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Deserter: George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past 

by Ian Williams

       Just Released, Order HERE from Amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560256273/wwwmaximsnewc-20/103-2632401-6943852?creative=125577&camp=2321&link_code=as

"Williams describes a President who inhabits a world where the soldiers are tin, where our brave men and women are reduced to photo opportunities in service not of their country's security but the president's warped political and foreign policy agendas."  

"As a veteran I cheer Williams' courage even as I lament the exploitation of our troops."

           -- Bobby Muller, President of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning organization International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

An Interview with the Author

Ian Williams is a journalist and U.N. Correspondent for The Nation and a weekly columnist for www.MaximsNews.com   See his Bio.  See his columns listed below. Email Ian Williams:  IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com

          UNITED NATIONS -- August 2004 / www.MaximsNews.com / 

          Max Stamper:  Ian, your book’s title is “Deserter,” aren’t you worried that it is controversial calling the President of the United States a deserter?

          Ian Williams: Actually, it is not controversial: it’s incontrovertible that George W. Bush used his family connections to get entry into a “Champagne Unit” in Texas Air National Guard and that in the middle of what Senator Robert Byrd has called “the war of his generation” at the height of the Tet Offensive, he ticked the box on his enlistment form saying “no” to overseas military service – that is to Vietnam.

In a way, one can hardly blame him for doing what so many of his generation were doing, but in contrast to Bill Clinton, who disagreed with the war but, after some characteristically Clintonesque wriggling put his name down for the draft, Bush the Younger kept taking leave to campaign for pro-war Republican candidates!

And it was while doing that in Alabama, he disappeared off the records. 

There is not one credible witness has come forward to say that he ever appeared at the Alabama bases he was transferred to. 

His commanding officers back in Texas wrote that they had not seen him for a year. 

He was ordered to take his annual medical, and ducked thereby grounding himself as a pilot. 

Technically all that was desertion – and guardsmen in that era were ordered to Vietnam for failing to do their Guard Service.

Max: But that was all a long time ago – why bring it up now?

Ian: In fact, you are right: For the modern generation, the question of what people did in Vietnam is almost as remote as Conscientious Objectors in World War 1 would have been for the Vietnam Generation itself.

But it was Bush and his campaign who brought it up. 

They were relentless in pursuit of Clinton for his abortive attempt to dodge the draft. 

They have questioned Kerry’s war medals, and how seriously he was wounded – and they went after Senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee war veteran for lack of patriotism! 

This would sound like something from Monty Python if it were not that it resonates so well with a section of American society that sees the military as the personification of patriotic virtues.

Max:  You say in the book that Bush the Younger has made a large proportion of his speeches on military bases or to Veterans, why do you consider this sinister.

Ian: Because it is sinister! 

George W loves dressing up in uniform and being called Commander-in-Chief. 

You have to look to Saddam or Fidel for a head of state who spends so much time in uniform. 

He won’t do town halls or even many press conferences, but he likes a disciplined crowd in uniform.

In fact, I’m not so worried about the military themselves: studies show that many of them will not vote for Bush anyway, not least since while sending billions to contractors he has consistently tried to trim pay and services for serving soldiers.

But his audience is a larger one. 

As I said, using the military as movie extras, as well as car bomb-fodder is designed to show the American public that they need him, big tough W, to protect them from terrorists.

Max: But isn’t this a risky strategy in view of his own inglorious military record as you describe it?

Ian: Yes it is, but not as risky as it should be. 

The American media are sadly very deferential towards Presidents – and indeed to almost anyone with power or money.  And then they can be quite partisan as well.

The stories about Bush’s undistinguished service record have been around for years and always peter out in the face of editorial indifference, even though reporters have done some groundbreaking work on it.

To begin with, Lieutenant Bush was serving along with the scions of the Dixiecrats, like Lloyd Bentsen’s son, so when he ran for governor there, there was not much partisan incentive to bring out the story.

Max: But what happened earlier this year when the question came up again?

Ian:  Since then, the stonewalling by The White House press office has been very effective. 

They try not to tell lies, but some reporters have clearly not been trained in analytical thinking.

Just think. The White House categorically asserts that Bush the Younger has not used drugs since 1974. 

What was he snorting before? 

On February 13 this year, Helen Thomas from UPI tried for the best part of the briefing to get a straight answer to the question: was George W. Bush ever sentenced to community service? 

Scott McClelland  stonewalled and refused to answer, and refused even to promise to ask the President.

It is clear that there is a rotten fish there. We do not know its size or species, but you can smell it!

The White House knows that out there is evidence that could come and bite them in backside if they made a categorical denial of the stories. 

But sadly, they do not have try too hard to throw most of the media off the scent.

Max: But if it’s that obvious why hasn’t the media followed up.

Ian: Well, I suppose if a reporter comes with anything less than the full stinking fish, their editors will tell them that the story has been done before, and anyway you can’t treat the President of the U.S.A. as anything but absolutely innocent unless he actually confesses to desertion on prime time TV.

Max:  So why did you bother?

Ian:  My deadline for the book was April 1 – an appropriate date for a book on Bush’s military career! 

I had been with U.N. peacekeepers from European armies across the world – and these were good people, doing an honorable job.

Several U.S. military people I had spoken to were influential in persuading me. 

There are many who are unhappy with what is happening, even before Abu Ghraib.

In retrospect, the left in the U.S.A. went off track. 

We thought Lt. Calley was typical for the massacre at My Lai – but we should have had Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson for a poster boy.

He landed his helicopter and ordered his door gunner Lawrence Colburn to shoot the GI’s at My Lai , unless they stopped the massacre.

Max: So will President Bush be re-elected?

Ian: Sadly, this is not impossible. 

And by the way, far too many Liberals underestimated George W. Bush. 

He is no intellectual, but he has political acumen and a faith in his own correctness that is spooky for us cynics but spellbinding for so many Americans who give too much credit by far to sincerity, it has caused most wars in history.  

Sincerity untrammeled by reality is very dangerous.

But on the other hand, the sort of Clintonian triangulation that Kerry is so far practicing can appear on a spectrum from downright insincerity to a willingness to see the other side’s point of view so clearly that you lose sight of your own!

What George W. Bush is doing is bad for the military, bad for the civilians and bad for the world. 

I’m no great fan of Freud, but I can’t help feeling that people are dying in deserts on the other side of the world so that "Little Googen," as his mum and dad used to dotingly call him can show he is every bit as hairy-chested a hero as his Dad genuinely was in WWII.

  Email Ian Williams:  IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com

  Just Released: 

Deserter: George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past  

by Ian Williams

Order Now from Amazon.com       http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560256273/wwwmaximsnewc-20/103-2632401-6943852?creative=125577&camp=2321&link_code=as1

Ian Williams' Weekly Columns in MaximsNews.com

Sudan, To Intervene – or not to Intervene?  27 July 2004

Mr. Sharon, Tear Down This Wall!  16 July 2004

William Safire – Warped, on Speed, or Just Running Mad Again?  13 July 2004

Bosnian U.N. Defender Locked Up  7 July 2004

The U.N., the U.S. & the I.C.C.  30 June 2004

The New York Times, William Safire and the United Nations  23 June 2004

Hastily Contrived, Verbose, and Fudged: Security Council Resolution 1546  16 June 2004

Is the U.S. Clever Enough to Rule the World?  9 June 2004

Humor the Beast: the U.S. and the ICC  2 June 2004

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?  20 May 2004

The Solution to the Iraqi Knot  12 May 2004     

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