Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Peters Vs. The Pentagon
A rare day when Ralph Peters commends the "other" paper in town:
This is why I have a great deal of respect for Peters. I don't always agree with him, but he's truly a writer of integrity who calls it as he sees it.
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EVEN The New York Times gets it right once in a while. On Sunday, the Times published a lead article about a genuine military-related scandal: propagandizing on TV by retired military officers who take defense-contractor blood money or toe the Pentagon party line.Well, Eisenhower called it the "military-industrial complex" for a reason.
The sole fault I can find with the piece is that the rogues' gallery of faces on the front page failed to distinguish between the good, the bad and the ugly - between genuine men of conscience, and scoundrels who'd sell their underage daughters for three cents on the dollar.
The article described - accurately - how many retired-military talking heads conceal business ties to the defense industry, or are willing to parrot Pentagon agitprop in return for the illusion of privileged access.
(For the record, I take no defense-industry payola - I'd rather empty cesspools with a straw - and I'm proud to have been unwelcome in the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon.)
Officers who trade on their former service and knowingly deceive the American people to increase their chances of winning defense contracts for the firms they represent disgrace the uniforms they wore. Period.
This is why I have a great deal of respect for Peters. I don't always agree with him, but he's truly a writer of integrity who calls it as he sees it.
Labels: contractors, Pentagon, Ralph Peters, retired military
