My evening with General Richard Myers

[proud2BlibKansan]

First of all, I want to thank all the DUers who contributed the great questions.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5403878





Myers is not a very good public speaker. He rambled and went off subject several times. He also stumbled for words. It was hard to follow him.

He started out by talking about his childhood. He went to high school here (in fact, he went to the high school that serves the attendance area where I live) so he had lots of cute little stories about growing up here. And he went to KState so he talked about that but since I am a Jayhawk, that wasn't interesting to me so I didn't really pay attention. That was when I got out my phone and asked DUers what questions to ask him :)

He went on to recap how he went into the military and went to officer school etc. And he talked a little bit about working under Bush but didn't say anything too revealing. He did say that a lot of people assumed he was a Republican, implying that he wasn't. But he never said he was a Democrat.

Then it came time for questions. The first one was from a neocon wannabe who asked what was the best way to control the Muslims who wanted to kill us. Myers said Muslims aren't evil, and our enemy is the extremists.

Most of the rest of the questions were great. I didn't take notes so I am going from memory here. I am also abbreviating his answers.




Q: What role does the US play in the instability in the middle east?

Myers: Are you implying we are responsible for the problems in the middle east? Cause I don't want to go there. (The guy shook his head no.) Well, that's good.



Q: Where was NORAD on 9/11?

Myers: NORAD's role is to protect the US from outside invaders. That's why the NORAD bases are on the coast. The other thing NORAD can do is in the case of a hijacking, they can fly up close to the plane and maybe look in the cockpit and see who is flying the plane. But it wasn't NORAD's role to get involved on 9/11. It was a law enforcement responsibility.



Q: When did you become aware that we were torturing captives and why didn't you resign from your post when you found out?

Myers: We followed the Geneva Convention. The military didn't torture. There was one incident and those people were punished. I didn't resign because that would have been cowardly.



Q: Was 9/11 an inside job?

Myers: That's preposterous. Have you read the 9/11 Commission Report? That was an independent investigation.


What I found most interesting was the people weren't letting him slide. Many of the questions were inciteful and challenging. It was refreshing to see that the people asking him questions seemed to be informed and were polite but did challenge him.

[notadmblnd]

1. if 911 were a law enforcement issue.. then why the hell is there a war?

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I could write a book full of responses to that answer.

I wanted to stand up and yell WHAT A CROCK, SIR!

LOL

[empyreanisles]

9. Sorry, but when somebody kills 3000 Americans on our turf ...

You send in the troops on them and whoop their ass.

[EFerrari]

11. Nice post, George. Where's bin Laden?

[empyreanisles]

16. I was talking about Afghanistan, BTW. (eom)

[TexasObserver]

13. Yeah, damn those Iraqis and their sneak attack!

The real question is WHO killed those 3000 Americans.

Wasn't it interesting they had a Patriot Act already written and ready to go? And wasn't it interesting that the anthrax scare targeted the two Democratic senators who were most important in holding up the Patriot Act temporarily? Sure was convenient to have all those SEC records go up in smoke, in a building that wasn't even hit by a plane.

NORAD is definitely concerned about any actions in US skies that appear hostile. And that begs the question. NORAD or not, we have fighters along the coast and near the Capital which are charged with protecting the Capitol complex. They were not present for more than an hour after the first plane hit the first WTC tower. The ability of the attack on the Pentagon to be carried out has never been explained, nor can it be.

[empyreanisles]

15. Wait a sec. You're a 9/11 truther ???.... :)

[TexasObserver]

17. You can't handle the truth.

[Fumesucker]

18. Tim McVeigh was from New York..

We didn't send troops to New York and "whoop their ass"..

Most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, we didn't send troops to Saudi and "whoop their ass" either.

[Solon]

28. the guys who actually did it are dead, most were from Saudi Arabia, so who the hell...

were we supposed to invade?

[The Traveler]

10. There were two wars, actually

One of them made sense. A government (the government of Afghanistan) was overtly harboring the conspirators who murdered 3000 Americans. Yep. Whoop their ass.

The second war ... Iraq ... don't ask me to explain that one. That was one of the great "what the fuck was that?" moments of American political and military history. At best, it was a strategic blunder. At worst, an act of hubris and evil.

Trav

[tularetom]

2. Gen. Myers may or may not be a repub but he has the party line on torture down pat

"We followed the Geneva convention. It would've been cowardly to resign in protest"

Did the people in the audience start coughing like in Animal House - "Bullshit! Bullshit!"?

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. LOL My friends and I did

[MADem]

3. Ha--he IS a lousy speaker. He got picked (by Rummy, really) because

he was wussy and wouldn't fight back, less than a month after Nahn Wun Wun. Fucking rubber stamp in a military uniform! When he wasn't renewed when his term ran out (and that was a SHOCK to him) that's probably when he decided he wasn't "necessarily" a Republican.

He looked like a kid who dropped his ice cream cone at the announcement of his successor (a Marine, his Vice Chair, who disgraced the Corps bu dpomg such a poor job, frankly). Mike Mullen can run circles around either one of them, drunk and half asleep!

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. He did seem to speak fondly of Rummy

:puke:

[MADem]

20. They WERE buddies. Rummy told him what to do, and he did it.

I don't think it was Rummy who axed the guy--if I had to guess, I'd say it was Georgie. Georgie never liked guys who were taller than him. "Here, take this here medal and git lost!! Yer always takin' Rummy's sahd--makin' me look bad!!!"



Myers was an echo chamber for Rummy, and George was getting sick of that stuff, 'cause Rummy wasn't helping him much. Unfortunately, the next guy up to bat, Peter Pace, was shorter, closer to Porgie's height... but just as much of a wuss, though he was more of Georgie's suck-up than Rummy's.


When Gates came in, he decided to go with someone who knew what he was doing, instead of a "Yes Man." He feigned that it was just a "contentious confirmation process" that caused him to want to switch JCS chairmen, but anyone who was paying attention could see that when it came to Pace, Gates had his forty foot pole out.

The guy in charge now, Mike Mullen, got all of his "key" promotions under Clinton, FWIW--good guy, very smart, too.

Interesting article about the transition from Peter "gays are immoral" Pace to Mike Mullen, here: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/06/navy_jcschair_mullen_070608w/

[shifting_sands]

7. little Dickie Myers

I went to school with him, sat at the same study hall table, there was Richard (Dickie) Ruthie and me. Our table was at the back of study hall and he didn't like it that Ruthie and I passed notes, in fact he absolutely did not like Ruthie. He was very shy and passive aggressive, heavy into ROTC, didn't seem to have too many friends, never ever saw him actually having a good time, and he was a big tattle tale. When I realized that he was high up in the "kiss my a.." squadron I just hoped he had matured. As I watched him, I realized maybe he hadn't

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Are you from KC?

[defendandprotect]

8. Meyers is knee-deep in 9/11 . . . if not chest deep . . . !!!!

[MADem]

21. No he isn't. He didn't come aboard until AFTER 911. October, in fact. NT

[defendandprotect]

22. Myers was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on 9/11 . . .

Guilty For 9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers

Part 1 * The testimony of General Richard B. Myers at Senate hearings on his nomination as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In these hearings, the contents of which were reported accurately by one lone journalist, General Myers attempted to cover up what had happened 9-11 when he was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He offered three mutually contradictory cover stories and demonstrated consciousness of guilt;

http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-1.htm

and more . . .

Context of 'Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Acting Joint ...
... chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and acting chairman on 9/11. ... (Between 9:55 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Finally Enters NMCC; ...www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a848myerslies - 63k - Cached

Guilty for 9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers
On 11 September there were two entire squadrons of combat-ready fighter ... The actions of George Bush on 9-11 that clearly violated his positive legal and ...freemasonrywatch.org/rumsfeldguilty.html - Cached


Here's Myers testifying on the war games of 9/11 --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5np6SD8oo

[MADem]

23. He was "acting" because Hugh Shelton, the Chairman, was incommunicado in a plane and heading

overseas.

It's not like he had the job full time--he was the VJCS.

When the top dog is "out of the loop" the Number Two steps up and "acts."

[defendandprotect]

24. Correct . . . Myers was "acting" . . . on 9/11 --- he was in charge.

and colluding with Cheney, Rummy and Bush --

[MADem]

25. You give him credit for more "smarts" than he has.

Myers was a puppet, nothing more. A great big empty uniform.

[defendandprotect]

27. Myers didn't look too "smart" as he testified re 9/11 . . .

Here's Myers testifying on the war games of 9/11 --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5np6SD8oo

They did everything they could to avoid answering --

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

26. Meyers was in charge of NORAD on 9/11 and was promoted afterwards.

Helluva Job Richard!

[defendandprotect]

29. Gen. Richard Myers' best explanation is that everybody simply “goofed”---- !!!???

Evidence clearly shows air defense standard operating procedures were ignored on 911, allowing jetliners a “free ride” smack dab into the Twin Towers.

What’s more disturbing is for three years officials at the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) and the North American Aerospace Command Defense (NORAD) have lied about why military fighter planes weren’t able to intercept the hijacked planes even though they had plenty of time.

In fact, the best explanation given by Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, is that everybody simply “goofed.”

Did someone deliberately order a “stand-down” of NORAD defense systems or was it a mix-up like Gen Myers claims?

It should be noted that normally when a commercial airliner goes off course by even 2 miles, ground control is instructed to notify NORAD of a pending emergency. This standard FAA operating procedure should verify that NORAD was notified since Flight 11 was way more than two miles off-course unless, of course, there existed gross negligence on the part of ground control. If so, why haven’t any ground controllers been fired or, at the least, reprimanded publicly?

Also, it must be considered normal operating procedure for a fighter jet to first escort an off-course plane and then warn it of a possible missile strike.

Official records indicate off-course airplanes are intercepted and escorted on average of 100 times per year.

If FAA regulations had been properly followed, ground control would have contacted NORAD at 8:14am when radio contact had been lost with Flight 11.

In fact, ground controllers have testified they repeatedly tried to contact NORAD, but for some reason could not make radio contact

Hellooooo . . . General Myers . . . ?? Are you there?



http://www.arcticbeacon.citymaker.com/articles/article/1518131/17673.htm

[EFerrari]

12. How horrible for General Prufrock that he has to go on speaking tours.

It's really heartening to hear that people are speaking up and not backing off, though!

[Hekate]

14. If you get a chance to hear Gen. Anthony Taguba speak, do so. I did last year...

Gen. Taguba is an interesting and intelligent guy, well-organized in his thinking but not the most articulate of public speakers. I came away with a strong impression of an honorable warrior. He's very troubled by the torture issue, and in fact his investigation and report led directly to his forced retirement. He believes in the Geneva Conventions and he believes the US Army has no business torturing anyone. He knows the orders to do so came from the top.

Like Shinseki, Duckworth, and Obama, Taguba also has ties to Hawai'i, which I find striking because it is such a small place.

Hekate