Colonel suspended for bad-mouthing Bush

markusf · June 5, 2002, 02:41

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- An Air Force colonel has been suspended for writing a letter in which he called President Bush "a joke" and accused him of allowing the September 11 attacks to happen because "his presidency was going nowhere."

The letter from Lt. Col. Steve Butler was published May 26 in The (Monterey County) Herald.

"He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism," Butler wrote. "His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama. His presidency was going nowhere. ... This guy is a joke."

Butler, who called Bush's alleged silence "sleazy and contemptible," had been vice chancellor for student affairs at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. He was suspended May 29 pending an investigation, Air Force spokeswoman Valerie Burkes said Tuesday.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/04/col....ap/index.html

In the last week or so its been said that 5 or 6 foriegn nations told bush that an attack would happen in the week or 2 before sept 11. IT wouldn't suprise me at all that they let the attack happen to start a war.. It wouldn't be the first time and definately would be the last time.. Can you remember the last time a new president was elected in the US that didn't start a war somewhere?

GeneralTacticus · June 5, 2002, 02:52

Quote:

It wouldn't be the first time and definately would be the last time..

What was the first time?

Quote:

Can you remember the last time a new president was elected in the US that didn't start a war somewhere?

Truman?

chequita guevara · June 5, 2002, 02:52

It's never happened. The longest period of time the US has gone without it's troops being in conflict somewhere on the globe is about 12 months.

However, criticizing your boss is not considered a good way to keep your job.

Frankychan · June 5, 2002, 03:01

You know, I've been hypothesizing about this as well...

Like Pearl Harbor, our recent governmental administration may have known that these attacks were going to occur and let them happen anyway. Dubya's approval rating prior 9/11 was dismally low, his proposed bills weren't getting through the Senate, ENRON!!!!!, and all the other little subterfuge plays his administration was pulling. They may have let this happen to improve his rating and for the aftermath effects.

Another theory a classmate has hypothesized is that post 9/11, the governmental institutions are being granted overwhelming powers and my friends theory is that the current administration is using the war on terror to gain more powers to the government.....He says that they are turning into "Big Brother" by using the War On Terror as a smoke screen.

I'll probably be called "unpatriotic" but then again, so were dissident germans in Nazi Germany.

Just something to think about.

chequita guevara · June 5, 2002, 03:02

Enron happened after 911.

Frankychan · June 5, 2002, 03:05

Ahhh, but documents have been presented that show that execs of Enron HEAVILY supported Bush's campaign for president. They funnelled tons of moola out of the business, leaving the rest of the workers sitting on the curb...screwed. This was only brought to the public eye after 9/11, which you are right. But Enron's support of Dubya was there from the beginning.

markusf · June 5, 2002, 03:20

Quote:

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Enron happened after 911.

sure but don't you think with all those calls between the white house and enron bush didn't know what was going on? Trust me in situations like that bush and major mutual funds would have known months in advance what was going on. And with 9/11 the US got sooo many warnings from other governments that only an idiot wouldn't have been able to piece things together. Not to mention all those options trades etc.

Remember history is nothing more then a few people sitting in a room and agreeing to a lie.

GeneralTacticus · June 5, 2002, 03:24

Quote:

It's never happened. The longest period of time the US has gone without it's troops being in conflict somewhere on the globe is about 12 months.

Note the word 'start'.

Sprayber · June 5, 2002, 07:38

I don't guess anyone has thought about questioning where this officer was sending the letter to and how it got published? But then again, I wouldn't want to ruin your conispiracy theory convention you got going on here.

Guynemer · June 5, 2002, 08:47

No one dislikes the Bush administration more than I, but to think that he and those close to him would sacrifice nearly 3,000 innocent people, simply for political gain... it's more than a little paranoid.

The man is drooling, idiotic buffoon. He is NOT a monster.

DinoDoc · June 5, 2002, 08:51

Is this really a big deal? How many of you think that you would keep your job after calling your boss an evil, tyranical monster in a newspaper?

Guynemer · June 5, 2002, 08:56

There might be a free speech issue here, DD. He is being punished by the government for speaking his mind...

DinoDoc · June 5, 2002, 08:59

I don't think that soldiers have free speech in this case. Where's one of the Poly miltary people when you need them?

Roland · June 5, 2002, 09:05

It's extremely unlikely they saw the full extent coming and said let's just let it happen. When you scale it down, and they just saw a bigger terrorist attack coming and let it happen for political convenience, I'd see that as somewhat plausible.

SpencerH · June 5, 2002, 09:24

Its not a free speech issue. The President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. Theres no military that I'm aware of that allows a junior to be insubordinate to a senior without punishment.

Gothmog · June 5, 2002, 10:44

In the military, there is no free speech to criticize the Commander in Chief. I remember that during the Clinton administration lots of generals got in trouble for be openly critical of the CiC. If an officer feels that strongly, he needs to resign.

TCO · June 5, 2002, 10:55

Dino, you are not allowed to impugn your superiors in the military (including POTUS). This is not a new issue. There was a colonel who got in trouble with the Clinton administration for this same thing. Several cases before that as well.

Roland, could you restate your last sentence. I couldn't understand what you were trying to say.

On the issue of warnings, part of the problem is the sheer number of them. This was something that was brought out by the 1946 investigation of Pearl Harbor. It's not that we didn't know of a a threat, (in that case we had even clearer understanding of the enemy and had even broken the diplomatic codes, etc.), but that we didn't think that they would strike so boldly. Let's not forget how sompletely shocked and dumbfounded everyone was on the morning that the 911 attacks occurred. It's easy to look back and criticize.

Boris Godunov · June 5, 2002, 11:03

Didn't something happen with Clinton where an officer in the army criticized him and was reprimanded?

I would certainly be fired for asserting my boss were a murderer, I see no reason why that shouldn't be even more the case in the armed forces, where discipline and loyalty are imperative.

mindseye · June 5, 2002, 11:55

Quote:

No one dislikes the Bush administration more than I, but to think that he and those close to him would sacrifice nearly 3,000 innocent people, simply for political gain... it's more than a little paranoid.

The man is drooling, idiotic buffoon. He is NOT a monster.

Couldn't say that any better myself, so I'll just quote it.

Sarxis · June 5, 2002, 11:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Didn't something happen with Clinton where an officer in the army criticized him and was reprimanded?

I would certainly be fired for asserting my boss were a murderer, I see no reason why that shouldn't be even more the case in the armed forces, where discipline and loyalty are imperative.

Exactly. Its the military- its most definately NOT a democracy.
He's lucky he's not sitting in an outpost in northern Greenland right now.

DinoDoc · June 5, 2002, 11:57

Mindseye, what would have happned if this were the Chinese Army? Something particularly awful?

SpencerH · June 5, 2002, 12:00

The interesting thing is whether this was a private letter? If so, how did the newspaper get it? He'd have to be an idiot to send it to the newspaper himself, but considering his opinions I guess that's self-evident.

mindseye · June 5, 2002, 12:23

Quote:

Mindseye, what would have happned if this were the Chinese Army? Something particularly awful?

Well, I don't really know, but I'd have to say it's hard to imagine a Chinese soldier dumb enough to publish such a letter, given the way things work here.

Officals are occasionally criticized in newspapers. One of several things might be happening (at least as far as I can tell). It might be the surface ripple of in-fighting between Party factions. It might be a gov't santioned "hit" to get rid of an embarrassing official who is causing too much trouble. It may actually be a crusading newspaper trying to fight corruption (it does happen these days), or it could just be a dumb editor.

A bizarre example of the latter was a newspaper which recently criticized Jiang Zemin himself, and was subsequently shut down. The criticism? In the upside-down world that is contemporary China, they criticized him for not being a true Communist due to his decision to begin allowing capitalists into the Party! You can only scratch your head over a place where a Communist gov't gives Model Worker awards to capitalist entrepreneurs.

Lefty Scaevola · June 5, 2002, 12:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Guynemer
There might be a free speech issue here, DD. He is being punished by the government for speaking his mind...

Not in a military cahin of command. Insulting your superiors is a crime, insubordination. It can carry serious stockade time.

Velociryx · June 5, 2002, 12:41

Wonder how long it'll be before they have something like this for Dubya....

http://www.etherzone.com/body.html

-=Vel=-

SpencerH · June 5, 2002, 12:54

James Milam: Milam had information on the Ives & Henry deaths. He was decapitated. The state Medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, initially ruled death due to natural causes.

Velociryx · June 5, 2002, 13:02

Yeah....don't you just HATE IT when that happens?!

-=Vel=-

chequita guevara · June 5, 2002, 13:38

GP, what I think Roland is saying is, if the Bush Administration had known what was going to happen, they would have acted to stop it. However, if they merely knew that a lesser attack was going to take place, such as multiple hijackings, they may have decided to let that take place.

Right now, we know for certain that the latter event occured. Bush was briefed that there were going to be attempts to hijack airliners. They claim in defense that they thought they were going to be "normal" hijackings. Ashcroft himself took the warnings seriously enough to stop using commerical flights.

Velociryx · June 5, 2002, 13:54

Bah...if they knew that much...if Ashcroft stopped using commercial flights, then they knew the whole hog...or at least had the pieces sitting right in front of them and intentionally didn't put them together.

-=Vel=-

TCO · June 5, 2002, 14:00

There had been 6 different alerts to airlines to watch out for highjackings in the 3 years before. None had resulted in a highjacking. Listening to you guys, who couldn't lead an ant of a paper bag, second guess the President is just funny.