Here's what "HACK" has to say!

[Gimpy]

Here is the latest column written by retired Col. David Hackworth, the most decorated Infantry soldier of the Vietnam War and author of several books.

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09-15-2003

Time for Straight Talk

By David H. Hackworth

Recent polls reveal that 70 percent of Americans honestly believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 ? a powerful testimony to Karl Rove and the neoconservative propaganda machine.

Connecting the dots where there aren?t any in order to pin the rap on Saddam is about as bent as ignoring Saudi Arabia?s very real involvement in 9/11. But that linkage just might inconvenience a bunch of crooked oil barons doing ?bidnezz? with their porker pals in Washington.

The cold facts are that the destruction of the twin towers was carefully planned by the al-Qaeda gang led by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi fundamentalist Muslim who would probably sooner form some sort of alliance with the state of Israel than join forces with Saddam, whom he?s always considered as corrupt an infidel as the rest of us. Count on it ? no fingerprints from former top Iraqi leadership will ever be found tying Baghdad to 9/11.

Several years before that sad, calamitous September day, my wife and I moved from New York City to Connecticut. As a contributing editor for Newsweek who?s spent a fair amount of my life studying terrorism and insurgency, I could see a tsunami-grade terrorist attack coming as clearly as the cityscapes of the towers we used to seek out during early morning constitutionals. That is, until my fears finally convinced my wife that we should move to safer ground.

As I pumped grunt sources, read thousands of reports and slowly put the terrible puzzle together, all the arrows pointed toward our being whacked ? just as the fall of Saigon seemed inevitable to me after comparing that bloody reality to the Nixon/Kissinger spin on how well the phony ?peace with honor? Vietnamization program was going.

And as in Vietnam in 1971, I began sounding the alarm about this imminent new terrorist threat during well-attended speeches across America, as a talking head on hundreds of TV and radio shows and in this column. I even did a major piece for Maxim?s August 2000 issue called ?World War III: Terrorism,? which outlined five possible scenarios Osama?s boys might use in five U.S. cities ? including the Big Apple.

The general underwhelming reaction was: ?Well, Hackworth's finally lost it, and he should fade away.?

Instead, I held my position and kept putting out the word while Eilhys and I built our house of bricks at a careful distance from what's now known as Ground Zero.

On the two-year anniversary of 9/11, both the hardliners within the administration and the chicken hawks on the airwaves are stubbornly continuing to blame the strikes on Saddam, painting his tyrannical regime as a major player in the Islamic fundamentalist jihad to maintain support for our gigantic misadventure in Iraq. It was the same sort of scare tactics the manipulators used during the Vietnam War when they kept asserting that a defeat there would be the key domino falling and we?d soon be defending the beaches of the West Coast from invading commies.

Once again, most Americans ? including a lot of red-faced lawmakers ? have fallen for the old Hitler trick: Tell a lie often enough and the people will believe it.

The losers are our soldiers still stuck in the sand, the scores of fallen warriors who were quietly buried from ?sea to shining sea,? the hundreds of maimed who are maxing out our military hospitals, and the American taxpayers who?ll be laying out big bucks for a war against terrorism that has struck the wrong target.

And we?re talking another big win for Osama, who?s out there somewhere sucking the sweet Pakistani mountain air as he plots yet more genocide against an America whose homeland defenses ? despite the billions of dollars blown ? are perhaps only marginally better than pre-9/11.



The Bush administration has a responsibility to tell the American people the truth, not feed us more self-serving lies ? now more than ever, since so many good folks are too busy looking for jobs to separate the cow mounds from the grass.



And the buck doesn?t stop there: We the people need to understand that if we aren?t vigilant and insistent on the truth, then we are one with the liars who got us into this mess in the first place.



The address of David Hackworth's home page is Hackworth.com. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is ?Steel My Soldiers? Hearts.?

? 2003 David H. Hackworth.

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[BLUEHAWK]

Gimpy -
I read Hack's autobio many years ago, ever since have had nothing but respect for him. If he's thinking and saying these things, then there's more than a grain of truth in them. I know Scout will disagree, again.

However, I'll say it another time... if Bush had not aligned himself with the American Enterprise Insiitute and Project for the New American Century, then maybe what Hack is referring to would not have happened. They are intellectual terrorists... domination of this presidency is their anthrax.

It's too damn late at this point. The only way to put a stop to them is: a) somehow get him to change the advisory oil out there, or b) vote Bush out of office. I'll add a totally insane option, c) Draft McCain.

[blues clues]

mike, how about this Clark/McCain together now that would be nice never happen but it sounds nice it might pull this country together.
razz
PS I know their from two partys

[BLUEHAWK]

Razz-
Interesting... wonder if some of the guys on PF who knew Clark on duty would go along, they seemed pretty set agin' him elsewhere. I'd go along with practically anything if it would put McCain at the stick. Maybe later Dubya could come back if he wanted to, but we need(ed) a guy like JMcC. He's makin' a whole lot of sense to me these past years, like Hack usually does.

It kinda was disappointing during the invasion weeks, when Hack was on Larry King panels though. They went to him fairly seldom and briefly, hard for him to get words in edgewise... I think we missed a lot of wisdom from the guy during that critical period of time... and heard too much pap from bigger mouths. What I believe is that active duty troopers would, most of 'em, respect Hack... and that counts for a great deal in my book. All but the "Love it Or Leave it" partisans have got to at least give Hack a fair hearing and take him seriously.

Nice to fantasize though ain't it.

[Gimpy]

It ain't gonna happen Blue!

Just a short few years ago when Hack was "hammering" Slick Willy----he was the "darling" of the "compassionate" conservatives & all the ultra-wing fanatics who were championing his words.

Ain't it funny how he has NOW become a "traitor", and malicious, un-authoritative, selfish & without any moral objectivity according to some of those "same" folks who were singing his praises not that long ago???? :cd: :cd: :cd: :cd: :cd:

[BLUEHAWK]

Gimp -
Yup, now, ain't we larnin' WHAT it means to be American?

Yessiree...

& you & me & other'ns among us ain't never fergettin' fer a minute.

We'll get over, we surley will... by the simple power of truth and justice.

[MORTARDUDE]

Gimpy :

simple question.....


Who on here, or where ever, made these comments about Col.
Hackworth ?

your quote...

" Ain't it funny how he has NOW become a "traitor", and malicious, un-authoritative, selfish & without any moral objectivity according to some of those "same" folks who were singing his praises not that long ago??? "

unquote...

Col. Hackworth, as he describes himself, is a "truth teller". He is certainly not a traitor....get a grip...

Larry

[the humper]

Hack and myself fought, a distance of 10+ miles apart in the largest single battle of the whole war, in '51, and, believe me, it was a bitch!! We have had personal conversations several times over the years, and, he is as straight as any folks I've met. And Gimp, if you want to sing his praises or demean him, why don't you do it on his site? (Just an original thought) Been there, done that.
SF
NC

[BLUEHAWK]

Larry and Humper -
If I'm not mistaken, what I believe Gimpy was trying to show is that THE OTHER guys are now trying to claim Hack is the bad guy, after they used him to bolster their own position years ago. Which is, as far as I can tell, an accurate assertion... "they" ARE doing exactly that!

[Gimpy]

That's EXACTLY what I was saying!

Humper, I've been to his site----and I do have great respect for the guy. I met him just last year at a book signing here in Tampa for his latest book---"Steel My Soldiers Hearts".

Dude---I didn't say anyone around "here" had made those exact statements---but there have been others in various forms of newspaper and magazine articles as well as other internet discussion forums who have.