Obama blows off Medal of Honor recipients

This Ain't Hell (www.thisainthell.us) ^ | January 21st, 2009

[Prince of Space]

So where'd you get all of your military know-how, a Tom Clancy novel?

Unless you've actually been on the battlefield, I don't think you're qualified to second-guess the decisions Dubya and Rummy made.

It seems to me you have an agenda here. Do you happen to work for Conyers or Pelosi by any chance?

[Dixiekraut]

I get that a lot...

Actually..mother was from the deep South...father was of German origin...hence the label.

Loman Bill...William Loman..wasn’t he that “Salesman who Died “ ?

:-)

[Elsiejay]

Is it possible to find a record of O’s Selective Service registration?

[Dixiekraut]

By extension of your logic...how much “battlefield” experience do Bush W and Cheney have?

Let’s just all march in lockstep and don’t ask ANY questions...that’s the patriotic thing to do right?

[TSgt]

From: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/09/07/o-busted-selective-service-requirement-did-not-exist-when-obama-says-he-

"You know, I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school. .... But keep in mind: I graduated in 1979."

There are only two "little" problems:

1. Selective Service Registration was not possible in 1979.

2. Bob Owens at Pajamas Media noted that Obama registered with the Selective Service with an effective date of September 4, 1980.

The Wikipedia entry on Obama's early life agrees with the candidate's memory of when he graduated (other verification will be obtained after this post goes up):

Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979.

Wiki's Selective Service entry says the following about the registration requirements at the time:

On March 25, 1975, Pres. Gerald Ford signed Proclamation 4360, Terminating Registration Procedures Under Military Selective Service Act, eliminating the registration requirement for all 18-25 year old male citizens. Then on July 2, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4771, Registration Under the Military Selective Service Act, retroactively re-establishing the Selective Service registration requirement for all 18-26 year old male citizens born on or after January 1, 1960. Only men born between March 29, 1957, and December 31, 1959, were completely exempt from Selective Service registration. The first registrations after Proclamation 4771 took place on Monday, July 21, 1980, for those men born in January, February and March 1960 at U.S. Post Offices. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were reserved for men born in the later quarters of the year, and registration for men born in 1961 began the following week.

++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE, 11:55 P.M. -- The full text of Gerald Ford's Proclamation 4360, dated March 29, 1975 (not March 25, as Wiki claims), is here. The full text of Jimmy Carter's Proclamation 4771, dated July 2, 1980, is here.

++++++++++++++++++

Obama could not have registered "when I graduated from high school," as he claimed.

He actually registered roughly 45 days after the first post-Proclamation 4771 registrations took place in 1980.

Obama's statement, that "I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school," is inarguably false.

Further, the correct timeline casts serious doubt on what Obama said between the ellipsed segments of the first excerpt above:

And I was growing up in Hawaii, and I had friend whose parents were in the military, there were a lot of Army, military bases there. And I always actually thought of the military as some ennobling and honorable option.

More likely: He signed up when he did because he had to. Nothing more, nothing less.

This would appear to be yet another example of resume enhancement.

[LomanBill]

>>I get that a lot...

 

Not suprising; but your resemblence to Mahon has nothing to do with your ancestry.

 

 

 

 

[Prince of Space]

how much “battlefield” experience do Bush W and Cheney have?

I'm certain that both Bush and Cheney were privy to a lot more information than little ole you were. Maybe there's a whole heck of a lot of difficult decisions that they had to make on a daily basis, and they were bound to get a few wrong once in a while.

Of course, it sucks that soldiers had to die because of that. But they were aware of that possibility when they volunteered to join the military, and they did it anyway.

don’t ask ANY questions...that’s the patriotic thing to do right?

What questions? You're ready to string them all up. By your comments here, you seem to be implying that Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie, and Feith didn't give a rat's ass about the troops' welfare and sent them to Iraq unprepared.

That's insulting to the men and women who are serving this country and to the honor of Bush and Cheney (who I'm certain are honorable men - unlike their replacements).

[Dixiekraut]

Man...you’re really reaching now ...aren’t you?

Equating someone who takes issue with Cheney/Rumsfeld’s lack of preparation for properly executing their war “strategy” with some Aryan Kook’s support of Saddam....

Must be an entertaining world you live in.....

[Dixiekraut]

Just about everything I’ve written regarding the lack of “Phase IV” is common knowledge now...and substantiated by books,televised interviews with former “insiders” etc.

My reference to the chance encounter I had with a friendly and talkative career Army officer one evening( which LomanBill tried to spin into some kind of homosexual encounter..speaks volumes about his particular mindset)only lent credence to what I’d read and seen.....

Our military...which many Freepers here claim are revered by Cheney & Co...were not well served when they sent them on a mission predicated on cherry-picked intell which suited their agenda...with an unrealistic wreckless reliance on a post-invsion scenario preached to them by the likes of people like Ahmad Chalabi.....

[Dixiekraut]

” Wolfie”,et al DID send them into Iraq unprepared...that was plainly obvious to everyone immediately after Baghdad fell and the looting started...unless you agree w/ Rummy’s assessment that what we saw was real Democracy in action....

And Douglas Feith? I’ll let Gen.Tommy Franks speak to that..he called Feith “the dumbest mutherfucker on the planet”.

Jay Garner had a somewhat more polite but similar opinion..and this was the guy chosen to run post-war Iraq

[Dixiekraut]

Sorry about my reference to you in my last post....it was the esteemed Dr.Raoul I meant to call out...not you.

By the way..clever tag line......

[sheik yerbouty]

That about says it all!

[sheik yerbouty]

He is The Obamanation of desolation..

[LomanBill]

>>Man...you’re really reaching now ...aren’t you?

Hardly. Your anti-rhetoric is quite consistent with the attitudes exhibited by folks like Dennis Mahon, Scott Ritter, and Timothy McVeigh.

Regarding the execution of the war’s strategy, the people of Iraqi Kurdistan seem to be satisfied with the results. They seem to be pleased by the fact that Saddam is no longer hogtying them and leaving them to die of starvation in his dungeons.

Furthermore, Saddam and his allies were thwarted in their desire to exercise economic warfare against us. The petrodollar, not the euro, remains OPEC's currency of choice. You want to undo that? Withdraw from Iraq before the scourge of Islamic fundamentalism is crushed.

IMHO, there was never an exit strategy because we never intended to exit - and for good reason; as our long-term military presence in the Middle East is requisite for securing our national interest, and our national ideal along with it.

The military presence there secures influence over a critical portion of the global economic playing field; and it lessens the influence, on that same field, of those who, rather than recognizing the inalienable rights of the individual (allegedly our national ideal) would subjugate the individual for the good of the collective - whether it be a collective of Communists, Islamists, or both.

[Dixiekraut]

No...my ‘anti-rhetoric’ regarding the Bush administration’s mis-management and bungling of the post-Saddam environment in Iraq is entirely consistent with what I’ve come to learn from servicemen and women from bottom to top and back again....

But like a lot of Freepers you use a pretty broad brush to tar feather...and lump me in with fringe kooks ...paint me as a Saddam supporter when I’ve done nothing but bring up the issue of what we were sold..and what we got.

I never demanded an exit strategy...in fact..it was Bremer and the other sorry lot of hand picked cronies who expected us to be “out” in sizeable number by August 2003..that is well documented....they expected to maintain only a residual force and got quite a surprise when they sensed that things may not be going according to “plan”..apparently the one drawn up by that bank embezzler that Cheney&Co.saw as the future of Iraq..how long did it take to get Rummy to even acknowledge there was an insurgency?

Some people are so smart they’re stupid.

Hope you enjoy the next four years...we’ve earned it..when we allowed conservatism to be hijacked by this Neo-Con Artistry that “tutored” George W.

[LomanBill]

>>No...my ‘anti-rhetoric’
>>regarding the Bush administration’s mis-management

Is your opinion and nothing more.

>>I’ve come to learn from servicemen

Bullshyte.

Furtermore, W said from the start we’d be there as long as it takes to win the WOT.

He also said the commanders on the ground would be given whatever they asked for. Were they not given what they asked for?

You assert that the American lives lost in Iraq were wasted. That is offensive and incorrect.

The petrodollar stands.

[Allegra]

Funny how we’re supposed to take the word of one guy...and his imaginary Army officer friend.

And funny (and cowardly) how he's making snide remarks and arguing with others, but won't engage me. Maybe he works for CNN. ;-)

[JDoutrider]

And funny (and cowardly) how he's making snide remarks and arguing with others, but won't engage me.

I noticed that as well... Obviously the truth scares him/her...

[Coleus]

bttt