....LMB: "Mother of All Captured Guys"....

IIRC they were talking about the possibility of "years" of interragation. Now I'm all for the demise of evil dictators (even the ones the US put in power), but isn't that against some sort of convention or something? Oh right, the US doesn't play by the same rules, I'd forgotten.

I too, am not sure what to make of it all :)

I think Bush, the military leaders and friends were disappointed that Hussein wasn't killed. Did you see the interviews with the military personnel involved in the capture. They almost seemed dejected that they didn't get to kill them.

The Hussein capture is overrated. First, we're led to believe that he was involved with 9/11, then we were to believe that he was orchestrating the attacks on the U.S. occupation...from his hole. It won't change the situation. Hussein and the Baathists were an unpopular ruling minority and insurgencies point to a more broad-based movement against American-led occupation.

what do you all make of the notion that the 'capture photos' show a bunch of ripe dates hanging by 'the hole' and that they ripen in july and august, while the 'capture' was in december?? just curious.

Jake---Saddam was not captured by USA.The hole was a prison for him.Saddam was a puppet for USA.
Time for us to apoligize to Saddam and bring him to power and let him Judge the American creeps for death sentences.--Bush and all those Israel lovers.
ISRAOIL--that it is Jake!

Jake---Saddam was not captured by USA.The hole was a prison for him.Saddam was a puppet for USA.
Time for us to apoligize to Saddam and bring him to power and let him Judge the American creeps for death sentences.--Bush and all those Israel lovers.
ISRAOIL--that it is Jake!

Lying media bastards----What would Americans do if the word is out in china---Lets take over the west---Now that we have lots of U.S. cash, lets buy out the Jewish media. I rather have them as bosses!We are servants of the media. Do you think for a momment that the Iraq mess would have happened if the media had not a adjenda--to please Israel.
Nixon tapes---I,m surrounded by Jews. YACKS!CRUMBAAA!----Didn't take him long to know--who controls us.

SO WE HAVE A RICH BOY KERRY,JOINS THE ARMY AND GETS 4 MEDALS AND MEETS THE QUOTA AND COMES HOME.I HAVE TO GIVE THIS GUY GUTS ,EVEN IF HE HAD BUDDIES TO LIE.HE DID COME HOME AND EXPOSED THE WAR AS AMERICAN BUTCHERS ECT.
BUT JR.BUSHIT AND PAPA BUSHIT ARE THE REAL SCAMMERS.
JR.NEVER SERVED IN COMBAT BUT THE SCUM BAG OF ALL IS HIS PAPA BUSH.ONLY A WICKED SHELFISH MINDED PERSON , COULD KILL HIS CREW FOR A TRINKET MEDAL.
READING THE FOLLOWING ESSAY,HE PANICKED OR PLANNED IT FOR A MEDAL OR ONLY THOUGHT OF SAVING HIMSELF. AH!,THE HELL LOW LIFER CREW. THE DITCHING OF THE PLANE AND KILLING THE CREW WAS THE MEANS OF GETTING A WAR MEDAL EASY.BUT THERE WAS A WITNESS GEORGIE BOY! THE PLANE, WAS NOT DAMAGED MUCH,IT COULD OF LANDED.
CASE IN POINT--BOTH BUSH PRESDENTS-- SCUM BAGS!
By Ted Sampley
March/April/May 1997

Former President George Bush, who bailed out of a crippled Navy Avenger bomber 53 years ago, jumped again in March of this year. His World War II jump is historic. It made Bush the only president to ever bail out of an airplane and the only president whose crew mates were sent careening into the ocean because their pilot had abandoned the aircraft.

Accompanied by eight Golden Knights from the Army Precision Parachuting Team and a civilian from the U.S. Parachute Association, Bush's second jump was less eventful and historic. After leaping from a civilian twin-engine airplane at 12,500 feet with two jump masters holding onto his harness, Bush fell until he deployed his parachute at 4,500 feet.

A half a dozen people--including his wife Barbara--rushed to help cushion his landing. Medical emergency personnel were also standing by on the ground. Bush landed about 40 yards from his target at the Army's Yuma Proving Ground, the sprawling base where the Golden Knights train eight weeks a year.

When the 72-year-old former chief executive was asked how he felt, he gave a thumbs up. "It was wonderful. I'm a new man--and I go home exhilarated," he said. "There's a lot of things about my previous incarnation that I do not miss, but I do miss the military," Bush later told base employees.

Prior to the jump, Jim McGrath, Bush's assistant, had said "The reasons behind this [the jump] are strictly personal, . . . It has to do with World War II."

Those cryptic remarks give rise to speculation that Bush may have been, as The London Times put it, "Trying to exorcise demons from his earlier jump, the circumstances of which flared up into controversy during Bush's presidential campaign.

In a 1987 account of the World War II incident, which differed from his earlier versions, Bush told about the incident on television. He claimed that during a bombing run against a Japanese radio installation on ChiChi Island, his plane was hit and engulfed in flames and that he ordered his crew to bail out. He said one did, but his parachute failed. Bush claimed the other crewman did not answer the intercom, so he assumed that the crewman was critically wounded or dead.

Bush, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for action prior to the crash, said that even though the plane was in flames, he managed to fly it on to the target and drop his bombs before he bailed out. Bush admitted, however, that in his rush to get out of the Avenger, he pulled the parachute rip cord too quickly and was gashed on his forehead when he hit the tail of the plane.

Bush's Betrayal

Chester Mierzejewski, an old war buddy of Bush, who said he was angered by the "false assertions" made by candidate Bush when describing the incident, gave a different account.

After 44 years of silence, Mierzejewski, who also was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, told the New York Post that Bush had abandoned his crew to death when there was another choice.

He said he was approximately 100 feet in front of Bush's plane as the turret gunner for Squadron Commander Douglas Melvin's plane, "so close he could see in the cockpit" of Bush's bomber. Mierzejewski's close wartime buddy was one of the two crew members in Bush's plane.

According to Mierzejewski, the squadron was in a tight-formation bombing raid against a Japanese radio installation on an island reported to be heavily fortified. He saw "a puff of smoke" come from Bush's plane which quickly disappeared and was certain only one man parachuted from the plane and that it was Bush, the pilot.

Mierzejewski said the Avenger torpedo bomber was engineered so that it could successfully crash land on water and that Bush doomed his own crew by bailing out and leaving the bomber out of control.

Other World War II veterans also expressed concern about Bush parachuting out of the aircraft. "He had a moral obligation to put that plane in the water in an emergency landing," Robert Flood, a former B-17 bombardier told the press. "He violated the primary rule for a captain of a multi-crew aircraft: The pilot never leaves the airplane with anybody in it."

Pete Brandon, a Marine Corps Avenger pilot, who also served in the South Pacific, said an Avenger pilot had two choices: Set the plane down in the water or hold it steady until the two crewmen could prepare to jump.

"In an Avenger, only the pilot wore a parachute," Brandon said. "The two crewmen wore harnesses. If the order came to bail out, they had to take chest parachutes from a shelf and strap them on - and bail out. The Avenger was very unstable. The pilot had to be at the controls the whole time or it would go right over on its back."

Steve Hart, then Vice President Press Secretary, described Mierzejewski's account as absurd. Hart said, "The Vice President has told us time and time again what happened that day. To suggest that the account is inaccurate is absurd."

What is absurd is the conflicting or missing reports of exactly what happened to Bush's two crew members. According to the Post, the intelligence report on the loss of Bush's plane in September, 1944 notes that it had become "standard doctrine" for VT 51, Bush's bomber squadron, "to make bombing runs on targets near water so as to retire over the water. This puts pilot and crew in position for water rescue in event of forced landing . . . "

The same document reports, without attribution, that "smoke and flame" engulfed Bush's engine, and that "Bush and one other person were seen to bail out. The chute of the other person who bailed out did not open."

The report was signed by Melvin and an intelligence officer, Lt. Martin E. Kilpatrick. Contrary to normal military procedure, the report was not dated and Navy archives were unable to supply a subsequently completed report.

Gunner Lawrence Mueller, who lives in Milwaukee, flew on the ChiChi Jima mission. When asked who had the best view, he replied unhesitatingly: "The turret gunner in Melvin's plane."

Mueller's recollections, jogged by a log book that he kept, support Mierzejewski's account. And it was noted that Bush's plane was the only one from the squadron that did not return. Mueller told the Post, "No parachute was sighted except Bush's when the plane went down." He also said no one mentioned a fire engulfing Bush's plane or he would have noted it in the log book.

The Finback, the sub which picked up Bush from his raft in the water, made no report of a fire on Bush's plane, but did comment on his crew: "Bush stated that he failed to see his crew's parachutes and believed they had jumped when the plane was still over ChiChi Jima, or they had gone down with the plane."

About six hours later, the Finback picked up another pilot, James W. Beckman, from the USS Enterprise, who stated that it was known that only one man had parachuted from Bush's plane. "This decided us to discontinue any further search of that area . . ."

Although the heart of Bush's story about the incident remains the same, Mierzejewski is adamant Bush's account is not the truth and blames Bush for the abandonment and deaths of both men.

"I think he could have saved those lives, if they were alive. I don't know that they were, but at least they had a chance if he had attempted a water landing," Mierzejewski said.
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ISRAOIL---A DIRTY WAR--MADE IN AMERICA-