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"US veterans to return war medals in protest"
"I think it's something that many of us are conflicted about, but we also feel like this is the right action to take," he noted, adding that there was a lot of consensus on the returning of the medals. "It is a sacrifice, but it's one that we feel is worth it."
Actually, it's a sacrifice worth about five bucks on ebay.
They're "giving back" something you can pick up in a surplus store. It would be something else entirely if the military actually purged their records of whatever qualified them for those medals - meaning what those medals actually represent. That would be an meaningful gesture. (And our heroes would scream bloody murder if it ever happened.)
I do have one meaningful question, however: Do these geniuses know they're protesting a summit meeting to plan the Afghan withdrawal?
(More/comment on facebook here. Happy to 'friend' you at your request.)
[Senator Feinstein] said the leak to AP "jeopardizes" the agent and that it could not have come from Congress since she and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) had not been briefed on the operation.Unhappy representative:
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Obama did not "play [it] straight" with him. "They [did] not notify Congress, which is, by the way, law, under the National Security Act of 1947," he said on CBS's Face the Nation. "They're obligated to do it."Meanwhile, President Obama assured Americans there was no need to worry, he was "on top of this the entire time."
"I was briefed on this in April," Obama told ABC News in an interview aired Thursday. "At no point were American lives in danger or American aircraft in danger."There were, however, some foreigners at risk. Some of them are unhappy, too.
Mike Scheur, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, said the leaking about the nuts and bolts of British involvement was despicable and would make a repeat of the operation difficult. "MI6 should be as angry as hell. This is something that the prime minister should raise with the president, if he has the balls. This is really tragic," Scheur said.
He added: "Any information disclosed is too much information. This does seem to be a tawdry political thing."
He noted that the leak came on the heels of a series of disclosures over the last 10 days, beginning with a report that the CIA wanted to expand its drone attacks in Yemen, Barack Obama making a surprise trip to Afghanistan around the time of the Bin Laden anniversary and "then this inexplicable leak".
Robert Grenier, former head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said: "As for British Intelligence, I suppose, but do not know, that they must be very unhappy. They are often exasperated, quite reasonably, with their American friends, who are far more leak-prone than they.
"In their place, I would think two and three times before sharing with the Americans, and then only do it if I had to. The problem with that dynamic is that you don't know what you don't know, and what opportunities you might be missing when you decide not to share. The Americans are doing a very good job of undermining trust, and the problem starts at the top."
...is like sending sand, sez I. (But I doubt anyone ever had the heart to tell "Big Hy" that. "Thank you, sir" is a better response.)
