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Pentagon Restricting Testimony In Congress Blocks Staff Of Lower Rank

 May 10, 2007 By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff [Excerpt]

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has placed unprecedented restrictions on who can testify before Congress, reserving the right to bar lower-ranking officers, enlisted soldiers, and career bureaucrats from appearing before oversight committees or having their remarks transcribed, according to Defense Department documents.

The guidelines, described in an April 19 memo to the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, adds that all field-level officers and enlisted personnel must be "deemed appropriate" by the Department of Defense before they can participate in personal briefings for members of Congress or their staffs; in addition, according to the memo, the proceedings must not be recorded.

REPLY:

Anyone who has served in combat in the armed forces of the United States has the right to say anything anytime to anybody, no exceptions whatsoever.  Someday, we will make that so again, as it used to be. 

The soldiers who served in 1776 elected their officers and did not hold their tongues.  Of course, that was a revolutionary army fighting an army of occupation. 

Which is, among other reasons, why we won.

The Pentagon idiots who came up with this one really know how to take an indefensible position in order to insure their opponents counterattack with redoubled ferocity.  

Gee, that sounds like Bush and Rumsfeld designing Iraq.

FYI, the publication does not print a comment or letter without taking off the writers IDs, if the writer is serving in the armed services that is, unless the writer wants to be publicly known.

That's to insure there is no harassment whatsoever for writing in. 

Respect for your service,

contact@militaryproject.org

DOWNLOAD ORGANIZING TOOLS HERE:

http://www.militaryproject.org/resources/

Dear Captain Sibert and Brigadier General Moore,

As an esteemed US Attorney and a General, you both must have a sense of the potential significance of my separation hearing. The prosecution of a member of the inactive reserve under these circumstances is unprecedented. As citizens, we all have a right to freedom of speech. In the Marines, we often joke that you signed away that freedom, and I understand the necessity for certain restrictions while on active duty. But those who have risked their lives to defend the rights of all Americans have a special claim to those rights when they have completed their service. Is the Marine Corps attempting to strip away those rights from the hundreds of thousands in the inactive reserves?

Maybe that’s not the case. Perhaps I am being singled out because I have become a vocal opponent of the war. Maybe Brigadier General Darrell L. Moore just got upset when he saw a picture of a Marine in the paper disagreeing with him. Maybe that’s when he decided to order Colonel Steve Brown, Deputy Commander of the Mobilization Command to recommend that I be separated with an Other Than Honorable Discharge. Maybe he thought that I would be intimidated by the long letter, the official letterhead, and the threats in official Marine Corps terminology. Maybe he thought that I would just ignore it, and let the Marines “Paper-f***” me behind my back. Maybe I would shut up for a while. But let me tell you, you messed with the wrong veteran.

While there may be some purpose of this prosecution in order to maintain the, “good order and discipline” of the inactive reserve, it is clear by its prejudice that it is intended to silence the voices of dissent. Thousands of taxpayers’ dollars are being spent on this case. I love the Marine Corps, and to see it abused for political ends makes me sick. You should all be ashamed to call yourselves Marines.

I joined the Marines out of patriotism. I said that when I enlisted in 1999, before it was cool, and even wrote it as my reason on the form I filled out at the Military Entrance Processing Station. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Now that I am out of the Marines, I am continuing my patriotic duty by speaking out. It is Marines like you, Brigadier General Moore, and Colonel Brown, who are preventing the American public from hearing the truth about Iraq by intimidating those who would disagree with you from speaking out. If the policies that you support are so righteous, why are you afraid of the truth?

If I accept this “Plea bargain,” I would have to allow you to punish me for speaking my mind, allow you to say that it is somehow less than honorable for thousands of IRR Marines to exercise their freedom of speech, allow you to silence the voices of those whose experiences are most relevant in the most pressing debate before the nation, and allow you to say that Thomas Jefferson was wrong. If this is your intent, I would ask to please, kindly, go f*** yourself. I will not allow it.

Semper Fi,

Adam Kokesh, PFC

Proud F***ing Civilian

[More at http://kokesh.blogspot.com]

========================

ADAM KOKESH IS BEING PROSECUTED AS MUCH, FOR HIS "OBSCENITY TO AN OFFICER" IN THIS LETTER, AS FOR HIS "STREET THEATER" PERFORMANCE ON THE STREETS OF WASHINGTON DC, WHERE HE AND OTHER MEMBERS OF IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR, DID A SIMULATED "ARMY PATROL" WHICH WAS THE SAME AS THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IN IRAQ.

HE IS BEING THREATENED WITH HAVING HIS "HONORABLE" DISCHARGE, TURNED INTO A "DIS-HONORABLE" DISCHARGE. THE EXCUSE IS, THAT HE WAS WEARING PARTS OF HIS ARMY UNIFORM AT THE TIME. IF HE HAD SHOWN UP FOR SERVICE DUTY WEARING WHAT HE WAS WEARING AT THE TIME HE DID THE STREET PATROL IN WASHINGTON DC, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN PUNISHED FOR NOT WEARING HIS FULL UNIFORM! [And, Adam Kokesh is theoretically a civilian, now.]

THE MOST DANGEROUS PART OF ADAM KOKESH'S DISSENT, IS THE ABOVE EXPRESSION. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF EVERY SOLDIER ON THE GROUND, AND EVERY VET AND RETIRED OFFICER, WHO DISAGREED WITH THIS WAR AND ILLEGAL OCCUPATION, SAID F*** YOU TO BUSH, THEIR FALSE "COMMANDER"?

BUSH IS THE ONE AT THE TOP-OF-THE-HEAP, YOU KNOW: CALLING HIMSELF "THE DECIDER".

WILL YOU LET HIM "DECIDE" FOR YOUR SOLDIERS-IN-THE-FIELD? WE SAY, F*** NO

Defendrosie.com | April 4, 2007
Paul Joseph Watson

Rosie O'Donnell has been savagely attacked by talking heads on major news networks and others simply for exercising her first amendment right to ask questions about 9/11, questions that are shared by the majority of family members of the victims.

A relentless campaign on behalf of anti-American haters of free speech is underway to force ABC to fire O'Donnell from her position as host of The View . This petition was created to show that a significant and vocal number of Americans recognize and support Rosie O'Donnell's stance in displaying the highest form of patriotism - asking questions of government and demanding the truth about what really happened on 9/11.

Calls for Rosie to be fired, censored, and in one case even executed , came after Rosie simply raised the question of what caused WTC Building 7 to collapse on September 11.

WTC 7 was a 47-story building in the WTC complex that was not hit by a plane yet collapsed in a perfect symmetrical implosion at freefall speed in the late afternoon of September 11.

If the collapse of the building was an accident, why were ground zero personnel, firefighters and police told to vacate the area surrounding Building 7 in advance because the structure was to be brought down?

If the collapse did not involve the use of demolition charges, why did NYPD officer Craig Bartmer report bombs tearing down the building as he ran away from it?

Why did WTC complex leaseholder Larry Silverstein admit on a 2002 PBS documentary that WTC 7 was deliberately pulled?  To "pull" is industry jargon for controlled demolition. Why has NIST changed its explanation for the collapse of Building 7 on several different occasions and why to this day has it still not come to a conclusion ?

How can fire damage have caused the building (which had been structually reinforced) to collapse in freefall when photos taken immediately before it fell show limited fires confined sporadically to just eight floors? Why did news networks like CNN and BBC report the collapse of WTC 7 over 20 minutes before the building actually fell?

Why are news networks like Fox, CNN and MSNBC so eager to throw out ad hominem insults and employ smear tactics against Rosie O'Donnell simply for raising these kind of questions yet universally refuse to debate the cold hard facts surrounding Building 7?

Why are enemies of free speech attempting to have Rosie O'Donnell thrown off the air simply for discussing this issue?

Show your support for Rosie's stance, for the survival of free speech in America and for a full investigation of what really happened on 9/11 by signing this petition. Send a message to those that wish to create a chilling atmosphere of intimidation that their anti-American assault on the bill of rights and the first amendment will be repelled by a substantial and sustained counter-attack.

http://www.defendrosie.com/petition_sign.html  

After signing, please re-post this on the Internet, and to all of your friends!!! Thank you!

Imported from external blog