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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by reconmike
Man, Host your hatred for Bush is soooo deep you'll grasp at anything and I mean anything, just to vent some of that bile you spew.
This was an OP about troops and support, and once again you turn it into Bush, FISA and whatever else you feel the need to throw in.
I am really surprised you also didnt bring up the wealthiest 10% with the Prescott Bush segway, dam your slipping.
Does this mean that RFK should have been investigating his murdering, smuggling grandfather?
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Quote:
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=583
....July 13, 2007
Mr. Fred F. Fielding
Counsel to the President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Fielding:
We have had an opportunity to review the documents the White House produced in response to the Committee’s April 27,2007, request for information relating to the death of Army Corporal Patrick Tillman. We appreciate that you have sent 1072 pages of documents to the Committee, but we have concerns about the documents that are missing, the documents that are being withheld, and the documents that appear never to have been searched.
<h3>The main focus of the Committee’s investigation is to examine what the White House and the leadership of the Department of Defense knew about Corporal Tillman’s death and when they knew it. Unfortunately, the document production from the White House sheds virtually no light on these matters.
We urge you to make a complete document production to the Committee without fuither delay.
The Missing Documents
In the entire White House document production, there are only two communications between any officials in the White House and the Defense Department.</h3> The first is an e-mail exchange on April 23, 2004, the day after Corporal Tillman was killed in a friendly fire attack. It is between Lawrence Di Rita, the Defense Department spokesman, and Jeanie Mamo, a deputy assistant to the President and director of media affairs at the White House. Ms. Mamo asked Mr. Di Rita for details regarding Corporal Tillman’s death, and Mr. Di Rita answered, “details are sketchy just now.”
The second e-mail occurs 41 days later, on June 4, 2004. It is a transmission of a press packet from the Defense Department containing news clips. One of the “items of interest” is a May 29, 2004, article entitled “Investigation Concludes Friendly Fire Probably Killed Tillman.”
It is difficult to believe that these are the only communications that White House officials had with the Department of Defense between April 22, 2004, the day Corporal Tillman died, and May 29, 2004, the day the Bush Administration publicly announced that Corporal Tillman’s death was a result of fratricide. Corporal Tillman’s death was a major national story. During this period, <h3>the President made public statements regarding Corporal Tillman and praised his service to the counhy during the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on May 1, 2004.
In fact, there is compelling evidence that responsive documents were not produced to the Committee by the White House. ln response to a similar document request from the Committee, the Defense Department produced an e-mail sent on April 28, 2004, from John Currin, the White House speechwriter who drafted the Correspondents’ Dinner speech, seeking additional information about Corporal Tillman from the Department of Defense.a This e-mail was not produced by the White House, and no explanation was provided for the omission.
Mr. Currin’s request appears to have generated a high-level military memo waming that the President should be informed that Corporal Tillman was killed by friendly fire.</h3> On April 29, 2004, one day after the request by Mr. Currin from the White House, Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Task Force for Afghanistan, sent a “Personal For” (P4) memo to three of the highest ranking generals at the Department of Defense: the commanders of U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.s According to General McChrystal, he wrote this memo in response to reports that President Bush “might include comments about Corporal Tillman’s heroism and his approved Silver Star Medal in speeches currently being prepared, not knowing the specifics surrounding his death.” The memo explained that “it is highly possible that Corporal Tillman was killed by friendly fire.”
General McChrystal concluded the P4 memo by urging his superiors to warn the White House:
I felt that it was essential that you received this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country’s leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death become public.
Inexplicably, the White House production includes no copies of the P4 memo or any references to it. The production also does not include any response from the Defense Department to Mr. Currin’s e-mail.
Indeed, there is not a single document in the White House production that indicates how or when any White House officials, including the President, learned that Corporal Tillman was killed by his own unit.
We are sure you can understand our doubts about the completeness of your document production. It is not plausible that there were no cofirmunications between the Defense Department and the White House about Corporal Tillman’s death.
The Withheld and Redacted Documents
According to the letter your office sent to the Committee on June 15, 2007, the White House is withholding “certain documents responsive to the Committee’s request because they implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests.” The White House has also redacted over 30 pages of documents provided to the Committee. The letter states that you took this action because these documents contain “purely internal e-mails between White House personnel.”
These are not appropriate reasons for withholding the documents from the Committee. During the Clinton Administration, the White House provided the Committee with thousands of pages of internal White House e-mails, including e-mails between the Vice President and his staff. The White House also provided the Committee with handwritten notes of White House staff and internal White House memoranda, including memos to or from the White House Counsel, Deputy White House Counsel, Associate White House Counsel, the Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff, and the First Lady, among others.
In your letter, you indicate that you are willing to discuss possible accommodations regarding the documents that the White House withheld and redacted. Under the precedents of the Committee, the Committee has the right to obtain these documents unless the President asserts a valid claim of executive privilege. No such privilege has been asserted in this case.
In similar circumstances, such as the Committee’s document request to the White House Council on Environment Quality, we have offered the White House the option of a staff review of the documents. Under this process, documents are brought to the Committee offices for review by the Committee staff. Only those documents that are determined after the review to be important to the investigation need to be produced.
This process has worked well previously and helped to narrow the Committee’s differences with the White House. We are prepared to offer this option to you in this case as an accommodation to your concems, provided that the review can be arranged expeditiously.
The Documents That Apparently Were Not Searched
We are also concemed that you have produced only e-mails to the Committee. The instructions sent with the Committee’s document request specifically requested “all documents received or generated by” the White House that related to Corporal Tillman. The term “document” is defined in the attachment to the letter sent to you by the Committee on April 27, 2007. In addition to e-mails, it includes faxes, memos, drafts, working papers, and interoffice and intra-office communications. Yet no faxes, memos, drafts, working papers, and forms of communication other than e-mails were provided to the Committee.
We do not understand the omission of these types of responsive documents. It appears that despite the Committee’s express instructions, no effort was made to search for these categories of responsive documents. Obviously, that would not be an appropriate response to the Committee’s request.
Conclusion
The hearing the Oversight Committee held on April 24, 2007, with members of Corporal Tillman’s family and former Army Private Jessica Lynch, raised questions about whether the Administration has been providing accurate information to Congress and the American people about the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. These questions have implications for the credibility of the information coming from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and raise significant policy issues about how to prevent the future dissemination of untrue information. They also have a profound personal impact on the Tillman family. It is for these reasons that the Committee requested documents from the White House.
We would like to avoid a confrontation over these documents, if possible, but cannot accept the deficient production the White House has provided to the Committee. Moreover, with the Committee’s next hearing on this issue scheduled for August 1, 2007, continued delay in providing the responsive documents would frustrate the Committee’s on-going investigation.
The June 15, 2007, letter from your office says that you are “willing to discuss possible accommodations that meet the Committee’s oversight interests while respecting separation of powers principles.” To enable the Committee to perform its oversight function, we ask that you produce the withheld and redacted documents, or bring them to the Committee for staff review, by July 18, 2007. In addition, we request that you produce the missing documents, as well as the responsive documents that apparently have not been searched, by July 25, 2007.
If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact one of us or ask your staff to contact the Committee staff.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
Tom Davis
Ranking Minority Member
Here Specialist Patrick Tillman’s brother, Kevin Tillman gave opening testimony during the April 24, 2007 hearing:
Kevin Tillman:
“My name is Kevin Tillman. Two days ago marked the third anniversary of the death of my older brother Patrick Tillman in Afghanistan. To our family and friends it was a devastating loss. To the nation t was a moment of disorientation. To the military, it was a nightmare. But to others within the government, it appears to have been an opportunity.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUCyr...g%2F%3Fp%3D583
....Here Chairman Henry Waxman questioned Specialist Patrick Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, about the callous response she received from some to her persistence in getting the truth about her son’s death:
Mary Tillman:
“…He’s still a Colonel - Col. Kauzlarich said, and I’m appalled that he would make these comments, he’s entitled to his opinion of course, but he said that we would never be satisfied, because we’re not Christians. Spirituality doesn’t enter into this I guess, in his mind. But you know, we’re not Christians, so we can’t put him to rest, and that’s why we would never be satisifed and we’re just a pain in the ass basically… He also said that it must make us feel terrible that Pat’s worm dirt.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP5qN...g%2F%3Fp%3D583
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Reconmike:
Pick the leader, of these three, in the instances that they are displayed in here, who exhibited integrity:
...was it this one?
Quote:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...0/ai_118278807
Remarks at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner: May 1, 2004 - Week Ending Friday, May 7, 2004
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 10, 2004
.....When we think of the great war journalists, we often think of an earlier era: Edward R. Murrow reporting from wartime London; Joe Rosenthal with his camera at Iwo Jima; or Ernie Pyle, sending columns home from Europe and the Pacific and dying with the men whose stories he told.
In every field in every generation, we tend to view the best as belonging to the past. Yet, in our time, that's not right or fair. Many of us were privileged to know Michael Kelly and to read his clear words and to feel the moral conviction behind them. David Bloom passed through our midst with incredible energy, enthusiasm, and tenacity in getting the story. Others, like Michael Weisskopf, have shown incredible presence of mind and courage that won our admiration. This generation of wartime journalists has done fine work and much more, and they will be remembered long after the first draft of history is completed.
The same is true of our military. We are nearing important days of remembrance. Soon, we will mark the 60th anniversary of D-day, in the company of men who have lived long and can tell you the names of the boys who did not. Later this month, we will dedicate the World War II Memorial here in Washington and look back on a generation that saved the liberty of the world. These events will have an added meaning because America is again asking for courage and sacrifice.
As we honor veterans who are leaving us, we also honor qualities that remain. The generation of World War II can be certain of this: When they are gone, <b>we will still have their kind wearing the uniform of the United States of America.
The loss of Army Corporal Pat Tillman last week in Afghanistan brought home the sorrow that comes with every loss and reminds us of the character of the men and women who serve on our behalf. Friends say that this young man saw the images of September the 11th, and seeing that evil</b>, he felt called to defend America. He set aside a career in athletics and many things the world counts important, wealth and security and the acclaim of the crowds. He chose, instead, the rigors of Ranger training and the fellowship of soldiers and the hard duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Corporal Tillman asked for no special attention. He was modest because he knew there were many like him, making their own sacrifices. They fill the ranks of the Armed Forces. Every day, somewhere, they do brave and good things without notice. Their courage is usually seen only by their comrades, by those who long to be free, and by the enemy. <h3>They're willing to give up their lives, and when one is lost, a whole world of hopes and possibilities is lost with them.
This evening, we think of the families who grieve and the families that wait on a loved one's safe return.</h3> We count ourselves lucky that this new generation of Americans is as brave and decent as any before it. And we honor with pride and wonder the men and women who carry the flag and the cause of the United States.
May God bless them, and may God continue to bless the United States of America....
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or.....this one?
Quote:
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6845494
Retired general may be demoted in connection with Tillman cover-up
July 26, 2007 09:19 PM
Army Secretary Peter Geren is expected to recommend three-star Retired Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger be stripped of a star and face a decrease in retirement pension for his role in an alleged cover-up surrounding the nature of Army Ranger Pat Tillman's death.
Tillman, a former Arizona Cardinals football star, was killed by friendly fire three years ago in Afghanistan.
For five weeks military officials claimed he was killed by enemy fire, even though investigators determined quickly that he was killed by his own troops.
Last March, the acting Pentagon inspector general faulted nine army officers, including Kensinger, for making critical errors in reporting Tillman's death.
Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger was the most senior of those officers. He was also the Army's representative at Tillman's nationally televised memorial service the following month.
The Department of Defense's report concluded that at the service, "although Lt. Gen. Kensinger knew friendly fire was suspected, he decided to withhold notification from family members."
It also found that when asked about it later, "Kensinger provided misleading testimony" to investigators.
The commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command is expected to decide on punishments next Tuesday.
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...or is it this one.....?
Quote:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...D9415B848FF1D3
FREE PREVIEW
Gen. Butler Bares 'Fascist Plot' To Seize Government by Force; Says Bond Salesman, as Representative of Wall St. Group, Asked Him to Lead Army of 500,000 in March on Capital -- Those Named Make Angry Denials -- Dickstein Gets Charge. GEN. BUTLER BARES A 'FASCIST PLOT'
November 21, 1934, Wednesday
Page 1, 462 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - A plot of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt and establish a Fascist dictatorship, backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, was charged by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired Marine Corps officer, who appeared yesterday before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, which began hearings on the charges.
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle13911.htm
The Plot To Seize The White House
By Jules Archer
PART THREE
The Conspiracy Explodes
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee agreed to listen to Butler's story in a secret executive session in New York City on November 20, 1934. The two cochairman of the committee were Representative John McCormack, of Massachusets, and New York Representative Samuel Dickstein, who later became a New York State Supreme Court justice. Butler's testimony, developed in two hours of questions and answers, was recorded in full.
Simultaneously Paul Comly French broke the story in the Stern papers, the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post. Under the headline "$3,000,000 Bid for Fascist Army Bared," he wrote:
<h3>Major General Smedley D. Butler revealed today that he has been asked by a group of wealthy New York brokers</h3> to lead a Fascist movement to set up a dictatorship in the United States.
<h3>General Butler, ranking major general of the Marine Corps up to his retirement three years ago, told his story today at a secret session of the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities.</h3>
McCormack opened the hearing by first noting that General Butler had been in the Marine Corps thirty-three years and four months and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor twice, establishing his integrity and credibility as a witness. Then he invited the general to "just go ahead and tell in your own way all that you know about an attempted Fascist movement in this country."
"May I preface my remarks," Butler began, "by saying, sir, that I have one interest in all of this, and that is to try to do my best to see that a democracy is maintained in this country?"
"Nobody who has either read about or known about General Butler," replied McCormack promptly, "would have anything but that understanding."
Butler then gave detailed testimony about everything that had happened in connection with the plot, from the first visit of MacGuire and Doyle on July 1, 1933.
Some of his testimony was not released in the official record of the bearings, for reasons that will be discussed later, but was nevertheless ferreted out, copied, and made public by reporter John L. Spivak. This censored testimony is indicated by the symbol † to distinguish it from the official testimony eventually released by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. The same was true of testimony given by reporter Paul Comly French, who followed Butler as a witness, and the same symbol (†) indicates the censored portions.*
Butler first described the attempts made by MacGuire and Doyle to persuade him to go to the American Legion convention hand make a speech they had prepared for him.
BUTLER: . . . they were very desirous of unseating the royal family in control of the American Legion, at the convention to be held in Chicago, and very anxious to have me take part in it. They said that they were not in sympathy with the . . . present administration's treatment of the soldiers. . . . They said, "We represent the plain soldiers. . .We want you to come there and stampede the convention in a speech and help us in our fight to dislodge the royal family."......
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My "pick" for the leader who displayed integrity, is #3... Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC (retired)... who did you pick, Reconmike?
<center><img src="http://www.infowars.com/headline_photos/March03/03-07-03/nazibush.gif"></center>
Last edited by host; 07-30-2007 at 05:21 PM..
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07-29-2007, 08:09 PM
