Ian Williams wrote the just-released "Deserter: George Bush's War on Military
Families, Veterans and His Past" for Nation Books, the publishing arm of the
venerable Nation Magazine. And what could be more timely, as George W. Bush
lets loose the Bush GOP Swift Boat Liars to impugn the integrity of war hero
John Kerry?
Of course, the Bush GOP Swift Boat Liars are, like the Bush administration
itself, highly suspect partisans. On August 19th, the Washington Post revealed
that the citation on the Bronze Star received by one of Kerry's accusers
contradicts a primary charge by the Swift Boar Liar, that Kerry's boat never
came under fire:
In interviews and written reminiscences, Kerry has described how his 50-foot
patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap after a mine
explosion disabled another U.S. patrol boat. According to Kerry and members of
his crew, the firing continued as an injured Kerry leaned over the bow of his
ship to rescue a Special Forces officer who was blown overboard in a second
explosion.
Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when
he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star
citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and
automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."
"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by
Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250
Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry's fellow boat commanders.
A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions
"took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely
ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew.
The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.
Like Bush, the Swift Boat Liars lie with such impunity, their own medal
citations out them as prevaricators. (Of course, Bush doesn't have any medals
to prove him a liar, because he was too busy being AWOL in the non-combat zone
of Texas to earn a medal.)
Which brings us back to "Deserter: George Bush's War on Military Families,
Veterans and His Past."
Is the American population the victim of mass hysteria when all semblence of
common sense vanishes in nearly half of its citizens?
It would certainly appear so after reading "Deserter." Bush, as any BuzzFlash
reader knows, evaded service in Vietnam by using family connections to leapfrog
over a waiting list to get into the Texas Air National Guard. Then, among other
improprieties, he didn't show up for his annual physical one year and was
permanently grounded, thus wasting millions of taxpayer dollars spent on his
training. Of course, then there's the AWOL thing, which was long enough to be
considered desertion if....well, if his name were Juan Gonzalez instead of
Bush!
Oh boy, but don't get the author of "Deserter" going! The above paragraph is
just for starters in making the case that Bush is a military fraud, a rich kid
popinjay who showed his support for the Vietnam War by making sure that he
didn't get any closer to risking his life than a swimming pool in Corpus
Christi.
We interviewed author Ian Williams to find out why the Swift Boar Liars are a
calculated distraction from the real story of AWOL/Deserter Bush.
* * *
BuzzFlash: You make quite a dramatic statement in calling your book, "Deserter:
Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past." Some GOP stalwarts
would say that it's blasphemy to call Bush a deserter. What's your reaction to
that criticism?
Ian Williams: Well, since they seem to think he is so close to God, no wonder
that they think it’s blasphemy! Sadly, so much of his support is
fundamentalist: no amount of evidence will ever convince them that he is less
than perfect. But what is really frightening is the general obsequiousness of
the American media, who, even if they may not think it’s blasphemy, do think it
is a form of lèse-majesté [a crime against the sovereign] to question this
President with any degree of thoroughness.
It’s puzzling really, since it was OK to ask Clinton about semen stains, but
somehow impolite to ask George W. Bush why he can’t remember with any degree of
precision what he was doing from May 1972-1973.
BuzzFlash: Let's get to a recent issue germane to your book. Bush was asked to
repudiate the slimy, gutter attacks of the surrogate "Swift Boaters" on John
Kerry's service record in Vietnam. But Bush refused to call off the dogs. Are
you a bit astonished that a rich kid who chose to avoid service in Vietnam,
while supporting the war, is letting low-lives loose to slander a Vietnam
combat veteran honored with three medals?
Ian Williams: Well, Senator Joe McCarthy’s career was brought to a halt because
someone asked him "have you no shame?" The question would not work with Bush,
Karl Rove and the rest of the team. They clearly have no shame whatsoever. My
first reaction was that the "Swift Boat Veterans for Recovered Memory Syndrome"
were at least testifying that Kerry was in Vietnam. No one can produce a
veteran who saw Bush there. Indeed no one can produce a veteran who saw Bush on
a military base in Alabama during the year he was missing either! But they are
getting away with it!
BuzzFlash: Speaking of service in Vietnam. Various Bush defenders, including the
chairman of the GOP, have indignantly asserted that Bush volunteered to go to
Vietnam if his unit was called, but your book indicates that he indicated to
the Guard that he did not want to serve overseas -- and that he admitted as
much to Tim Russert. Tell us more about this discrepancy.
Ian Williams: He has wriggled and squirmed on this one. He ticked a box on
entering the service to say "no" to Overseas Service. He has admitted on
occasion that he joined the Guard precisely to avoid going to Vietnam. At one
point they tried to spin it that he had tried to join a program, Palace Alert,
that took the Air National Guard to Vietnam. But that program ended a week
after he finished flight school. More honestly, while memories were fresh, in
1994 he told the Houston Chronicle, "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out
with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada.
So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." In fact, the Air
National Guard unit he joined was known as Air Canada – because it was as good
as a flight north of border, but with none of the political or meteorological
drawbacks. And he most recently agreed with Tim Russert that he had not
volunteered.
BuzzFlash: One of the under-discussed blemishes on Bush's Guard record is that
after millions of dollars of taxpayer money were spent training him to fly, he
one day didn't show up for his annual physical, which required a drug test, and
he was grounded from thereon, wasting our money. Is this true?
Ian Williams: Indeed, it is. It was during the twelve months that he cannot
explain what he was doing with the Guard. It was the equivalent of letting off
that shotgun next to his ear. No one, least of all the Bush campaign has
explained why he did not turn up. There should have been a Board of Inquiry,
since after several years of highly expensive training he grounded himself.
Once again the excuses tumble out. He would have had to go to Texas for the
exam. Not true. His plane was being phased out, so he felt he did not need to
take the examination: just imagine an officer in Iraq now deciding that the
occupation is being phased out, so he needn’t return from leave!
It leaves it open to speculation. The test should have included drug use. And he
has only denied using narcotics after 1974. His plane was nuclear capable, so
there was an additional Human Reliability Program, to ensure that pilots did
not fly nukes with impaired cognition from substance abuse.
BuzzFlash: As far as the AWOL period, when did this occur? Also, can you explain
the charges, first made by the late Jim Hatfield -- and then most recently
pursued by Helen Thomas -- that Bush was performing community service for a
drug conviction during the AWOL period.
Ian Williams: In May 1972, he went to Alabama to work on a Republican campaign.
At first, his Texas buddies tried to get him a no-show sinecure at a postal
unit there, but because it was in another state, it became a Federal case, and
he was ordered to turn up at an actual air base, Dannelly in Alabama. No one
remembers him showing up. The records for that year that have just been
rediscovered show a few non-active duty drills, but no details of what, where
or with whom. In fact, it has been suggested that this was defrauding the
taxpayers!
BuzzFlash: The Q and A from February of this year, between the intrepid Helen
Thomas and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan (that you include in the
appendix) certainly leaves the reader believing that the community service
issue is something that the Bush protectors are mighty scared of addressing.
Although no one can prove it, you argue that it is certainly a believable
possibility. Why haven't reporters scoured this theory with more vigor?
Ian Williams: The failure to answer, or even acknowledge, Helen Thomas’
questions should have alerted the press that this was a big story. It should
have been headlines. But it was hardly reported at all. But as we mentioned,
the general obsequiousness of the media is part of the reason. Access in return
for compliance is the rule –- which is why Helen isn’t getting much access
lately!
But in fairness this story has been partially worked over in so many forms that
editors probably think it’s like archeology on a site that has been looted by
tomb robbers. In fact, there is an amazing amount on the public record. What
editors have been too polite to do is to assemble all the different angles.
Then it becomes clear that there is a huge hole in the middle of his National
Guard record. Bush never had a charitable deed on his preppy resume and
suddenly, after being missing for most of a year, and while he is supposed to
be doing his Guard service, here he is working with inner city kids in Houston.
BuzzFlash: Could Bush have gotten into the Texas Air National Guard, just days
before he was due for a visit to the induction center, if his name had been
Juan Gonzalez?
Ian Williams: Well yes, if Juan Gonzales was a quarterback in the Houston Oilers
-– seven of them were in the same unit. But George W. Bush jumped a line of 500
applicants to get accepted on the same day he applied. And nationally there
were over a 100,000 waiting to get in –- in fact Bill Clinton says he would
have considered it, but he did not have the clout. But he disagreed with the
war, unlike Bush, and indeed Dan Quayle, who both had the clout to get into the
Guard –- and the chutzpah to support the war they were dodging.
BuzzFlash: You go beyond Bush's checkered National Guard service -- or
non-service -- into showing how Bush betrays the GIs who serve our nation,
while using the military as props for his political career. How has he betrayed
the military?
Ian Williams: How shall we count the ways? Let’s begin with a thousand dead
soldiers and ten or twenty times that many dead Iraqis. This was a war of his
contriving for reasons that I do not think anyone has adequately explained –
certainly he never has. Even assuming that it was justified (and after all
Saddam Hussein was an evil guy, even when Bush Senior and Reagan were
supporting him) then what type of civilian "commander in chief" overrules his
professional diplomats and his generals to produce such a level of incompetence
as we saw? There were not enough US troops; allies were alienated from joining
in. All of this was predictable, and predicted, by the military, by the State
Department and our allies. And he would not listen. Not only did he try to
camouflage the returning dead, as far as I know, he has not attended one
funeral for any of the casualties.
And then while he prates about his support for our military and veterans, he has
been cutting back in VA hospitals, base schools, and tried to stop increases in
the grants for families of the dead, while holding down military pay for the
living. If any of the military believe he supports them, let just hope they
don’t get jobs in intelligence!
BuzzFlash: How has the White House been so successful in throwing up enough
flack to keep pushing Bush's highly questionable record as a Chickenhawk off
the front pages, whenever periodic questions emerge?
Ian Williams: I have to say that they really do run a smart media operation.
Mean, unscrupulous, and effective. When you read the exchanges with the media,
with the honorable exceptions like Helen Thomas, it is amazing how they can be
fobbed off with evasions and half answers. There is very rarely any follow-up
questioning, and even when a story falls apart, the press are, understandably,
a bit reluctant to detail how they were played for suckers.
BuzzFlash: What was that strange incident a few weeks back when the Pentagon
announced on a Friday that records for the time period Bush was allegedly AWOL
were lost. Previously, they had claimed that they were at a warehouse somewhere
out West. Which brings up the question of whether or not the White House has
followed through on its promise to release Bush's complete Guard Records? Have
they?
Ian Williams: Well, maybe they have released all the records that have survived
[or maybe not]. But why not produce W2 forms for his pay from the period? Where
are the crucial medical records? What do they say? I think I remember detailed
exegesis of Reagan’s polyps up his intestines. What did they discover up Bush’s
nose that’s private, one cannot help wondering?
BuzzFlash: Is Bush just a great military poseur, a walking, talking GI Joe Doll
who is all talk and no cattle when it comes to guts and courage?
Ian Williams: He just loves to dress up. He has appeared in uniform more often
than anyone but Fidel Castro since September 11, since about one-third of his
policy speeches were in front of military or veteran audiences, and he often
dons some item of military gear, usually with "Commander in Chief" emblazoned
on it. In fact, the only time he ever engaged in combat as far as we know was
during that missing year. He drove to his father’s Washington home drunk and
dared him to take it to the street when he was reprimanded. Indeed, it has been
suggested that this was incident that may have led to the Community Service
order that has been suspected.
BuzzFlash: Finally, we have a GOP ticket of two guys who intentionally avoided
service in Vietnam (Cheney got four or five deferrals and never served) ganging
up on a guy who volunteered to do his duty. Why would anyone in the military
support these phonies?
Ian Williams: The two guys on the ticket have no shame. No one would have a
problem with them not serving if it weren’t that they had actively supported
the war they dodged, and if their campaign did not have a sleazy record of
attacking the patriotism, not just of Bill Clinton for not going to war, but
also for impugning the patriotism of McCain, Kerry, Cleland and others who did
go. This is hypocrisy, and I think the prime duty of any journalist is to
attack hypocrisy in public figures. It’s what we’re for!
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/08/int04043.html
.
|
