As I said, I am not a military legal expert, but here are my thoughts even though my brain at this time of night is not working as well as it could. The answer is YES.

They tried to protect themselves through the following two statements:

“…we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)”

“We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.”

Saying they are skeptical of recent press coverage, could mean that they are not being critical of the military or civilian government. Giving only personal views and saying they don’t represent any official military position is helpful; however, because they are saying this in uniform on active duty that could mitigate any of their efforts to not violate the UCMJ. Saying that their feelings will have no affect on their job through the remainder of their tour gives some cover by implying that it will not affect their or other service members ability to do the job.

There is no way to be out of uniform when you are on 24-hour, 7-days-a-week duty in a combat zone. You cannot make political statements in that situation. The following excerpts to me are opinion, not facts and could be construed as political and perhaps deleterious to morale and good order.

“This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.”

“However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support.”

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies,

“…we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.”

“Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful.”

“The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.”

“Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.”

“The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.”

I am sure that all seven have been called in by their commanders by now and given strict orders to not talk to the media or make any further statements and violating that order would have very serious consequences and no gray areas to provide a defense.

The next question is how big a story this op-ed will create. The more traction it gets to counter what Gen Petraeus and the Bush Administration are going to report, the more these seven will be in danger and you know with the nature of these odious people that could be very severe.

If the M$M comes to their defense and makes the American people aware of their courage and determination to help our country against very big odds, these goons might have to back off. However, the military is very reluctant to make any exceptions regarding UCMJ violations.

So, I think we need to make this story have as much impact as possible. Hope this is helpful.

When I say "in uniform," I really mean on active duty. In or out of uniform, you can not make political statements while on active duty.

When I say "in uniform," I really mean on active duty. In or out of uniform, you cannot make political statements while on active duty.

“Implicit in that sentence is the idea that Bush's case for Hussein's possession of WMD that could threaten our security was not made, but I would prefer if it was made explicit because that was THE key factor for me.”

Let’s assume that what we were told about Saddam’s WMD capability was fairly accurate and that getting rid of a despot and seizing oil resources was not the goal. Would that mean the invasion and degree of force used was justified.?

No. Regarding Iraq nuclear capability that was many years from even beginning to be a real threat. Biological and chemical WMD posed a more immediate threat for our forces in the region and Israel. The first Gulf War dealt with that as did the U.N. inspectors. Again many political and military actions instead of invasion were available and not used even though the pretense that they would be used was presented to Congress. I am not excusing any of our legislative representatives in 2002 because they should have been capable of the reasoning that I cited above.

As Glenn keeps pointing out, we should be very careful about buying any assumptions from so-called experts with hidden personal and ideological agendas.