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General: Conservatives Are ‘Absolutely The Worst Thing That’s Happened’ To The U.S. Military

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, appeared last night on HBO’s Bill Maher Show.

“We are in the midst of recovering right now from a constitutional crisis where you had the executive trump the other branches of government,” Eaton said. “Thank god” Congress changed hands in November, he said, giving us “a chance to unsort and figure out how to get out from under this.”

Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives “are good for the military.” “That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier,” that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress have “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.” Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/03/eaton.320.240.flv]

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One year ago this week, Eaton called for the resignation of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a New York Times op-ed. Vanity Fair has a new article checking in on Eaton now:

His new business cards say “consultant,” primarily because he doesn’t know what else he now is. Since he spoke out, several possible defense-related jobs have mysteriously dried up. ‘Maybe it’s the way I part my hair,’ he says. In late January, his elder son, a 29-year-old Arabic linguist who is an army specialist, went to Afghanistan. His younger son, 27, an army captain who has already spent 14 months in Iraq, will probably go back before long.

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