quote:

Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting

A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.

But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

<snip>

"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."

While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"

Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. "I recognize the career implications, but it wasn't the right thing to do," he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

<much more>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews

quote:

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said.

Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

quote:

Originally posted by usmc_family:
Thanks QWERTY, for a solid new story with plenty of beef in it.

The spiciest quote IMHO was:

quote:

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said.

Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

It appears that you can take a Marine out of the Corps, but you can't take the Corps out of the Marine!      

quote:

Matt Drudge just today:

• Dropped a four-day run of Drudge's sole war-related story being "Marine Moral Falters"
• Replaced with "U.S. official resigns over Afghan war; No longer knows why his nation is fighting... "

Have Matt and Rush turned against the troops? No.

Drudge and Rush have turned against victory.

No, I don't care whether it's the far-left or the far-right that does it.

In my mind, there's no difference.      

It's dead-wrong either way.    

quote:

Originally posted by usmc_family:
Stec, what I *object* to is one-sided ideology-driven coverage of the war ... and one-sided is the only kind that Drudge and Limbaugh now provide.

The good thing about the SWJ site ... and the nice thing about the HuffPost forums too ... is that they accommodate a diversity of views.

Without that respect for diversity, democracy doesn't work ... and war-planning doesn't work either. Does it?

Ideology-driven sites like Drudge, Limbaugh, Redstate, National Review ... are doing all that they can to *smother* diversity ...

That's why in my mind their ideology-driven agenda is the exact *opposite* of true conservatism.