RUSH: I want to try to get to as much of it as possible, and this TIME Magazine piece. We’re still bouncing off of that, because as I said last hour: “I’m so sick and tired of the United States’ involvement in wars over our own national security being looked at through the template of Vietnam, by the American media and the Democratic Party.” It’s just getting frustrating to the max as is said and I don’t understand why we don’t look at templates of what we’ve been successful, why we don’t follow those templates and understand what hasn’t happen in war. These are not therapy sessions. They’re not encounter sessions, group sessions down at these prisons and it’s just absurd the restraints, constraints that are being placed by people who are in charge of our national security. Can you think of the dichotomy here or the irony or the conflict. Off the one hand after 9/11 happens look at the hell there was to pay. The CIA and the FBI screwed everything up, weren’t communicating; nobody knew what was going to happen before it happened because nobody was talking; we didn’t get the information, we didn’t get it to the right people? The 9/11 Commission has all of this in their report and they’re outraged by it. Everybody was outraged by it. Now we’re in the post-9/11 period. We’ve got the guys who are part of the group that did to us what happened on 9/11, and all of a sudden we’re not supposed to be able to do what it takes to get information from these people to protect against another attack or to learn whatever might be necessary to prevent another attack when that’s what everybody was upset about in the immediate days after 9/11.
HUNTER: We feed them now their Islamic food. We give them honey and dates when they break fast at Ramadan. We give them prayer beads, prayer oil, all paid for — in fact if you did that for American GIs and you did a call to prayer five times a day the ACLU would sue on the basis that we broke into separation between church and state. So my question is — we even have footprints that are painted at the prison where guards are not to step during prayer time because they will squeak, will make noise and bother the prisoners. How could you possibly improve that treatment for the guys that are Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards and the guy who was on his way to kill 5,000 Americans no matter where you put them?
RUSH: This is just stunning. We can’t walk between paint footprints because the boots will squeak and disturb the prisoners of war? He’s exactly right, by the way. If we tried to allow American soldiers five prayer calls a day, the ACLU would be right in there demanding this not be done because of separation of church and state. Yet they are demanding — these groups are demanding — that we acknowledge the religion of these prisoners and let them practice it as it is required. It’s just silly. It’s just absolutely silly, and I guarantee you this: this is not how you win wars, folks. It’s not how you win wars because winning wars is not about making your enemy like you. Winning wars is not about having everybody love you. Winning wars is not about being respected because people like you. I’ll bet you we are becoming the biggest standing joke in terror cells around the country and around the world than we could ever imagine. I’ll bet bin Laden and his boys are laughing themselves silly. I’ll bet they ever never been happier. They probably cannot believe what we’ve managed to pull off here and they couldn’t have done it without the help of Americans. They couldn’t have done it without the US media. They couldn’t have done it without the sixties generation from this country which uses as its template for war Vietnam. On Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer interviewed Leaky Leahy, Senator Depends from Vermont. This is more of the same. This is Democrat senators acting as defense lawyers for the terrorists that we are holding on Guantanamo Bay. Schieffer says to Leahy, “Well, should we just close G’itmo?”
LEAKY: I think that eventually we have to, because — either that or at least have the administration come out and be honest about it, say who’s being held there, why they’re being held there. We understand there’s even some people that were there because, uh, bounty hunters in Afghanistan turned them over to us and said, “Here. Give us money these are bad guys,” and so they’re put in this black hole. I think as long as that exists we’re going to have one more rallying cry against the United States, and it does reflect poorly on a country that believes in the rule of law.
RUSSERT: I think what’s caused the increasing problem we’re seeing is the increased activity by Syria and Iran which for some reason our intelligence comment does not want to acknowledge or deal with. In fact as we talk to the Iraq Iraqi officials — and we met with the speaker of the parliament, the prime minister, the defense minister, the two generals charge of the Iraqi military, the chairman of the constitutional writing authority — we heard a common theme that Syria may have the largest number from outside of Iraq in country, but Iran overwhelmingly has the quality behind the insurgency and we’ve got to come to grips with that.
RUSH: Well, it’s not an inner insurgency if you ask me. I don’t know how you can call this an insurgency when it’s not even Iraqis that compromise the majority of the people we’re fighting in Iraq. If it’s Iranians and Syrians, we’ve full-fledged war going on here and I’ve thought for the longest time that this is how we’re fighting Iran, that this is actually the war with Iran that we’re destined to have and this is the first phase of it. I just think that it’s silly to continue to call this an insurgency. Now while the intelligence agency and community here doesn’t want to acknowledge or deal with this, if that’s true, then that’s just another giant question mark I’ve got. Why after going on? Now, we know that the — well, yes we didn’t. Sadly we did know that we’ve got some people in the CIA that are not in favor of the Bush administration just like we’ve got people in the state department who are not. We have people in both agencies that would love nothing more themselves than to see Bush humiliated and defeated. It’s one thing for that to exist, but to have that alignment then with the major media and the Democratic Party in this country and whatever number of enemies outside, I tell you: We’re fighting much more than just Syrians and Iranians in Iraq and we’re fighting much more than just Al-Qaeda be they in Git’mo or Pakistan or whatever. We’re fighting our own domestic opposition as well at the same time, and it’s maddening. It really is. One more from Weldon. Russert says, “By the way, we’re hearing that bin Laden is in Iran. Is that true?”
WELDON: He’s been in and out of Iran and now we have military generals telling me that. Interestingly enough the CIA totally refuted that when I first went to — and, by the way, the person that gave me this entire lead was a former Democrat in Congress.
RUSSERT: Can you believe that Osama bin Laden is in Iran today?
WELDON: Today I don’t know. I gave the CIA hits over the past five months that he was there twice. And I also told them two years ago he was in a small town in the southern part of Iran called Ladiz, ten kilometers inside the border with Pakistan and Balujistan. I’d say he’s been in and out repeatedly.
RUSH: He’s got a book now, does Weldon, and I have it. It just arrived in the mail today. It’s called “Countdown to Terror,” and he apparently is going public because he’s been trying to alert people to various items of interest he’s been told and is finding no interest, no takers for his information, and that’s what this is about.
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RUSH: Hazard, Connecticut. We’ll go there first. Rick, glad you waited, sir, welcome to the program.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: You know, I was originally calling about press coverage of the war or wars in general now versus years ago like during World War II. But I don’t know if you’d permit me to ask something, you know, if I could clarify something on your position on the whole torture thing, since I’ve been listening to you talk about that for the last half hour.
RUSH: Yeah, you can do that, but I also want the question that you are originally called to ask.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
CALLER: Is that what theory describing or…?
RUSH: I don’t know. He didn’t say that. He just said pouring water over their heads and dripping water, he didn’t say anything about a head in a bag so I don’t want to assume that we were tying people up with bags around their necks and then dumping them in water. If the guy was —
CALLER: But if we were, would you be for it?
RUSH: No, no, no, not “if we were.” Don’t give me “if.”
CALLER: I believe we are.
RUSH: It’s not even alleged that that’s what we’re doing. Look it, my definition of torture is not what the subject here today is. Don’t throw this back on me. We’re not talking about my definition of torture. We’re talking about what was reported in TIME Magazine and how it’s being used now by all the other media to drum up even more opposition to the war, drum up more option to the way we’re treating prisoners and the whole objective here. All I’m suggesting to you is, that the template that we’re using to fight this war is a template that we used in a losing effort and a humiliating effort rather than a template such as World War II when we were victorious and did what we had to do to protect this country and other free people around the world from tyrants dictators thugs you name it, mass murderers whoever you want to call them.
CALLER: In fact you and I might disagree less than — than you might gather from my tone. The thing that has me kind of confused is my sense is if you find out we are doing that to folks you wouldn’t be all that upset and so one can argue about that. I mean maybe that’s the right position to have, maybe we shouldn’t be doing that to these guys. But — but why go to all the effort to give the impression that in fact we’re not doing that?
RUSH: Uh, who’s doing that?
CALLER: Well, when you’re joking about how it might be a refreshing dunk like having Gatorade spilled on you during a game or…
RUSH: I’m reacting to what was written in TIME Magazine as were the people in Fox when they were interviewing the author, the writer of the story.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Same thing with the swelled-up limbs. He talked about water dropping, you know, water drops on people to simulate suffocation that. That may be water boarding, I don’t know, but if it was, why didn’t he say that?
CALLER: I wonder why you wouldn’t say that. You knew the term. I didn’t.
RUSH: Why, because it wasn’t alleged.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: It wasn’t alleged it and it has been elsewhere. I’ll tell you when water boarding has come up on this soldier, what you know I’ve learned? Because soldiers e-mail me; soldiers consider me a friend, which honors me. Many people in the Special Forces have told me they’re forced to be trained on these types of techniques to be able to withstand the torture they’re going to get. You know, it’s brutal out there. War is what it is. It isn’t Romper Room. It’s not a therapy session. It’s not feel-good time. It’s not what it is. The idea that this stuff is new and unique and barbaric? It’s just offensive as it can be. We have watched videotape or we’ve seen still shots of Americans whose heads are about to be cut off, and I don’t have anybody calling here asking me, “Why are we putting up with this? This is horrible. Who’s doing this and why aren’t we doing something about it?” I didn’t have much reaction even from the media about Danny Pearl’s head being cut off. It’s almost like they expect that we deserve this, because we started this. We invaded these people’s land. But these kinds of things happen routinely in war, and they always have, and I know the argument, “Well, we cannot win the war by becoming our enemies.”
We’re not! We’re not cutting off heads. We’re not mass murdering people and putting them in graves. We’re not mass raping people and putting them in graves. We’re not doing anything of the sort that our enemies do. You heard the menu! You heard the fact that we have to paint footprints on concrete or wherever, the floor down there. Soldiers are not allowed to walk there during prayer time because their boots may squeak and upset the prisoners who are praying. You don’t ask me about any of that. None of that seems to get your curiosity up. None of that seems to raise any hackles on you whatsoever. But something that’s not written — water boarding or dunking people with bags over their heads — that does get your attention even though it’s not been alleged by a guy in TIME Magazine who’s trying to write the worst story he can about the way prisoners are being treated by Americans. We’ll forgo your second question. Here’s Greg in Keystone Heights, Florida. Welcome to the program. Nice to have us with us.
CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush. God bless America and God bless Rush Limbaugh for being our —
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: — Voice of America. I lost my oldest son in Iraq July 20th, 2003, and from that day forward, I have been on a mission and it just disgusts me the way that the media has portrayed my son was not and is not a number. He was my son. He was somebody’s brother, somebody’s husband, and the way that they’re doing this, I blame Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, John Kerry. All of them. A year ago — you go back to April, and I made this comment on another nationwide radio show a year ago — I blame them for the deaths of our American soldiers, and every time they stand up there, they are the biggest ally that our enemy has, and I believe that from the bottom of my heart. I absolutely do.
RUSH: Why? What is it? Give me an example of something one of those guys has said that makes you think that.
CALLER: Oh, any time they go out there and talking about what we’re not doing or what we’re doing to — that thing at G’itmo — or Abu Ghraib a year ago? That was a joke. That was an absolute joke. I talked to some local talk radio shows almost verbatim what you had said. Somebody putting a dog collar around somebody and putting underwear on some woman? I e-mailed the president of the United States last May 15th after he had just gone on (Al-Jazeera) or whatever the name of the Arab television show was and apologized for what we had done. The next day, they executed that kid from Pennsylvania, cut his head off.
RUSH: I understand. All right, thanks. Thanks for the call, Greg. I appreciate it.
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