Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Quote Of The Day

Quote of the day honors go to Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, who is:

the U.S. military attorney for Kuwaiti detainee Fayiz Al Kandari, who still awaits his day court more than eight years after he was sold into US custody.

The Abandonment Of American Principles

according to his autobiographical sketch at the end of the article. His summation of the people who have been calling for the continued torture and imprisonment of people without trial on suspicion of terrorism is:

We in the military do not – and have never – supported harsh interrogations. We understand that we lose more than we gain if barbarity becomes the guiding force behind our military efforts. Ironically, I find that those who support torture and indefinite detentions tend to be amazingly light in military service. Meanwhile, those who oppose these un-American policies and practices are serving side-by-side with me and also fill the ranks of my senior leadership. As senior officers we must do a better job at making our voices heard to the world and, more importantly, the young members we lead.

The Abandonment Of American Principles

As my own profile indicates, I have an association with the Defense Department as well. I've gotten to know many people like this over the years. They have been ill-served by the cowards who brag about their courage and the misanthropes who abetted those policies, and continue some of those policies to this day.

I have no idea when, or if, this will end, either, and for that I am truly sorry. Being a soldier is hard enough. When the country our military serve can't elect leaders who will lead them properly, it's pretty clear that country no longer deserves them.

Afterword: Needless to say, neither my opinions nor those of Lt. Col. Wingard represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense.


2 comments:

Emily S said...

It's always really nice to know the military has some brains. It makes me a little more optimistic that not everyone in or connected to the government are morons.

Cujo359 said...

I could be accused of having a bias, since I worked there for a long time, but I don't think there's an unusual concentration of fools or lunatics in the federal government. The military, in fact, is probably smarter than the general population. On the civilian side, I really didn't see much difference between the workers and lower management in government and people at similar levels in industry.

Where things generally get dicey is at the level of appointees. These people, and the people they favor for upper management slots, can be anywhere from useless hacks (think Michael Brown, who was running FEMA when Hurricane Katrina hit) to geniuses (I'm having a hard time thinking of recent examples - Hillary Clinton might comes to mind, though her political tendencies can get the better of her.) These people set the goals and the tone of work at each of the government departments.

Any big organization will have its share of drones and fools. The collapse of American industry and finance wasn't just the fault of the government - people who should have known better made some really lousy decisions.

Anyone who says government would necessarily be better if it were more like a business doesn't know much about running a government, and may not know much about running a business, either.