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July 28, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:20
July 28, 2005, Thursday, Hour #2
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Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Roger Hedgecock here from KOGO Radio in San Diego and getting a lot of feedback.
I did not see this show called Over There, a new series on the FX channel, highly touted.
I knew it was going to be anti-war.
It's about troops in Iraq.
I knew it was going to be anti-war when it was so touted in the LA Times, big pictures and so forth, as a new hit for Stephen Botchko.
Apparently the creator of such wonders as Dougie Houser and NYPD Blue.
Which went on too long.
They should have cut that one off after about five years.
It was pretty good at the beginning, but like a lot of these that go a long time.
They get into themselves.
Yeah.
Cut.
So anyway, Botchko's got this over there.
Is that how you say his name?
Botchko?
I think so.
Over there, a new series.
Here's Master Sergeant, I won't give his name, uh, assistant chief training in a crash and rescue unit.
Here's his response.
Good morning, Mr. Hedgecock.
Wednesday evening I had the misfortune of tuning in to a highly publicized premier FX Channel news series over there.
After five minutes of viewing, I had to turn it off or risk destroying my TV set.
How dare Stephen Botchko and his cohorts depict the men and women serving this great nation as disrespectful self-serving drug abusers?
In one scene, a young enlisted man is shown doing drugs before getting on the plane bound for Iraq.
In another scene, a noncommissioned officer in the field tells his troops not to call him sir, and that one of them will be dead before the end of the week.
What Bravo Sierra?
That's a mer that's a military lingo.
I am a senior noncommissioned officer and can assure you that to demean the rank before junior enlisted personnel is a misnomer perpetrated by perpetrated by the skewed position of this program.
If any of my noncommissioned officers presented themselves in this manner, I guarantee they would be facing an Article 15.
Disciplinary action, and would be on the first available outbound mode of transportation.
Additionally, the individual doing drugs before getting on the OIF transport would not get away with it, period.
DOD policy for drug abuse is zero tolerance, and even in a war zone, random drug testing takes place.
You don't get away with that.
Mr. Hedgecock, he writes, uh this is Master Sergeant.
Mr. Hedgecock, as you very well know, the people serving this great nation are not reluctant, disgruntled draftees.
They have volunteered for service and are responsible, dedicated personnel doing a job they believe in.
Stephen Botchko's program, anti-war statement, is an extreme insult to all of us in uniform and must be exposed for what it is.
Is it just a coincidence that over there premiered the same week that Jane Fonda kicked off her nationwide anti-war bus tour?
Those of us with an ounce of intelligence think not.
I've been in contact with our personnel currently serving in Kirkkuk and can assure you that they have the same sentiments.
Most personnel got up and walked out of the MWR TV area after only a few minutes of viewing.
What I fear is that younger, more impressionable troops will see this propaganda and have their morale negatively affected.
Mr. Botchko, his writers and producers must know this and must be held accountable for the outcome of their blatant rip misrepresentation of the facts.
Please share these thoughts with your listeners.
And he says, I want them to know that the caliber of their military personnel is much higher than what Hollywood wants everyone to believe.
Well, Master Sergeant, we know that, and now the whole world knows it.
And uh we appreciate your input.
I did not see the program.
I can't make the same comment about it.
But if it is about Bush, the war on terror and the military, and comes out of Hollywood, when was the last time you saw a supportive pro-America approach?
I guess I've gotten numb, immune to the concept that Hollywood ought to be supportive of a program that is bringing so many benefits to the people of that area.
You know that they're gonna be I guess you don't know because it's not in the media this way.
These folks under a war With an insurgency funded from all over the world by the most reactionary forces on this planet, forces that would return us to the seventh century, culturally and politically,
these forces are being combated by the mass of Iraqi people, the elected government, which is writing a constitution which is on time, under a war.
They're writing a constitution.
We wrote our constitution after the war in this country.
It's tough enough.
They didn't even have AC in Philadelphia in July.
And so here's uh here's uh Iraq.
By the way, it's 124 yesterday in Baghdad.
124.
Imagine your troops out there, 60 pounds of gear minimum, head to toe, 124 degrees.
So that's uh that's the uh the front in Iraq.
I want to get back to the war on terror in a moment, but I want to mark, along with uh President, uh El Presidente Fidel Castro, the 52nd anniversary of his revolution.
Fifty-two years ago, the liberals in this country celebrated along with the communists in Cuba, the armed assault on a military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago, Cuba, which set off the revolution that triumphed on uh New Year's day in 1959.
And for those of us with long memories, Fidel Castro then came to New York and was uh celebrated, lionized, fawned over by the liberal elites of uh this country as a true agrarian reformer, a true revolutionary who overthrew the hated American-backed military dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista.
Fifty years later, the awful, squalid, terrified, poor, oppressed population of Cuba might have a different opinion.
Isn't it time, ladies and gentlemen, to devise a policy that doesn't just tolerate Cuba as exhibit A of why communism doesn't work, or whatever else we're using Cuba for?
Isn't it time that we reach out to the people of Cuba and say, your hell is over?
In what I don't know what way.
Not saying we should invade Cuba, but there ought to be some way to give some hope to the people of Cuba.
That forty-six years of actual terrorism, state terrorism by Fidel Castro and his thugs, someday somehow is going to be over.
Little hopeful signs that even the numbed population of uh Cuba dependent for their very food on being uh fawning enough over over Castro.
Little signs, small sporadic protests, scattered anti-government graffiti now around Havana, the first signs that enough is enough.
What can we do to help?
What can we do to give some hope to those people that the United States won't again turn the blind eye to the longest-running terrorist regime on this planet, to the most oppressed people outside of North Korea, perhaps Burma, on this planet.
Okay, Zimbabwe.
Okay, there's a list.
1800-282-2882.
Now, um, I am, of course, uh indebted to radio for my living.
Uh Mrs. Hedgecock is grateful for the paycheck and the mortgage payment on time.
So uh I'm a radio guy.
I I'm very unhappy about this use of radio.
The terrorist organization, Hamas, has been using its official radio station in Gaza.
Now, this is the area the Isra uh Israelis are pulling out of in order to show good faith in the idea that two states can live side by side in peace.
One Palestinian, one Israeli.
This fantasy has to be backed up by massive doses of LSD.
I don't know what they're doing there.
I mean, I personally don't believe it's ever going to happen, nor could it.
I think there's just a fundamental disconnect to reality.
But that's just me.
Here's here's what's happening today, though, that supports my position.
Hamas is using its official radio station.
And believe me, if you trace this back, I bet American taxpayers paid for it.
It's official radio station in Gaza to broadcast instructions to its terrorists in the field in firing mortars and rockets at Gaza's Jewish communities even as they prepare to withdraw.
It's not enough that they're going away and leaving the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians.
You've got to kill them as they leave.
In order to build goodwill.
I guess.
In order to show how we can be such good neighbors.
Let me mortar your kids.
And then have the radio station up there, you know, with all of its sources and contacts, directing where the mortar fire ought to go.
I don't know.
This fantasy about these two nations.
It sounds good in the United States, but I've been to Israel three times.
I've been to Palestine.
I've been rocked in Ramallah.
Okay?
I could I I have better I have better stories than uh Bono.
Uh I've been rocked in Ramallah, and I don't mean music.
So I've been there.
I've observed it, I've seen it.
I don't think it's ever going to happen.
That war is going to continue until one side is victorious and the other side is dead.
And I'm sorry to I'm sorry to be so blunt because I know Americans just turn away from that.
Oh, it can't be.
Reasonable people can reason together.
Yes, they can.
If there were any out there, we could probably achieve it.
There aren't.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, Infor Rush Limbaugh, 1800 28282.
Here calls next after this short break.
And we're back on the Rush Limbaugh program, 1-800-282-2882 here at the EIB network and taking your calls today.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for the vacationing Rush Limbaugh.
Here's Ben on a cell phone in Long Island, New York.
Hi, Ben.
Hello, Ben.
Go ahead.
Hi, uh, I just wanted to talk about your comment before about how Cuba is somehow a terrorist organization, somehow a terrorist nation.
That's completely ridiculous.
He's a com Fidel Castor is a communist dictator like any other communist dictator.
Just because there are the people don't didn't vote for him doesn't mean his popularity is any less in Cuba.
You go to Cuba, you ask anyone, they will still support support Castro.
Just because they don't have nice things like new cars or uh you know streets that aren't are uh broken up.
It doesn't change the fact that he's been a good leader for the last fifty years.
Yeah, he they try he was organized with uh with the USSR and tried to bring missiles.
That that's that.
No, no, they never attacked us.
And the only reason we're even talking about this is because Castor's gonna die soon.
And we're gonna build casinos back and make lots of money.
So I don't know why you would even bring it up.
It's completely ridiculous.
Well, Ben, I'll tell you why I bring it up.
And I'll tell you why I said the word terrorism.
As we speak today, a communist insurgency in Bolivia is threatening the democracy of that country and it's uh and a lot of its uh backed by a lot of people, but the point that's been to Bolivia about their politics.
Other than the the buzzword democracy, the buzzword democracy does not always mean good.
Okay.
Have you been to Bolivia?
No, have you been to Bolivia?
Okay, then Ben Ben, then please allow me to finish.
I I allowed you to finish your point, and you made your point.
Now you're gonna allow me to finish my point, okay?
Here it is.
Fidel Castro has never, since 1953, when he began to do it in Cuba, stopped, has never stopped fomenting revolution to s to replace democratic regimes or semidemocratic regimes or even dictatorship regimes with communist tyranny.
It is his dedication, his lifetime passion.
It is undeniable that he is in many countries of Central and South America, along with his new ally and buddy Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, continuing to foment as much discontent as possible.
What?
For the purpose of increasing the standard of living of people?
No, he demonstrably cannot do that because he's a communist.
He decreases the standard of living and has done so in Cuba systematically.
People in Cuba will say, oh, I'm all for Fidel, El Maximo Lider, sure, of course, because my job, my food, my kids, my schooling, my med everything is dependent on me saying the right thing at the right time.
Do you think people in Cuba say things about uh Fidel because they like Fidel?
Hell he's never had an open election there.
If he's really that well liked, why doesn't he have an open and free and fair election?
Because uh Ben, I hate to bring it to you, he wouldn't win.
So I don't know, uh Ben, I just think the definition of s of of terrorism is when you put your troops into Angola and murder a lot of black Africans because they won't become communists.
His troops into Angola.
Fidel is sitting on an island with his little country around him.
Man, how old are you?
Look at the world are you quite that's democracy?
How old are you?
I'm twenty five.
All right.
You weren't around when Fidel put divisions of Cuban troops into Africa in Angola in support of Mr. Savimbi's communist revolution to take over the oil.
By the way it was a revolution for oil.
They wanted the Chevron and other oil deposits that were there to nationalize them to help Cuba to have another source of oil.
It was a war for oil.
You got to look at your history Ben.
Okay, fine.
It was a war for oil.
They invaded they sent troops into Angola to invade to help the the leadership that sounds kind of like what we did in Iraq we sent troops to support our oil.
Thanks for uh understanding my point, Ben, and I appreciate the call to the program.
Let's go to Robert in Miami, Florida.
Robert, welcome to the Rush Program.
First thing that I called for was the thank you uh for saying what the truth is about Cuba.
I couldn't express it better myself than what you did.
Uh that gentleman which is twenty five years old I imagine that he's going to uh some university up north where they teach the wrong things about Cuba.
People over there have liked them since the early sixties.
That's why they have so many uh people leaving Cuba since then if they they liked them so much they wouldn't leave Cuba before Fidel was one of the nations that least that least uh people left from uh to other countries and now is at one of the highest in America uh I want in percentage wise I wonder why and I call just to thank you for saying those words that you did because I can't express them as well as you can.
Robert let me ask you a question.
Are you uh are you Cuban?
Yes I am give me your thoughts and if you can in about a minute I don't want an extended thing but can you give me a quick thought what should America do now to uh give hope to the eleven million Cubans who are basically in jail in the longest running tyranny on this planet.
They are in jail, and what we're asking, hoping that it happens, is that we can create some kind of communication between the whole island, the Cuban people, because they don't have media, they don't have communication skills.
And somehow we can get the word out for the Cuban people, this is what they're waiting for, which is gotten phone calls from them saying that give us a sign so we can go out on the street and protest.
but since there's no communications, if there's anything, anything possible, possible for this government that we have today uh the Republican Party or or the government or Mr. Bush to do something some communication to the whole island to say you guys can do this on your own and we'll back you I think it wouldn't last another two weeks.
I tend to agree with you, Robert.
I appreciate the call.
This early idealism of the revolution and tearing down the dictatorship and the privileged class and the oppressive rich and all of that lasted for a couple of years, and then they realized as they looked around that all those oppressive rich who employed them and paid them were not there anymore.
And now the government was paying them and requiring them to think a certain way and act a certain way, and even the church which had been there for five hundred years was a hobbled in neutered in uh in Cuba by a uh all pervasive, tyrannical government.
And even when Castro panicked after the Soviet Union collapsed, for example, lost his oil, lost his uh revenue, lost his subsidy from the Soviets, and he had to do something.
So he allowed Spain and other selected European countries to come in with private enterprise, build hotels, well allowed tourism.
Uh and he found that uh the doctors were driving cabs and the uh and and and all that kind of stuff because they could make more money doing that than being doctors.
We got to get rid of this guy now.
CNN showing pictures of this uh large uh fuel uh tank that they jettisoned from the shuttle after it successfully enters orbit, the one that the foam came off of as they were coming off the pad.
And there's it it's it's they they followed it as it was jettisoned, it's falling back to Earth, and stuff's falling coming off of it even as it's going back down.
It's just terrible.
1 800 282 2882.
Hey, back to the calls.
Here's uh Drew in Ohio on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Drew.
Hey, Roger.
I just wanted to uh say I think you know, we're forgetting uh history with uh Castro in on October 25th, 1983, you know, I jumped in and took the lives of two Cuban soldiers.
I'd gladly do it again to protect American lives and and other interests in the world, and the only regret I have is that we didn't stop at Cuba on the way back.
This is uh Grenada you're talking about.
Correct.
Well, God bless you, sir.
That to thank you for that service because if memory serves, this was a situation in which there were six hundred uh Cuban troops down there and they were disguised as airport workers trying to build a an airport for Maurice Bishop, the the communist that would be w wannabe fidel uh down there, and uh and uh we went in there.
Remember that Clint Eastwood movie that was what did you did you see that Clinton Eastwood movie on this thing?
Well, yeah, Heartbreak Ridge.
Yeah.
I've seen it many times as a matter of fact, that movie is based on uh my company only they used Marines, they weren't allowed to use Rangers at the time, so it was it's told with Marines thinking the island, but truth be known, you know, we took it.
So it was Army Rangers.
Correct.
Well, Drew, thank you for your service to your country, and I'm uh one of those who agrees with you.
We should have had a stopover in Havana on the way back and taken care of the original problem.
Again, Castro has been the most the most meddling.
I mean, they always say the United States and unilaterally intervenes here, there and elsewhere.
Nonsense.
The most meddling interventionist oriented government on this planet is Fidel Castro.
His troops are everywhere.
Sometimes they call them doctors, sometimes they call them airport workers, you know, whatever they have to.
He's been all over Africa, he's all over South America.
He's got troops in Colombia now supporting the communist insurgency against the elected government, supported also by next door neighbor Venezuela, if you know your geography here, I know this isn't taught in the public schools, so whip out an antique map and take a look at it.
Uh Venezuela next door, Hugo Chavez, the wannabe fidel, and they're using the oil money, selling it to the United States, taking the money, putting it into the uh the rebels down there in the jungles in Colombia, and trying to to put some life back into a rebellion that had been virtually extinguished because of lack of public support and the uh and the concurrent Colombian public support for the elected president down there, Uribi.
All right, Derek in Detroit, Michigan, next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Derek.
Good afternoon.
How are you doing, Mr. Haskott?
Good, I'm doing well.
How about you?
I'm fine.
Thank you.
Um I just had a question.
Yeah.
Why is it that everyone that does not fall a hundred percent in lockstep in agreement with President Bush is anti-American.
I've been I I've been trying to get some of my conservative friends to explain it to me.
Now, I'm independent who voted for Bush because I thought he was the best man for the job.
Okay.
But I don't understand why it is that conservative commentators such as yourself say that anybody that doesn't a hundred percent agree with President Bush is anti-American and a Bush hater.
Well, you haven't heard that from me, Derek, because if you listened yesterday, I was w going on and on about how I disagreed with Bush on the immigration issue and keeping the borders open.
Um I'm not I'm not talking about the border.
I'm talking about specifically when it comes to Iraq and the quote unquote war on terror.
Oh, well, I yeah, I've got a f feeling about this, Derek, that when your country's at war and you've got a determined enemy, uh the the best strategy for the e the the quickest victory And the fewest number of people dying is for the country to unite, uh, get the job done, and then come home.
Now we rarely don't no matter what, if you're if you're you're not a hundred percent in agreement, then you're anti-American.
I don't understand that.
I just think that's a good thing.
Well, you know, and we haven't anybody actually declaring war.
I don't well, the Congress did.
But I don't look, I don't agree with your premise that it has to be a hundred percent because I remember myself being critical of the fact that we weren't doing enough in Iraq on the insurgency.
We weren't doing enough uh in Afghanistan on uh finding bin Laden.
I mean, I haven't been a hundred percent.
If that's the litmus test, then uh I'm you know, I fall on the other side of the line with you, Derek.
I'm I'm not saying a hundred percent.
I wouldn't say a litmus test per se.
What like okay, for example, I believe that the entire reason we're in Iraq is because we could not immediately place hands on bin Laden.
We couldn't immediately done everything and the country's done a great job in dismantling Al Qaeda.
Yeah.
A great job.
But because we didn't within an expeditious amount of time put our hands on Bin Laden, we had to do something to show the rest of the world that you can't just arbitrarily attack our country.
I agree with that a hundred percent.
President Bush came out and made the point about the WMDs.
Everybody believed there was WMDs, but nobody found the WMD.
So when people who don't agree with President Bush say, well, what about the WMDs?
The comeback from the from the the right is well, isn't the world a better place with Saddam Gone?
Yes, of course he is.
But our premise, what our president brought to us was he has these WMDs and he's gonna give them the terrorists unless we go in and stop him.
That's what the premise was.
Well, that was one of them.
There was twenty-two of them in the Senate uh resolution that declared the war in the first place.
There was twenty-two grounds.
And by the way, Derek, the only thing that gets me about people who are are critical of Bush on WMD is that they are the very people, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and others, who voted yes in nineteen ninety-eight on a finding of regime change in Iraq.
It wasn't Bush who started this, it was Clinton.
In the Clinton administration in 1998, they had a resolution passed by Congress, including the Democrats who who the later criticized Bush, making a finding that uh that uh Saddam Hussein was a threat to world peace, that he had weapons of mass destruction, that he'd violated the United Nations uh uh re uh uh inspectors thing and all the resolutions.
That that that was all done by Clinton.
So when Bush came along and said, Yeah, I agree, suddenly all those people that were opposed to him politically said, Well, there's no weapons of mass destruction.
Well, all of them felt there were weapons of mass destruction in ninety-eight.
Right.
I okay.
Um like I say, I'm uh my my issue is, you know, I don't have an issue.
I love my country.
And I support my president a hundred percent.
I voted for him.
I would rather see President Bush in there than John Kerry.
He was a waffler.
I could not imagine Al Gore being in that position.
No.
You know, I uh one of the things I applaud the president for is his decisiveness.
But when when commentators from the Republican side constantly say that if you don't if if well if you criticize President Bush, if you criticize some of the things that have gone on, you're anti-American.
That's not necessarily true.
No, it's not true.
That's not necessarily true because we're we're all Americans.
No, it's not I agree with you.
Listen, I agree with you.
It's not true.
And and and frankly, Derek, I don't hear that.
I I certainly don't hear that in my programs.
I don't hear that from a lot of people.
I I know President Bush.
I know members of his family, I know I listen, I come from San Diego, man.
We we're uh we're a home port for lots of ships.
We're we're uh we've got a lot of military families we try to take care of here.
Uh we've got Camp Pendleton where the Marines do a uh their training uh in addition to the one in South Carolina.
But but I'm you know, so Derek, listen, I'm I'm uh uh a hundred percent in terms of supporting this president in this war, but even even with that I've been critical of things that have happened as well.
So I don't I wouldn't be too worried about people who say you're uh you're anti patriotic if you uh criticize the president.
Uh hell president gets much more than his share of criticism and uh and I don't think that's gonna go away.
But Derek, I appreciate your sentiments uh behalf of this country.
Here's Steve in uh Canoga Park, California.
Hi Steve, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Uh hi, Runge.
You know, everything you said about uh communists and Castro and Cuba, I could say the same about the people that run Mexico City.
They've been exporting their leftist ideology and their people all throughout the Americas and worldwide for thirty years.
Well, they haven't been sending the army.
Well, wait, wait, wait, Steve.
They haven't been sending their armies around supporting uh communist insurgency.
What where?
Well, we have twenty million people in America subsidies.
You're talking about something different, Steve.
Now don't make that don't try to slide.
I'm sorry, you're not making sense.
You're t I was talking about the army of Cuba being used and exported to support communist insurgencies in third world countries.
When Mexican uh people come here as illegal immigrants, that is a problem.
I've talked about it incessantly for twenty years, but it is not the same thing, nor are they coming here with a leftist ideology.
They may some of them been becoming here with a reconquista form of Mayor Via Ragosa lately.
It must be leftist to me.
I've looked at it, and Steve, you can you can come up with that because Mr. Vila Ragosa is a uh is a leftist.
He's a union organizer, he's a reconquista Maraza guy.
He is the typical, he is the new Californian.
Well, he is the demographic result of thirty years of abandoning and pandemic bordering for Steve, that's just too pessimistic for me.
The fact is that even in 1877, when we had our proposition to deny illegals uh uh welfare benefits and the like, we've got forty forty plus percent of uh Latino voters voting for that.
And it's people like Villa Ragosa want to ignore that.
They want to ignore the fact that there's a vast middle class of Latinos who are pro-America, who aren't socialists, who aren't trying to get a free ride, they are hardworking.
There are people like you describe, ain't no question about it, and we obviously have I don't want to get that email again.
There's no question about it, and we obviously have uh work to do.
So uh Steve, uh I I just can't take your blanket statement that Mexico is like Cuba.
It isn't.
CAFTA isn't a phone book.
I'm sorry?
Capta, let's talk about CAFT.
It's a phone book full of special interests, exceptions, and the loss of our sovereignty.
It could have been one page.
You sell our stuff in your country uh without taxes, and we do the same to you.
Yeah, I've talked about Kevin.
It's not perfect, but Steve, I tell you what, it's it's sunny out in Canoga Park.
Take a walk, uh, have some orange juice, uh, watch the birds for a while.
Uh, you gotta get in a more positive frame of mind, man, because uh this is you're you're on a downward spiral, and I hate to hear that from our listening audience here at the Rush Limbaugh program.
Back right after this.
Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Roger Hedgecock filling in for Russia.
He'll be back on Monday, well-deserved vacation here in the midst of this heat heat heat all over most of the country.
A little cool coming in in the northeast now.
We, of course, are uh wonderful.
We've export we've uh exported our uh illegal Mexican humidity, and we're doing much better down here in San Diego for that.
Here's uh here's Jimmy on a cell phone in Tampa, Florida.
Hi there.
Hey, how you doing, Roger?
All right, what's up?
No, I've just uh been listening to this letter you've been reading about that show over there.
I watched the show, I was in the the army, I was in a combat unit, and I don't know the politics of uh the producer or anything like that, but I thought it was uh pretty realistic, a lot of the situations that they showed, whether they'd be personal or or what was happening uh overseas.
So if this is the only letter you've gotten, then uh I would say it'd be pretty reasonable to just throw it in the trash unless you've gotten a lot of other opinions that were negative about the show.
Where where did you serve?
I served in First Ranger Battalion in the nineties.
Yeah.
Well, this uh you know, it's interesting uh because I'm sure that a lot of it is realistic.
You know, you think of the uh the Hanks stuff on uh D Day and that and that's and and that uh saving Private Ryan and some of the realistic stuff.
But uh I I I don't know.
This guy was objecting to the drug use right after, you know, right before he got on the plane.
He's objecting to the the way they handle some of the uh situation between the noncomms and the and the enlisted and and I don't know, you did you have any reaction to any of that?
No, none of it.
I I really I didn't think it was negative, I thought it was realistic.
I mean, I was in the service, the military is a part of society, and you do have guys that participate in drug use.
You know, the way the non I was a non commissioned officer, you know, and and one of the scenarios was he told one of the new privates, hey, if you endanger another one of my guys again, I'll shoot you myself.
That is completely and totally realistic.
I don't see a problem with it, and I don't think it's a a negative.
I don't think it's any kind anything negative on any of the members of the military.
Well, I appreciate your call, uh, Jimmy, because I didn't see it, so I can't give you a uh firsthand reaction, but I appreciate your first hand reaction.
Thanks for calling.
All right, let's go to Jerry in Florida.
Lots of Florida calls today.
Hi, Jerry.
How are you doing, Roger?
Thank you for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
Uh uh I'm a Cuban American, and I in a way I thank Castro because I could say I'm a Cuban American.
If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here.
But uh So I I he has one positive.
I mean, I wouldn't have the wife I have and the son I have, and and the life I have if it wasn't for him.
I I think that you were asking, what can we do to help those actually imprisoned people there?
I still have family, and yes, they had in prison.
Uh probably and in in opposition to many of my colleagues, uh, we should open uh doors.
They there shouldn't be an embargo, because the embargo is the force.
And the reason why Castro has been so successfully powered is because whenever there's no food in Cuba to get the people that are not closed, he said, Well, we have a Yankee embargo, and therefore that I can give you food and I can't so the embargo has helped them.
I think that what we should do, like we've done with this we did with the Soviet Union, we do with other communist countries around the world is that we export the best thing that we have our freedom.
I you know, there's an ar that is an argument, uh Jerry, and I guess the counter argument to it is uh the Castro has such total control that when he did and and and I guess when he had he invited the Spanish and others to come in, you know, Spaniards came in and and built some hotels and made some EU made some private investment in there.
He so controlled it that there wasn't uh any ability to see the benefits of freedom.
Uh the government because the government skimmed off the money and then took credit for whatever they did in building clinics and so forth after they stole the money, and then they kicked the private enterprise guys out, wouldn't allow them to buy anything there permanently.
And so, you know, when you've got a tyranny like that, it's very tough to have trade because they don't follow the capitalist rules.
I agree, but one of the major uh uh events that happened to Cubans in Cuba was right after the Morel Boatliff, uh he allow us in exile, as a matter of fact, he called us worms since the sixties.
Now he calls those butterflies because it is our responsibility to help the community, the Cuban community in Cuba.
Those are his words.
So he allowed us to go back.
And this is and bring and then all of a sudden the Cuban people saw that as I was taught in school in Cuba that in here, blacks and Hispanics and all all minorities.
Dogs were thrown at them, people were uh kept down that were oppressed.
All of a sudden you saw somebody who worked in the service industry who swept floors at night in some office building in Manhattan, all of a sudden went back and in two weeks spent ten thousand dollars.
And this is they they said, Well, how can this be?
So that in itself fomented a movement within the Cuban people, the the Cuban human rights uh movement came out of that.
That they've they realized that all this thing that for 40 years they've been taught, it's not true.
Yeah, and you know what, Jerry, we've got to have this debate, and I appreciate your call, and I've got to run to a break.
But it does uh it does ignite a debate we need to have in this country.
A 40-year policy.
I mean, if Fidel's a failure, but our our our failure to come up with a better policy in 40 years is a failure too.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, in for rush back after this.
All right, a little up against the uh break here, and uh what we're gonna do in the next uh hour.
We've got the special guest coming up.
We've uh the latest on the uh British uh and the and the uh war threat, uh the terror threat there.
We're going to go to the Hill, which is not a name of Hillary Clinton's newspaper, but is actually a newspaper of Capitol Hill, and the the uh Judge Roberts uh nomination as well.
Podcasting hits mainstream, says the New York Times.
They haven't been listening to Rush.
They've got to start listening a little more often over there.
Podcasting hits the mainstream.
It did a long time ago when Rush Limbaugh started putting this show on the podcast.
And thank you for putting the guest hosts up there, Rush as well.
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