Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past

[Guest guest]

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/08/int04043.html

 

August 20, 2004

 

As the Bush GOP Swift Liars Continue Their Campaign of

Character Assassination, BuzzFlash Interviews the

Author of " Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families,

Veterans, and His Past "

 

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

 

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