RUSH: Beverly in East Texas, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: East Texas blessings to you, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: From a military mother of two, I’m wondering, sir, if I might shift your focus from the war on economy to the war that we are also fighting on another front. Might I do that, sir?
RUSH: You mean the war that Joe Biden says we’re losing?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: That would be the war in Afghanistan?
CALLER: On Saturday our president said we aren’t winning which I would assume our enemies assume that that means we’re losing, as we now hear more from Iran, North Korea, and all the other bullies that are lining up. I want to speak on behalf of military families. We have two children serving. My husband served in Vietnam, and he also served under Jimmy Carter despite (unintelligible) and the hippies spitting on him. But we have a son who serves. He’s been over eight or nine times. He’s home right now in Florida. We saw him last week, celebrated his 30th birthday with him. He went over right after the election and was there through Christmas, and, you know, the military honors its commander-in-chief and they’re not going to speak a word of dishonor because that’s their character, not his. And what we see happening is we military families are in great despair right now, and I’m wondering if you can give us some words of encouragement because we’re not through with this war. My son said one day, ‘We’re fighting a war while America’s at the mall or the movies.’
RUSH: I most definitely can give you words of encouragement.
CALLER: Well, I certainly appreciate that.
RUSH: I’ll tell you what my first words of encouragement would be in response to your legitimate concerns. When the commander-in-chief and the man-in-waiting, which in this case is Plugs Biden, when they’re both out there saying we’re losing —
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: — you have to wonder, what is their motivation? Is their motivation to inspire the troops? Is their motivation to set the stage for our withdrawal ’cause we can’t win? You know, Beverly, it looks to me like the foreign policy of this administration is to make friends with every enemy, or as many as possible, and to spit on our friends.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: And okay, why do this? I think some of this is cultural. I think some in the Obama administration reject the traditions and institutions that have defined this country’s greatness, both domestically and in the arena of foreign policy. They’ve got chips on their shoulder for whatever reason, and for example, we’ve looked at the Palestinians and Hamas and Hezbollah. We’ve looked at them too long as the enemy, too long as the enemy. We need to change our thinking. We need to try to make them our friends. Obama said we need to reach — get this.
CALLER: To the Taliban, I know what you’re getting ready to say.
RUSH: If you want real sophistry, this is scary, incompetent sophistry. You’re exactly right, Beverly. We need to reach out to moderate members of the Taliban like we did the Shi’a.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: There are no moderate Taliban. There are no moderate Al-Qaeda. They are either dead or alive. But they are not moderate. And we’ve got a guy who wants to attach US political labels to extreme, radical, thug, terrorist murderers. It is outrageous.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: There’s no such thing as a moderate Taliban.
CALLER: He acts like he’s won American Idol, not the presidency. But this could get my son and daughter killed. And he’d even let those pictures go on the TV, he says. We feel that we have been so abandoned, but we serve because we love this country, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: We all know that. These would be my words of encouragement to you. I know the US military is beholden to its commander-in-chief.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: But the US military, its mission is victory.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: And its commanding officers on the ground, as long as they’re not handcuffed by mission planning from Washington, as long as they’re not handcuffed by cuts in their budgets and things that they need, US military can defeat whoever they’re pitted against.
CALLER: Yes, sir. I believe that.
RUSH: I don’t think there’s any doubt that that is the objective of every individual on the ground in Afghanistan. They can’t publicly, and they would never do so, go against the commander-in-chief. But the commander-in-chief is just another obstacle in terms of what he’s saying, not his orders. Look, the US military in both Afghanistan and Iraq, for the first time in many of our lives, underwent and triumphed over one of the most concentrated efforts to demoralize them that has ever been undertaken by their own country.
CALLER: Yes, sir, by the Democrat Congress, yes, sir, you’re right, I called every one of them, too, I want you to know that.
RUSH: It wasn’t just the Democrat Congress. It was the Democrat Party. It was voters, average citizens who vote Democrat, proclaiming victory was impossible, the war was already lost. And yet the men and women on the ground, in the surge in Iraq prevailed, they overcame it all. It was striking for all of us, and it was hurtful, and it also made our blood boil to see the attempt to demoralize and dispirit members of our military by elements in our own country that we had not seen before in such a concentrated way. There had been pockets, Vietnam after a while, but from the moment this war started the Democrats sought to use it as a political wedge. It took us a while to get there in Vietnam after bungling from —
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: — Washington, the Johnson administration. But, look, this country wouldn’t be what it is without families like you. This country wouldn’t be what it is without your offspring, your children volunteering for this, and the people of this country are never, ever going to forget, I don’t care whose running this town, running this country, that’s the kind of thing that will cause a backlash, because this president has said we need to send more troops over there. Now, Obama did not specifically say we want to have a meeting with the Taliban. He said, ‘We need to reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban,’ just like we did in Iraq to gang up on Mookie’s boys, Muqtada al-Sadr. But again, I’ll tell you what’s really frustrating about that, is that kind of irresponsible rhetoric, whether he means it or not, if he means it, it’s a double bad whammy. If he’s just saying it as a politician would because he knows or thinks that most Americans are squishy and would do anything to avoid conflict and simply say, ‘Well, there are moderates in all of our enemies, just reach out,’ if he thinks that will keep his approval numbers up, that could be the reason. Either way, it is irresponsible and it is incompetent, and it is unforgivable to portray the Taliban — it’s the same thing as portraying Al-Qaeda. Let’s find a moderate Bin Laden. It’s irresponsible at the least. It’s irresponsible and incompetent at the best. Well, there is no best. At the worst. So, Beverly, you and your family, you’re the backbone of America. Nobody’s going to forget you, and they’re not going to forget their duty. They won’t forget their objective.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: What is a moderate Taliban? A moderate Taliban would only saw your head halfway off, and that’s who Obama wants to reach. This is not about ‘reaching out’ to moderate Taliban. It’s about reaching out to squishy Americans. Obama is trying to marginalize everybody by identifying the squishes and the people that he can roll as moderates and getting them on his side — Republicans, Democrats, and so forth and so on. This is just rhetoric, ‘moderate Taliban.’ Besides that, Obama is not being honest with you when he says we can reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban like we reached out to the Sunnis. The Sunni uprising against Mookie’s boys? Obama refused to credit the United States — either our diplomacy or our military — for that! He was so wedded to the notion of American failure in Iraq… If I sound angry about it, I am. He was so wedded to the notion of American failure, he could not see it within himself to credit any aspect of American military strategy or diplomacy for the Sunni uprising. Now, all of a sudden, he wants to replicate that great American policy with his reach-out. The moderate Taliban.