Posted on 08/04/2005 4:12:05 PM PDT by GRRRRR
Chrissy Matthews hits a new low today with his interview with Mr and Mrs Schreoder, who had their Marine son KIA the other day from an IED.
CHrissy posed leading questions and the parents jumped dead on President Bush for a failed policy, it's all about oil, doing the same thing over and over...their solution is MORE TROOPS (agree somewhat) or GET OUT of IRAQ now...
Closed Caption transcript is coming in a moment.
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HORRIBLE behavior by MSNBC...
Or in her case, both.
horrible = you bet
shocking = not in the least....
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
THis transcript begins with Mr. Schroeder speaking, answering the Hissy's question about WHY do you think we are in Iraq???
Thu Aug 04 18:04:13 2005
...(I think I know) why. I could guess which might be unfair. But I would guess it has to do with oil, it has to do with deposing a dictator that we used to love and came to hate.
>> Yeah.
>> That goes on repeatedly.
>> What did your son say was his motivation for fighting? Was it just patriotism to our country? Or a belief in the mission?
>> He did not have a motivation to fight. He had a motivation to do his duty to the marine corps and to be part of the marines. His entire life was devoted to doing what he promised he would do.
>> What did he tell you -- what did he say about how the war was going?
>> Early on, when his unit arrived in march, he was talking about the friendly iraqi people. After may and june, he stopped talking about the friendly people. Not that they weren't friendly. He stopped talking about it. Two weeks ago, in the last conversation I had with him, he simply said the closer we get to coming home, the less worth it this is.
>> How did you interpret that?
>> I took that to mean that his participation and operation mat a dor, operation sword, operation spear, and a couple others that I don't know the names of, were failing. That's basically the operations were intended to go into these towns, kick out the insurgents, take their weapons, arrest whoever they could, and then they would withdraw. They only had to go back and find more insurgents in the same places. The fact that these 14 fellows were blown up indicates to me, logic would say, that this policy, this strategy, this tactic has fail.
>> Let me go to --
>>F it wassuccessful, he would still be alive.
>> Let me ask but the -- what is your feeling about this war and the goal of trying to win the hearts and finds of the iraqi people. Do you think that was a smart thing for to us try to do?
>> It was a very naive thing for us to do. You don't go to another culture and try to impose yours and expect it to work. We're not iraqis. We don't have the same culture. And while i understand that we're multicultural nation, we don't act like it. We act like the whole world thinks exactly the way we do.
>> Doubt that the war is going to get any better now that your son -- you paid the ultimate price. By the way, thank you. I don't know what it means to say thank you for your service except i mean it. The courage of these young guys and some women over there is unbelievable. I guess everybody wonders about the conduct of the war, whether these lives are being wasted or these lives are being put to good purpose. What is your feeling about that now?
>> Well, i personally believe that since it is not working, then we have to make a change. That it is not word the sacrifice if it is just more bodies on to the heap. Like president bush said, stay the course and honor the memory of the ones who died by continuing to fight. If it didn't work before, why does fighting more, do the same thing over and over, that's to expect a different result, the explanation of insanity.
>> Yeah. The way you describe it, it like pouring water into a sand hole on the beach and having it drain right through and start over again. It seems like a repetitive process that doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.
>> Exactly.
>> The repetitive process has been going on for 27 months. Since the active invasion phase ended. 27 months of doing the same thing over and owe and over again with no evidence that it is getting better. If there were evidence it was getting better, and I have yet to see it, and frankly, if it was getting better, these fellows would still be alive. After all of this strenuous effort. Then it is time to make a change. Either put the number of troop on the ground that you need to really do the job or get the heck out.
>> Do you have a sense --
>> We have a saying in the midwest. Piss or get off the pot.
>> Do you have a sense, because of your son's tremendous permanent total sacrifice of his life, and his experience in these months fighting this war, that the middle level officers, the majors, the captains, do they have a clear sense of what they're getting done over there?
>> I can't speak to those fellows. I have great respect for the marine officers at that level and the sergeants who made these troops. Great respect. I would tell you that they probably are frustrated just like a lot of the ground troops. The lance corporals and the privates are. I would say that one thing that we have to make crystal clear, which is why we agreed to talk today, is that there is a -- you cannot equate. There is a clear difference between supporting the troops on the ground and supporting the policies that put them there. The president likes to make those, to equate those two things. If you don't support the wars, you don't support the troops. Too many american people are buying into that. I don't buy into that. Rosemary doesn't buy into that. It is time to say look. We can support the troops until the cows come home. We don't support the policy that's put them there.
>> You two have more right to answer this question than anybody else in the country. After reading the headline and most of us they're just headlines. They're american G.I.'S, marines giving their lives in this country. 20 something this week. At one part of the country. What sthb reaction of the american people who pick up their newspapers, watch television, and learn of these horrors. What should they do as a result of seeing that news? Mr. Schroeder.
>> They should stand up and tell president bush, enough is enough. Yoveve had your chance. Now let somebody else come one a different plan. If you can't come up with a different plan that will work, in my view, that is more troops, then get out.
>> Rosemary, is that your view? Is that how we all of you, not in the news business, regular people across the country, getting this horrible news. How should they react to it?
>> I think most people are just saying, the latter. Just get out. Because it is clearly, well, it is obvious that the politicians are not going to insist on a draft. And with the number of deaths and the dangers being what they are, they won't get the recruits. So therefore, if you can't get enough guys to do the fighting, then you have to get out. Do it or get out of the game.
>> I gotcha. I hear your views and they sound similar. Thank you very much for this time of anguish to be giving us this information. I think the public needs to hear from folks like you. Thank you very much. They lost their son lance corporal ed ward schroeder, just today. The last 24 hours.
Oh man, it's a duprass.
More troops serves one purpose. More targets for the towel heads. I really do not think more troops gets anything accomplished faster.
God Bless this Marine and all who defend America! I send my prayers for this Marine and all who defend America. This is not about oil for a second and these people who think that can shove off. I served and I lived, others served and died. The Stars and Stripes are still flying because of all who gave their lives. God Bless America and all who have defended HER!
If they added the cost of the war to $3 a gallon, what would it be? $10?
If it’s all about oil – why is it so expensive?
And...then he had on another whiner...'not enough troops'...
Thu Aug 04 18:14:38 2005
lance corporal son killed over there in iraq. They have strong feelings about it. The midwest expressed something I don't want to repeat it exactly. Either do it right or get out of there.
>> I cannot agree more with that. There's nothing tougher in the world than facing people who have just lost a loved one, whether a sonora daughter or a husband. Having given the supreme sacrifice for their country. They have an absolute god-given right to do exactly what you heard them do. Was it worth it? That same conversation is going on all across this country and as we get these casualty numbers, you're going to see a lot more rather than a lot less of this.
>> We're getting two or three of these messages right now. See if you can decomplicate them. The president said he doesn't want to set a deadline for leaving iraq, which i can understand. We all can. At the same time, george casey, the military commander is saying we may well be pulling out large number of spring after the election next spring in iraq. And then we're hearing talk of more troops. That maybe we were wrong. We didn't have enough troops over there. Certainly from the schroeders, if we're going to go in, go in right. Are those options on the table or how did they fit together?
>> They absolutely are. They have been placed on the table by the sheer force of events. So those options, as you've heard correctly expressed, more, less, or are we doing it about right?
>> Key question how long can we maintain this? The real target were not those marines taken out in that blast in iraq. The real target was the people who sent them there. The american people. That is the real impact for everything which is happening right now in iraq because they understand, they cannot defeat our forces in the field but they can defeat our will. And they remember somalia and they remember vietnam.
>> Here's what i think. I think president and his political advisors have decided, we don't know what it will look like in iraq next year. We need the american people to feel a little better about the outlook. So we're going to let that idea put out there by general casey, float for a while. Which is we will be cutting back on our troop compliment sometime next year many we can always readdress that next year. Does that sound like what they're doing?
>> I'm not politically sophisticated enough to say if that is or is not their strategy. If you remember this time a year ago, we had a thing called an election. And unlike the red state, blue state horse race that we wound up talking about, the proper time, and the proper place to have this discussion was way back then. We may have no choice except for right now. To begin to have that discussion yet again. We have got to begin figuring out what we're going to do in iraq and how many forces and whether it makes sense to keep on going or to increas or pull them out.
>> Defense secretary donald rumsfeld face ad question on troop levels today. And in los angeles, it was inspired by discussion we had here on "hardball" on monday.
>> A monday's "hardball," chris matthews said there are two stories when he interviews troops in the field. One for the camera and the other that questions your strategy. What is your come on the need for more troops in iraq?
>> The question of the number of troops in iraq has been one that has been up for public discussion from the very outset. I didn't hear the remark on msnbc but i know the debate. I wish there were a perk answer to it but all i can tell you is that the number of troops there, are the number of troops that the senior military leadership are absolutely convinced is the right number.
>> That's the question. Do we get on television an honest answer? When we ask do you have enough troops oh there.
>> I'll give you an answer, no, we do not. I've heard those comments from mr. Rumsfeld before. We've probably had more meaningful discussions on msnbc about the right level of troops than on any place else. I remember specifically a comment the vice president made about retired military officers embedded in tv studios going back two more years. It is a long overdue discussion. I have got to tell you, when you're involved in an insurgency, you have no choice but to make sure you've got enough manpower to control that situation because if you don't, you're going to see lots more stories like we've been covering in the last 72 hour.
>> Do you believe that the military commanders throughout this campaign in iraq have been able to tell honestly the civilian leadership if they need more troops?
>> I'm not really sure. I've not been privy to those discussions. There's an enormous presumption that when the former army chief of staff stood up and said, it's going to take a couple hundred thousand troops to control that situation, and he was shut down because the deputy secretary of defense said it's unimaginable that we're going to require more people to secure that country than it does to take it down. That's in fact turned out to be precisely the case. What we have not done is to figure out how we're going to sustain that commitment over the long term. And even more than that, chris, if you take a look right now, most of that burden is being born by a disproportionate few in american society today.
>> We heard from the shroeders. What we do over there is go into a village or an area and clean it out of insurgents. Sometimes al qaeda. Then we go back and could the same darn thing over again. That it is a war that never seem to end. Is that the process? Cleaning it out and cleaning it out again? Area after area.
>> That's what it seems to be. I realize that there's a certain irreducible minimum that you have to do in those operations, in an insurgency kind of context. More than anything else, the thing you have to do, once you clear an area, you have to secure it. Or else there is simply no opponent in going. You can talk about various other areas like the airport road south of baghdad. And it is the same problem official and over again. And we also saw that in vietnam.
>> Thank you, colonel ken allard.
well said Joe...thank you so much for protecting us all!
Something I wasn't able to do...
as a military wife and mother of military children (over 60 yrs collectively) I find this totally disgusting. Thier children volunteered and knew the risks. These parents dishonor their children's choices! Matthews should be ashamed.
Law of diminishing returns?
If I was in Iraq I'd write a "to-be-read-after-my-death" letter in which I accept full responsiblity for my decision to join the military and anyone that uses my death for political gain is a POS and can go to hell--including my parents, if that's the case.
Then that's a really good look for her.
Something odd about their mouths.
Utter, total, absolute cultural and historical illiteracy. Total. The network should have shut off her mike at the end of this statement, and switched to playing easy listening music.
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