What this 13 year veteran said

This Stinks
Of course, now there are questions about the authenticity of the letter found in Iraq.

Ken Katzman, a terrorism expert with the Congressional Research Service -- the in-house think-tank of the U.S. Congress -- said the letter contained elements that raised doubts about its authenticity.

"The purported letter has Zawahri admitting to certain things that it's not realistic for him to admit, because he would know there's a potential this letter might be intercepted," Katzman said.

He said they included a request for money from Zarqawi, an admission that Pakistan's army is hunting for al Qaeda and how the arrest of a top operative affected the network.

Look, you can't help but question these guys. Their intelligence is too often either wrong or made up. Are those words too harsh for you? Then how about "inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading" as Colin Powell put it?

On top of that, it just seemed too well-timed to go along with Bush's recent terror speech. There's a lot of that going around, though.

In the end, I can't say whether or not the document is real or not, but neither can any of the conservative bloggers who will trumpet this as an excuse to "stay the course." As a 13-year veteran of the armed forces, though, I find it repulsive that veterans like myself are put in the position where we're forced to decide whether our commander-in-chief is lying or al Qaeda is--and it's actually a hard decision!

However, what I find even more disgusting is this administration's use of the military as a wing of its party's propaganda machine. No, I'm not talking about the embarrassing bit of theater this morning (and, trust me, I know exactly how those things are put together), I'm talking about this web site that CentCom runs. Here's a snippet.

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Update: As I said, I know how b.s. photo-ops are run in the military and, yeah, this sounds about right. (Link via Atrios.) Trust me, anyone who's ever even considered voting for a Democrat would be kept miles away from that little set-up. In fact, I was also ordered to stay away from Rush Limbaugh when he made his drive-by lying trip to Afghanistan. I was told by a Major that I couldn't disagree with the Commander-in-Chief on air. I said that the regs say nothing of the sort, but, anyway, I was going to disagree with Limbaugh if given the opportunity, not the president. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to stay away. Limbaugh, she said, didn't want to deal with that on this trip. Like Bush, he's not only scared to serve, but scared of the honest opinions of those who do.

Go there for the links. Stay for awhile and poke around.