When active duty officers start speaking out, they're putting it ALL on the line

the most vocal officers so far have been retired, usually generals... active duty generals have been either very low profile or mute in their criticism... moreover, as with shinseki and others who let their divergence from the bushco orthodoxy be known, even if it was back-channel and very quiet, have been replaced by those willing to cheerlead for bushco... having an active duty, combat zone, field-grade officer below the rank of general speak out in a public forum is highly unusual and is a demonstration of how much punishment the military is taking in the endless nightmare that is iraq... this guy, yingling, by daring to openly criticize his superiors, is undoubtedly aware that he is putting a full stop to his career and may even face mandatory retirement... he's put it all on the line...

An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."

Yingling's comments are especially striking because his unit's performance in securing the northwestern Iraqi city of Tall Afar was cited by President Bush in a March 2006 speech and provided the model for the new security plan underway in Baghdad.

He also holds a high profile for a lieutenant colonel: He attended the Army's elite School for Advanced Military Studies and has written for one of the Army's top professional journals, Military Review.

when this kind of thing starts to pop up, you know you're in a world of shit, but bushco, i am sure, will just shrug it off with the same arrogance that they're mocking impeachment efforts...

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