A couple of days ago I wrote about the editorial running in the military Times newspapers calling for Donald Rumsfeld to go — I’m not sure they care where, as long as it’s out of the Pentagon. As I explained, the editorial was quickly dismissed by a number of rightie bloggers on the grounds that “the editorial position of the Army Times has been and still is VERY liberal” and “Their editorials are always dripping with disdain for the military and have a huge liberal bias.”

As I said in the post, I do have some contacts in the military, and I finally heard from one of them about the alleged liberalism of the Army Times. This is from Robert W Thomas, Colonel (Retired), US Army, and he is responding to this rightie blog post that calls the Army Times “VERY liberal.”

The writer of this article seems to be using the term “liberal” to mean anyone who disagrees with the administration. I guess it is better than calling them stupid. I have been reading the Army Times for 40 years and I have never thought of it as a “liberal” newspaper. Nor would I call it particularly conservative. The Army Times is primarily an advocate for soldiers. The target audience is the enlisted soldier and they report on things that impact the soldier’s welfare and career. The editors and staff of the Army Times have a long term and close association with service members and like all community newspapers, try and keep up with the pulse of the community. What they are reporting on and offering opinions about reflect the concerns of the community they serve.

So, it seems that the writer is misinterpreting the word “liberal”. The military wants to and tries to hold itself to extremely high morals/ideals. Professional soldiers are shocked when things like Abu Ghraib happen. We’re not supposed to allow ourselves to fall to those depths, and the Officer Corps in particular doesn’t forgive lapses like that amongst our own. The typical reaction is that good soldiers wouldn’t do things like that if they had good leadership, therefore it’s the leadership’s fault, and therefore the leadership needs to go. This would be true for whatever level of leadership is found to be accountable.

The Officer Corps takes its role in the preservation of our democracy very seriously. As such, it is absolutely committed to the principle of civilian control over the military. For this level of discontent to be voiced so openly through the “community newspaper” is quite stunning. Military folk are not particularly liberal by nature. They would not tolerate, nor would they read a “VERY liberal” newspaper. This isn’t about being liberal, its about us holding ourselves to an unbelievably high standard and having no tolerance for those that don’t appear to live up to that standard.

(Full disclosure, Col. Thomas and I have a long acquaintance owing to the fact that we have the same parents and grew up in the same household. We have several other relatives in common, as well. Pretty much all of them, actually. Funny how that works.)

The question of the “liberalism” of the military Times papers is now settled, as far as I’m concerned, and the rightie bloggers I quoted are officially designated whackjobs.

Along with addressing the newspaper question, I posted the Colonel’s email because I believe the point of view of professional career officers is not much found on the blogosphere, left or right.

Righties, who think they have a copyright on all things military, make excuses for Abu Ghraib and Haditha and other such incidents, and they blow a gasket if any Democrat calls attention to them and shriek that liberals “hate the military” and “blame the troops.” Righties like to think they represent the “military” point of view, but I do not believe they do.

Stories — true or not — of antiwar protesters insulting or spitting on troops during the Vietnam War persist to this day to cling to the Left and fuel a belief that liberals “hate the military,” but on the whole this is nonsense. Since the invasion of Iraq, most of us leftie bloggers have been respectful of the troops and are careful to aim our criticism of the war at the White House and the Secretary of Defense, plus the SecDef’s civilian minions. Nor have I seen much hostility toward the military from the antiwar left these days. The only exception I am aware of are incidents of students harassing military recruiters on campus. As I wrote here,

For the record, I disagree with the students’ position. The military services are not our enemies; they are not the ones who make decisions to wage unjust wars. Blame the bleeping idiot civilians running the military for that. As long as the recruiters are not press-ganging students into boot camp, I say leave ‘em be.

As I wrote here, the troops are not only doing a job they should not have been asked to do, they are subjected to more stress than the human nervous system was designed to bear. I am probably more forgiving of those who have fallen short of the ideal than my retired officer bro’.

Although invididuals must be held accountable for their actions, ultimately the fault for failures both ethical and military is the fault of leadership — especially the Commander-in-Chief — and the civilian political factions that rushed us into an unnecessary and costly war. I believe most leftie bloggers have been clear about that.

In fact, both sides of the blogosphere accuse the other of “blaming the troops.” But as this fellow wrote in March,

How many times have you heard right-wingers twist a criticism against the president or against the war into sounding like a criticism against the troops serving in Iraq? I’ve heard it countless times. When John Kerry directly and specifically criticized Bush, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie immediately transformed that into Kerry blaming the troops. Or when Wesley Clark criticized Bush for allowing an unnecessary war in Iraq take resources away from finding bin Laden, a Fox News anchor directly accused him of denigrating the troops. This technique is used widely and often by conservatives to deflect criticism about the war, essentially using the troops as a human shield to make Bush and the conservatives in general impervious to criticism for their massive blunders and incompetence.

The essence of this strategy is simple: conservatives say that liberals, or any critics of the president, hate the troops. Liberals want to blame the troops for everything.

The irony here is, it’s Bush who blames the troops. Take prisoner torture, for example. Bush and Gonzales advocated torture as an acceptable technique. Bush advanced the use of torture in the military hierarchy, giving the go-ahead for its use. But when we actually see the horrifying images of how prisoners were treated at Abu Ghraib, who gets blamed by the Bush administration?

The troops.

It’s a plain fact that low- and middle-level service members have borne most of the blame for the Abu Ghraib. That’s got to change.

And it’s a plain fact that the neocons, more than anyone else, are responsible for stampeding the nation into Iraq. And now they want to escape blame. Folks, this will not stand.

And in case any military personnel stumble on this blog, please understand that we have the same purpose — to protect and defend the United States and the Constitution. It’s righties, not lefties, who are the odd ones out these days. They’re the ones who support sending the Constitution through the shredder.