Talk about double-dipping! I wonder if it would be too much to ask that media outlets ask about such conflicts before they offer them outlets as "objective" analysts:

WASHINGTON — After retiring from the Marine Corps in December 2003, Emil "Buck" Bedard headed back to work — for both the Pentagon and defense contractors.

Two months after leaving the service as a lieutenant general, Bedard became an adviser for the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command, a job that this year paid him about $1,600 per day to help run war games and mentor high-level commanders on how to lead troops in battle. Bedard also signed on with seven defense contractors as a corporate director or consultant.

For one of those firms, Bedard marketed a video surveillance system to the Marines during the time he was getting paid by the Pentagon for mentoring, even after a general concluded that the technology "did not work as advertised," a USA TODAY investigation found.

Bedard's activities present a case study of the kinds of situations that arise when retired senior officers become paid Pentagon advisers even as they market products to the military as consultants for defense contractors. USA TODAY reported last month that roughly 130 retired generals and admirals have held taxpayer-funded military jobs as "senior mentors" while also working for defense contractors.

Bedard's case goes beyond getting paid to advise the government and industry at the same time. E-mails and interviews show that Bedard pushed for his former service branch to buy the video system, including sending e-mails while on mentoring assignments.

"In the corporate world, this ... would not be tolerated," said Kirk Hanson, director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California.

"It is not uncommon for someone to consult with their former employer, but it is a major concern if they are simultaneously representing groups that sell to or try to influence their former employer."

I'm so glad someone who has been there has finally said it:

(I)n a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, (former Marine Corps Captain Matthew) Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.

U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."

While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"

Hoh is quick to say he's not some hippie peace-nik. Sigh. Why does he make that sound like a bad thing? But Hoh does feel that our presence does nothing but escalate violence and turmoil with the Afghans.

(M)any Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "

"I realize what I'm getting into . . . what people are going to say about me," he said. "I never thought I would be doing this."

Continue reading »

February 04, 2009 C-SPAN
The House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subommittee and Air and Land Forces Subcommittee held a joint hearing. Army and Marine Corps officers testified about programs to protect U.S. troops and their families from hostile attacks.
See more CSPANJunkie videos here.

Part 1

Part 2