RUSH: A memo to Republican leaders: Start begging to get on every national syndicated radio talk show and television show and hammer away at Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Get on local radio in every contested state. Never stop teaching, explaining, ranting, and inspiring people. Get out front. Be part of the national conversation, Republicans! Take questions. Find out just how angry the American people are and tell them how they can help, because the hits just keep on coming.
Have you heard about the four Navy SEALs who have been charged with roughing up a detainee? You haven’t heard about this? ‘Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. [T]hree of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges… Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named ‘Objective Amber,’ told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it. Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers…
‘…The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that ‘Objective Amber’ planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and ‘they had been tracking this guy for some time.’ The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq. The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph. Intelligence sources identified [Ahmed Hashim] Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.’ And three of the SEALs have been charged criminally because he was punched, a bloody lip.
Political correctness is literally destroying this country. Our Armed Forces, even, have become exquisitely sensitive toward Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood terrorist; Ahmed Hashim Abed; and one wonders who else. Credit the Power Line blog for the appropriate outrage to this. But everybody is outraged by this, I mean it’s just… He punched the guy and there are criminal charges! All of this stems from that stupid Abu Ghraib stuff and the so-called, supposed torture at Guantanamo Bay. All of this is designed to make the United States look guilty as we seek to redeem our lost greatness and image in the eyes of the world — and instead what we’re doing is telegraphing our utter weakness, our utter vulnerability. What we’re telling the world is we don’t value ourselves enough to even protect our own! We’ll throw our own overboard so that our enemies don’t think badly of us; even enlisted SEALs, the closest thing to supermen the US Navy produces.
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RUSH: To the phones! We have Eric from the Washington area. Hello, Eric, great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Fine. Thanks much.
CALLER: Good. I just wanted to say thanks for taking my call. I’m a first-time caller, and I am currently active duty military. I’ve been in military for about eight years, and I appreciate you putting out the story about my three brothers being charged with assault. They’re not blood brothers. They’re brothers that I’ve served with. The eight years I’ve been in the military, I’ve supported Naval Special Warfare, the majority of it. I am familiar and have worked with these guys for the better part of the last year-and-a-half directly that were involved in that (garbled) Operation Amber. And it strikes me with nothing but fear as to what’s taking place. We saw it three years ago with the situation in Haditha. We’re still concerned about the rules of engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and everywhere else that we conduct these, quote, unquote, ‘overseas contingency operations.’ This guy was fighting us, and the SEALs used the absolute force that they deemed necessary to subdue him, to take him into custody —
RUSH: Right, a fat lip!
CALLER: — so he could be turned over to the Iraqis.
RUSH: A fat lip, a bloody lip for a guy who murdered four Blackwater people, hung ’em over a bridge, and burned their bodies! Folks, if you want to see the pictures — if you want to see how horrible this incident was — Debbie Schlussel at her blog has pictures. I warn you before going and looking at them. They’re pictures of the militants celebrating the deaths and the corpses are still hanging over the bridge here, and the guy that did it was captured by these three SEALs and bloodied up a little bit. And now they’re being charged criminally! I don’t know how you guys keep doing what you do. First they charge you by reputation with rape in Haditha, and you have members of Congress joining that. They charge you and make you out to be torturers. You’re out there defending freedom and liberty. You sign up, you’re enlisted, and you are under assault by your own country! I don’t know how you do what you do.
CALLER: And that’s the other thing that absolutely irritates me with this is that it’s the operators that are being charged with assault and, you know, the officers aren’t taking the fall for it. It’s just like we saw in Abu Ghraib. The enlisted took the fall for that — and Abu Ghraib was not correct, and that’s another thing I want to make clear, and this is: You know, the alleged assault that took place was as the team was on target and preparing to capture or kill this guy, and they could have killed him but they chose to take him into custody —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — despite him fighting them.
RUSH: Eric, could you hang on? I have a commercial break. Can you hang on?
CALLER: Yeah, Rush.
RUSH: I hope they Mirandized this guy before they punched him.
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RUSH: And we are back with Eric from the Washington, DC area. We had to stop you for a commercial break. You were explaining what happened at Abu Ghraib, how the officer corps somehow found a way to exempt themselves from any blame or punishment.
CALLER: Yes, exactly — and real quick, I am not a SEAL, have never have been a SEAL. I’m active duty military, and my job is to support naval special workers. I support SEALs. But I’m a public analyst; I’m not a SEAL.
RUSH: Ah.
CALLER: But no, and that’s the thing (unintelligible). They’re going to end up taking the fall for it. I don’t think it will. I don’t think they will take the fall for it. But they didn’t do that anything wrong, and even in the officer leadership they didn’t do anything wrong.
RUSH: Wait a minute. We’re living in two different universes here. These guys are in a war! They’re on a battlefield! They are up against an enemy which has murdered four Americans, and they’re charged as criminals for punching a guy and giving him a bloody lip in the middle of a war.
CALLER: Exactly. And another thing is, you know, look at the guy that killed Mike Monsoor. He was a Medal of Honor recipient who actually went through the same survival, he was in the same survival classes I was. I had the very fortunate pleasure of knowing Mike Monsoor, and that guy is still on the streets in Iraq, and the Iraqi government’s not doing much to help us in getting him off the street. But if he is captured, be prepared for some street justice to come on that — and you know what? Things happen. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, because he killed one of our brothers. Actually, in 2007 I lost my best friend Steven Dougherty, who is the first naval intelligence professional killed since September 11th. And thankfully the guy that killed him was killed during the course of that because it was an IED on the way back. But anyway, leadership needs to step out in front of this. And right now I’m calling on Secretary Gates to stand up and get rid of this situation. And I’m calling on the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command to absolutely diffuse this because —
RUSH: What about the commander-in-chief?
CALLER: Well, I don’t hold much faith in him, but I better watch my words on that so I don’t get charged with treason or mutiny. I’d also like to say right now… You know, you were talking a little bit about Afghanistan earlier. It’s absolutely unsatisfactory that President Obama — and I use that term loosely, ‘president’ — took so much time to, quote, unquote, ‘debate the situation.’ They’ve made General McChrystal — who I used to work for and very deeply admire, they made General McChrystal — the front man on this. You know, General McChrystal is not only subordinate to the president but he’s also subordinate to General Petraeus as the commander of US Central Command. Where has General Petraeus been on all this? And I’m calling on — just so that he can save face, General McChrystal should resign before he takes the blame for President Obama’s failure. And the public needs to hold President Obama accountable for what’s going on in the AfPak region and not General McChrystal.
RUSH: I have full faith that that being held to account will occur at some point down the road at the ballot box.
CALLER: I do, too, Rush. I do, too.
RUSH: Well, Eric, I’m glad you called — and I gotta tell you it’s thrilling to hear you say what you said. I could imagine the frustration people like you go through every day when you see this happen to your brothers, as you say. And watching what happened at Abu Ghraib and the stuff down at Guantanamo Bay and now the whole notion that you’re rapists, thugs and torturers is an image that has been purposefully crafted to discredit the US military and has been purposefully crafted by the Democrat Party.
CALLER: Exactly. And I can tell you right now the sentiment among us the intelligence community is that. Because not only am I, you know, in the military but I’m also an intelligence professional, and the consensus amongst the intelligence community is, ‘Proceed with caution because you don’t know what’s going to happen down the road, basically who’s going to see your analysis. Is it going to be made public, and are you going to be chastised for it?’ So everybody’s proceeding with caution.
RUSH: Which means the United States is on defense?
CALLER: Well, everybody’s on defense right now in the Department of Defense, unfortunately — and, you know, it’s unfortunate. I wish that… You know, I was a supporter of President Bush. I didn’t agree with everything he did, but one thing’s for sure: He was a leader, and our current commander-in-chief by far lacks leadership characteristics and abilities.
RUSH: Eric, thanks for the call.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: Great to have you here, and happy Thanksgiving.
CALLER: All right, and happy Thanksgiving to you.
RUSH: You bet. That’s Eric from parts unknown in Washington, a naval intelligence officer.
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RUSH: Greg in North Carolina, great to have you on the phone here, sir. Welcome to EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh, how are you?
RUSH: Fine, sir.
CALLER: Good. I just wanted to call and kind of give a little more insight on this SEAL team situation. I was in the teams for 20 years. I have multiple-decade military service and came in not long after Vietnam. I also worked for Blackwater for a few years in Iraq and know one of the guys that was killed at Fallujah quite well. But, anyway, the point I’m going to get at here is that I think there’s quite a bit of evidence that this is kind of a backwash from the situation of a couple months ago when the SEAL operators rescued Captain Phillips off the coast of Somalia. You may recall that situation.
RUSH: Yes, I do.
CALLER: Well, the truth behind that situation is that the SEAL operators were kept off the scene for well over 36 hours. There was a lot of foot dragging by the commander-in-chief’s people in letting them in the theater. After they were in theater and in place they were given a very restrictive ROE: Rules Of Engagement. The ROE was so restrictive that really they couldn’t engage their targets. There were two previous opportunities to rescue Captain Phillips, and they were not allowed to take those opportunities.
RUSH: Let me stop you here because people may not know. We’re talking Somali pirates. We’re talking about the Maersk cargo ship that a bunch of Somali pirates, teenagers, took over. One of them eventually died, and the media credited Obama — honest to God, folks, the media credited Obama — with giving the order to pull the trigger. Now you may resume the story, sir.
CALLER: Okay. When they finally did engage the hostiles, they did it liberally interpreting the ROE, and the on-site commander finally was kind of fed up with the situation and gave them a weapons-free command and they were able to engage and rescue Captain Phillips. The fallout from that was immediate and rather violent in its anger. The White House people — I don’t know the president himself, I just know their representatives with the chain of command — were absolutely livid with this and they did not want the rescue to be conducted in the way that it was. You know, I cannot prove this because I would have to give names and I’m not giving names for obvious reasons. But the bottom line is that on very good, solid inside information, the national command authority past the Pentagon was not happy.
RUSH: So let me cut to the chase here. So what I think I hear you saying is the blowback that you mentioned is, this is payback for the SEALs violating the ROE on this captain of the Maersk; and this is the chain of command reasserting itself, letting everybody know who’s boss and what’s going to happen to you if you don’t follow orders?
CALLER: That is my rather experienced opinion — and, frankly, the opinion of others. I am very close to the special operations community here in North Carolina, and, you know, that opinion is surfacing. These people are very vindictive — and you have to understand, Mr. Limbaugh, you’re very pro-military, and you always say wonderful things about our people in service, and we greatly appreciate it. But I do have to say this, and I’d like to make this one point. I’ve had two sons, by the way. My two eldest sons have done multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military of today is not the military that fought World War II. It is not even the military that fought the first Gulf War. It is a military that has been thoroughly politicized. It is a military that is suffering the fallout of Patricia Schroeder’s ridiculous, politically correct policies that still have great power and sway in the military. And I’m just going to have to tell you: I do not mean to impugn the junior personnel in the military, the line troops, the junior officers. I’m not talking about these people. These people are doing a fine job. They’re outstanding people. But the senior ranking, the civilian and senior ranking military personnel are thoroughly indoctrinated and on board with this politically correct agenda that’s in the military.
RUSH: Yeah. I’ll tell you the most recent example of it. A glaring example was General Casey, more concerned about the ‘diversity’ in his Army than the loss of life at Fort Hood.
CALLER: General Casey, sir, and Wesley Clark are not the exceptions in the upper echelons. They are the rule. Those are the kinds of men that are running the show and they will throw the junior personnel under the bus to save themselves every time. And that is my opinion. Again, I don’t mean to impugn any of the junior people.
RUSH: We know what you mean. We know exactly what you mean.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Everything’s been politically correctized — chickified, if you will. That’s one of the things I call it. Can you hold on for a break?
CALLER: Certainly.
RUSH: I want you to explain to people what you meant. I think I know what you meant by the Patsy Schroeder stuff, Tailhook and all that, but I want you to explain exactly what you mean by that ’cause I’m sure you’ve got a lot of people curious.
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RUSH: We rejoin our call with Greg from parts unknown in North Carolina, a former member of the Navy SEAL team who has two sons who served two tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan. What was it that Pat Schroeder did when she was a member of Congress from Colorado?
CALLER: I guess the question would be: What didn’t she do? She was very influential in passing legislation and putting pressure on the military to basically and fundamentally feminize the military. I can speak most clearly about the Navy, ’cause that was my experience at the time, especially when Admiral Kelso — who was the CNO at the time — kind of completely caved in after Tailhook and started instituting things like putting females on man-o-war, having the mixed training companies in boot camp and the like. And what Patricia Schroeder did was, with a really rather small cabal of very ambitious military officers — who, by the way, violated military rules and regulations by petitioning in uniform on Capitol Hill for these changes, but nobody seemed to notice that — were able to pass a lot of regulations through the Navy and the other branches that have, frankly, incorporated women into areas of the military where, being old-fashioned, I do not believe that they belong. And this has caused numerous problems throughout the military. Beyond that, I’m not exactly sure what else you would like me to add.
RUSH: No, I thought that’s what you were talking about but I wanted people to hear you say it. Pat Schroeder was very liberal, huge feminist, and I wanted you to say the feminization. My word for it is chickification. But it’s happening throughout our culture. It’s happening throughout the media as well. And it’s turning people soft and touchy-feely and so forth. And I know what you mean: There’s no room for that on the battlefield.
CALLER: There is none. And I’m very concerned about the future of our nation’s military. Again I do not mean to minimize the dangers that our military personnel are facing in this war. However, it isn’t a full-scale, knock-down-drag-out between conventional fighting forces. I am concerned that if we ever do engage in that sort of warfare again — and I think it’s ultimately inevitable, I’m afraid — that our military is not in the place where it needs to be.
RUSH: Meaning? This is scary. Meaning they’re not committed to victory, that there are other things which take precedence?
CALLER: Absolutely, sir. And, frankly, there’s a billion Chinamen that are becoming more and more bellicose by the day, are being armed at our expense and with our expertise, and are becoming a growing threat by the day, and I —
RUSH: I wouldn’t worry about that. Obama charmed them on that trip over there. He bowed down.
CALLER: I saw that, as he bowed to their prime minister as well.
RUSH: Greg, I gotta go. I’m outta time sadly, but it’s wonderful that you got through. A Thanksgiving blessing this audience got to hear you today. Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Limbaugh.
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RUSH: My friends, one of the most famous lines ever uttered by Patsy Schroeder was, ‘I have a vagina, and I know how to use it.’ And I replied, ‘I have a brain and I have a penis, and I only have to use half of either.’ Tailhook taught every officer that to advance, you gotta be PC. That’s another liberal legacy. It just destroys everything it purports to improve.
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RUSH: I got an e-mail, an angry woman. Her name is Ashley, one of my all-time top ten favorite female names, by the way, when it’s a woman’s name.
Dear Rush: How dare you, how dare you use the term chickification to describe what has happened to the military due primarily to the men at the top. As a woman I would never give into political correctness over the lives of our soldiers. I have a son in Iraq. What’s happened in the military has nothing to do with chickification. I’m really tired of hearing the term. Ashley.
Well, I guess I had my being yelled at for today, so we got it out of the way. It happens at least once a day. Maybe she doesn’t understand what I mean by chickification. Chickification is exactly what the SEAL team member described with the Tailhook situation and so forth. But nevertheless I understand what she’s talking about, but let me tell you something. Chickification means precisely men stop being men. They’ve been neutered and it results from a number of things: nagging. In this case not nagging, but in this case it results from clearly these guys saw the way to the top is PC, after Tailhook. That’s the way to the top: PC. PC is destroying this country. It’s destroying institutions left and right.