RUSH: I happen to have here in today’s audio sound bite roster an example of something I just mentioned about how the left disqualifies people from commenting on something. “You didn’t go to Vietnam! You can’t talk about the defense budget! You’ve got no right.” I can’t tell you how many times I heard that back in my Sacramento days in the late eighties and even on this show in the early nineties.

I thought I’d have a little fun with it one day that didn’t turn out to be so much fun with my dad, but nevertheless. Listen to this. This is Dan Rather, and it was Sunday morning on CNN’s Reliable Sources. The host was Brian Stelter, and they were talking with Dan Rather who hosts… AXS Television. I have never heard of that. Must be some new network. I’ll bet that the HD Network’s been renamed, ’cause that’s who hired him, the HD Network.

AXS Television, Dan Rather reports. Anyway, Brian Stelter said, “Let me ask you about the television, the media coverage the past few days, since the horrible ISIS video was shown to the world of Jim Foley.” Have you noticed how this guy has become “Jim” Foley everybody now? It was James Foley. Everybody is calling him Jim Foley like they knew him.

Anyway… “What have you heard, Dan? What have you sensed, Dan? I know that you would hear a drumbeat to war if you heard it, Dan.” (chuckling) So you have… This is Dan Rather, and this guy at CNN says, “Dan, if anybody would hear the war drums beating for war, it would be you, so have you heard them?” That was the question. Here’s the answer.

RATHER: The war drums have been beating, um, along the Potomac for some little while, accentuated in recent weeks and now in recent days. My first question to anyone who’s on television saying, “We have to get tough, we need to put boots on the ground, we need to go to war in one of these places,” is, “I will hear you out if you tell me you are prepared to send your son, your daughter, your grandson, your granddaughter to that war, over which you’re beating the drums. If you aren’t, I have no patience with you, and don’t even talk to me.”

RUSH: So there you have it. “You can you can talk about going to war all day long, but if you gotten send your own kid, I’m not gonna listen to you.” Meaning: “You’ve got no right! You can’t be pro-war, you can’t be for killing terrorists if you wouldn’t send your own kid to do it.” This is not new thinking, folks. This is another classic… I don’t know that Rather is specifically aware of it.

He’s just mouthing the words ’cause he happens to believe it. He thinks it sounds good. But this is actually one of the many ways that the left has developed to deny their opponents credibility. (interruption) Well, that’s the thing: It’s not 1970 anymore, Dan, and there isn’t a draft. You know, it’s a volunteer military now. Everybody who signs up for the US military has to know, in this day and age, that the likelihood is good that they’re going to be deployed to theater.

That doesn’t matter. The point here is that this is Dan Rather’s way of shutting anybody up or of saying, “Whatever you think is of no interest is to me and has no credibility. If you’re not willing to do it yourself, then I don’t want to hear you.” Well, do you realize how little would get done if the only if the only way it got done was if everybody involved did it?” It’s a classic technique, and they use it constantly.

It doesn’t matter what it is. The defense budget is how it’s manifested itself today, but it comes up in any number of other circumstances. Now, what this is about, this “beating the war drums,” is… Well, depending on how much time I wanted to spend on it, I could make this pretty in depth, and it’s fairly complicated, but not all that much, and it wouldn’t take much to simplify it.

I was prepared to spend a lot of time on it today, and then it changed. Here’s the timeline of this. One year ago, Barack Obama… Thirteen or 14 months ago now, Barack Obama declares a red line to Bashar al-Assad of Syria, because a year ago there’s a civil war in Syria. That civil war is still going on, by the way. A year ago we were under the impression that Assad was gassing his own people and committing other unspeakable atrocities on his own people.

We, a year ago, were banging the war drums to send American bombs and other armaments to the “rebels” in Syria opposing Bashar Assad. And the red line Obama drew for Assad was to get him to stop gassing his own people. Well, Obama drew the red line, but people in Syria continued to get gassed. They continued to die. And the Regime, the Obama Regime continued to believe — as did everybody else — that Assad was gassing his own people.

Most everybody believed this, and that went on for a year. It was last August or September that we were this close — I’ve got my index finger and thumb about 16th of an inch apart. We were this close to actually maybe sending troops but bombing Bashar Assad, and Assad targets. We didn’t do it. Obama got called a paper tiger; Assad was puffing his chest out because red line was drawn and Obama didn’t do anything about it.

His credibility again was on the ropes.

And then shortly thereafter I remember talking about this on the radio and I had read a piece, which I reprinted yesterday and studied it all over again by Yossef Bodansky which documented (one year ago) that Assad was not gassing his own people. So I took that piece and I came here to the EIB Golden EIB Microphone and I openly speculated, based on what I had read in Yossef Bodansky, “You know, what if…?

“What if Assad isn’t doing this? What if it’s being made to look like Assad is gassing his own people by the rebels?” Who we learned later were Al-Qaeda. The Bodansky piece documents how the United States was on the verge — with Turkey and Qatar and a couple other allies — of arming (I mean, heavily arming) the Syrian rebels and planning bombing strikes against Assad targets. Now, that never happened.

But a year ago when I shared the Bodansky story I started getting e-mails from people who claimed to have knowledge of Syria and the Mideast. Some had worked there, some had families there, some were from there, and they all said that Bodansky was right, that it’s a huge mistake. Assad would never gas his own people, particularly in Damascus. He just wouldn’t do it. There’s nothing in it for him.

Because a year ago Assad was winning this civil war. That’s why we were thinking of going in and helping the so-called rebels because Assad was winning. There would have been and there was nothing in it for him to start gassing his own people, and I started hearing this from more and more people. So I started sharing that sentiment with you in this audience. I might have been, aside from Yossef Bodansky and couple others…

Look, the conventional wisdom was that Assad was gassing his own people. On this program I raised openly the possibility that maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he actually was a victim here. Maybe he was being made to look guilty. So, anyway, that’s filed away. This past weekend, I’m working feverishly both days on show prep, and I see that we are prepared — that Obama is thinking — about bombing in Syria.

But this time he’s gonna bomb the rebels, not Assad! So I looked at that and I did a double-take. I said, “Wait a minute! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s this about?” So I started delving into it. And, lo and behold, it turns out that what we were all speculating about a year ago was true. Assad was not gassing his own people, and the people that are making it look like Assad is gassing his own people is actually ISIS!

Here’s the point: We came dangerously close one year ago to allying with ISIS thinking that they were just Syrian citizens rebelling against the dictator, Bashar al-Assad. We were this close, and Bodansky, Yossef Bodansky… I went back to my website, and I found everything we had discussed about it. I found the Bodansky piece, and I’m gonna ask Koko to repost it — and ’cause I’m talking about it now, he will automatically do it.

You read the Bodansky piece, and it is as detailed as hell on all of the secret meetings that we, our government and intel services were having with the same people in Turkey and intel services from Qatar and a number of other places and that a year ago we were prepared to go in and unwittingly ally ourselves with the people who beheaded James Foley. That’s the bottom line here.

And we didn’t.

At the last minute we didn’t because Obama never pulls the trigger on anything. So when I saw this weekend that we were thinking now of launching strikes against the quote/unquote “rebels” in Syria, I asked myself: How many people will remember that a year ago we raised the possibility on this program that Assad was not the bad guy in this particular instance?

If you’ll recall, folks, one year ago, we’re so close… I mean, the news is that bombing Assad is imminent, and then shortly after we had been discussing it on this program — and this program had nothing to do with this. Don’t misunderstand. I’m just giving a timeline. Shortly after we began discussing it and I started sharing the details of the Yossef Bodansky piece, there was a walk in the Rose Garden.

You recall?

Obama took a walk in the Rose Garden with a general or with somebody, and the attack was called off. Do you remember this? It was gonna be around September, first week in September of 2013. But there was a walk in the Rose Garden. The timing of it was not long after I had cited and taken the Yossef Bodansky piece national. So you can imagine my shock and dismay when I started digging into work on Saturday and Sunday to see that we’re about to go into Syria — and it’s still possible.

I mean, you can still find traces of the story. Drudge had the link up and then took it down yesterday, and I don’t know why. But you can still find it. If you look at various news sites, you will still find stories about how we are pondering bombing now “the rebels” in Syria because turns out they are the bad guys. Assad isn’t. They are ISIL. They are the people who beheaded Foley.

The point is a year ago we were on the verge of allying with them, and somebody stopped it in the nick of time with a walk in the Rose Garden. Now the news today is… Who’s the joint chiefs chairman? I’m having a mental block on his name. It was right in front of me here and I can’t think of it. But they’re all urging Obama not to do it now, that there’s no upside to it right now. So it’s still a very fluid, as they say, circumstance and situation.

But if the story were still active that we were actively planning to finally go into Syria and bomb, I was gonna relive all of this stuff from a year ago and get into great detail. I’m not gonna do that now because it doesn’t seem like we’re gonna do it, because we’re still going back and forth. And the real point is not what we’re gonna do now.

The real point is that one year ago we almost — we didn’t but we almost… (interruption) Yeah, Martin Dempsey is the chairman of the “Chief Joints of Staff,” and he’s arguing against it. But a year ago we were infinitesimally close, infinitesimally close to bombing Bashar Assad and his military assets and allying with what was Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is now ISIL.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I am not justifying Obama’s drawing the red line for Assad. It was a mistake to ever draw the red line against Assad. Assad was not the perp. It was a stroke of good fortune that Obama dillydallied on his own red line. But I’m not justifying. He should have never drawn the red line because Assad was not gassing his own people, as was the popular thought or perception a year ago.

Last Thursday the chairman of the chief joints of staff, general Martin Dempsey on Thursday of last week, said that we would have to hit ISIS in Syria if we’re ever gonna beat them. He said that on Thursday. Now he says he’s against it, and there’s a reason. Somebody probably said, “Hey, general, you don’t speak for the Regime,” because he’s backed off of that.

Now, what’s the difference in ISIL and ISIS and why does Obama keep calling them ISIL? Well, I’m glad that you asked that question, because now I’m going to explain it to you. You notice how Obama keeps calling them ISIL and that is because he doesn’t want to remind people that they are from Syria, that they are Syrian rebels. ISIL, ISIS is the same thing. The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant — that’s ISIL — sounds a lot better than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Two different names. I’ll tell you, there’s actually now a third name that is being used, a two letter acronym to describe these clowns, and it’s I-S, which is the Islamic state.

Now, that’s confusing, too, because the Islamic state of Iran is their official title. But this group, the Islamic state of Iraq and Levant is ISIL. ISIS is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Obama uses ISIL all the time for strategic reasons so as not to remind people that they’re from Syria. Syria, that was such a close call, we want nothing to do with it at this point.

Anyway let me grab a quick phone call here before we lose control of the phone calls.

Havelock, North Carolina, and Dallas. Thank you for waiting, sir. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks for having me, Rush. I just wanted to real quick say that I grew up listening to you with my dad, listening to you and Sean Hannity and Michael Savage, but real quick, too, a few things I want to say. The first thing is, my heart goes out to the Foley family, you know. I watched that video and it’s crazy people can actually do that to other people.

But the reason why I’m calling is because I watched the video last night of our president, and he was talking about how, for the first time in nine years, there’s no American fighting in Iraq and how he ended the war and everything. But what gets me is that he didn’t do anything. It was our guys and gals on the ground, you know, that were actually serving in Iraq that did it, that ended the war. And I just kind of want to get your opinion on that, too, because it’s just frustrating to me.

RUSH: Well, you’ve stumbled across a common Democrat tactic. Here’s a guy who spoke out against Iraq. It was unjust. It was immoral. We had no business being there ever. In fact, that was the speech he made when he came first on the national scene, and then claims credit for ending it in victory. It’s classic. It was hypocrisy on display.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Leo in Round Hill, Virginia. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Rush, thank you very much for taking my call. I just got a real quick short and simple. Everybody’s doing all this ice bucket challenge. I got a bucket challenge for that little punk over there that cut his head off. I’m 55 years old. I retired from the Army 18 years ago, and I tell you what, I got my uniforms out, I got my weapons ready. I will pack up, I will go over there, put the call of duty out, and I guarantee you those of us over 50 or even 45 or anybody retired, we don’t need to call on our youth anymore. Let us old guys go over there and finish this job once and for all. We screwed up when we didn’t finish this during the first Gulf War, when we didn’t go and plant our flag, and now it’s just like a —

RUSH: You know, that is so — (crosstalk)

CALLER: I’m ready.

RUSH: When General Colin Colonel Powell told George H. W. Bush: No, no, no, no, let ’em get back to Baghdad. All we promised to do was get ’em out of Kuwait, that was it. Let ’em slink back. If we would have followed ’em and taken ’em out and done away with Saddam then, can you imagine — well, why cry over spilt milk. The point is you’re right about with it. And I know you’re reacting to Dan Rather, who said (imitating Rather) “Hey, unless you’re prepared to go, I don’t want to hear you talking about how we need to go to war.” Well, you just said you’re ready to go.

CALLER: Locked and loaded, ready. Let’s go.

RUSH: Are you a vet?

CALLER: There’s a lot of other Americans that feel the same way I do. Rush, this isn’t going away. It’s getting worse. And it’s coming. It’s here.

RUSH: I know. Seems like every —

CALLER: If we don’t nip it in the bud over there, when it starts up here and we have another 9/11 type attack —

RUSH: I know.

CALLER: — Americans are gonna go, “Oh, my God, what just happened?” But that’s what it takes for these liberals. They don’t get it until it’s up close and personal.

RUSH: Yeah, yeah, I know.

CALLER: They don’t have the foresight to understand this enemy.

RUSH: I know. I know. I know. That’s why it takes effective leadership, which is missing. Anyway, Leo, it’s great, it’s absolutely fabulous. Thank you so much for the call.