Word: dissent
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...Staff in the Bush Administration. His testimony in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the need for several hundred thousand troops in Iraq was challenged and dismissed as "wildly off the mark" by the Department of Defense. Spoiler alert: Shinseki ended up being right, but his public dissent of the Administration's estimate irreparably strained his relationship with his superiors. He unceremoniously retired in June...
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired General Eric Shinseki, who voiced the first, lone dissent of the Bush Administration's cut-rate plan for the Iraq war, to head the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The move shows Obama's deep concern for the needs of wounded veterans. More poignantly, it marks a comeback for an Army officer who was spurned by his superiors, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, for warning that the war's post-invasion phase would require many more troops than the Pentagon believed...
...Beware a 12-division strategy for a 10-division Army," Shinkseki warned at his retirement ceremony, an event attended by neither Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz. It was a public rebuke that sent a shiver through the officer corps, and made clear that professional dissent - however carefully considered and delivered by a top officer with 38 years in uniform - could derail an exemplary career. (Contrary to public perception, however, Shinseki was not fired by Rumsfeld. He served out his term as Army chief of staff, although Rumsfeld's allies had already hacked away at Shinseki's influence by proclaiming him a lame...
...would convince the junta to take a softer approach were dashed by the rash of detentions that accelerated in late October. Last week, two journalists were jailed, while three lawyers representing political activists have also been sentenced to prison. "These last few weeks show a more concentrated crackdown on dissent clearly aimed at intimidating the population," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement from the New York-based rights group. "These peaceful activists should not be on trial in the first place, let alone thrown in prison for years after unfair trials...
...month, many Burmese, who get their news from clandestine radio broadcasts, were shocked by a BBC Burmese service report that claimed a daughter of junta leader Than Shwe had spent more than $80,000 on a gold shopping spree in the city of Mandalay. Than Shwe himself brooks no dissent. The offense of Saw Wai, the poet who was sentenced to two years in prison? Writing a love poem published in a weekly magazine in which the first words of each line spelled out a brazen message: "Power Crazed Senior General Than Shwe...