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9. februar 2004
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Bush AWOL revisited
CalPundit has done what looks like good detective work on president Bush's Air National Guard service, and come up with some documents and facts that don't exactly make the Commander in Chief look good. Apparently, in 1972 and 73 Bush did duty in something called the ARF.
ARF stands for Army Reserve Force, and among other things it's where members of the guard are sent for disciplinary reasons. As we all know, Bush failed to show up for his annual physical in July 1972, he was suspended in August, and the suspension was recorded on September 29. He was apparently transferred to ARF at that time and began accumulating ARF points in October.
ARF is a "paper unit" based in Denver that requires no drills and no attendance. For active guard members it is disciplinary because ARF members can theoretically be called up for active duty in the regular military, although this obviously never happened to George Bush.
To make a long story short, Bush apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred to ARF as a disciplinary measure. He didn't return to his original Texas Guard unit and cram in 36 days of active duty in 1973 — as Time magazine and others continue to assert based on a mistaken interpretation of Bush's 1973-74 ARF record — but rather accumulated only ARF points during that period. In fact, it's unclear even what the points on the ARF record are for, but what is clear is that Bush's official records from Texas show no actual duty after May 1972, as his Form 712 Master Personnel Record from the Texas Air National Guard clearly indicates
Check out the whole thing, including scans if the actual documents. I don't know much about how military records look like, or are supposed to look like, or even how the system works, so I can't decide either way.
7:15:37 PM 
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A not-so-honourable mention
I don't think most Norwegians are likely to be flattered that we're now famous for our "Satanic" Black Metal (which I have written about exactly once earlier). For a totally different reason, I don't think anyone should be happy that the neocons Richard Perle and David Frum are being compared to them, either. That is one of the most bizarre double book reviews I have seen.
The author, Mark Ames, doesn't like Norway very much either:
And here is where Norway, the comic straight-man character in this dumb, bloody saga, comes in. Norway is not only a completely humorless society (it banned Monty Python’s The Life of Brian for being too offensive, leading to ads in rival Sweden boasting that the movie was "so funny it was banned in Norway!"), but worse, a deeply oppressive society, in a recognizably bland, caring, pious, Social Democratic way. Which raises an interesting question: Do boredom and blandness "count" as real suffering, and if so, do they justify murder the way other forms of oppression make murder seem a likely, even understandable response? The Black Metalists of Norway think so.
I am willing to bet that this author has never spent any notable time in Norway.
It is true, and an embarrassing fact, that Life of Brian was banned here for a few years (as well as in Israel. heh). That was due to religious extremists having a stranglehold on the State film board. Some years later, it was shown on state broadcasting.
On the other hand, nobody would sue the world over showing a boobie on TV here. In fact, hardly anyone would notice.
PS: I have read many of the Norwegian writings of Didrik Søderlind, one of the authors of the black metal book reviewed, and I wonder if he recognize his own ideas in this review. I am pretty sure Perle and Frum didn't.
7:37:09 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 02.03.2004; 23:45:11.
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