He didn’t waste any time either—coming right out with it in the title:
Fallen Soldier: Mr. President, do not leave this man behind.
In the third paragraph, Ajami vomited forth,
In "The Soldier's Creed," there is a particularly compelling principle: "I will never leave a fallen comrade." This is a cherished belief, and it has been so since soldiers and chroniclers and philosophers thought about wars and great, common endeavors.
Still not yet amazed at his own ability to equate Libby with a soldier, Ajami continued spewing right-wing fantasy untruths:
Scooter Libby was a soldier in your--our--war in Iraq. . . .
He finally concluded with a truly disgusting nugget of literary excrement concerning his pal Scooter:
He can't be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own.
After reading about this in BarbinMd’s front-page post and Inland’s diary, I spent some time trying to hold down my lunch thinking about how best to respond. When I regained my composure, I sat down to write a letter to Dr. Ajami. While I can’t say I speak for all soldiers, I know for a fact that I speak for most soldiers. And I know this because I am one—and I talk to soldiers and combat veterans every day. Here is the letter I’ve written Dr. Ajami:
Dr. Ajami,
As an American soldier, I am sickened by you. Your comparison of Scooter Libby to a "fallen soldier" is odious. Libby played an obvious and essential role in leading this nation’s military into a war in which over 3,500 real soldiers have fallen—and one in which over 25,000 others have been maimed.
You make such comparisons flippantly because you have never served in the military—much less in a war where a shadowy enemy was slaughtering your closest friends. You dismissively throw passages from the Soldier’s Creed around because people like you and Libby have no idea what really happens when a soldier "falls." Therefore, for your benefit, I’ve included some links to photos of real fallen soldiers. I’ve chosen to post only the links because the images themselves are grotesque. After you see them, you’ll realize that they don’t look very much like your traitorous pal Scooter. And I hope you’ll realize that Scooter, in fact, helped to put these soldiers and marines in the conditions in which you see them. Enjoy:
A Marine’s wedding photo
Dead American soldier
Dead and wounded American soldiers
Captured and beheaded American soldiers
So I’ll tell you what, Dr. Ajami. As soon as Scooter looks like the guys in these pictures, come back and we’ll talk. Until then, as a soldier, I kindly ask that you refrain from sullying the name of the U.S. Army by associating it with cowards like Scooter Libby.
And one other thing: You, sir, are a miserable piece of human garbage.
You can contact Dr. Ajami at Johns Hopkins by clicking here.
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UPDATE: I sent the following letter via email to the President of The Johns Hopkins University, the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Dean and Foreign Policy Institute Chair, the editor of The Gazette, The Johns Hopkins University newspaper, and of course, Keith Olbermann:
Dr. Brody, Dr. Knapp, and Dr. Einhorn,
As you may know by now, your colleague, Dr. Fouad Ajami, published a defense of convicted felon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. In his article, Dr. Ajami likened Mr. Libby to a "fallen soldier," going so far as to call Libby a "casualty of war." As an army officer and a combat veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, I speak for most soldiers when I say that we don’t appreciate the comparison. As a response, I posted an article yesterday on the political website Daily Kos ( http://www.dailykos.com ). This post reached the top of the Recommended List on what has become the world’s largest political blog. As Dr. Ajami has made his email address unavailable to the public, I’m writing to ask that you please forward him the link to the article below. I’d very much like him to see it.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns concerning the article, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
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