Military B.S. Alert

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Remember James Yee, the poor Guantanamo chaplain who was charged with a laundry list of offenses, all of which were later dropped?

There’s a new James Yee. His name is Lt. Col. William H. Steele. He’s been accused of aiding the enemy, a charge that can bring a death sentence. The reason? He allowed detainees at Camp Cropper near the Baghdad airport to use an unsecured cell phone. All the charges against him sound suspiciously floppy:

He was also accused of illegally storing and marking classified information, disobeying orders relating to his possession of pornography, dereliction of duty regarding government funds and conduct unbecoming of an officer for fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee since 2005 and for maintaining “an inappropriate relationship” with an interpreter in 2005 and 2006.

The military is mum on the charges, but outside analysts who have seen them say the fraternizing charge probably did not involve a sexual relationship.

Now get this: The military accused Yee of disturbingly similar violations, including aiding the enemy, failure to obey a general order, adultery and storing pornography on government computers.

So the real question isn’t whether detainees were using Steele’s cell phone to harm Americans (much less whether Steele knew it, which would have to be proven for the charge to stick), it’s what Steele did to piss off the Pentagon. Or is this simply an attempt to distract the public from the security surge’s failure? (Now even Gen. Petraeus is saying things will get worse before they get better.) Stay tuned.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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