RUSH: Here’s Cindy in Loganville, Georgia. Hi, Cindy. It’s great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate it.
RUSH: My pleasure.
CALLER: I’m a little bit nervous, so just bear with me. First-time caller. I’ve been listening to you since I married my husband in ’82. (sic) So quite a while.
RUSH: Which came first?
CALLER: The marriage came first, but he started listening to you and then —
RUSH: I see. Cool.
CALLER: — turned me on to you.
RUSH: Excellent.
CALLER: Let me give you… I’m going to try to give you a brief background of why my husband is in Afghanistan.
RUSH: Wait one sec. I heard you say “Afghanistan.” You said ’82 or ’92?
CALLER: We got married in ’84.
RUSH: ’84. Okay. All right. Cool.
CALLER: Sorry about that.
RUSH: No problem.
CALLER: In 2007, I became unemployed, and he volunteered to be an activated Navy Reservist. He was with the Navy. And after that position ended after a year, he rolled into a State Department position in Iraq.
RUSH: 1982. Yep.
CALLER: So he got back from the Iraq position in 2011 and tried to get a job here in the States with no success. The man has a master’s degree.
RUSH: In what?
CALLER: But, you know, the economy is what it is.
RUSH: What’s his degree in?
CALLER: Business, an MBA.
RUSH: Wow. He’s got an MBA?
CALLER: A Master’s in Business Administration, yes. So —
RUSH: And he’s unable to find a job in Obamaville.
CALLER: (chuckles) Yeah. Pretty sad. And I’m still unemployed myself. But, you know, that’s just another story.
RUSH: No, it’s not just another story. It’s unacceptable is what it is! There’s no excuse. Because the reason that you and 23 million other Americans who want to work are unemployed is because of policies that have been put in place by this administration. It’s not just another thing. It’s not just another story. It’s something that ought not be the case.
CALLER: Well, it’s the way it is.
RUSH: It ticks me off. See, it’s become the new norm. “Oh, well, I’m unemployed.” You don’t want to tell me the story. I understand why you don’t want to go into details on it.
CALLER: Yeah, for the sake of my husband.
RUSH: But the fact of the matter remains that that’s not what this country is.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: People who want to work, the opportunity ought to be there. And there are ways to fix the problems that we have and not one of these problems we’re having — that you’re discovering, that you’re interacting with — is gonna be solved with these current policies in place. It isn’t gonna be.
CALLER: No. But, anyway, he was able to get a job with the Department of the Army as a contractor, and he’s now in Afghanistan. I’m able to Skype, thank goodness, so I can see him. But, obviously, as you know, they are continuously — on a daily basis — bombarded with rockets, IEDs, and obviously the blue-on-green attacks. I called our congressman. I’m trying to get something working there. But the bottom line is, based on the Rules of Engagement, our service members are not permitted to fire back. They have to take it.
RUSH: We’ve heard about this. Let me tell you something, Cindy. I don’t know when — it was last year, I think, time flies — we heard that some place in the administration they were actually contemplating (I don’t think they ever did it) giving out a medal for “courageous restraint,” meaning not firing on a target where there might be civilians and so forth. They actually were gonna give medals to members of the military for not firing. We’ve heard about these Rules of Engagement, and that’s another thing. Obama’s announced the exit date. So he’s announced to the world when it is acceptable for us to lose the war in Afghanistan and get out.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Which is what a date means.
CALLER: Well, this is what my husband told me. They have cameras around the base, and they can actually see insurgents loading the tubes to fire the rockets into the base. Now, obviously the individual who’s loading the tube is not a civilian, is not an innocent civilian.
RUSH: But is dressed like one, nevertheless, right?
CALLER: I don’t know how he’s dressed. But they can’t fire on this person who’s loading the tubes to fire the rockets into the base.
RUSH: Why?
CALLER: Based on the Rules of Engagement.
RUSH: Yeah, but what’s the rule?
CALLER: Basically they’re not allowed to fire back.
RUSH: There’s gotta be a reason, though. It’s probably because the terrorist firing the thing is dressed like a civilian.
CALLER: Well, pretty much. You know, because — I don’t know if I can say this, but –all hell breaks loose whenever an innocent civilian is killed.
RUSH: Are you saying they can’t return fire even after they’ve been fired upon?
CALLER: No. Not really. That’s the impression that I get. Now, this last thing — the thing with the Army, the thing that happened on Saturday morning — was the actually Afghan army, not Afghan police officers who did the blue-on-green firing deal. We did fire back then, but it’s gonna be an interesting thing to watch to see what happens, as far as politics and the thing with Karzai. You know, he’s gonna say we’re shooting the Afghan army. You know, what’s gonna go on with that? I’m gonna be watching that pretty close.
RUSH: Well, there was a 60 Minutes segment on this last night.
CALLER: Yeah, I watched that.
RUSH: You did?
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: What did you think of that? Because I’m watching that. The anchorette was Lara Logan, and she’s asking the general… I forget his name.
CALLER: Allen.
RUSH: Yeah. She says, “You sound very mad about all this.” He says, “Oh, I am. I’m very mad.” Then they went and talked to Karzai, and Karzai’s dumping all over us, sounding bitter as he could be. I’m having to read the closed-captioning to follow it so I didn’t get all of it. But what was he saying he was mad about, the general?
CALLER: He… (sigh) He says he’s mad that our troops are dying. You know, we’re willing to fight for our country and fight for these people but we’re not willing to be murdered. And, you know, there’s something that has to be done about it. And, you know, I talked to my congressman, and they basically said that that’s something that’s done in Washington based on policy.
RUSH: Well, let me tell you something. There is no question that the hands of our military are tied. We’ve heard of about these rules of engagement many previous occasions in Afghanistan. It’s what happens when you got a pacifist as president, when you have somebody who believes that the United States is to blame and in fact deserves some of this stuff and that we can’t display superpower status. We can’t project power.
That’s not fair, or that would give the wrong impression or what have you. Then when you have a date certain for withdrawal, you just announce the date that you’re gonna lose. So I just think: Bring your husband home. If these are gonna be the Rules of Engagement, if these are the handcuffs that we’re gonna make our military people wear, just bring ’em home. There’s no point in having them over there being sitting ducks. Which is I know what bugs you. It bugs everybody, believe me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: In this 60 Minutes piece that I watched last night, General John Allen said he’s “mad as hell” about the increasing number of “insider attacks.” That’s Afghan soldiers and polices murdering Americans trying to protect ’em. He said, “We’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we’re not willing to be murdered for it.” I was thinking: This cannot be helpful to Obama. This is Obama policy everybody’s talking about, whether Obama’s name came up or not. We are in Afghanistan.
Here’s the general saying we’re not gonna sit here and be murdered. I’m coupling the 60 Minutes report with the Univision piece last night, and I’m thinking to myself: “Something is going on out there.” Normally if you’re gonna have a story in Afghanistan on 60 Minutes on September 30th, it’s gonna be pro-Obama. They had Karzai in there and he was not happy. We’re fighting the war in Afghanistan the way Obama wanted to fight it, and everybody’s ticked off about it. I don’t know, folks. I just found it interesting.