NATIONAL FEDERATION OF REPUBLICAN WOMEN Call to Action on Sen Durbin

We need all Federation Leaders and Members to participate in the Call to Action. Get involved and please get others involved. We need your help.

Senator Durbin, on the United States Senate Floor, in a recent statement regarding Guantanamo Bay, equated the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces to "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime-Pol Pot or others-that had no concerns for human beings." Please read the letter from members of the United States Senate asking Senator Durbin to apologize. After reading the letter please take a moment to let your voice be heard by calling Senator Reid and Senator Durbin.

Script: Hello, My name is ______________ from ___________. Please tell Senator Reid that as the Minority Leader, we call upon him to urge Senator Durbin to apologize for his comments made regarding Guantanamo Bay on the U.S. Senate Floor. Thank you.

Script: Hello, My name is ______________ from ___________. I ask that Senator Durbin issue a formal apology and strike his remarks regarding Guantanamo Bay from the record. Thank you.

We call upon you to encourage Senator Richard Durbin, the Senate Democratic Whip, to apologize for and withdraw his remarks made on the floor of the U.S. Senate on June 14 likening the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and other U.S. Government civilian employees defending America's freedom to "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime-Pol Pot or others-that had no concerns for human beings." Such language and comparisons are inappropriate, unwarranted, disrespectful, and dangerous.

Referring to one person's characterization of treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Senator Durbin said:

"When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [Guantanamo Bay] - I almost hesitate to put them in the Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

'On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold . . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.'

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

Such hyperbolic, insensitive, and inaccurate statements should not be spoken on the Senate floor. As numerous Senators collectively noted on the Senate floor on June 16, such statements:

* Tarnish the U.S. Senate as an institution by making comparisons of U.S. actions taken against the Nation's enemies and in accordance with U.S. and international law, i.e., the Geneva Conventions, to those of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Pol-Pot, who slaughtered tens of millions of innocent civilians, mostly women and children, for reasons such as racism and political ideology.

* Insult and demoralize the overwhelming majority of U.S. soldiers and civilian employees honorably defending America.

* Exacerbate the terrorist threat against Americans by providing "evidence" of what they claim are reasons for attacking us. (The Arab media were quick to publicize the criticisms.)

* Are unproven and part of a legal investigation being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Defense.

* Deny due process legal rights to those alleged of committing abuses (by presuming guilt upon the accused party).

On June 16, Senator John Warner (R-VA), seeking to clarify the "Nazi" reference as well as to obtain a formal apology from him, engaged in floor debate with Senator Durbin and said:

"I go back on my own recollections [of] those three examples the Senator used. I don't know what interrogation took place. Perhaps if we go into the sinews of history there were some, but what the world recognized from those three examples the Senator used, they were death camps - I repeat, death camps - where, as my colleague from Kentucky very accurately said, millions of people perished. It is doubtful they were ever often asked their names.

"To say that the allegations of a single FBI agent mentioned in an unconfirmed, uncorroborated report give rise to coming to the Senate and raising the allegation that whatever persons of the uniformed military, as referred to in that report - albeit, uncorroborated, unsubstantiated report - are to be equated with those three chapters in world history is just a most grievous misjudgment on the Senator's part, and one I think is deserving of apologizing to the men and women in uniform."

Subsequent statements by Senator Durbin indicate only that he was regretful if people misunderstood his remarks. We do not believe his remarks were misunderstood.

In deference to the Senate as an institution for which we serve and to the millions of men and women currently serving this Nation in uniform and civilian dress for which we owe so much in the War on Terrorism, we ask Senator Durbin to issue a formal apology and strike his remarks from the record.

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF REPUBLICAN WOMEN 124 N. Alfred Street | Alexandria, VA | 22314 Phone: 703.548.9688 | Fax: 703.548.9836 mail@nfrw.org | www.NFRW.ORG

This suggestion is just a little off topic, but in context I think, none-the-less.

I would wish that the National Federation of Republican Women would change its name to: "The National Federation of American Women". Reason? The "League of Women Voters" is, without a doubt, a Democrat organization, yet it hides this fact in its ambiguously benevolent sounding name.

Republicans would do well to combat the Democrats tendency to obfuscate their satellite organizations agenda by imitating the same tactics of obfuscation.

The National Federation of Republican Women is not a non-partisan organization. We are apart of the GOP so we don't want to appear anything less than Republican. We do reach out beyond the party to bring in new members.

I ask that Senator Durbin issue a formal apology and strike his remarks regarding Guantanamo Bay from the record. Thank you.

You must be kidding! What a feckless bunch of drivel. I didn't see this earlier today. Must be due to the fact that I was e-mailing 55 Republican Senators. Since the pseudo apology had taken place, I wasn't asking for that. Nor did I ask for an apology Monday when I telephoned 98 Senators, could not stomach the thought of calling the two from Mass. Al-Jazeera has been running with this for a week and the best organized assault was to call for an apology.

Here is a sample of what I was asking for:

I am contacting ALL Republican Senators by phone and e-mail to request action on the Senator from Illinois.
1. APOLOGY: Un-apology is irrelevant, but done. Not acceptable.
2. CENSURE: We the people want to see where our representatives stand.
3. RESIGNATION: If Durbin resigns, fine. If not...
4. EXPULSION: Durbin is not fit to serve as a representative of the United States Senate.

This man is unfit to represent the United States Military, me, my family, you or our great country. This is an outrage that MUST be dealt with. Feckless apologies will not suffice.

Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter.

There was another thread on Monday where we were making calls and reporting back with results and comments, while encouraging others to take action aside from posting on the thread.

I receive boat loads of "Action Alerts", "Conservative Alerts" and other notices from a number of conservative organizations. Not one notice was received to take action on this outrageous display on the Senate floor. Now I know why the "majority" is so ineffective.

An apology from this excuse for a Senator, is worthless. If this is all that is being done, why bother talking/typing about it.

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