_id=19&Month=6&Year=2005

[mc3744]

[X(] I just hit the thread and ... ohoohhh [X(]

Waiting for the lock, I'll add my two cents.

First I'm European. Hence my opinion obviously forms within my culture framework.

I've been surprised by a couple of things reading this thread.
1) Why do most of you assume real life is either black or white? Couldn't it be gray?
War is wrong or war is right. Personally I feel is wrong, always, but probably it is in between.
I'm quite sure in the Army (any army not just the US one) there are crazy weapon fanatics and - at the same time - people who believe in something. Can you define that army based on one or the other man? I don't think you can. It wouldn't be correct.
I remeber saluting the flag in the morning and getting moved by the concept. Most of my comrades thought I was an old time idiot. Maybe I am, I wish I could tell for sure that I'm right or that they are.

2) Is this forum for US citizens only?
As long as we think ego-centric (literally speaking) the world will never get better.
The concept of war - to make one pertinent example - should be examined in geral, not in terms of 'US war', or you are biased from the very beginning.
Were the US right to wage war? If they won, yes they were. But somehow I feel that's not the right angle.

I hope I didn't piss anybody, it wasn't my intention anyway.

Cheers

[ChezDaJez]

I hope I didn't piss anybody, it wasn't my intention anyway.

Nope, you didn't. Actually I appreciate your words. There will always be conspiracy theorists and people who see an FBI agent behind every bush. There will always be those who believe the government is corrupt, dishonest and out to take your rights away.

No one side has a lock on the truth but it does burn me up when someone wants to promote an agenda using old, misleading and misquoted facts. I figure if you have an axe to bear, at least sharpen it first.

2) Is this forum for US citizens only?

Nope and thanks for the reminder that a good portion of this forum is composed of citizens from other lands. We are joined here because we have a common interest, WitP. So I will wash my hands of this individual.

Thanks,

Chez

[marc420]

Thanks! I love the posters. I had a bookmark to a site with those awhile back, but misplaced it in a computer change. I should go find it again. Thanks for letting me see them and reminding me to go look for more.

BTW, In my opinion, the highest form of patriotism is to watch closely what your government is doing, and to be critical of it when you think you should be.

To say that we should blindly accept what our government is doing, and always support its policies is a system of government more akin to a monarchy or a dictatorship. It doesn't in any way represent government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Of course, any discussion on these boards that doesn't follow appropriate Republican party guidelines is deemed political and closed off.... in the true 21st century American expression of freedom.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: IS2m

As long as you guy allow me to kick the Anti-American garbage from Europeans. You Americans are too nice to them. That is also one of the reason I would like Alberta to separate from the rest of Canada I can not stand that Canada has become an European weenie country.

Dude, take it to the appropriate venue.

(In reply to Madmickey)

I do not bring up political issue I do not wish to spend a lot of time arguing in front of a small audience, I will only respond to garbage. When Wild Willie 2 from Holland on the fun thread said that was no “Free” media because FOX News chairman would only allow no one on his channel to criticize the administration, it was a king of stupid comments. Now I only saw Fox News for a 3 month free period on my cable provider but I know that regular Member of that channel Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren and Geraldo Rivera (are liberal I am more familiar with them as they used to be on CNN & CNBC) criticize the Bush administration and I imagine that even their biggest star Bill O' Reilly have criticized. I do get Fox regular channel and I do occasionally catch the Fox News Sunday before the football game and they usually have 2 liberal and 2 conservative debate issues. The moderator of the show is Chris Wallace son of Mike Wallace and I assume he is also a liberal. Fox New is the most conservative network of US channel but Americans can get new from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and a wide variety of newspaper. In addition the biggest scandal recently in the news industry, Newsweek report on the Koran down the toilet, 60 minute report on George W. Bush TANG record, BBC report on sexing up the reason for war (I guess Tony Blair is a neo-con too), ABC New chairman saying that his new source should use a higher standard of honest checking on Bush over Kerry and CNN misreport on US troops using illegal means in Vietnam would be generalized as Liberal bias. Apparently even Bill Clinton criticized BBC coverage of the Katrina flood.
Even Dick Morris, Bill Clinton campaign guru, said the following

“ Each of those “mistakes” was biased in favor of the left and was committed in the haste of liberal journalists to get some ammunition to discredit Bush and the Iraq war. But when the same reporter who wrote the current story filed the first disclosure of the Monica Lewinsky affair with his editors at Newsweek, the magazine piously refused to run the story.

In fact, in all the years of the Clinton presidency, I cannot recall a single instance of a similarly inaccurate high-profile story attacking the Democratic president.”
He included this additional story from NY Times
“• In the week before the election, The New York Times, the citadel of journalistic accuracy, ran a front-page story alleging that 370 tons of explosives had disappeared from an Iraqi storage site during the American occupation. The implication was that the carelessness of the Bush administration had put into the hands of the insurgent terrorists the very weapons now being used to kill our troops. But the Pentagon soon established that the weapons either had been removed early in the U.S. occupation or had never been there when our troops arrived. The Times story led John Kerry to change his TV ads and focus his endgame campaign on the allegation.”


http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/ ... 51805.html


So Wild Willie comment that people should have open information can be turned on him as obviously his ideas on Fox News never criticizing the Bush administration illustrate that someone has been brainwashing himself. I doubt he get Fox News and must have seen a hit piece on his nationalized news source similar to the one that ran on CBC in Canada.

Wild willie2 quote
From 116 on gun thread



“The problem is that there is no real "free" media in the US. There is always some "bigshot" controlling a network or newspaper which decides watt can or can't be printed/ broadcasted, or how "spin" has to be applied in order to make an item "suitable" to his/hers public beliefs/morals/ religion. A great example is FOX television; you will never see a government critical report on fox, simply because the owners are big backers of bush. “


I spent lot more time than I wished on this topic.

[mc3744]

Hey guys!

You want to talk about free media? Boys come to Italy and have a look. [;)]

Our beloved prime minister owns the main TV channels (plus newspapers and radios) and control the state's ones.
How about that?

To me everything else looks "free", not even Soviet Union during the cold war was so "not free" as we are today in Italy.
You are talking about which cake to eat to some people that cannot get some bread. [:-]

C'mon give me a break, feel for the poorest, be nice to those who suffer more [;)]

I obviously don't mean to "reprimand" anybody. It's just that the "free media" issue for any Italian with a couple of neurons still working is a very bad topic. [:'(]

[madmickey]

Unlike Wild willie (holland) comments on Fox News I am not familar with Italian media so I can not make a comment. Suprised to hear that the Italian state owned media does not have the usual leftwing bias. Actually the only thing I do remember was the incident about that Italian journalist that was captured in Iraq and the government paying to free her there is some dispute on the friendly fire incident and I do not want to get into that.

[Damien Thorn]

How come the left is always so quick to say "Bush lied"? Since when is getting some information wrong (WMD) a lie? I always thought a lie was a deliberate misstatement. I guess I was wrong. Does that mean I lied?

[mc3744]

ORIGINAL: madmickey

Unlike Wild willie (holland) comments on Fox News I am not familar with Italian media so I can not make a comment. Suprised to hear that the Italian state owned media does not have the usual leftwing bias.

In Sweden a few months ago the State TV made an ad saying that they were good ... not like the Italians TVs all controlled by one man [:-]
It was in our news for one evening than it was gone, you had to read about it on international press.
This is just to give you all an idea of how bad it can get.

I'm no big lovers of politicians in general, and Bush is among them, still I think in the US the press is WAY more free than that of several other countries.
Does that mean that it's perfect? I don't think so. But it could be so much worse you have no idea.

It's bad when it's controlled by one side only, regardless of the side it is. IMHO any extremism is wrong, anytime you think you are 100% right you are wrong.

Right now I'd love to have American medias.

[Gen.Hoepner]

IMHO the medias will never be free. There are always, everywhere u go, lobbies of interest that own the media. Big groups, companies, and so on.
I totally disagree with MC. He paints an Italy enslaved to our Prime Minister. Try to take a look at our main newspapers ( Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, Unità and so on) and you can see every single day, tons of rubbish about Berlusconi,his money, his family and his affairs
. I do not like him, but i know that it's not because of him that my liberties are restrained.

Those news from the Swedish were just a provoctory, prooveless, insult to the "mandolino" italians. We're not particularly loved in Scandinavia. We all know that.
But you can read how the "Economist" treats our governament to understand what kind of prejudice there's in some part of Europe against us.

[Terminus]

Not everywhere in Europe, Hoepner...

[mc3744]

I wish it was only prejudice with no solid basis [:(]

[ChezDaJez]

I'm no big lovers of politicians in general, and Bush is among them, still I think in the US the press is WAY more free than that of several other countries.
Does that mean that it's perfect? I don't think so. But it could be so much worse you have no idea.

I do believe the US press is free but not necessarily free of bias. Most major networks have a liberal bias, Fox tends to have a more conservative bias and in the end they probably balance one another out IF you watch both.

I personally don't think that being a liberal is a bad thing nor do I believe being a conservative is a bad thing. We need both viewpoints to achieve as balanced a solution as possible. Does that mean its going to be the best solution, no it dosen't. But it does allow for change when required, albeit slowly.

I respect President Bush as I believe he has a strong moral compass that guides him, however I also think he has made mistakes as have all presidents (not to mention congressional members). I did not like Clinton personally for his low moral compass nor for many of his policies but I respected the job he did overall as President.

All in all, I'm proud to be an American and can't see myself living anywhere else. Doesn't mean other places are bad, just that I've kind of got used to the good ole USA.

Chez

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

All in all, I'm proud to be an American and can't see myself living anywhere else. Doesn't mean other places are bad, just that I've kind of got used to the good ole USA.

Chez

I feel the same about Denmark, warts and all. You should be proud of your country...

[GaryChildress]

So Gomer Pyle was "gay"? What does that mean? Gay as in happy or gay as in homosexual? [&:]

Gary