Why not say, "We've been using people like this for decades and no one ever poisoned the well before. Perhaps we were naive, perhaps we were too trusting, but look, folks, these men were top-level military people, highly decorated -- who would have dreamed they'd allow themselves to be corrupted so thoroughly? We promise to be more vigilant in the future, we feel as badly about this as anyone."
— Jim

... is who could they get to say this with a straight face?

For those who have "faith" that top-level military people wouldn't lie to us, I have four words and a comma: Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman.

But hell, at least President Bush gave up golf. Good golly that must be tough on him.
— Hume's Ghost

Give the kid a break, HG. That's more than shooter's done. But then shooter didn't start the war by himself (but he would've if he could've).

The story (possibly mythical) I read about Midway involved the Navy using the battle as a War Games training exercise for planners and tacticians. Their only problem was that, if they changed any of the decisions made at the time, or removed any of the 'little strokes of luck' that the US Pacific Fleet enjoyed in the real world, they could never find a scenario that ended up in a US victory. The Japanese won every time, and usually they won big.

Anyone know if this is true or not?
— Tony J

I don't know if the story is true or not but it very well could be because the one-sided victory at the Battle of Midway was a series of strokes of luck. The advance warning of the attack was not luck because this was obtained through intelligence and codebreaking. The positioning of US naval forces was not a matter of luck because it was based on the foreknowledge of an attack and the experience gained from the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But the luck really began at Pearl when none of the Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers were there on December 7. The luck at Midway began when the Japanese fleet was visually sighted by a patrol aircraft from Midway through a break in the clouds. Once the Japanese fleet was located, attacks were launched from the US carriers consisting of torpedo planes and dive bombers. Normally, these attacks would have been coordinated and arrived at about the same time, but through a series of lucky accidents they arrived in waves separated by considerable time.

Lucky does not describe the first wave which was Torpedo Squadron 8 from Hornet — not a single plane survived and only one aviator lived through the battle. But because the Japanese combat air patrol (CAP) had been drawn down to sea level to deal with the attacking torpedo bombers, the dive bombers arriving some time later met no opposition from Japanese CAP and were able to attack virtually unhindered.

The timing of this attack was also a lucky break. The first wave of Japanese aircraft that had attacked Midway had just been recovered and were being refueled and rearmed. In addition, the Japanese had just located the American carriers and had decided to change the armament of some of the planes from bombs to torpedoes. The Japanese carriers thus had avition fuel, bombs, and torpedoes all over the flight and hanger decks when the American dive bombing attacks came.

The result: The Japanese lost four attack carriers, Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, and Soryu, all veterans of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Americans lost Yorktown damaged by aircraft in the battle and picked off by a Japanese submarine the next day while under tow to Pearl.

Change one of those lucky breaks that affects the timing of the attacks or don't sacrifice TORPRON 8 from Hornet for a tactical advantage and the outcome could have been significantly different.

But as someone has pointed out, even so, it wouldn't have made any difference in the long run. The Japanese simply could not sustain a war against the industrial capacity of the United States. All they could do was make them pay a heavy price for victory.

Glenn Greenwald is a complete fool if he thinks this feeble attempt at portraying Reagan as an "appeaser" makes any sense.
— DrJimmy

Like shooter, DrJimmy is incapable of seeing that Glenn is not attempting to portray Reagan as an "appeaser". Glenn is merely quoting the right-wing, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathers of the time attempting to portray Reagan as an "appeaser". Glenn has nothing to say about whether Reagan should be portrayed as an "appeaser" or not. Glenn's only point is that the tactic was as asinine then as it is now.

If DrJimmy wants to go on the record as saying that the far right-wing attacks don't make any sense (which he has in fact just done), we can assume that when the far right wing tries the same attacks on someone else (which it has in fact just done) he will also point out that this doesn't make much sense either. Somehow, however, I doubt that this will be the case.

Glenn is an activist who happens to be gay.

Presumably because of his background, his activism seems to be directed mostly to First Amendment issues: Freedom of Speech, Separation of Church and State, and the role of a Free Press in a Democracy. He often branches out into other constitutional territory, particularly Fourth through Eighth Amendment issues. Other issues that he deals with (e.g., the pernicious effect of the "Israel Lobby" [viz. AIPAC] on American politics) seem to be peripheral to these main themes. I don't speak for Glenn on this; this is merely an empirical conclusion on my part.

Another empirical conclusion: GTrasher's disclaimer that he is a "Black Activist" was inadequate. If he had been upfront and revealed at the beginning that he was in fact an intellectually-challenged, logic-deficient, Black Activist, it would have saved everyone from having to figure it out for themselves.