Terror Alert Status: Terror Alert Level

Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 - 1:38 pm

Random Thought:


Thursday, Feb. 02, 2006 - 5:39 pm

An Open Letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff


Sirs;

By way of a favorite site of mine called This Modern World I read about your letter to the Washington Post expressing your concern about that day's Tom Toles cartoon and Mr. Tole's criticism of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

If you had expressed your ire over the cartoon as ordinary citizens, it would have been perfectly understandable and laudable on its own merits, even if I am inclined to disagree with your assessment of Toles' message or intention.

That you chose to express this as a group and in such official terms places you in a position which does not align with the oaths you each swore upon entrance into the Armed Forces. At this rate, Sirs, you run the risk of ceasing to be defenders of the Constitution of the United States of America and the freedoms it represents, and becoming the enforcers of a mendacious, dishonest regime which has betrayed you at every opportunity and views those under your command as mere fodder for their profit margins.

Does it not chafe in the least bit when the Secretary responds to valid questions from the troops about the lack of armor, ordnance and reinforcement personnel by blithely remarking "You go to war with the Army you have, not with the Army you wish you had?"

Does it not turn your stomachs when the Secretary tries to deflect criticism and excuse his ignorance every time he insists that every potential clusterfuck that could have been avoided or minimized if he had listened to those of your subordinates and peers (who have learned either from genuine combat experience or from at least a functioning grasp of "strategy") was "unknowable?"

And really, Sirs, after they've been stop-lossed enough times wouldn't "battle weary" be a truer description than "Battle hardened?"

Toles' cartoon points to the loss of personnel, materiel and motivation engendered by Secretary Rumsfeld's deadly combination of blind incompetence and insistent ignorance.

While I understand that the UCMJ precludes you from openly criticizing the SecDef, there is nothing in the Code which states that you must defend and endorse him against valid criticisms, nor that you use a patently dishonest argument to counter that criticism.

If you are trying to imply that the cartoonist was mocking the members of our armed forces who have bled and died in no small part to your boss' inability to plan his way out of a fucking wet paper bag, Sirs, than i must question your intelligence as well as your integrity.


Sincerely,

The Crapture

�

previous - next

�