Washington Post Responds to Joint Chiefs' Complaint With disdain

The following is a paraphrase of the Washington Post's response to a letter of criticism written by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in response to a political cartoon published in that paper earlier this week:

Dear Patriarchal, Jack-booted Joint Chief Generals and Admirals of the So-Called United States Military-Industrial Complex Currently Waging War On Behalf of the Oil Industry and At the Command of That Lying Commander-In-Chief Who Only Got Us Into This Mess To Avenge His Father: Greetings.

What? The Joint Chiefs of Staff criticizing a political cartoon in the Washington Post? Actually sending a letter signed by the five ranking military leaders of the United States during a time of war? Who do you think you are? Really! Of all the nerve. It's not as though this war is popular or anything. Young men and women are being killed and maimed in large numbers day after day after day.

The image of the four-limbed amputee was not intended to imply any disrespect to American troops who have been injured in this unjust and illegal conflict while they have been under orders to torture innocent civilians in Abu Graib, terrorize the Iraqi people in their homes and who were deployed to destroy and mutilate a country that DID NOT HAVE ANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION in the first place.

There is nothing to apologize for. Your complaints and criticisms are completely lacking in merit and totally unfounded. Any intelligent person, such as those on our newspaper editorial staff, could have told you that if you had only given us a phone call and asked for clarification.

What are you, after all? Just military hawks shuffling America's poor, uneducated underclass who, in the face of economic injustice and rampant racial prejudice, had no other choice than to join the military, around like pawns on a chessboard for your own blood-lust pleasure!

How dare you morons criticize US! We are the power of the people! The corporate embodiment of the First Amendment and defender of everything that is good and honest and moral and legal and Democrat in America!

To criticize us is to criticize the very freedoms you are supposed to be fighting for! Such hypocrisy leaves us almost, but not quite, speechless.

We've actually taken an objective poll of all the people who were responsible for publishing that cartoon and you will be surprised to note that not one of them, NOT ONE, saw anything offensive in the cartoon at all.

At the very least you should all schedule a visit to your favorite optometrist as soon as possible because it is obvious that you do not view the world the same way as we do!

Oh, before we sign off with our response to your letter, "Now that (you) have addressed the insidious threat cartoons pose to our troops, perhaps (you) can move on to less pressing issues like getting them their damn body armor."

Sincerely and Respectfully Yours,

The WaPo Editorial Staff