4um: SEAN HANNITY - "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life"

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Title: SEAN HANNITY - "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life"
Source: Impeach Bush 103
URL Source: http://zzpat.tripod.com/cvb/impeach103.html
Published: Nov 9, 2005
Author: Steve Rendall
Post Date: 2005-11-09 16:52:44 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: servicemen, "Explain, American
Views: 4483
Comments: 60

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life."
SEAN HANNITY - Fox News Channel - Hannity & Colmes, April 6, 1999 - expressing opposition to the Clinton administration´s 1999 Kosovo actions.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 43.
#3. To: OKCSubmariner (#0)
When Clinton committed troops to Bosnia:

"You can support the troops but not the president." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." --Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" --Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99
"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." --Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." --Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush
"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." --Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)
"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today" --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." --Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

Here's what Republicans said about Clinton and Kosovo

Why did they second-guess our commitment to freedom from genocide and demand that we cut and run?
"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be
away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel- good foreign policy."

- Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

Why did they demoralize our brave men and women in uniform?

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

- Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99


"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

- Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

- Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

Why didn't they support our president in a time of war?


"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)


"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)

"The two powers that have ICBMs that can reach the United States are Russia and China. Here we go in. We're taking on not just Milosevic. We can't just say, 'that little guy, we can whip him.' We have these two other powers that have missiles that can reach us, and we have zero defense thanks to this president."

- Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)


"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"
   - Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Why did they blame America first?

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

- Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"Once the bombing commenced, I think then Milosevic unleashed his forces, and then that's when the slaughtering and the massive ethnic cleansing really started"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"
Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R)


"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

- Michael Savage


"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

- Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

- Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)


"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R )


"By the order to launch air strikes against Serbia, NATO and President Clinton have entered uncharted territory in mankind's history. Not even Hitler's grab of the Sudetenland in the 1930s, which eventually led to WW II, ranks as a comparable travesty. For, there are no American interests whatsoever that the NATO bombing will
either help, or protect; only needless risks to which it exposes the American soldiers and assets, not to mention the victims on the ground in Serbia."

- Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media

Uncle Bill posted on 2005-11-09 17:06:31 ET Reply Untrace Trace Private Reply
#8. To: Uncle Bill (#3)
Those quotes were great. Thanks.
The difference between a Republican and a Democrat:
Republican: If we are doing it, it's for the right reasons.
Democrat: If we are doing it, it's for the right reasons.
I am so thankful I have woken to the truth and now recognize it's not right against left... it's us against them.
Folks, we are the true minority group... we have no party, we have almost no voice, we barely have a chance in hell. HOPE is all I can come up with. 'Hope that's enough.
Wait though, we've got the truth... and that's kinda' comforting, I suppose.

wakeup posted on 2005-11-09 23:26:34 ET Reply Untrace Trace Private Reply
#11. To: wakeup, Mekons4 (#8)
Republican: If we are doing it, it's for the right reasons.
Democrat: If we are doing it, it's for the right reasons.
I am so thankful I have woken to the truth and now recognize it's not right against left... it's us against them.

well said.

christine posted on 2005-11-09 23:36:31 ET Reply Untrace Trace Private Reply
#12. To: christine (#11)
Seriously, both Dems and Reps supported Nam. I was one of those people who went after both of them during the Nam time (remember Dump the Hump?) and to claim both parties are identical is just ridiculous. This is what Nader said. One party wants to raise wages for common people, eliminate tax breaks for the ultra rich and corporations, improve health and education benefits for the poor (and increasingly, the middle class), truly restrict wars to ones that are right and that we can win and make things right (Clinton's war=not one U.S. casuality, and we are basically gone...a perfect game, war-wise), and most important, kill the growth of the national debt.
The idea that both parties are identical is ridiculous. You can disagree with the Dems, but they are not identical to the Repukes. Read what my senators, Durbin and Obama, have to say.

Mekons4 posted on 2005-11-10 0:12:37 ET Reply Untrace Trace Private Reply
#32. To: Mekons4 (#12)
I didn't say they're identical. Different rhetoric, different mostly inconsequential issues to keep the american people divided, but their ultimate goal is the same--a collectivist one world government where they, the elites (our illustrious leaders) have all the power and wealth. They don't care one iota for the sovereignty of this nation or for the individual American man and woman.

christine posted on 2005-11-19 17:57:52 ET Reply Untrace Trace Private Reply
#43. To: christine (#32)
Is Bill Buckley 'George Bush’s Walter Cronkite'?

Lewrockwell.com
Source
March 4, 2006
Listeners to talk radio and readers of mainstream conservative publications and websites are by now thoroughly acquainted with what passes for debate on the Iraq war in those venues. All good, patriotic conservatives agree with President Bush’s policies, and anyone who doesn’t is a traitorous liberal. Rarely is the subject of conservative or libertarian opposition to the war raised – although Sean Hannity deserves credit for having Pat Buchanan on his radio show fairly regularly – and when it is, such antiwar types are deemed "unpatriotic." The only debate permitted in these quarters centers on tactics, not the fundamental morality of the war.
Even the president has framed the issue in this way. Speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on January 10, he said:

The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see it. They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. And they know the difference between a loyal opposition that points out what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

In short, the only "responsible" debate involves nibbling around the edges of the war, discussing tactics; questioning the war itself is "irresponsible" and "partisan."
That was then; this is now.
William F. Buckley, Jr., for better or for worse one of the founding fathers of the modern conservative movement, has jumped ship on the Iraq project. In a column titled simply, "It Didn’t Work," the founder and editor-at-large of National Review, the very magazine that declared all right-wing opposition to the war treasonous in a now-infamous cover story, bluntly stated: "One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."
Buckley then elucidated on this a bit:

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

That is, a civil war, which most observers not blinded by the Bush administration’s prewar propaganda predicted without even consulting their crystal balls, has broken out among deeply divided groups of people who were previously held together only by force, as even Buckley cagily, without quite attributing this belief to himself, admitted. "It would not," averred Buckley, "be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others’ [sic] throats."
Now Buckley went on to urge President Bush – and, by extension, conservatives in general – not to give up on the idea of transforming some parts of the world into friendly democracies through military action, especially if we would just get over our hang-ups with firebombing and nuking civilian cities, as the Allies did in World War II. (I’ll direct you to Justin Raimondo’s column here for a fuller dissection of Buckley’s piece.) Still, for the eminence grise of modern-day conservatism to declare explicitly that the Iraq mission has failed signals a potentially seismic shift in the terms of the debate. Now, perhaps, we can get down to the business of debating the policy itself, not just whether or not there was enough body armor for the troops.
Reaction to Buckley’s column on the right was swift and, for the most part, predictable. The intellectual giants at http://FreeRepublic.com, ever tolerant of dissent from the Bush party line, responded with such thought-provoking gems as:

Buckley is getting old. Some weaken with age, some don’t. It’s sad though.
I haven’t read any of Buckley’s tripe for years. It’s good to once again realize why every now and again.
Good thing Buckley isn’t in charge. I don’t like quitters.
He [Buckley] may have been the father of the 50s Conservative Movement, but he’s one step in his grave now.
I remember when Barry Goldwater started goings [sic] senile.

And that is just a sampling from the first 50 responses; the Freepers went on to make another 344 similarly intellectual retorts.
Even Buckley’s own magazine felt the need to distance itself from his comments, claiming that "declarations of defeat in Iraq" such as the column by their editor-at-large "are pre-mature. . . . Defeatism is self-fulfilling."
However, one very noteworthy conservative voice took a much less combative stand. Perhaps because he considers Buckley "like a surrogate parent in a way," Rush Limbaugh was much less quick to condemn Buckley’s opinion as the ravings of a senile old defeatist. In fact, Limbaugh made what must have seemed a startling admission to most of his audience:

You know, a lot of people look at conservatism and see a monolith. You know, one conservative is the same as all, and as you know, as being a conservative, most of you are yourselves. There are many different derivatives out there of our so-called movement. I mean, you've got some great social conservatives who are protectionists. You have some other great conservatives who have one view on foreign policy that differs from the president's. Some would say the president is not actually a conservative when it comes to foreign policy. (Emphasis mine.)

Stop the presses! A conservative has actually admitted that Bush’s foreign policy, in the view of "some other great conservatives," does not itself qualify as conservative! This had to have come as a shock to the Dittoheads who have, for the past four or five years, been subject to Bush-worship of the highest order and the denigration of anyone who disagrees with Bush as a treasonous liberal.
Limbaugh went on to describe, in more or less perfect detail, the standard conservative foreign policy view of the pre-9/11 era:

Now, if you go back, the James Baker wing of foreign policy, and many – I could – who's another? Well, Brent Scowcroft, who was one of the early opponents. . . . . Their brand of foreign policy can essentially be summed up like this: If there's no vested, stated national security issue, then it's none of our business to get involved – Pat Buchanan might fall into this, as a derivative, in a way. Doesn't involve us, it's none of our business, trying to bring democracy to people, if it doesn't help us, is foolish. It's a waste of time, it's a waste of our army, it's a waste of our treasure, and so forth.

This, by the way, would also be the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, who wrote in his memoirs:

Trying to eliminate Saddam . . . would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. . . .We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. . . .[T]here was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. . . . Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.

Bush’s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney, agreed:

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. . . . And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. . . .
I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

For Limbaugh and other conservatives and neoconservatives, however, "after 9/11, everything changed." No longer would prudence and a careful consideration of the limitations of military force enter into the picture when making foreign policy decisions. From now on it was pure Wilsonianism, making the world safe for democracy regardless of the cost in blood and treasure.
Thus a fair question can be asked: Whose principles have changed? The conservatives who held to the relatively restrained (but hardly isolationist) foreign policy they had espoused throughout the preceding decades, or those who believed that their principles, and not just with regard to foreign policy, had to be jettisoned after 9/11? Can anyone claim that the former are any less conservative or patriotic for not wavering in spite of immense pressure to jump on the Bush bandwagon? Are the latter truly conservative if they are so willing to make a complete turnaround in their stated beliefs because of one event?
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a largely Bush-sympathetic newspaper, editorialized recently:

For Lyndon Johnson, it was Walter Cronkite. Will it be Bill Buckley for George Bush? LBJ felt he had lost the American people when the former CBS News anchor said victory in Vietnam was not possible. Now Mr. Buckley, the conservative icon, says "our mission has failed" in Iraq. Certainly the beginning of America’s endgame in Iraq is upon us.

Let’s hope the editors are right.

Uncle Bill posted on 2006-03-05 23:55:32 ET (1 image) Reply Untrace Trace Private Reply
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Is Bill Buckley 'George Bush’s Walter Cronkite'?