Voice of America

[chip anderson]

Today, G. Gordon Liddy said: The Voice of America prepared a statement for broadcast over the USS Cole incident. This broadcast stated that those responsible would be tracked down and prosecuted or destroyed. It went on to state that of the last 17 acts of terrorism against the US nine of the principals had been prosecuted and the other 8 would be found.

The U.S. State Department supposedly with the consent of the White House issued a directive that this was not approved and not to be broadcast. It went on to state that the lives of the sailors on the Cole were insignificant compared to the Arabs killed in the current difficulties with Israel.

What gives? Isn't an assault against a US Ship an act of War whether anyone is on it or not? Isn't our "Commander in Chief" supposed to believe that one of us is more important than all of them?

Your comments, please.

Appearently I was wrong. VOA did broadcast thier statement. As to whether the State Department sent a memorandum, I don't know.

About the president being able to prevent. Prevent is not the operative word. Respond is. If we responded in a swift and terrible manner to all such intrusions, we would not have such intrusions.

[This message has been edited by chip anderson (edited 10-19-2000).]

[shanbaum]

Originally posted by chip anderson:
Today, G. Gordon Liddy said...

Gordon Liddy still has a radio show? You listen to it? Do you read the National Enquirer?

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I would assume that such outrageous claims, whether made by Liddy or any of the ranting psychopaths who adorn the airwaves, are false.

Freedom of speech is a great thing; on the other hand, anybody can say anything. Caveat auscultator - let the listener beware.

[karen]

Originally posted by chip anderson:
What gives? Isn't an assault against a US Ship an act of War whether anyone is on it or not? Isn't our "Commander in Chief" supposed to believe that one of us is more important than all of them?

Your comments, please.[/I]

Well, if we HAD a Commander in Chief and not a sex crazed socialist freak maybe things would be different

[Judy Canty]

We have a Commander-in-Chief. His peculiar peccadillos could no more have prevented this act of terrorism than former Commanders-in-Chief could have prevented the takeover of the American Embassies in Tehran and Kuwait, or the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, or the bombing of the barracks in Saudi Arabia, or the Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The President doesn't write the checks to the Department of Defense for men, women and material or to the Department of State for intelligence-gathering, Congress does.

[John R]

From the other side of the lake comes this statement.
Well if it is true then your "Commander in Chief" is prepared to let anyone kick you in the balls and get away with it, but we all know he prefers something else round them rather than a boot......

John "If this affends any young ladies i am sorry" R

[This message has been edited by john r (edited 10-19-2000).]

[Maria]

No, I'm sorry, but someone's going to have to explain to me what weird stuff he likes, 'cos I don't know.
John - you're nominated. What does he like?

------------------
Maria "no amusing quote" K

[Pete Hanlin]

To briefly get back to the content of the original post, the "Voice of America" did intend to air a commentary on the USS Cole tragedy which was very similar to the description Chip gave. The State Department issued a memorandum to them stating that, unless they noted that the significance of the many Arab lives lost in the region, the broadcast would be prohibited.

The ensuing, and immediate, backlash garnered by this memorandum resulted in the removal of the State Department's objection, and the original commentary has already been aired as of this time. My sources of info on this matter, while admittedly conservative, are a little less right-wing than Mr. Liddy (but then again, Pat Buchannon is a little less right wing than... ;) ). I certainly didn't hear about it on NPR (which I listen to almost daily).

As much as I despise the current administration, I don't think this tragedy is the proper venue for a discussion of their competence (or lack thereof) in handling our military. It is almost incomprehensible that the State Deptartment would try to be so "PC" with such an event, but I suppose that's politics. There's plenty of other opportunities and places to debate the merits of our politicians than at the graveside of fallen soldiers.

Pete

[This message has been edited by Pete Hanlin (edited 10-20-2000).]

[EyeManFla]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pete Hanlin:
[There's plenty of other opportunities and places to debate the merits of our politicians than at the graveside of fallen soldiers.

Pete

I couldn't agree more! And as an ex-marine, you would think the "G-Man" would know that ,too!

[jason02215]

I'd rather pay 5 bucks a gallon for gas than loose another man or woman to this craziness. Protecting our interests? Our interests are American citizens. We need to stop policing the world, and focus on us, and our problems. Once we end homelessness, preventable disease and hunger here we can try to help everyone else. Let's get back to basics. In the meantime, nuke 'em.

[shanbaum]

Originally posted by Pete Hanlin:
There's plenty of other opportunities and places to debate the merits of our politicians than at the graveside of fallen soldiers.

Eloquent but wrong, I think. It has often been said that issues related to military activity should not be discussed out of respect for, or in support of, the persons putting their lives on the line. Indeed, I remember that argument having been made during the Vietnam war, when, had a more open discussion of the merits of that action taken place earlier, suffering might have been mitigated on all sides.

It has been said that democracies do not go to war with one another. The kernel of truth in that statement derives from the fact that wars have rarely arisen from a groundswell of public desire for conflict(not that that's unthinkable) but rather from some person or group of persons, having some axe to grind, accumulating sufficient power to lead their followers on some "mission".

For this, the best preventative is a free, open and public discussion of the merits of the proposed or existing action or actions, which of course only happens in democracies. The last thing that we should do out of respect for the sacrifices of these people would be to shut up.

If no-one were ever hurt as a result of our sending soldiers and sailors around the globe, we probably wouldn't give it too much thought; why would we? We wouldn't suffer the burden of holding these politicians (who in general are better suited to being game-show hosts) accountable for the decisions they make in putting our people in danger, or for managing an inherently dangerous enterprise competently.

Which brings me to the point I want to make: ultimately, the responsibility is ours. We're the ones who elect these cretins. We're the ones who, some years ago, demanded that our international intelligence-gathering apparatus be dismantled instead of being fixed. We're the ones who have failed to demand that the government demonstrate to us that our kids who serve in the military are as safe as they can be, under the circumstances - even when confronted with such painful evidence that that's clearly not the case.

We just don't spend the time that this responsibility requires; we leave it up to others, telling ourselves that we're leaving it up to "the experts". But more often than not, they're just others who pay attention, because they have some axe to grind. Our inattention, and our silence, are their best friends.

[Pete Hanlin]

<FONT COLOR=#FF0000>"It has often been said that issues related to military activity should not be discussed out of respect for, or in support of, the persons putting their lives on the line. Indeed, I remember that argument having been made during the Vietnam war, when, had a more open discussion of the merits of that action taken place earlier, suffering might have been mitigated on all sides."</FONT>

Point well taken, Shanbaum. However, our involvement in Vietnam suffered from indecision. That is, if we weren't going to enter war with the intention of winning, we should have stayed the heck out of it altogether. Either way, it was the administration's decision to make. Every four years, we elect a new Executive Branch. For all the talk about "I want to save this program," or "I want to give this type of tax cut" one of the really important roles of the Executive Branch is leadership in time of conflict. Congress is the Legislative Branch of our governmental system.

True enough, we need to foster public debate about the merits of our leadership's military decisions. However, a terrorist incident (like the bombing of Cole) is not really equivalent to the Vietnam War in terms of demonstrating the military decision-making capability of the administration. Chances are, that ship could have been there under Clinton, Bush, or Gore.

Not to say that an isolated incident can't be used to critique an administration. For example, the Kursk disaster is just one glimpse of the sad state of disrepair the Russian military has fallen into (take note, BTW, of what happens when a military force is neglected... I was suprised Cheney never used the Russian military as an example of what could lie ahead with additional years of neglect).

I agree, the statement I made about making political arguments at the graveside of our dead servicemen/women was too general. I suppose I could have put it better (but perhaps with less artistic flair ;) ) by saying "This is probably not the incident that should be used to debate whether this administration has been an effective deployer of our military forces."

I can think of one other incident that was similarly used for political debate: the botched rescue of American hostages in Iran before the 1980 election. It may have been example of poor decision making, but at least Jimmy Carter made a decision and accepted responsibility for it (one more example of him being an honorable man as- but just not particularly suited to- President.

Without being too "political," I think both candidates have made it clear that they have different views concerning the deployment of our military forces. Its up to the informed voter to make a decision about which candidate's philosophy seems best (actually, even having studied the third party candidate's platforms, I'm not really sure what their foreign policy would look like).

Pete "waxing less eloquent" Hanlin

[Blake]

Originally posted by Pete Hanlin:

True enough, we need to foster public debate about the merits of our leadership's military decisions. However, a terrorist incident (like the bombing of Cole) is not really equivalent to the Vietnam War in terms of demonstrating the military decision-making capability of the administration. Chances are, that ship could have been there under Clinton, Bush, or Gore.

Good point Pete. Terrorists don't hate Democrats or Republicans, they hate the United States. Ships have stopped in foreign ports for as long as they've sailed the seas, but in this instance there was an increased risk. Still, determining the "rules of engagement" can be tricky. What if they had opened fire on the boat, only to discover it was some schoolchildren who just wanted a close up look at Americans?
Now, as someone who spent four years in the military, all during the "Clinton Years", I have my own opinions of the commander in chief. Deployments have increased, while personnel have decreased. I remember when Clinton came to Germany in 1995 shortly before sending troops to Bosnia. It was supposed to last a few months, but our troops are STILL there! And let's not forget Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, and the Persian Gulf. All of this while trying to perform their day-to-day duty of protecting OUR nation. Officers, forced to be increasingly politically correct in order to advance in their careers (or in some cases just keep them), have been getting out in droves, especially younger officers. Enlisted folks are opting to "take the money and run", taking advantage of the GI Bill to get out and go to school rather than stick around for low pay and frequent separation from their families.
Whether the next president's military experience was as a reporter in Vietnam (Gore), or a pilot of high-performance jet fighters in the National Guard (Bush), is really irrelevant. What will matter is that he has the leadership to enable out military to perform its constitutional duty.

Blake