Ombudsman column: The Pentagon is trying to silence me

https://www.stripes.com/opinion/2026-04-23/stripes-former-ombudsman-pentagon-trying-to-silence-21465037.html

by petethomas • 3 months ago

354 109 3 months ago

timfsu• 3 months ago

Did not know this was a thing, kudos to her for speaking out!

J0nL• 3 months ago

You don't get that job without being the type of person who will only ever respond to coercion attempts with an equal amount of indigance. The sole reason for the position to exist is to act as a canary in a coalmine so to speak

She even admits she was due to stand down at the end of the year, they could have just waited her out. Instead it seems her calling a spade a spade was just too intolerable for them to bare

If that's all it takes to provoke the desired reaction from them it doesn't bode well at all. It's no wonder they were so easily led into a war with Iran on a leash

lukan3• 3 months ago

"they could have just waited her out. "

Well, they need the troops willingness to do whatever Trump tells them now, not next year. So they want propaganda for the troops and stars now and Stripes should be the medium, not annoy the administration by providing the troops with uncomfortable truth or facts.

system7rocks• 3 months ago

This is deeply disturbing. The terrible, incoherent messaging and strategy around the Iran war (unapproved by Congress) is connected. This is an administration that is seeking less freedom, not more. What entity would sue on behalf of the ombudsman?

deepsun• 3 months ago

It cannot be "unapproved by Congress".

A US president does not have authority to start a war, Congress has, according to Constitution. The president only serves as a Commander in Chief.

So at any point Congress can stop any military action issuing an immediate ruling preventing the president doing anything. If our congressmen don't do that it means they approve it.

It's our, USA, war, not Trump's war. Because we elected the congressmen.

xnx• 3 months ago

If our congressmen don't do that it means they approve it.

These needs to be repeated everywhere until people understand it. Same situation with tariffs.

AlexCoventry• 3 months ago

Yes, if this turns into a mass famine/deindustrialization, Americans are going to own it the way Germans owned the holocaust.

user3939382• 3 months ago

They passed a bill saying in 60 days stop without further approval. Admin said days we don’t attack dont count toward the 60…

Terr_• 3 months ago

What entity would sue on behalf of the ombudsman?

What entity could? Most of the unprecedented madness of the last few years boils down to:

1. The President does something flagrantly illegal.

2. The remedy is Congress impeaching and removing the President from office.

3. Republicans legislators are completely complicit, and have enough votes that #2 doesn't even start to happen.

The crimes will continue until something about #3 changes or until #47 finally succumbs to dementia.

tdeck4• 3 months ago

Democratic leadership are also all Zionists who not-so-secretly approved of the war, which is why they stalled the war powers vote until after he attacked.

https://capitalandempire.com/p/top-democrats-try-to-stop-vot...

riffraff2• 3 months ago

until #47 finally succumbs to dementia

how would that look like? I mean, more than what it looks like now. The man is spouting nonsense every single day.

niemandhier• 3 months ago

Historically the codified office of the Ombudsman came to Sweden after the Swedish King had to search refuge in Turkey and observed a similar position there.

I love that story, shows you that the world always was quite small and that what we perceive as progressive and backward countries is just a matter of time.

gostsamo• 3 months ago

Can you give some more context? I looked into Wikipedia and the relevant text there is giving different vibe:

Charles XII was in exile in Turkey and needed a representative in Sweden to ensure that judges and civil servants acted in accordance with the laws and with their duties. If they did not do so, the Supreme Ombudsman had the right to prosecute them for negligence.

Animats• 3 months ago

Trump also fired the Immigration Detention Ombudsman.[1]

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

jmward01• 3 months ago

We are past the point in history where it was hard to tell who the bad guy was.

vrganj• 3 months ago

We're at the point of history where your grandchildren will ask you "Where were you when...?"

ethagnawl2• 3 months ago

This and also, "Wait, so you didn't do anything when ... ?"

It gives you a new found level of empathy or, at least, understanding for the people throughout history who "should have done something". We all (well, most of us) grew up thinking that if we were a workaday German (fill in the conflict) with Jewish neighbors that we'd have obviously hidden them in our attic or whatever. It turns out the reality of taking that class of action is actually a lot more fraught that your 4th grade self thought it was.

Would you harbor a neighbor facing deportation to some far flung prison camp? You have to be willing to face the consequences of losing your home, job, liberty and life. If not, what would change the calculus enough for you to do so? If you know they're in your country legally? If they were pregnant? If the prison was rumored to be executing people?

jimnotgym• 3 months ago

Favouriting this for the next time someone on here tells me we don't have free speech in Europe, only in the US

linohh• 3 months ago

JD Vance has to save all of Europe because of checks notes lack of free speech. /s

generic92034• 3 months ago

Well, he did a good job of freeing Hungary from Orban. So, cut him some slack.

fragmede• 3 months ago

Who's still claiming the US has free speech?

watwut• 3 months ago

People who frame UK as oppressive hellhole, but somehow like former Hungarian leader and know all the talking points of the American conservative right.

tdeck4• 3 months ago

Freedom House. But then again, most of their funding comes from the US state department.

rob743• 3 months ago

The US constitution?

amelius• 3 months ago

See if you can find the US in these rankings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

rob743• 3 months ago

LIES from the Radical Left Lunatics from reporters without borders! Also, total Losers! USA is #1 in not Supressing the Speech that Really Matters!

GJim• 3 months ago

More evidence, if it's needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

The USA's score has taken rather a tumble since 2016 (I wonder why?).

riffraff2• 3 months ago

just a note: the RSF World Press Freedom Index is not based on hard data or sound statistics, it's based on a few questionnaires sent to journalists picked by RSF itself.

How many it's unclear, but it was ~150[0] some years ago, of which 50 in France[1] to monitor 180 countries.

It's worth as a generic "are we doing better than last year?" but I wouldn't consider ranking to be particularly meaningful.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130819031406/http://en.rsf.org...

[1] https://akademie.dw.com/en/the-press-freedom-index-by-report...

tick_tock_tick• 3 months ago

Why? The police aren't at his door and he's not been arrested it's not a good thing but we are still miles away from Europe.

cma• 3 months ago

Writing an op-ed can get the police on you here. The first amendment isn't supposed to only apply to citizens.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/...

piva00• 3 months ago

Europe where? Europe is a whole continent with 40+ different countries...

koliber• 3 months ago

She is a woman.

There are so many shades of gray in freedom of speech. In free European countries the police are also not at the door of outspoken government critics.

If you are alluding to dictatorial European countries like Russia and Belarus, the US is miles away and moving in their direction. Compared to Western Europe, there is no difference.

ilogik2• 3 months ago

Where is there a problem in Europe?

I if want to go to the US on the other hand, I need to give them my social media accounts. That doesn't sound like free speech to me

Arkhaine_kupo• 3 months ago

The FBI shows up if you write about the pres.

But tbh its so much nicer when journalists self censor to not lose their job because of access to healthcare.

Or when billionaires buy entire media empires and fire journalists critical of the goverment.

Bezos owning WP, Murdoch owning everything else, Sinclair owning local stations... the free speech is so fucking goood

benterix3• 3 months ago

People who say there is no free speech in Europe have never lived in an authoritarian country.

tokai• 3 months ago

But its mainly Americans saying it here on HN.

moi2388• 3 months ago

As an European, you think you actually have free speech? Go say something negative about Muslims or your country being full during any protest, I dare you. Because you will absolutely face criminal charges for that.

swordsith• 3 months ago

Facing reality is difficult for these euro types, they feel an need to to simultaneously hate America while also wanting to be like it.

VBprogrammer2• 3 months ago

People say shit about Muslims and our country being full all the time and nothing happens. The law does make it illegal to insight violence though so if you publicly suggest buring down a hotel you might find yourself in trouble.

It makes a lot more sense than being investigated by the FBI because you wrote a negative article about the head or being charged for reposting some cryptic numbers.

pjc507• 3 months ago

The House and Senate Armed Services committees have long had an interest in ensuring that unfiltered news went to the troops who are fighting for our country and deserved to read the truth, not propaganda. In the late 1980s Congress was alarmed at attempts of military personnel to “suppress unfavorable news” of the Iran-Contra affair and other issues. Congress mandated that Stars and Stripes be editorially independent and created the position of ombudsman in 1991 to monitor the situation and report to Congress at least once a year.

Funny how the same situations of recent history keep resurfacing. Not only "Iran", but we should recall the details of Iran-Contra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair

further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretly using non-appropriated funds

Oh look, it's presidential power contradicting Congress again!

"what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."

US attempts to deal with Iran, has incoherent strategy, gets rolled, lies about it.

Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush

Misuse of the presidential pardon power, again, which enables the president to direct people to commit crimes in the sure knowledge that they will not be held accountable to the law or other branches of government (Americans call this "checks and balances" for some reason).

One of those people was Oliver North, who turned his experience providing arms illegally to enemies of the United States into a long career at propaganda organizations the NRA and Fox news.

And so here you are again.

kakacik3• 3 months ago

One would expect that system would learn and change, and we wouldn't have trump fucking up half of global economy so beautifully on his morning whims just to get rich as a side business of being potus (or reverse, probably).

Something tells me that after this dark period is over, there won't be many lessons learned and things changed for the better in the system. 'Great system' not being so great after all (which it isn't, there are much better and more democractic systems implemented all around the world).

Republicans as usually will shield just about anybody including mass rapist and murderer just to not lose face, and democrats will just again have this inept look with 'we couldn't change a damn thing because XYZ but we asked nicely'.

pjc507• 3 months ago

One would expect that system would learn and change

The system did learn and change: they got a lot better at exploiting it. The effort to stack the Supreme Court with Republican partisans took decades.

le-mark• 3 months ago

'we couldn't change a damn thing because XYZ but we asked nicely'

They literally can’t do anything. The constitution is structure so the party not in power can only obstruct legislation (filibuster). The current Supreme Court is literally rewriting the constitution or how the constitution has been interpreted for over one hundred years. They’re the bigger threat (to the US at least)

atoav2• 3 months ago

One would expect that system would learn and change

The problem I have with that is that the typical American I encounter online appears to not perceive themselves as part of that system. And if you read your own founding documents We The People are supposed to play a pretty profound role within that system.

Only in the past year or ao I got the feeling that some appeared to have gotten the realization that they are not the temporarily embarrassed millionaires they always pictured themselves, but are in fact a lot closer to the homeless people whose tents you may pass by in your commute.

Some may have even realized that this is not a failure of the system, but a feature for those people who you chose to represent you.

The only two ways I see out of this mess is (1) collective bargaining (through unions and similar and (2) a ship of Theseus-like rebuilding of the established political personal within established party structures. Ideally both in tandem. Be part of the system and change it.

2ndorderthought4• 3 months ago

I don't know why you are down voted. Tons of bots in here it's ridiculous.

None of this is normal.

TitaRusell• 3 months ago

It's interesting. Ministers of justice in the Netherlands stopped handing out pardons when they realised it lost them votes.

Not a lot of bleeding hearts over here for criminals lol.

solid_fuel4• 3 months ago

The Trump administration is basically Reagan 2.0, but our political process has degraded to the point where the corruption and graft are even more blatant this time. Many of the current cabinet were involved in the Reagan admin too.

Their actions are the same - gutting the administrative state, squashing environmental regulations, persecuting queer people and racial minorities. Mass deportations. These were all hallmarks of the terrible Reagan presidency too. Even "Make America Great Again" is a reused slogan from the Reagan days.

Unfortunately the same uneducated morons who hold Reagan up as a great president are behind Trump right now, cheering this car crash of an administration even as they get us involved in new wars.

mmooss2• 3 months ago

I think that normalizes the radical changes Trump has made, including aggressively challenging election results, ending the independence of the Department of Justice and FBI, and using them to attack political enemies, extraordinary expansion of a federal law enforcement force (apparently to serve Trump's political interests), nationalist trade policies including high tariffs, undermining national security allies, undermining intelligence secrecy, appointing people highly unqualified by existing standards, threatening freedom of the press (including having private sector allies acquire a dominant share of news and other public communication), ...

rob743• 3 months ago

It took four months from the time I applied and went through a series of three interviews before I was selected from a field of 20 applicants and brought onboard. This is a critical time for the newspaper to be without an ombudsman who can fight against censorship and control.

Something tells me the process of finding a replacement ombudsman will be much faster. Hegseth probably already has someone in mind...

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 months ago

Congress mandated that Stars and Stripes be editorially independent and created the position of ombudsman in 1991 to monitor the situation and report to Congress at least once a year.

Congress, where are you?

homeonthemtn• 3 months ago

Illegality without enforcement is just a suggestion, no matter how strongly worded.

Something we are all coming to realize a little too late

Ombudsman column: The Pentagon is trying to silence me

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