Obviously you two have been or are...so you are up on military protocol.
I will defer to you that what Abizaid said was not not allowed under the Military Code of Conduct."
You don't have to be military (I'm not) to know what the protocol is.
We do know Abizaid's timely comments were not a coincidence, nor was he reprimanded because he was obviously given a green light.
I am sure Abizaid's comments were "approved" by Rumsfeld and above...the point is, as a military man, he should have known better than to step into a political fight, regardless of which side he favored.
I am in the military myself, and I have not gone in uniform, in front of the cameras, to make my preference known...regardless of which side he preferred, he needed to keep it to himself.
How naieve of everybody. He was ORDERED to say what he said.