I'm a supporter of TWAT but the following individuals have a special place reserved in hell for them. They are cookie cutter cutouts of the fingers in the pie politicians from the Vietnam era... second guessing and overriding the warriors in place. One common trait they all share is a lack of integrity.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ

Wolfowitz said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki’s estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was “wildly off the mark.” [Washington Post, 12/8/05]

DOUGLAS FEITH

As Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Feith spearheaded two secretive groups at the Pentagon — the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans — that were instrumental in drawing up documents that explained the supposed ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. The groups were “created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true.” Colin Powell referred to Feith’s operation as the Gestapo. In Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack, former CentCom Commander Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith the “f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth.” [LAT, 1/27/05; NYT, 4/28/04; New Yorker, 5/12/03; Plan of Attack, p.281]

STEPHEN HADLEY

As then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Hadley disregarded memos from the CIA and a personal phone call from Director George Tenet warning that references to Iraq’s pursuit of uranium be dropped from Bush’s speeches. The false information ended up in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. [Washington Post, 7/23/03]

RICHARD PERLE

Richard Perle, the so-called “Prince of Darkness,” was the chairman of Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war. He suggested Iraq had a hand in 9-11. In 1996, he authored “Clean Break,” a paper that was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others that argued for regime change in Iraq. Shortly after the war began, Perle resigned from the Board because he came under fire for having relationships with businesses that stood to profit from the war. [Guardian, 9/3/02, 3/28/03; AFP, 8/9/02]

DONALD RUMSFELD

Prior to the war, Rumsfeld repeatedly suggested the war in Iraq would be short and swift. He said, “The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” He also said, “It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” [Rumsfeld, 11/14/02; USA Today, 4/1/03]

http://thinkprogress.org/the-archite...-are-they-now/

A list of Neo-cons and chicken hawks.

Originally Posted by CABAL

A list of Neo-cons and chicken hawks.

Noooooooooooooooooo. Really??


Alright, alright... equal time to the liberal chickenshits as well...

...

For the first time, I experienced it unfiltered, unmitigated, raw. I was immediately struck by how extraordinarily self-important and self-aggrandizing this letter was, especially coming from a 23-year-old college boy. No one is that critically important in his or her twenties, and Bill Clinton certainly wasn't either, his untapped potential and subsequent accomplishments notwithstanding.

After using four paragraphs to sketch out his "principled" opposition to the military draft, he incredibly admitted, "I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system." This youthful confession was a warning resounding across the years for all who would heed it. Never, ever trust anyone who would readily surrender an avowed principle in exchange for such base self-interest! Such an individual is inherently untrustworthy, thus completely unfit for any position of trust.

While the preceding portions of the letter had been troubling at worst, the penultimate paragraph truly angered me. His comment about the "many fine people," himself included of course, who found "themselves still loving their country but loathing the military" was simply disingenuous. One cannot love one's country while "loathing" the very people whose sacrifices, both historically and contemporarily, made that country possible...

http://www.compleatheretic.com/pubs/.../loathing.html

Clinton's letter...

Text of Bill Clinton's Letter to ROTC Colonel

I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to let you hear from me at least once a month, and from now on you will, but I have had to have some time to think about this first letter. Almost daily since my return to England I have thought about writing, about what I want to and ought to say.

First, I want to thank you, not just for saving me from the draft, but for being so kind and decent to me last summer, when I was as low as I have ever been. One thing which made the bond we struck in good faith somewhat palatable to me was my high regard for you personally. In retrospect, it seems that the admiration might not have been mutual had you known a little more about me, about my political beliefs and activities. At least you might have thought me more fit for the draft than for ROTC.

Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked for two years in a very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I did it for the experience and the salary but also for the opportunity, however small, of working every day against a war I opposed and despised with a depth of feeling I had reserved solely for racism in America before Vietnam. I did not take the matter lightly but studied it carefully, and there was a time when not many people had more information about Vietnam at hand than I did.

I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the national organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium is a close friend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to England to organize the Americans here for demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 16.

Interlock with the war is the draft issue, which I did not begin to consider separately until early 1968. For a law seminar at Georgetown I wrote a paper on the legal arguments for and against allowing, within the Selective Service System, the classification of selective conscientious objection for those opposed to participation in a particular war, not simply to "participation in war in any form."

From my work I came to believe that the draft system itself is illegitimate. No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war which, in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation.

The draft was justified in World War II because the life of the people collectively was at stake. Individuals had to fight, if the nation was to survive, for the lives of their countrymen and their way of life. Vietnam is no such case. Nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion, certain military action was justified but the draft was not, for the reasons stated above.

Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am more proud of than anything else I wrote at Oxford last year. One of my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under indictment and may never be able to go home again. He is one of the bravest, best men I know. His country needs men like him more than they know. That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity.

The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has been in recent years. (The society may be corrupt, but that is not the same thing, and if that is true, we are all finished anyway.)

When the draft came, despite political convictions, I was having a hard time facing the prospect of fighting a war I had been fighting against, and that is why I contacted you. ROTC was the one way left in which I could possibly, but not positively, avoid both Vietnam and resistance. Going on with my education, even coming back to England, played no part in my decision to join ROTC. I am back here, and would have been at Arkansas Law School because there is nothing else I can do. In fact, I would like to have been able to take a year out perhaps to teach in a small college or work on some community action project and in the process to decide whether to attend law school or graduate school and how to begin putting what I have learned to use.

But the particulars of my personal life are not nearly as important to me as the principles involved. After I signed the ROTC letter of intent, I began to wonder whether the compromise I had made with myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program in itself and all I seemed to have done was to protect myself from physical harm. Also, I began to think I had deceived you, not by lies--there were none--but by failing to tell you all the things I'm writing now. I doubt that I had the mental coherence to articulate them then.

At that time, after we had made our agreement and you had sent my 1-D deferment to my draft board, the anguish and loss of my self-regard and self-confidence really set in. I hardly slept for weeks and kept going by eating compulsively and reading until exhaustion brought sleep. Finally, on Sept. 12 I stayed up all night writing a letter to the chairman of my draft board, saying basically what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking him for trying to help in a case where he really couldn't, and stating that I couldn't do the ROTC after all and would he please draft me as soon as possible.

I never mailed the letter, but I did carry it on me every day until I got on the plane to return to England. I didn't mail the letter because I didn't see, in the end, how my going in the Army and maybe going to Vietnam would achieve anything except a feeling that I had punished myself and gotten what I deserved. So I came back to England to try to make something of this second year of my Rhodes scholarship.

And that is where I am now, writing to you because you have been good to me and have a right to know what I think and feel. I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one story will help you to understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military, to which you and other good men have devoted years, lifetimes, of the best service you could give. To many of us, it is no longer clear what is service and what is disservice, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely to be illegal.

Forgive the length of this letter. There was much to say. There is still a lot to be said, but it can wait. Please say hello to Col. Jones for me.

Merry Christmas.

Sincerely,
Bill Clinton

http://www.compleatheretic.com/pubs/.../loathing.html

Also here in case you don't like my source...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...aftletter.html

From the official record the response by the Colonel to the Clinton version during his campaign.

Memorandum for Record by Colonel Eugene J. Holmes

September 7, 1992
Memorandum for Record
Subject: Bill Clinton and the University of Arkansas ROTC Program

There have been many unanswered questions as to the circumstances surrounding Bill Clinton's involvement with the ROTC department at the University of Arkansas. Prior to this time I have not felt the necessity for discussing the details. The reason I have not done so before is that my poor physical health (a consequence of participation in the Bataan Death March and the subsequent 3 1/2 years internment in Japanese POW camps) has precluded me from getting into what I felt was unnecessary involvement. However, present polls show that there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft dodger becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. While it is true, as Mr. Clinton has stated, that there were many others who avoided serving their country in the Vietnam war, they are not aspiring to be the President of the United States.

The tremendous implications of the possibility of his becoming Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces compels me now to comment on the facts concerning Mr. Clinton's evasion of the draft.

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

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

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

I was not "saving" him from serving his country, as he erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England (dated December 3, 1969). I was making it possible for a Rhodes Scholar to serve in the military as an officer.

In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of following through with his agreement to join the Army ROTC program at the University of Arkansas or to attend the University of Arkansas Law School. I had explained to him the necessity of enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a student in order to be eligible to take the ROTC program at the University. He never enrolled at the University of Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale after attending Oxford. I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification.

The December 3rd letter written to me by Mr. Clinton, and subsequently taken from the files by Lt. Col. Clint Jones, my executive officer, was placed into the ROTC files so that a record would be available in case the applicant should again petition to enter into the ROTC program. The information in that letter alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from ever qualifying to be an officer in the United States Military. Even more significant was his lack of veracity in purposefully defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his counterfeit intentions for later military service. These actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his integrity.

When I consider the calibre, the bravery, and the patriotism of the fine young soldiers whose deaths I have witnessed, and others whose funerals I have attended * * *. When I reflect on not only the willingness but eagerness that so many of them displayed in their earnest desire to defend and serve their country, it is untenable and incomprehensible to me that a man who was not merely unwilling to serve his country, but actually protested against its military, should ever be in the position of Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces.

I write this declaration not only for the living and future generations, but for those who fought and died for our country. If space and time permitted I would include the names of the ones I knew and fought with, and along with them I would mention my brother Bob, who was killed during World War II and is buried in Cambridge, England (at the age of 23, about the age Bill Clinton was when he was over in England protesting the war).

I have agonized over whether or not to submit this statement to the American people. But, I realize that even though I served my country by being in the military for over 32 years, and having gone through the ordeal of months of combat under the worst of conditions followed by years of imprisonment by the Japanese, it is not enough. I'm writing these comments to let everyone know that I love my country more than I do my own personal security and well-being. I will go to my grave loving these United States of America and the liberty for which so many men have fought and died.

Because of my poor physical condition this will be my final statement. I will make no further comments to any of the media regarding this issue.

Eugene J. Holmes,
Colonel, U.S.A., Ret.

State of Arkansas,
County of Washington,
Barbara J. Powers,
Notary Public,
My commission expires--12/1/93

http://www.compleatheretic.com/pubs/.../loathing.html

Chutzpah: Clinton Cabinet Members Say US Military Broken

by Jim Kouri, CPP

Two former Bill Clinton cabinet members released a report intended to support the current liberal-left mantra that the "US military is broken." The report warns that immediate action must be taken to repair damaged morale and to make sure Iraqi security forces are ready to assume duties as soon as possible.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected the conclusions, however. He rhetorically asked: what military are they looking at? Today's military or the military of the 1990s?

The report, which is being touted by the intellectual giants in the Democrat Party and the news media as the proof of problems in the US military, was prepared by former top officials in the administration of President Bill Clinton, led by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former defense secretary William Perry.

"While the US military has performed superbly in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, our ground forces are under enormous strain," said the report by the former Clinton administration officials.

"This strain, if not soon relieved, will have highly corrosive and potentially long-term effects on the force," they said.They accused the current administration of failing to adequately size and equip the force for the post invasion occupation of Iraq, saying it created "a real risk of 'breaking the force.'"

Faltering morale among an overburdened force and eroding public support for the war would threaten the ability of the army and and marines "to maintain sufficient forces to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion."

The military is "in a race against time - attempting to create an effective Iraqi internal security force and corresponding civil structure before the patience of the US centers of gravity - the American people and American soldier - are exhausted." Oh, My God!!! The sky is falling!!! The sky is falling!!!

Had only Ms. Albright and Mr. Perry been so concerned about the erosion of our military when they were in charge during the scandal-ridden reign of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Their assessments contrast sharply with the optimism of senior US officials. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told a press briefing "this force is not broken". He said that the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 had shown the power of the US military.

Clinton's well-known dislike for the military led to his intentional neglect of his primary responsibility: the protection of the American people. During the Clinton Administration, in less than three years, deployments for humanitarian missions increased while manpower decreased from 2.1 million to 1.6 million.

The decrease in armed forces was called "reinvention" of government. While telling Americans that Clinton was making deep cuts in the federal bureaucracy, the media failed to inform Americans exactly what part of that "bureaucracy" was being cut. It was the military who suffered the cuts in order to make Clinton a hero.

Of the 305,000 employees removed from the federal payroll, 286,000 (or 90%) were military cuts. The statistics for America's defense during the Clinton years reveal the true feelings of the administration toward those who served in the military. The Army was cut from 18 divisions to 12. The Navy was reduced from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to a mere 50. There were reductions in tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, special forces units, etc., etc., etc.

In addition, President Clinton loosened America's ban on the export of supercomputers and other high-technology products to Communist China; this allowed Beijing to improve the accuracy of its intercontinental missiles. A prime American beneficiary of this Clinton policy was Loral Space & Communications chairman Bernard Schwartz, the single largest contributor to the Clinton campaign and to the Democrat Party.

In 1996 it was discovered that Chinese spies had stolen nuclear design secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the most damaging security breach in American history -- giving China the ability to produce and deliver nuclear warheads via submarines, mobile missiles, and long-range missiles. A 1998 Senate Governmental Affairs Committee concluded that foreign campaign contributions Clinton had received "were facilitated by individuals with extensive ties to China."

Apparently, while reducing our military capabilities here in the US, President Clinton was helping the Chinese build up their own capabilities. Not much has changed since the days when Clinton marched in London under the flag of North Vietnam.

As far as morale, perhaps the Democrats should stop their vitrolic ranting in which they compare US soldiers to Nazis (Senator Durbin) or terrorists (Senator Kerry) or managers of torture chambers (Senator Kennedy).

Mr. Perry and Ms. Albright would do also better if they wrote and released a statement apologizing for their silence when their boss was deconstructing the US Armed Forces and ignoring terrorist threats, than conducting politicized studies to aid the people who despise the military but see an opportunity to once again blame the Bush Administration.

Jim Kouri, CPP
Columnist Jim Kouri, National Association of Chiefs of Police Vice President

Pretty ballsy for members of the Clinton Cabinet to say anything about the status of the military. Too bad their nuts didn't drop till after they were no longer in a position to affect any change.

What Clinton Didn't Do . . .
. . . .and when he didn't do it.

BY RICHARD MINITER
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Bill Clinton's outburst on Fox News was something of a public service, launching a debate about the antiterror policies of his administration. This is important because every George W. Bush policy that arouses the ire of Democrats--the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, pre-emptive war--is a departure from his predecessor. Where policies overlap--air attacks on infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, freezing bank accounts, using police to arrest terror suspects--there is little friction. The question, then, is whether America should return to Mr. Clinton's policies or soldier on with Mr. Bush's.

It is vital that this debate be honest, but so far this has not been the case. Both Mr. Clinton's outrage at Chris Wallace's questioning and the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" are attempts to polarize the nation's memory. While this divisiveness may be good for Mr. Clinton's reputation, it is ultimately unhealthy for the country. What we need, instead, is a cold-eyed look at what works against terrorists and what does not. The policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations ought to be put to the same iron test.

With that in mind, let us examine Mr. Clinton's war on terror. Some 38 days after he was sworn in, al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. He did not visit the twin towers that year, even though four days after the attack he was just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, talking about job training. He made no attempt to rally the public against terrorism. His only public speech on the bombing was a few paragraphs inserted into a radio address mostly devoted to an economic stimulus package. Those stray paragraphs were limited to reassuring the public and thanking the rescuers, the kinds of things governors say after hurricanes. He did not even vow to bring the bombers to justice. Instead, he turned the first terrorist attack on American soil over to the FBI.

In his Fox interview, Mr. Clinton said "no one knew that al Qaeda existed" in October 1993, during the tragic events in Somalia. But his national security adviser, Tony Lake, told me that he first learned of bin Laden "sometime in 1993," when he was thought of as a terror financier. U.S. Army Capt. James Francis Yacone, a black hawk squadron commander in Somalia, later testified that radio intercepts of enemy mortar crews firing at Americans were in Arabic, not Somali, suggesting the work of bin Laden's agents (who spoke Arabic), not warlord Farah Aideed's men (who did not). CIA and DIA reports also placed al Qaeda operatives in Somalia at the time.

By the end of Mr. Clinton's first year, al Qaeda had apparently attacked twice. The attacks would continue for every one of the Clinton years.

• In 1994, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who would later plan the 9/11 attacks) launched "Operation Bojinka" to down 11 U.S. planes simultaneously over the Pacific. A sharp-eyed Filipina police officer foiled the plot. The sole American response: increased law-enforcement cooperation with the Philippines.

• In 1995, al Qaeda detonated a 220-pound car bomb outside the Office of Program Manager in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing five Americans and wounding 60 more. The FBI was sent in.

• In 1996, al Qaeda bombed the barracks of American pilots patrolling the "no-fly zones" over Iraq, killing 19. Again, the FBI responded.

• In 1997, al Qaeda consolidated its position in Afghanistan and bin Laden repeatedly declared war on the U.S. In February, bin Laden told an Arab TV network: "If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters." No response from the Clinton administration.

• In 1998, al Qaeda simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, including 12 U.S. diplomats. Mr. Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in response. Here Mr. Clinton's critics are wrong: The president was right to retaliate when America was attacked, irrespective of the Monica Lewinsky case.

Still, "Operation Infinite Reach" was weakened by Clintonian compromise. The State Department feared that Pakistan might spot the American missiles in its air space and misinterpret it as an Indian attack. So Mr. Clinton told Gen. Joe Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to notify Pakistan's army minutes before the Tomahawks passed over Pakistan. Given Pakistan's links to jihadis at the time, it is not surprising that bin Laden was tipped off, fleeing some 45 minutes before the missiles arrived.

• In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a NSC senior director who forced agencies to work together. But the Millennium approach was shortlived. Over Mr. Clarke's objections, policy reverted to the status quo.

• In January 2000, al Qaeda tried and failed to attack the U.S.S. The Sullivans off Yemen. (Their boat sank before they could reach their target.) But in October 2000, an al Qaeda bomb ripped a hole in the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39.

When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it. After the meeting, a State Department counterterrorism official, Michael Sheehan, sought out Mr. Clarke. Both told me that they were stunned. Mr. Sheehan asked Mr. Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

There is much more to Mr. Clinton's record--how Predator drones, which spotted bin Laden three times in 1999 and 2000, were grounded by bureaucratic infighting; how a petty dispute with an Arizona senator stopped the CIA from hiring more Arabic translators. While it is easy to look back in hindsight and blame Bill Clinton, the full scale and nature of the terrorist threat was not widely appreciated until 9/11. Still: Bill Clinton did not fully grasp that he was at war. Nor did he intuit that war requires overcoming bureaucratic objections and a democracy's natural reluctance to use force. That is a hard lesson. But it is better to learn it from studying the Clinton years than reliving them.

Mr. Miniter, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is author of "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths that Undermine the War on Terror" (Regnery, 2005).

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110009001

If only Clinton had had the guts to do something lives would have been saved... but then he was a gutless coward when it was his duty to serve as a young man as well. Better to be a chickenhawk than a chickenshit perhaps? Arkansas is still the number one poultry producer eh?