ADM McRaven Is Misguided And Confused

ADM William McRaven claims President Trump damages the Constitution when he attacks the media. You can read about it here:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/18/politics/donald-trump-william-mcraven/index.html

Dear Bill - There are LOTS of things which damage the Constitution which you could be complaining about but apparently are not:

• The concentration of media power in a handful of corporations;
• The growing number of generals and admirals who appear on corporate "news" outlets to lobby for war and wasteful military spending which is bankrupting our nation;
• The state of emergency (sic) which has existed since 9/11, when there never was any such "emergency";
• The transformation of the US government into a "warfare" state with troops in nearly every country on the planet;
• The continual reckless provocation of Russia and China by US military forces;
• The proliferation of military hardware and tactics among US police forces and sheriff departments;
• The FBI's war on militias and other patriotic groups (Operation PATCON);
• The continual warrantless spying on the American people by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and social media companies;
• The escalating attacks on those members of the social media universe who criticize our fascist corporate controlled government;
• And several others, some of which are implied in this video - https://youtu.be/yuC_4mGTs98.

You and your admiral/general buddies would do well to re-read GA Douglas MacArthur's Thayer Award Acceptance Address, especially this part:

And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.

Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment. But you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms,  the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be: Duty, Honor, Country.

Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

This does not mean that you are war mongers.

& & & & & & & &

And by the way, I always am amused when you are introduced as "architect of the bin Laden raid". By any measure, that raid was an abject failure. Your men killed bin Laden instead of capturing him and then allegedly dumped his body into the sea. You call that a success? I don't. It was a great media stunt, but that's about all.