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All Posts Tagged With: "John Batiste"

Generals buck tradition and speak out against the war

September 25th, 2007 • magix • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

Twenty gen­er­als have retired from the mil­i­tary in order to speak out against the occu­pa­tion of Iraq. From San Diego’s Union Tri­bune

The gen­er­als acted inde­pen­dently, com­ing in their own ways to the ago­niz­ing deci­sion to defy mil­i­tary tra­di­tion and pub­licly crit­i­cize the Bush admin­is­tra­tion over its con­duct of the war in Iraq.

What might be called The Revolt of the Gen­er­als has rarely hap­pened in the nation’s history.

In op-ed pieces, inter­views and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. gen­er­als have bro­ken ranks with the cul­ture of salute and keep it in the fam­ily. Instead, they are crit­i­ciz­ing the com­man­der in chief and other top civil­ian lead­ers who led the nation into what the gen­er­als believe is a mis­be­got­ten and tragic war.

Freedom and democracy not for ‘the few, the proud’…

August 31st, 2007 • magix • 5 comments • Related • Filed Under

Major Gen­eral John Batiste who coura­geously retired so that he could speak out against the han­dling of the Iraq occu­pa­tion penned an oped at ThinkProgress. The last para­graph of the piece sums up what we all feel regard­ing this hope­less mess in Iraq.

The only way to sta­bi­lize Iraq and allow our mil­i­tary to rearm and refit for the long fight ahead is to begin a respon­si­ble and delib­er­ate rede­ploy­ment from Iraq and replace the troops with far less expen­sive and much more effec­tive resources–those of diplo­macy and the crit­i­cal work of polit­i­cal rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and eco­nomic recov­ery. In other words, when it comes to Iraq, it’s time for con­ser­v­a­tives to once again be conservative.

Iron­i­cally, sol­diers in Iraq can­not access Gen­eral Batiste’s edi­to­r­ial as the site has been banned for polit­i­cal activism! Imag­ine! Fight­ing and dying to ‘spread democ­racy’ while being denied access to infor­ma­tion from learned mil­i­tary lead­ers because they dif­fer from the Bush admin­is­tra­tion sell­ing point. Note that Fox News and National Review, how­ever, are still available.