Last night I highlighted a story about how the Bush administration caved to pressure from the Iraq government, effectively abandoning a US soldier behind enemy lines for political purposes. It was late, and I didn't have time to fully vent about this. In the meantime, Andrew Sullivan already has:
The U.S. military does not have a tradition of abandoning its own soldiers to foreign militias, or of taking orders from foreign governments. No commander-in-chief who actually walks the walk, rather than swaggering the swagger, would acquiesce to such a thing. The soldier appears to be of Iraqi descent who is married to an Iraqi woman. Who authorized abandoning him to the enemy? Who is really giving the orders to the U.S. military in Iraq? These are real questions about honor and sacrifice and a war that is now careening out of any control. They are not phony questions drummed up by a partisan media machine to appeal to emotions to maintain power.
And where, by the way, is McCain on this? Silent on Cheney's "no-brainer" on waterboarding. Silent recently on Iraq. But vocal - oh, how vocal - on Kerry. It tells you something about what has happened to him. And to America.
The US military never, EVER leaves men behind. Ever. It's greatest heroes are those who have put themselves into harms way to rescue their comrades, even those who have already fallen. Here, for example, is how the US Army describes the creed of those who have earned its highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor:
I will always place the mission first.I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
The mission, in case our Commander in Chief has forgotten, is not to win elections. It is to win the war. But in service to his party's electoral needs he has ordered the military to leave one of its own behind. First he abandons a tradition dating back to Washington to treat prisoners with dignity, then he abandons the tradition to leave no man behind. When will this end?
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