Let's Help GWB and Rove Out With Their Propoganda

I wish to thank Cyclopitchorn for a link that works( for me). I read the story and it appears that it hinges on the credibility of one Sam Gardner( retired Air Force Colonel.

Unfortunately, I am so far gone in appreciation of people who have actually done things, I find that I must regrettably cast my lot in with the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

I am sure that Colonel Samuel Gardner is a fine man and was a good soldier, but as a former officer in the US military, I know that there is a mysterious syndrome that appears among retired officers- It is not rare but stems from feelings of mistreatment and being overlooked. As my commanding officer said when he retired( he was really a nice guy)--Dammit- They screwed Desert Storm up horribly. Why didn't they listen to me.

But, back to Don Rumsfeld. I had occasion to meet the Secretary of Defense about fifteen years ago and I must say that I was in awe and am still in awe of the man. His resume( some people do have resumes, you know) is unmatchable.

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

Donald H. Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001. Before assuming his present post, the former Navy pilot had also served as the 13th Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, U.S. Congressman and chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.

Secretary Rumsfeld is responsible for directing the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The war is being waged against a backdrop of major change within the Department of Defense. The department has developed a new defense strategy and replaced the old model for sizing forces with a newer approach more relevant to the 21st century. Secretary Rumsfeld proposed and the President approved a significant reorganization of the worldwide command structure, known as the Unified Command Plan, that resulted in the establishment of the U.S. Northern Command and the U.S. Strategic Command, the latter charged with the responsibilities formerly held by the Strategic and Space Commands which were disestablished.

The Department also has refocused its space capabilities and fashioned a new concept of strategic deterrence that increases security while reducing strategic nuclear weapons. To help strengthen the deterrent, the missile defense research and testing program has been reorganized and revitalized, free of the restraints of the ABM treaty.

Mr. Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships (A.B., 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as an aviator and flight instructor. In 1957, he transferred to the Ready Reserve and continued his Naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until 1975. He transferred to the Standby Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and to the Retired Reserve with the rank of Captain in 1989.

In 1957, he came to Washington, DC to serve as Administrative Assistant to a Congressman. After a stint with an investment banking firm, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois in 1962, at the age of 30, and was re-elected in 1964, 1966, and 1968.

Mr. Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 during his fourth term to join the President's Cabinet. From 1969 to 1970, he served as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Assistant to the President. From 1971 to 1972, he was Counsellor to the President and Director of the Economic Stabilization Program. In 1973, he left Washington, DC, to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium (1973-1974).

In August 1974, he was called back to Washington, DC, to serve as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He then became Chief of Staff of the White House and a member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975). He served as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense, the youngest in the country's history (1975-1977).

From 1977 to 1985 he served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company. The successful turnaround there earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business.

Mr. Rumsfeld served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation from 1990 to 1993. General Instrument Corporation was a leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies. Until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld served as Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, Inc., a pharmaceutical company.

Before returning for his second tour as Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld chaired the bipartisan U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, in 1998, and the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization, in 2000.

During his business career, Mr. Rumsfeld continued his public service in a variety of Federal posts, including:

Member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control (1982 - 1986);
Special Presidential Envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982 - 1983);
Senior Advisor to the President's Panel on Strategic Systems (1983 - 1984);
Member of the U.S. Joint Advisory Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1983 - 1984);
Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East (1983 - 1984);
Member of the National Commission on Public Service (1987 - 1990);
Member of the National Economic Commission (1988 - 1989);
Member of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University (1988 - 1992);
Member of the Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1989 - 1991); and
Member of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission (1999 - 2000).
While in the private sector, Mr. Rumsfeld's civic activities included service as a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the boards of trustees of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the National Park Foundation, and as Chairman of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships, Inc.

____________________________________________________________
I am sure that Mr. Rumsfeld would not say this but I will. Who the hell is Sam Gardner.

If you want to get accurate information about Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld has far far more than Sam Gardner will ever get near.
In 1977, Mr. Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I could find nothing about the Karl Rove indictment reported on this thread. Perhaps the news will break tomorrow. But all is not lost. Perhaps Mr. Rove can work out a deal with the prosecutor like Bill Clinton did to avoid indictment.

****ing and intern as opposed to ****ing a country?

Mr. Hingehead- sir. I will give you some information. If you can rebut it or show that it is incorrect, please do so. You will help me to see the error of my ways and, perhaps instruct others.

William Jefferson Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives on December 19, 1998. The House of Representatives approved two of the articles of impeachment brought before it. Those articles were not for, as you put it "****ing and(sic) intern".

They were articles charging that William Jefferson Clinton had been guilty of "Obstruction of Justice".

If you wish to get more information on this there are many good sources. The reference I prefer is the very well written and highly informative book "An Affair of State" by Judge Richard A. Posner.

Your comment on President Bush being guilty of , as you put it, "***ing a country" has, insofar as I am able to discover not been adjudicated in any legal venue. I strongly suspect that such charges are being made by his political opponents for political purposes.

Mr BernardR sir,

My interjection was for the purposes of humour only, I am a sucker for a punch line particularly when it involves my, stereotypically, irony-challenged brothers across the big pond.

I do find your slavish defence of an amoral administration a little perplexing, but it's your bed and you have every reason to lie in it. Carry on.

Have a nice day.

"Slavish defense of an amoral administration"? You may be right about the amoral from your point of view. I assure you that it is not my point of view.

So Guantanamo Bay is moral? In prison for five years without charge? Ignore your own legal system and the Geneva Convention?

You may be right but I don't think so. Can you give me a link which shows that a court has found that there were "Immoral acts that took place at Guantanamo on the part of the USA"?

I must have missed that. If there are no such findings, the charge of "Immoral acts" is merely your opinion. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion but good opinions, as you know, must be based on fact.

I find your use of the word "immoral" disquieting. I don't remember that word ever being used in court hearings regarding President Clinton.

My darling bernard - if you have a look at my posts you will see that I have never said 'immoral'.

Love your work.

Yes,you did not say "immoral" You said, so Guantanamo Bay is moral? The questions begs an answer. There are two answers for that question.

I could have answered, Yes, Guantanamo is moral. I am sure you disagree with that interpretation.

I could have answered, but would never do so, No, Guantanamo Bay is not moral. I am sure that was the conclusion you would reach on the basis of your question. But, if I am incorrect, please let me know that you think Guantanamo Bay is moral. In that case I will agree with you.

So, again,

You may be right but I don't think so. Can you give me a link which shows that a court has found that there were "Immoral acts that took place at Guantanamo on the part of the USA"?

I must have missed that. If there are no such findings, the charge of "Immoral acts" is merely your opinion. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion but good opinions, as you know, must be based on fact.

Sorry Bernard, I underestimated the level of your irony deficiency.

The word I used was 'amoral'. [Defn: without moral quality, neither moral or immoral cf Macquarie Dictionary]

Nevertheless. To imprison criminals without charge is an affront to the writers of your constitution. If they are prisoners of war, their treatment violates the Geneva convention. Even Moussaoui had his day in court - if there isn't enough proof after five years to charge the inmates why are they still there?

If you can't see anything wrong with Guantanamo Bay then I despair of your humanity.

Well, I might agree with you about my humanity but since I knew Eugene Armstrong, who was beheaded by the murderous and savage Islamo-Fascists in Iraq, I have become a bit less tolerant of the savages.

I am sure that you know that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has declared that since the prisoners in Guantanamo do not meet some of the qualifications laid down in the Geneva Convention( eg, Uniforms, Falling under the legal command of a superior officer, etc) the Prisoners in Guantanamo are not covered by that act.

When a duly constituted US Court decides that the prisoners in Guantanamo must be covered by the Geneva Convention, then I will bow to the wishes of the court. Until then, I guess that the savage treatment given to those poor souls in Guantanamo, who receive better Muslim diets than they did at home, will just have to bear with it.

Check out the great diets the American prisoners taken by the Japanese in the Phillipines received.

Again, the courts will decide. Until then, it will stay as it is.

And, of course, hingehead, we are an Amoral country, are we not. We are so lacking in morality that we spend millions of dollars of the taxpayers' monies to assuage human suffering throughout the world.

You do remember the tsunami, don't you. We turned our backs on those people. Sure, we did!!!

The US is the most generous caring country in the world. But its leaders, and rightly so, become vigilant when 3,000 of our citizens are murdered( not put in camps) murdered, by Islamo-Fascists.

Go peddle your Left wing partisan politics somewhere else!!!

Aaaah...so if it was ok for the Japanese and Iraqi insurgents, it's ok for America?


I assume that means that endless imprisonment without trial will be fine with America in relation to its citizens when imprisoned by other governments?

MOST caring and generous?


Please prove this.


A number of times tables showing the US as quite far down the list of countries giving aid to others on a GDP or per capita basis have been published here.


Given the frequency with which your incarnations have been here I can only express disbelief that you have not seen these comparisons.

I can only assume that your research ability has gone the way of your humanity and irony.

Go peddle your blind uber patriotic bullshit elsewhere.

Really? Do you know anything about History? Have you ever heard of the Marshall Plan without which it would have been very difficult for Europe to recover?

As for the generosity of the rest of the world when the US has natural disasters like "Katrina", the esteemed Abu Musab Al-Zarqui called "Katrina" "God's retribution" So much for the generosity of the Islamo-Fascists.

If you have ever done any serious reading( such as Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers") you would know that the US is classed( and not only by Kennedy) as "The Global Superpower".

It is my opinion, which I am sure I can buttress with many salient proofs, that the stance taken by countries which stand out only by their insignificance and lack of contribution to the world's culture and industry, is due mainly to that most destructive of vices--UNALLOYED ENVY!!

Endless Imprisonment for Americans?

Not if they are in Uniform and serve directly under a commander who is responsible for their actions in the field.

This is laid out in the Geneva Conventions.

You are apparently unaware that, during World War II, three men, NOT IN UNIFORM, slipped into the United States for purposes of Sabotage.

They were Nazis. They were executed after a trial.

Hmm, didn't Jerry Falwell call Katrina God's retribution too?

Now as I remember from the time, Bernard, the DOD lawyers were aghast at the Gonzalez-(was it Wu?)-Rumsfeld-Bush interpretation of the Geneva Accords. The DOD lawyers have always seen Geneva as a protection for OUR troops. If we treat others well, then there is a reasonable expectation and leverage that our captured soldiers will be treated well. We've abandoned any notion of reciprocity, with the tenuous "legal" justification that they're not enemy combatants. They clearly are, tho they have no clear connection with a government--some of Taliban tho do. From what I've seen the Gonzalez view is not the mainstream one nor the majority one (and don't quote Posner at me. He's not the majority, he's just one).

You are probably aware that some people,like the Islamo-Fascist savages, or,during World War II, the Japanese, do not feel they are bound by the Geneva Convention.

You miss the vital point. Terrorists who do not wear uniforms and are not under the hierarchial command of a superior officer and do not belong to an established army DO NOT FALL UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION.

You apparently did not read my post. When a US court with jurisdiction rules that the prisoners in Guantanamo are due Geneva Convention rights, then and only then will they get those rights since Donald Rumsfeld, the last word in the Defense Department has ruled that the prisoners in Guantanamo do not fall under the terms of the Geneva Convention.

You may be aware that the Nazis, in the early years of the war, did not strictly follow the rules of the Geneva Convention--Several massacres of unarmed US soldiers who did not receive a hearing come to mind--It was only when it became clear that the Allies would win the war, that the Nazis began to soften their treatment of Allied prisoners of war.


Do you know anything about lawyers? I know a great deal. The lawyers at DOD were playing the game of C Y A. A good lawyer can argue both ways, as you may be aware.

Again,when a US court rules that the prisoners in Guantanamo are under the rules of the Geneva Convention, then it will be so. Until then, those who do not believe in the rule of law can use the alleged brutality in Guantanamo as a political talking point>