Of course, the Pentagon can shovel propaganda and pay for "media" and that's O.K.
Sigh.
"Military Chief Warns Troops About Politics
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the nation approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.
“The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways,” wrote the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking officer. “It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway.”
This as Mullen helps sell the lies about Iran.
FUCK YOU, Admiral, with full, double-finger salute!!!!!
Admiral Mullen’s essay appears in the coming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal that is distributed widely among the officer corps.
The essay is the first Admiral Mullen has written for the journal as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and veteran officers said they could not remember when a similar “all-hands” letter had been issued to remind military personnel to remain outside, if not above, contentious political debate.
The essay can be seen as a reflection of the deep concern among senior officers that the military, which is paying the highest price in carrying out national security policy, may be drawn into politicking this year.
Why? They didn't seem to concerned before.
Is it because the American public have turned against Bush's occupations and wars?
The war in Iraq has already exceeded the length of World War II and is the nation’s longest conflict fought with an all-volunteer military since the Revolutionary War.
In particular, members of the Joint Chiefs have expressed worries this election year about the influence of retired officers who advise political campaigns, who have publicly called for a change in policy or who serve as television commentators on the war.
Oh, REALLY? What, worried about guys you don't control?
This is why I NO LONGER BELIEVE our LYING MILITARY!!!!
Fuck you guys!! Go to war with Iran and destroy yourselves!!!!
Among the most outspoken were those who joined the so-called generals’ revolt in 2006 demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, as well as former officers who have written books attacking the Bush administration’s planning for and execution of the war in Iraq.
While retired officers have full rights to political activism, their colleagues still in uniform fear its effect on those trying to carry out the mission, especially more junior officers and enlisted personnel. Active-duty military personnel are prohibited from taking part in partisan politics.
Yeah, but it is O.K. to LIE THEM INTO IT!!!!
You BET I'M DAMN ANGRY, readers!!!!!!!!
“As the nation prepares to elect a new president,” Admiral Mullen wrote, “we would all do well to remember the promises we made: to obey civilian authority, to support and defend the Constitution and to do our duty at all times.”
Then WHY HAVEN'T YOU GUYS ARRESTED BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD, RICE?
“Keeping our politics private is a good first step,” he added. “The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia.”
Unless we are going to push propaganda, right, Admiral?
Admiral Mullen said he was inspired to write the essay after receiving a constant stream of legitimate, if troubling, questions while visiting military personnel around the world. He said their questions included, “What if a Democrat wins?” and, “What will that do to the mission in Iraq?” and, “Do you think it’s better for one party or another to have the White House?”
“I am not suggesting that military professionals abandon all personal opinions about modern social or political issues,” Admiral Mullen wrote. “What I am suggesting — indeed, what the nation expects — is that military personnel will, in the execution of the mission assigned to them, put aside their partisan leanings. Political opinions have no place in cockpit or camp or conference room.”
He noted that “part of the deal we made when we joined up was to willingly subordinate our individual interests to the greater good of protecting vital national interests.”
He forgot to add "or fighting Israel's enemies in wars of aggression because of George Bush's lies."
And as if this article wasn't insulting enough, check out this one in the business section:
"The Media Equation: The Wars We Choose to Ignore"
"Gen. John A. Logan was a Union officer, a fierce Republican partisan, an early advocate of the kind of volunteer army the United States now fights wars with. He is also one of the people credited with coming up with the holiday that we celebrate today. A statue in Logan Circle in Washington shows the general on horseback flanked by two female figures said to represent America at war and America at peace.
Given public indifference to a war that refuses to end, perhaps a third statue should be added: America at peace with being at war.
I've got to go puke, readers.
Even as we celebrate generations of American soldiers past, the women and men who are making that sacrifice today in Iraq and Afghanistan receive less attention every day. There’s plenty of blame to go around: battle fatigue at home, failing media resolve and a government intent on controlling information from the battlefield.
Not that the New York Times would want to do anything about that.
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has slipped to 3 percent of all American print and broadcast news as of last week, falling from 25 percent as recently as last September.
It's a chicken-or-the-egg thing, right?
Notice how the coverage went up to push Petraeus' surge, readers?
Can't tell me this isn' t an AGENDA PUSH, folks?
And I AM WOUNDED, HURT and TIRED BY IT, readers.
I really, really am.
“Ironically, the success of the surge and a reduction in violence has led to a reduction in coverage,” said Mark Jurkowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “There is evidence that people have made up their minds about this war, and other stories — like the economy and the election — have come along and sucked up all the oxygen.”
But the MSM doesn't SET an AGENDA with SELECTIVE NEWS COVERAGE!!
Heavens no!!!!
How much more evidence you need, readers?
But the tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. Last year was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far. So far in May, 18 have died.
Yeah, Iraq was a success even as the U.S. had its WORST YEAR YET!!
I'm so tired of the repetitive and regurgitated lies and propaganda, readers.
I'm so angry I'm not even swearing. I'm just sick of bullshit!
Television network news coverage in particular has gone off a cliff. Citing numbers provided by a consultant, Andrew Tyndall, the Associated Press reported that in the months after September when Gen. David H. Petraeus testified before Congress about the surge, collective coverage dropped to four minutes a week from 30 minutes a week at the height of coverage, in September 2007.
It is what is known as PUSHING an AGENDA and HIDING a MASS-MURDERING WAR based on LIES they helped sell!!!!
It was also pointed out that when Katie Couric, CBS’s embattled anchor, went to Iraq to report the story, she and her network were rewarded with their lowest ratings in over 20 years. Hollywood producers who had hoped there would be a public interest in cinematic perspectives on this war have been similarly punished.
The war remains on the front burner for some outlets. On Sunday, The Los Angeles Times gave over much of its front page to chronicling Californians who have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Washington Post continues to personalize the war with a series called Faces of the Fallen.
And the New York Times and Boston Globe were AWOL -- or WORSE!!!!
Earlier this spring, Alissa J. Rubin of The New York Times wrote about flying in a C-130 in Iraq, accompanied by soldiers, including one in a coffin at the back of the plane.
“I wondered what exactly he had died for. And although I did not know him, I felt melancholy as we flew onward, accompanied now by ghosts and memories of loss,” she wrote.
She may have been haunted by her proximity, but the rest of us? Not so much. I asked Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, how a war that had cost thousands of lives and over $1 trillion was losing news salience.
“There is a cold and sad calculation that readers/viewers aren’t that interested in the war, whether because they are preoccupied with paying $4 for a gallon of gas and avoiding foreclosure, or because they have Iraq fatigue,” he wrote in an e-mail message, adding that The Times stays on the story as part of an implied contract with its readers.
Oh, isn't it so nice that the elites at the New York Times -- who HELPED LIE US INTO THIS WAR and have NEVER STOPPED LYING -- are so in touch with what the American people think and want!!
Readers, I am OUTRAGED at the ARROGANT ELITISM of this SHIT RAG WAR PAPER!!!! FUCK YOU, you, LYING, COMPLICIT, MASS-MURDERING PIECE of ZIONIST SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, the great Jew York fucking Times and their "contract with its readers."
Well, I've got a contract with you, readers, and it is that I WILL NOT LIE TO YOU!!! Nor will I insult you, as the New York Times did yesterday, Ron Paul supporters (the Style section?). Then again, I would expect nothing less from that lying shit rag!!!
Other news editors have made the judgment — perhaps prodded by falling revenue and slashed news budgets — that public attitudes toward the war have become so calcified that few are interested in learning more. Why bother when things don’t change?
Translation: The vaunted AmeriKan MSM is a FAILURE!!
Don't you just love how those SHIT STINK ELITES WHO LIED US INTO THIS DEBACLE are DECIDING FOR YOU WHAT YOU THINK, 'murka?
Nothing like finding a New York Times in your shit bowl, 'eh, Americans?
Overflowing, isn't it?
Except that they do, in a heartbeat. Last Thursday, Steve and Linda Ellis of Baker City, Ore., held a funeral for their daughter, Army Cpl. Jessica Ann Ellis. Corporal Ellis, a 24-year-old combat medic, died May 11 in Baghdad, a victim of a roadside bomb during her second tour of Iraq. She had been injured just three weeks before in a similar attack, but chose to go back out. She was assigned to the Second Brigade Special Troops Battalion, Second Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division and had curly, unruly hair, which brought her the nickname “Napoleon Dynamite” early in her military career.
More than 300 people gathered around this collective wound at St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, according to The Baker City Herald. In the funeral Mass, Bishop Thomas Connolly spoke plainly of her contribution.
I hold the Times as responsible for the deaths as Bush!
They HELPED HIM LIE and they CONTINUE to push the WAR AGENDA!!!
Oh, am I ever sick of AmeriKa's MSM!!!!
“She was a good medic, well-trained and as brave as could be,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
•
Hanging in the building where I work, there is a striking picture from the newspaper’s archives (by Angel Franco, a New York Times photographer) of a young soldier in Arizona looking up into the eyes of her father, saying goodbye, her eyes shiny with love and fear. I look at the picture every day as I walk by and think of my 20-year-old twin girls, safe at college.
Yeah, the people who brought you this war are SACRIFICING NOTHING!!
In fact, they are GETTING RICH OF IT!! And AmeriKa sleeps!!!!
The feeling of gratitude is always followed by guilt. My girls are out of harm’s way, but what about that man’s daughter? What about Ms. Ellis?
And then is off shopping, right, asshole?
On Saturday, her parents received an e-mail message from one of the colleagues in Iraq she was charged with looking after.
“There are wounds that don’t show on the outside,” he wrote. “She gave me the best medicine for what I had — hope and love.”
I wonder how all the Iraqis we've killed feel about that?
I'm not going to argue about the mass-murdering nature of Bush's occupation, readers.
If you want to believe shit MSM, then by all means.
Just don't expect any sympathy here.
In a phone call Sunday, Mr. Ellis set aside his grief to describe his loss and the loss to the country she served.
“She wanted to be there for her guys; she told us that,” he said. “She gave the largest sacrifice a person possibly could, selflessly, like she did every day of her life.”
He added, “Jessica was a child who had no care in the world, none, besides making you smile, besides making you feel better.”
Thanks for sacrificing her on the alter of Bush's lies.
People seem to have forgotten such things, haven't they, readers?
At least, that's what the MSM says.
I wonder what is with those weekly protesters then.
And although the Pentagon and the current administration will go to great lengths today to talk about the pride we should all feel in the fighting women and men of this country, increasingly onerous rules of engagement for the news media and the military make it difficult for the few remaining reporters and photographers to do their job: showing soldiers doing theirs.
But Iraq is a SUCCESS anyway!
Heard it from the same MSM press, so it must be true!!!!
Pfffffffttt!
Yes, the message seems to be, we honor the dead, but do not show them in your pictures. Of course, we care deeply about the wounded, but you now need their signed permission to depict their sacrifice. As the number of reporters and photographers has gone down, the efforts to control those who remain have gone up.
Ashley Gilbertson, a freelance photographer who has covered the war for Newsweek, Time and The New York Times and has written about covering the conflict in a book called “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” will be going back to Iraq in June. It will be his sixth time there, temperatures will range up to 130 degrees, and each time he has gone back there have been new restrictions.
If we were "succeeding," readers, wouldn't the restrictions be loosened?
“Many of my colleagues have turned away from the story because it has gotten to the point where they feel they just aren’t going to get anything useful, which I completely understand,” he said, adding that nonetheless, when the surge ends this summer, he wants to be there to chronicle what follows.
General Logan wrote long ago that both the glories and the consequences of war needed to be shared by all. He warned against “the dangers of confining military knowledge to a comparatively small number of citizens, constituting the select few who may hold the destinies of the country in their hands.”
That doesn't even faze the author?
Well, seeing as the Bush administration and the New York Times are in a symbiotic relationship, I guess it wouldn't.
