Allen West gets some ink...and it's epic

[Rancho]

This guy was up on an Article 32 hearing on the way to a general court martial and was "allowed" to retire from the Army rather than face a certain conviction. The antics for which he was charged were fine for Rambo but not for a lieutenant colonel who is supposed to set an example. He was swept into office in the 2010 wave and lasted one term.

"Antics" that saved ****ing lives.

 

[knoxy]

I don't like hypotheticals, but since you ask...

I'll assume from dustoff22 that you were in command of a medevac bird that was prohibited by the Geneva Convention from being a combatant. I'll give you two answers. If I was in command of your unit I would not tell you to do it. If I was you, the pilot in command, I'd do it and pay whatever cost came of it.

Clean your shoes. You just stepped in a steaming pile of hypocrisy.

 

[zyx123]

Clean your shoes. You just stepped in a steaming pile of hypocrisy.

Your logic is flawed. Dustoff22 presented a radically different situation than the one Allen West was involved in and justifies a different decision than the one West came to. Dustoff22 described a case where an infantry unit was in contact and needed resupply and there was no other way to get it done than to put the resupply on an air ambulance. In that case you break the rules, you do the resupply, and you live with the consequences. In Allen West's case, this was not a kinetic engagement by an infantry unit with known combatants. It was an interrogation of an Iraqi cop by an artillery unit with all the hangers-on associated with an interrogation, including female interpreters. Go read the CID report, the transcripts of the interviews after the fact, the statements of the soldiers involved (they are all available online, you can see what West himself said at the time, along with all that were there, including the female interpreters). In essence, all the reports suggest that West lost his temper in the interrogation, pure and simple. There was no method to his work nor was there any actionable intelligence gathered by it. The Iraqi cop gave up some info on the ambushes purported to be coming, whereupon West's troops went to counteract the ambush and nothing came of it. There was no ambush, nor was there a conspiracy. The Iraqi cop was detained and then released. From all the evidence it's hard to see how West was dealing with the clear and present danger that dustoff22 presented, and it's easy to see that what West did generated no results whatsoever.

 

[swampy]

We know his real name, we know where he was born, we know he's a citizen, we know where he went to school, we know his service record, we know his accomplishments, we know his failures, we know his allegiance to our constitution, we know his allegiance to our flag flag. He seems amply more qualified that our current president. As our second black president, first true black president, I believe he'd be an improvement over our current president in everyone's eyes, except the eyes of our enemies.

 

[tommyc]

The way I see it he is a true patriot a real American hero, too bad our leaders in D.C. are not more like him.