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July 28, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:31
July 28, 2005, Thursday, Hour #3
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Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Welcome back.
What a great day.
Hope it is a great day where you are.
And I don't want to shock.
I don't think there is no plan here to shock you out of your usual expectation that what you hear in the media is bad news.
I think we are almost now conditioned as Americans to accept as normal characterizations of our leaders and our country as evil and bad and corrupt and inefficient and whatever, you know, fill in the word.
That things are going to hell in a handbasket, to put it in the vernacular.
Everywhere and under every circumstance, particularly when Republicans are in charge.
And I don't I don't mean to swim against the tide here in any shocking way, but you should know that, well, uh, it isn't all true.
There are some remarkably good pieces of news.
Now I said this the other day, and I know you blocked it out, but I think you have these filters now that are built, as I say conditioned.
It's like Pavlov.
You're conditioned here.
If you hear something good about the United States, it just goes in one ear and out the other.
As my mother used to say about parental commands when I was about ten.
This is research by the Pew Pew PEW, Global Attitudes Project.
Now, before I go any farther, this is not a conservative or uh neocon bastion.
The uh Pew folks, uh let's see, this group is co-chaired by Madeline Albright.
Okay.
And when they have done research in the Muslim world about the United States that makes the United States look bad, they've published it in every newspaper, every uh every media outlet you can imagine.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project has now published remarkably good news for America, and I have seen it nowhere.
Max Boot and his guest uh op-ed piece uh from the Council on Foreign Relations is my source.
I okay, I did see it in his column.
Over the last three years, the the Pew surveys have been charting, says Max Boot, this surging anti-Americanism in response to the invasion of Iraq and other actions by the Bush administration.
But in a most recent poll conducted in May, 17,000 respondents in 17 countries.
The view of America is getting better.
Remarkably better.
Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the United States?
Twenty-three percent increase in Indonesia, 15 percent increase in Lebanon, 2 percent increase in Pakistan.
Okay, we're still not doing well there.
16 percent up in Jordan.
And by the way, they didn't just confine themselves to Muslim countries.
In France, Germany, Russia, and India, America's reputation is up.
Now, what accounts for the shift?
Well, uh can I just offer this.
Nothing breeds success like success.
I know in this country we're not used to saying Iraq is a success.
We just are uh conditioned to believe that Iraq is a failure.
Well, there are many bumps in the road, uh obviously, and realistic you can't be Pollyanish about it.
It's more successful than our occupation of Germany.
It took nine years to get an elected government, national government that was really independent.
Nine years or six years, something like that, in Germany.
It took in Japan several years before we extinguished the insurgency.
People who refused to believe that was the emperor telling them to give up, since they never heard the emperor, it could have been anybody.
It's the first time anybody in Japan had heard the emperor was on that radio broadcast.
Please give up.
Who's that?
That's the emperor.
No, it isn't.
So in these countries, success by the United States, and backed up by sincerity of our commitment to democracy and freedom, because that's what people in the Muslim world now see.
This is why Egypt is under such stress.
They haven't had a free election there.
Mubarak's gonna run for the what, the four fourth or fifth time, been there twenty-some years.
All been rubber stamp elections.
Now they're gonna actually have, wow, we're gonna allow opponents.
Do you think that's coming hard because Mubarak is suddenly a Democrat?
No.
It's because we've been a success.
We've given Iraqis what Egyptians don't have.
We've given Afghanis what Egyptians don't have.
And Egyptians know it.
So again, what's happening to the American reputation?
First of all, their view of us is going up.
That's we already did those numbers.
Secondly, they asked about Osama bin Laden and uh the uh the uh uh Islamic uh jihad.
Nearly three quarters of Moroccans believe that Islamic extremism is a threat to their own country.
Half of Pakistanis, this is a surprise, half of Pakistanis believe Islamic extremism is a threat to their country.
Suicide bombing, do you support that?
Dramatically down in all Muslim countries, except Jordan, which has a large anti-Israeli Palestinian population.
I've been in Jordan, by the way, very interesting place.
And uh uh the uh well, I don't want to get deeply into this, but the uh the biggest number of uh Palestinians ever killed, so far anywhere, have been killed by the Jordanians when they tried to uh revolt uh what was it, 30 years ago, and the Jordanians slaughtered them.
Um let's see.
The number of those in this poll saying that violence, and this is the question, quote, violence against civilian targets is sometimes or often justified, unquote.
That's the argument of the jihadists.
Uh it's down, people agreeing with that statement, down 34% in Lebanon, down 12% in Indonesia, down 16% in Pakistan, down 27% in Morocco.
So, in those areas, uh, oh, here's approval ratings for Osama bin Laden.
See, now this is the modern world.
How's his job performance rating?
You know, the per the Osama bin Laden job performance rating.
Well, it's uh down 23 points in Indonesia, down 23 points in Morocco, down eight points in Turkey, down 12 points in Lebanon.
Bushes are up.
Blair's numbers are up.
So, in terms of those people who follow that kind of thing, apparently these countries, however, of the Muslim world don't quite get it yet.
Islamic United Nations representatives, for example, blocked an attempt to have the world body condemned killing in the name of religion.
The International Humanist and Ethical Union submitted a request to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva to condemn killing in the name of religion.
Muslim members said they saw that as an attack on Islam.
So let me get this straight.
I know this isn't true for all Muslims, but for these Muslims, representing governments of Muslims, it is an attack on Islam to condemn killing in the name of religion.
Thank you.
A chillingly revealing frame of mind.
Now it may be getting tougher because of these poll results.
It may be getting tougher to convince people to commit suicide in the name of Islam, to become a suicide bomber.
It may be getting tougher.
Because, for example, in Britain, um Mukhtar Saeed Ibrahim, 27, came from Eritrea by Ethiopia there in 1992, in age at age 14, uh became one of these bombers and apparently told a friend that was recounting this after the bombing.
Um, after um uh Ibrahim had begun to grow a beard and begin wearing traditional dress and so forth and so on.
Um Sarah Scott, who lives two doors down from uh Ibrahim's parents' place, described a conversation they had last November.
Quote, we were standing outside our houses chatting.
He asked me if I was religious, and I said I did not believe in anything.
As a typical Brit.
Uh he said I should.
He told me he was going to get 80 virgins when he got to heaven if he praised Allah.
Unquote.
Now, you see, this is why I say it's getting tougher to convince suicide bombers, because the last wave of suicide bombers were only promised seventy-three virgins.
Eighty versions is virgin inflation.
They're obviously having to up the ante to get these suicide bombers, you know, to get on those trains with the backpacks.
I mean, if it goes to a hundred, you're gonna know that Osama's getting desperate.
Here's Ernie in Waltham, uh Massachusetts.
Ernie, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
First time long time.
Just want to say uh, you know, it's a talk show, but you talk, you gotta let your call us, Colman.
Uh I have a y we're a family of three generations of going to war for this country.
And the and the most recent, my son son of Marine just came back.
And my point is that uh where's it ordained that America is supposed to save the world?
Those people over there want to kill each other, from my point of view, let them.
You know, it's not worth one American drop of blood.
I spent four years in Korea flying.
My young even though I'm in my seventies, I have a young son who's a Marine, just came back from Iraq, and uh th this whole this whole situation is totally out of control.
We spend three billion dollars for the space shuttle, and my son's over there driving around in the Humvee with canvas canvas uh doors and canvas uh overhand and no armor plate.
Well, uh I I don't know what what is your point, sir.
We should not go with that.
The point is that that we're we're not addressing we're not addressing the problems that they exist.
We we're just we're being jerked around by the rest of the world.
We should take care the best way to promote democracy in my mind is to show how it works at home.
And we're not doing that.
No, we'd we'd love to do that, but we were attacked.
We were attacked, but the point is we had no place in Iraq because the guy had no had no capability to deliver any kind of uh situation to this country.
And uh it's been an all a political bunch of BS for us to be over there and and having uh young men and women killed for nothing.
Did your son volunteer?
Yes, he did.
He joined he joined the Marines long before nine eleven, and uh he he he lived in New York, going to school in New York, and when uh when he finished boot camp, he was assigned to the Albany Reserve unit.
So when nine eleven came, uh, obviously, uh New York, he got called up and went.
And you're uh and what was wrong with that?
Aren't you proud of it?
Nothing, nothing.
I I applaud him for his dedication.
Sure.
What I'm saying is that this government of ours has put us in the wrong position with respect to the rest of the world.
We have no we are not ordained to save the world.
You understand?
Uh Ernie, I understand.
The problem is that and before you uh descend to profanity, let me just ask you.
We're not trying to save the whole world.
Aren't you aware of the fact that we're very limited in this?
We're responding to an attack, we're responding to issues that have been raised by other people.
We're not uh I I don't I don't you you act as if we're the aggressor here.
No, I'm not saying that at all.
You misinterpret what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is is that we have we have a responsibility to our own people on this mainland that Saddam Hussein had no capability to deliver anything.
What is the responsibility for our own people on this mainland?
What does that mean?
Say again.
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
How about two years ago when the Marines on the West Coast had to go apply for food stamps in order to survive?
You think that's right?
Oh, we've had that problem in San Diego for years, sir, and we've been taking a few.
I didn't say it was fight and die, and then you asked them to apply for food stamps so they can survive.
All right.
So you're all right, so you're into the the lobbying for the military.
I'm with you a hundred percent.
Ernie, thanks for the call.
We're gonna take a break on the rush show, be back with more articulate callers, I promise, after this.
Our last caller, Ernie did make a good point, and that is that uh there's no such thing as uh too much support for our troops out there.
I said it was 124 yesterday in Baghdad.
Imagine the sixty pounds of stuff people carry around.
Um out there.
And uh And there's and there's no no such thing as too much support for the families of those left behind.
We've been doing home front San Diego here in San Diego for a long time, since shortly after nine eleven, uh daily helping military families with their everyday needs through the generosity of my listening audience out here.
So I think that's true.
And and and look, I want to talk to uh to uh Frankie Mayo, too, because uh she's got an organization, uh Operation AC Inc., speaking of uh of AC that uh is getting air conditioners out to the troops and lots of other stuff too.
Her son uh serving in the United States Army and Frankie joins us now.
Hi uh Frankie, how are you?
I'm good.
It's good to be back with you.
How are things going with this air conditioner thing you're doing?
Well, uh we sent 9,300 air conditioners, and uh we still still get US troops who need air conditioners.
We have to buy them in bulk.
I have a new supplier in Kuwait, who's a SEER subsidiary, and they actually can deliver the um ACs to Iraq.
Um we can't send to an individual troop, but we have to send to a batch of the air conditioners to the actual unit level.
I see I see these pictures on your website, they're cool about how they put these AC units into the uh makeshift uh buildings they're in.
You can find by the way, ladies and gentlemen, you can find this at uh Operation AC.com.
Operation AC.com.
Uh and how much does it cost to get this uh to get like a a big AC unit out there?
Well, as I said, um I have to buy them in bulk per hundred, and it's two hundred and three dollars each and thirty dollars each for delivery, but that's for a hundred air conditioners that we order.
And we have a supplier in Kuwait that actually delivers them for us to Iraq.
Boy, that's just terrific.
So how much overall then?
It's thirty bucks you said for delivering to Iraq.
Yeah, so roughly that's um my math is really poor, but that's probably about twenty-three thousand dollars.
Yeah, two hundred and thirty-three bucks a piece, that's nothing.
They're nine thousand BTU units.
They're they're they're very big units for that that kind of money.
Now they're already two twenty.
Well, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I said I have a disconnect.
I thought there was no electricity in Iraq.
I've been reading the New York Times.
There's no electricity out there.
Well, there is electricity, I have to tell you.
Oh, okay.
So they do have AC for the they do have electricity for the AC units.
That's good.
Uh-huh.
All right.
So you're sending these things out there, and I bet the uh uh you've got to be getting some great mail.
So great reaction to this.
We we do.
We get great mail and and um guys we've been sending them since OIF one and guys hand them off to the next guys, and when they break, they'd completely destroy them like I asked them to.
And uh it's just been an amazing experience.
I have probably 25 or 30 CDs of pictures, and it's just wonderful.
Um I'm glad to do it.
It's it's a so wonderful and so American to reach out like that and do it.
I hope Ernie is still listening.
How about the adopt a soldier uh idea?
Are you still doing that too, or are you individually uh uh uh targeting these soldiers with the kind of love and support you have for them?
Yes, it is still a vital part of what we're doing.
I urge Americans to support our troops, and now they're coalition partners.
I you know, I love people to take make these care packages, send them to us, we'll get them to coalition troops.
We we can get them to adopt soldiers in our own military that sign up.
I'd like to mention that we have a link to the Gitmo Gear on our needed items page, and it will be great if all our listeners could adopt the soldier or marine and send them some getmo gear.
There you go.
Operation AC.
Now, how about this uh coalition troops though?
You're now after not just the American troops, but uh the coalition uh partner troops.
Absolutely.
We're doing this to show the soldiers of the coalition that the American people appreciate what they're doing.
There's sixty-one nations in this coalition, of which half contribute troops.
There's 17,000 coalition troops in the war with us right now, Roger, and most of these troops are infantry MPs or explosive ordinance disposal soldiers.
They're patrolling, fighting and dying alongside their American counterparts.
And you know what?
These soldiers come from all over the world, including Central America, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Central Asia, the Middle East, as well as our traditional Western European allies, Britain, France, and Italy.
Over two hundred of those soldiers have lost their lives, and five hundred of them, Roger, have been wounded.
Wow.
So what are we getting them?
What's the goal?
Well, the goal is to give every one of these soldiers a gift packages from America, a contribution of 155 or purchase a package consisting of sundries, sunglasses, a Gerber tool, an underarm or hot weather shirt.
Our soldiers have been sharing their care packages with these soldiers, and now we have the opportunity to send these to them directly.
By supporting our coalition soldiers, we're supporting our service members, our president, and the global war on terror.
Where do people who are interested in helping you out, Frankie?
Where do people who want to help you out?
Where do they go?
They go to www.operationac.com.
You could also go to WW.coalitioncare.com.
CoalitionCare.com and uh Operation AC, all one word, operation AC.com.
I love these pictures you've got up at Operation AC too.
I just love them.
This is a great effort, uh, Frankie Mayo.
You are a great patriot, and now reaching out to the coalition uh doing even better.
We sure appreciate your coming on the program, and God bless you for what you're doing.
Well, we have to do a better job at remembering that we're, you know, we're in a post-911 world, and we have to come together.
Indeed.
Thank you, Frankie.
Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Roger Hedgecock in for Rush today, and um rush back, of course, uh on Monday after his vacation.
You want to laugh today, this is uh this is a good this is a belly laugh.
CNN.
Reporting out of um of Washington.
Um about documents released by the National Archives by the Bush administration on Tuesday.
15,000 pages of government documents pertaining to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. from his days as a young lawyer in the Reagan era Justice Department.
Headline Roberts documents reveal a conservative.
You gotta laugh.
I mean, this is the headline.
We got him.
We got him now.
We got this guy exactly where we want him.
He's a conservative.
We knew it all the time.
Unbelievable.
Um this, however, more serious.
Ed uh Ted Kennedy has uh has uh said that uh John Roberts is going to have to uh answer fully, as he put it, any questions about his views on any controversial issue that could come to the court in the future.
We want to know how you're gonna rule before you rule, before you know what the case is, before you know anything.
We just want to know.
We have to know.
We have a right to know.
And we've been hearing that from all of the um folks on that lunatic uh left, Mr. Schumer and others, uh, and and Ted, of course, expectedly.
Uh Ted wasn't always this way.
Um before the bridge incident, uh, he was um uh in a more sane frame of mind.
During the 1967 confirmation debate, for example, over the nomination of Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Ted Kennedy then argued, yes, he's been there that long, then argued that Supreme Court nominees should, quote, defer any comments, unquote, on such matters.
He then argued in the 1967 confirmation debate over then solicitor General Thurgood Marshall, nominated by uh Lyndon Baines Johnson to the Supreme Court, that, quote, we have to respect that any nominee to the Supreme Court would have to defer any comments on any matters which are either before the court or likely to be before the court.
Unquote.
He said, and this was in a press conference, quote, uh, this is Ted Kennedy now, quote, this has been a procedure which has been followed in the past and is one which I think is based upon sound legal precedent, unquote.
So in 1967, when a Democratic president nominates a Democrat to the Supreme Court, Ted Kennedy says, asking him his views about matters that have come before the court or will come before the court is not proper.
In 2005, hoping that we've forgotten about the bridge and Thurgood Marshall and everything else, he says that John Roberts will be expected to answer fully any questions about his views on controversial issues that could come before the court in the future.
See, the problem is, Ted, unlike the um mass of dumbed-down liberal folks that follow you.
We have your full record here at the Lynn Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, and as you live longer, you begin to contradict every single thing you said in your past life.
It's like you've had a new life.
It's like you're you're going through a Shirley McLean moment.
You're having a past life while you're having your present life.
Chuck Schumer, serving notice yesterday, this is in the New York Daily News today, that he and other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plan to grill Roberts.
Grill Roberts.
Now, you know, in the summertime during barbecue season, this this verb has a certain specific meaning, which I think is being literally applied here.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plan to grill Roberts to figure out his judicial philosophy, judicial philosophy, when hearings get underway in late August or early September.
By the way, Schumer said, don't you hold us to a timeline.
We're going to do our job.
We're not going to be limited.
He didn't say that when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being nominated, and Mr. Schumer urged committee members at that time to get Ginsburg on the court as soon as possible.
Schumer said in a speech to the National Press Club, quote, the bottom line is there's there still is a way to figure out Justice Roberts' philosophy and ideology.
How about you when you find out he's a conservative and American, he's read the founder's constitution and is determined to apply it to the cases as fairly as possible to the cases that come before him.
What if you find that out?
That's outrageous.
He's going to what?
The founder's constitution?
Oh, come on.
That's making law.
By the way, Roberts, of course, attacked on religious grounds by Dick Durbin a couple of days ago in the now famous question about whether he would be able to rule fairly as a Supreme Court justice, if uh an instance uh the facts come up that contradict a Catholic teaching.
This has apparently not been a problem for Clarence Thomas and um and um uh Scalia.
Scalia, by the way, his son is a priest in the Catholic Church, his son Paul.
Clarence Thomas is also a Catholic, and on holy days of obligation, other than Sunday, those two uh go to a nearby church and are seen walking to and from together to mass before they go to work.
Didn't seem to be a problem.
Uh all of the problems were raised.
Uh and by the way, you can't predict the Catholic vote.
I don't know Schumer's going to handle this.
How about William Brennan in 1973, a Catholic, uh the only one at that time on the Supreme Court, in 1973, uh supported Roe v.
Wade.
So it's um it's interesting how this religion thing is going to play because Dick Durbin, in effect putting a religious test on nominees, violates that founder's constitution.
I hate to keep bringing this up.
I know it's so uncomfortable for liberals.
Uh it's a living document.
It lives, and we change it according to the way we want it to go.
And uh and referring back to the old slave-holding founder's document is just not getting you anywhere.
So uh, you know, I do this at my own peril, but there was in the wisdom of our founders a strict prohibition in the Constitution to uh any kind of religious test before you hold any public office under that Constitution.
You may not apply a religious question to any office holder under that Constitution.
And they put that in there for a reason.
Because before that it was quite common.
Whatever your bias happened to be, uh Catholics need not apply.
You know, heathens need not apply.
You know, what a Jew, whatever.
You had in many cases, religion was very much a bar to or an entrance to certain public uh, or for that matter, private employment.
I thought these Democrats, by the way, I don't want to make them uncomfortable.
But I thought the liberals stood for the idea that regardless of race, creed, or color, creed, for those of you who recently went to public high school, is another word for faith.
If your vocabulary is down around 400 words, you probably don't know that.
But creed is faith uh is another word for faith.
If you're not discriminating, if it is bad to discriminate because of race, creed or color.
What they mean is you can't discriminate on the basis of religion, of faith, of creed.
From the Latin credo.
Don't mean to scare you.
But this is uh or faith.
This is the Look, this this is where liberalism finds itself, eating its own tail, contradicting its own values, contradicting its own speeches of a couple of decades ago, contradicting what they used to stand for every single day in the desperate, desperate search to regain their power.
That's all this is, to regain their power.
All right, to the phones on the Rush Show, here's Taylor in Canton, Ohio.
Hi, Taylor, welcome.
Hi, how are you?
Good.
You kind of just made my point.
I think it isn't that anybody wants to say somebody's un-American for disagreeing with Bush.
I think it simply comes down to a large faction of the Democratic Party that is using this issue as a political means to get rid of Bush and gain back their power.
That's all this is.
I think that's un-American.
They don't care whether we win the war or lose the war.
Exactly.
In fact, it uh it seems to me it would be better in their particular way of thinking if we lost.
And you know, the fact that we have men on the ground over there at this point says to me that uh, you know, and we're putting their lives in danger.
Um it's ridiculous to do that.
You see, the last time America lost a war, they won the presidency.
That's all they think about.
Well, and it's the same playbook.
It's uh, you know, the same thing that they did back then, they think it'll work now.
Uh you know, it's uh they they looked at, and in fact, uh you know, I think Russia's made this point.
They looked at what Gingrich did back in uh the nineteen nineties with the uh Republican revolution, and they think well, all he did was uh criticize the president.
That's all the so that's what we need to do in order to engender people to come to our party.
Well, uh no, that's not what they did.
They had their own agenda.
And no, they had a contract with America, they made specific promises, they made promises that Americans wanted to have done.
Exactly.
We don't have that with the Democratic Party right now.
All we have is discord, all we have are criticisms uh and and no ideas put forth uh to about how we could do it better.
You know, when I was a kid's ex it's exactly right.
I got to run to a break, that's exactly right.
And Governor Vilsack uh at the Democratic Leadership Council a couple of days ago.
What do Democrats stand for?
The best question that needs to be asked.
The question that needs to be answered now by the Schumers and Kennedys of the world.
Roger Hedgecock in for Rush Limbaugh, back after this.
Roger Hedgecock in for uh Rush Limbaugh and uh rush back on Monday, of course, uh back from vacation.
Let's take another call.
Here's Mike on a cell phone in Albany, New York.
Hi, Mike.
Roger, I have a whole bunch of stuff.
I'm not sure how much you're gonna let me get to, but you know, you had a call not too long ago talking about uh soldiers on food stamps, and I'd like to know what the Republican Senate, House, and uh President have done about those uh soldiers on food stamps and I'll tell you what they have done, what they have done is they've raised the pay, they've raised the incentive bonuses, they've raised the re enlist bonuses, they've raised the medical care, they've done more housing.
We have four thousand new housing units in San Diego alone for our military personnel.
There's been a lot done by this uh by this administration.
Roger, do we still have soldiers on food stamps?
Then they haven't done enough.
The second thing about Iraq, I would say.
Mike, so let me get this clear.
You're supporting.
So, you're supporting Can I just ask you a question?
Sure.
Are you supporting a bigger defense department budget?
For soldiers?
Absolutely.
For Star Wars, no.
Now now because that's where they spend all their money is on Star Wars, like we're going to be attacked from space.
Come on.
Now the second thing I want to do.
No, we're going to be attacked from North Korea.
We're going to be attacked from j China.
We need to have interceptors to those missiles, don't you think?
None of them have the capability of reaching the United States, and you know that, Roger.
China now has dozens of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting.
capable of hitting anywhere in the United States of America.
It is true.
It is absolutely true.
The Chinese have been bragging about it, Mike.
Roger, can I can I get one last thing out?
I want all of your listeners to Google the name Al Zafari, who happens to be the president of Iraq right now.
And I want them to Google the name in the same search of Ayatollah Khomeini, the guy that was responsible for taking four hundred and forty four American hostages.
Because what they're going to find out is there were all sorts of news reports of the president of Iraq last week or the week before visiting Iran.
He's a member of the Dawah party which has always been uh allied with Iran.
They're all Shiite Muslims.
And he laid a wreath down at the tomb of the Ayatollah Khomeini saying that good things lie in the future for the uh you know alliance of Iraq and Iran the hardlined fundamentalist Iran Iranian government that just got elected.
And I and I and you know thinking about that and thinking about all the women and the way they're treated the I in Iran and stuff like that, I I'm wondering fifty percent of the population in Iraq is female.
Do you think they're going to be better off than uh when uh Saddam Hussein was in power when they're forced into Siddors and you know acid's thrown on their face after they've been raped because now they're on clean boy I'll tell you what Mike I don't know where all that came from but here let me just give you a response to that.
The women of Iraq are voting.
They've never voted before the women of Iraq are holding positions in the government they've never held before.
The women are teaching in the schools, becoming doctors and engineers that they've never been allowed to do before.
Iraq is a society which is strongly Muslim.
The Shiites strongly feel an affinity to the Shiites of Iran.
I understand that that's not that's not new.
That's been true for uh I don't know twelve twelve hundred years.
But the the what has happened here is that you're trying to slime the new government of Iraq saying they're just like the Ayatollah Khomeini when that new government just sat down to write a constitution that in its specifics guarantees the right of women do you know that I know that and I want to know how long that's going to last after the United States falls out of Iraq.
How long are women going to remain in powerful positions in the Iraqi government when you've got their president already la laying wreaths at the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini let me just say that the the Shiite Islamists in Iraq are very strong Shiites in their faith.
They do not believe and this Ayatollah business has been rejected by Sistami the the head Ayatollah of the Shiites in Iraq he has said we are not going to create a theocracy a uh a a sh a uh Ayatollah Khomeini type government in Iraq and that's what the constitution writing is now all about if you'll allow me.
If it turns out that in three years from now it is an Islamist government in Iraq will you uh will you come on this show again the next time you host after that happens and say hey you know what we were wrong all this time the Bush administration wasn't competent they did go into this war not knowing what was going to happen at the end of this war and now we're faced with two Islamist states Iraq and Iran.
Can you Mike I will do that if you will uh in turn uh to name right now a war we knew the outcome of when we went into it name it is I could have told you uh Vietnam was going to fail when we went into it.
Well you're a genius Mike thank you so much for living in our country.
I sure appreciate your patriotism back after this.
So let me see if I have the point of this last caller will you admit, finally admit that Iraq is going to be ruled by Muslims.
Uh yeah look um I know it's not in the media I know it's tough but you've got to you've got to get the facts out.
Iraq is now going through a nation building in a uh in a a pressure cooker.
They have three distinct groups of people in that country and our job is to keep them from each other's throats the s Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds.
They're all Muslims, but they're different kinds of Muslims that like to kill each other a lot.
So uh The the way we're putting this constitution together is to give them a framework of politics where they can disagree and debate and not have to kill each other and come up with consensus and run their country, and they want to do that.
And that's why the Shiites and the Sunnis and the Kurds are sitting down at a table and instead of shooting each other, they're putting together a constitution.
That's what George Bush has achieved in Iraq.
And yes, I'm sorry, it is better than Saddam.
For women and everybody else and for the world too.
I'm Roger Hedgecock.
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