Birthers Pick Up A Crazed Retired General

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025483.php

BIRTHERS PICK UP A CRAZED RETIRED GENERAL.... Dave Weigel has one of the day's more head-shaking stories.

I try to ignore the birther movement unless it inducts someone important -- a congressman, for example. The (sigh) American Patriot Foundation's announcement that Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (ret.) has signed an affidavit supporting court martialed birther Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is actually a pretty big coup. <...>

And is McInerney a serious person? Yes. He's a West Point graduate who ran the Alaskan air command during the Exxon Valdez disaster.... Point is, he's not some kook, and now he's staking his reputation on... this.

The retired three-star Air Force Lieutenant General didn't just dip his toe into Birther waters, he did a belly flop into the pool. McInerney issued a bizarre statement, arguing that the White House needs to "reassure all military personnel once and for all for this President whether his service as Commander in Chief is Constitutionally proper." He added that Obama is facing "serious -- and widely held -- concerns that he is ineligible" for the presidency, and demanded that the president either "voluntarily establish his eligibility" or the courts must force the issue.

In other words, it's full-blown, Grade A, unhinged birther madness.

If McInerney's name sounds familiar, it's because you've probably seen him in the media. He's frequently on the air, calling for a war with Iran, for example. McInerney also recently made headlines for demanding that all young Muslim men "should be strip searched" before they're allowed to board an airplane, which he said is "not racial profiling."

Alas, there's a pattern of idiocy here. In 2002, for example, McInerney assured Americans the war in Iraq "will be a war that is shorter than" the 1991 Gulf War, which lasted 42 days. In 2005, McInerney insisted that terrorists no longer feel the need to attack inside the United States because we have "leftists in America who have aided and abetted the enemy more than Tokyo Rose did in World War II."

In 2006, McInerney was asked about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the basis for the U.S. invasion. He insisted, in all seriousness, that the weapons were in Iraq, before Russia secretly entered the country to move the stockpiles to Syria.

He's now an on-air contributor on national security issues for ... wait for it ... Fox News.

—Steve Benen

[izquierdista]

1. Why should we believe the assumption....

That West Point grads and military brass aren't unhinged? Looking at all they have done to this country in the last 65 years, I'm beginning to wonder why they weren't put back into their cage after V-J day.

[DevonRex]

2. Excuse me, but my FATHER was a Marine Corps fighter pilot in the Pacific.

Your post is nothing but scum.

[JuniperLea]

3. They are honorable people and have done nothing to this country...

They don't direct themselves, you know. Or did you?

If you have a gripe, it's with their CIC's, not the people on the ground or the people who follow the direct orders of the CIC.

[izquierdista]

5. They direct money to themselves

and their 5-sided hog trough.

[JuniperLea]

6. What the hell are you talking about? eom

[izquierdista]

7. I'm talking about the demobilization that never happened

In the aftermath of the "Great War", most major powers realized that they better put away the guns because war had gotten out of hand and had the ability to wipe out large civilian populations. That's why countries were woefully unprepared when the Nazis rearmed and let loose with it.

After WWII, Germany and Japan practically rewrote disarmament into their constitutions, but no, not the United States. The US was the victor, but didn't learn the lesson the French did (and to a lesser extent the British) that even though they won, they should disarm too. They have continued to shovel a war based budget into the military and its weapons programs to the detriment of the average American. The United States had an edge after WWII, because they didn't have to rebuild like both the victors and the vanquished had to, but they blew that on unnecessary military adventures, adventures all egged on by can-do West Point brass.

In response to the OP, I was wondering if any sanity comes out of a West Point education, or is it all strategy and tactics on how to waste the most money the furthest distance from West Point. Since there is no declared war, the U.S. should have a defense budget maybe as high as 1% of GDP and those wasted "defense" dollars should be spent on something to help the average man.

I'm not going to blame bloated defense budgets all on the politicians. Were there no Maj. King Kong or Col. Bat Guano busy asking for more toys, the Pentagon budget could be tamed.

[leftynyc]

8. Fuck off

They did what their commanders in chief told them to do. And to imply that any human belongs in a cage shows a lack of grace and class that doesn't belong on this website.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. I do believe this has become RW underground -

the incapability of so many to understand metaphors - a long and treasure conservative trait.

To the morons:

In WWII we let slip the dogs of war - and when the war was over they were not returned to their cages.
Get it? It is not a disparagement of the men and women who served in WWII - it is a decrying of the entrenchment of militarism in American culture since WWII. Get it?

Thanks, Izquierdista. I got it.

[COLGATE4]

4. McInerney has been a grade A asshole since the run up to

Bush's Excellent Iraq adventure. He's a Dr. Strangelove type of guy, more in the vein of 'bomb till the rubble jumps' than anything else, i.e. arrested development starting with Nam. Since that war went sour he has been absent as a talking head on Fox, which I'm sure he misses. What better way to become 'relevant' again then to jump on the thoroughly-discredited Birther bandwagon. He really REALLY wants another 15 minutes of fame.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. It's sad to see this.

The General has a genuinely distinguished record of military service to this country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_McInerney

Even after his retirement in 1994 (and before Faux), he had some meritorious accomplishments, such as assisting in the passage of the Chemical Weapons Convention. More recently, something seems to have affected his sanity. This action is clear evidence of that.

He's also a member of something called the "Iran Policy Committee." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Policy_Committee