Wow. I really need to read more of the right-wing blogs. I had no idea that Larry’s post last week had spawned a huge controversy. I had no idea that the right-wing went after Pat Lang and Juan Cole (calling Cole a dickhead and Lang an imbecile).
Greenwald has the recap, and it is really quite hilarious. See, the right-wing blogosphere thought Larry was peddling a forgery of an official Defense Department memo. Thing is, he wasn’t. The document was real.
And, of course, no one on the right is going to apologize for saying stuff like this about Pat Lang:
It’s this [Green Beret and retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Force] Pat Lang character, a lefty buddy of Larry Johnson’s, who’s been passing this obvious sham around. . . .
What kind of idiots do we have in our “intelligence” community, exactly?
When they give you an intelligence test, do they require you actually fail to get the job? Or at least post a not-too-high, not-too-low score somewhere between “average intelligence” and “borderline imbecile who sits in the corner all day clapping and masturbating”?
Pat Lang used to cross-post here at Booman Tribune. He’s the kind of guy you would expect the right-wing to value. You might expect that, at least, if you really believed the right-wing respects those that serve in our military forces and intelligence agencies. But, they don’t. They only respect some idealized version of a soldier…one that doesn’t get injured and doesn’t get a pension. Here’s the resume of the man they wrongly maligned.
He is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the Armed Forces Staff College. He is a decorated veteran of several of America’s overseas conflicts, including the war in Vietnam where he served in the Special Forces and Military Intelligence.[5] He was trained and educated as a specialist in the Middle East by the U.S. Army and served in that region for many years. He was the first professor of Arabic at the United States Military Academy, where he was twice selected as best classroom teacher of the year.[6] At the Defense Intelligence Agency, he was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service.[2] At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. At the DIA, he participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates). From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period he also briefed U.S. President George Bush at the White House. He had also briefed him during Operation Desert Storm. He had the responsibility for all the human intelligence “HUMINT” in the Department of Defense “DOD.” He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive, nominations for which are made from the top one percent of the career members of the Senior Executive Service.[3]
You think they’re sorry? Think again.
