In the buildup to War on Iraq, when the idea was very unpopular amongst Americans just prior to the 2002 Elections, Bush and his surrogates went out of their way to tell the American people that he had no plans for war on his desk…
“I told the Prime Minister there are no war plans on my desk.” – June 23, 2002 to Australian Prime Minister Howard
“I told President Chirac, I have no war plans on my desk.” – May 26, 2002 to French President Chirac
As we later learned, of course, plans for War on Iraq were being readied at the time by the Pentagon even if they weren’t yet “on Bush’s desk”.
This morning, on ABC’s This Week Colin Powell made a careful mid-sentence correction when answering a question about whether there are plans for re-instating the Draft in the U.S.:
In other words, Bush “has no plans for a Draft on his desk.“
We report, you decide.
(Fool me twice, shame on me?)
I wrote a letter to the L.A. Times at the beginning of the Iraq invasion,stating exactly that, that even though there were no plans "on his desk", they were probably some sitting on a nearby chair. It’s just ludicrous.
I’m in full agreement, Brad. When I heard Powell this morning, I practically shot out of my chair.
They are not on his desk – they are on someone else’s desk being finalized. They won’t get onto his desk until the moment he is going to sign them.
They are such dissemblers, it’s enough to make one want to shake them.
the checks in the mail….
we know exactly where the wmd are….
and only a few people call them on it.
Excellent, Brad! I hope to encourage MANY visitors to your blog to see this. I think this will resonate with many people who have been on the sidelines.
Lets not kid ourselves, a vote for Kerry does not prevent a draft. As much as I hate to admit it, for us to do the job right with our legitmate targets (N. Korea and increasingly Iran) we need MORE TROOPS. Closing the backdoor draft of National Guardsman will only put more pressure on getting Active Duty military.
There’s no simple answer to this.
There’s that comment again about Iran. Vance, please educate me on why Iran is a target of yours. Honestly, I’m getting tired of this B-S.
There will not be a draft. Only Rangel and Kerry are talking about the draft. It is to scare young voters.
We do not need more troops – we need more infiltration, intelligence, and assassinations.
Whether we need one or not, frankly, is not for us to decide. I do know that had we not had this misadventure in Iraq we certainly wouldn’t need one.
But the key issue here to me, whether Kerry needs to do one or not, is that if they have plans for one, as the item suggests, then Americans deserve to know that before the election.
Kerry/Edwards have promised no draft (whether they can keep that promise we’ll see). But notably Bush has not made such a promise so far!
Rangel’s draft will NEVER pass, because the Bush twins would be eligible and going to the National Guard nowadays would guarantee them a mouthful of sand.
I hope there is a draft. As was discussed on "Real Time", it might wake young people up, not to mention their parents. It’d bring the consequences of war into every single home in the country. Maybe people will get more educated, informed, involved. If there was a draft when we were getting into Iraq, maybe fewer people would have been so cavalier about going in. Maybe ONE member of the mainstream media would have raised some tough questions about why the hell we got started with this mess.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Amir. Right on the money.
Like I said on 9/26, there will not be a draft. Now today Rush is agreeing with me about the "fake draft" and "to scare young people."
We do not need a draft because we want people in the military who want to be there. The military is better without a draft because the worst of society will be drafted too.
Paul,
i hate to break it to you but a lot of the guys in the military dont want to be there under Mr. Trigger Happy.
What is your definition of "a lot?" It’s like someone saying they have a "good job" with "good pay." What is good?
They volunteered to join the military! No one put a gun to their heads!
By the way, to celebrate the ban on the assault weapons ban, I bought a Glock 17 9mm. I have a concealed handguns license so I can buy a gun anytime but I just felt to celebrating. Plus the gun was on sale.
One third of the reservists are not showing up for duty! That’s ALOT. Furthermore, if you bother to get your news anywhere but from the Rightwing Media who tells you what you wanted to hear already, you’d learn what the PENTAGON is saying about the number of recruits not coming in to fill what they need.
I had a story or two on it that I would have run yesterday when we got knocked out. I’ll try and run something anyway shortly since clearly, if you don’t hear it here, Paul, you have no clue what is actually going on.
Try not to shoot yourself, or of more note, your wife with your new toy, stud.