Fax
Messrs. O'Floinn and Voshkod,
The GCMR was created by myself when I was President of the Republic. Constitutionally, I had the right to create such Governmental Commissions on my authority alone. As Temporary Chair, I invited Cmdr. Tulp to serve on the Commission, he remained when I was confirmed Permanent Chair by now-President Glasser. As Chair (and, for that matter, having been creator of the Commission in the first place), I can set the agenda, the objectives, and invite whomever I wish to serve on the Commission (although, of course, as this is a Governmental Commission, the President may overrule my decisions if he so wishes). A Governmental Commission is a purely advisory body--and one that advises to the President only, not the National Assembly. It has no power beyond that of advisement, and its members are not paid. Thus, the extension of any conflict of interest rules or regulations seems extremely tenuous at best; I am no legal expert, but I do not think that there are any laws beyond the Constitution that regulate Commisssions, Governmental, or otherwise.
Even if such rules do apply, a claim conflict of interest on Cmdr. Tulp's part here has little grounding in the law or in fact. A Commission on Military Reform cannot carry out its work without people who know about the military: ie, those in the military--civilians alone cannot assess the situation accurately. Of course there will be bias; but bias, as I am sure the former President knows, is a part of every Commission's activity. Let us take a commission not related to military matters--say, the one on the Workers' Bill of Rights. Those on the left (Josephus, et al.) are going to be biased towards one particular viewpoint, while those on the right (Dan Hartwell, et al.) towards the other. Commissions in Eutopia are by their very nature political, and have always been. By having a balance of viewpoints from all parties, cogent conclusions can usually be formulated--this is the point of commissions, and this is being done in the GCMR, with a balance of those ardently for a strong and powerful military (such as the Commander), and those more skeptical (many of the civilians on the commission).
If Commander Tulp has a conflict of interest by being in the military, then so does the Mayor of Buen Puerto, who has an interest, perhaps, in seeing military spending ocurring in his major port city...and for that matter, I do, because my parents live in St. Brendanstown and would rather not have a naval base on their front yard. It is because of these 'interests' that many of these people are on this commission, not despite them--both the Mayor and the Commander (and myself) will be affected, and would like to have an input in an open forum discussing these important issues.
In addition, there are many precedents for military persons serving on Commissions; Gen. Hartwell served on the original Military Reform Commission, set up by the National Assembly--there was no objection. He even served as Minister of Defence and International Affairs (which, if it was a conflict of interest, was certainly much more of one than what Dr. Voshkod is alleging here)--again, to no objection.
--Prof. P.G. Talbott, Chair of the Governmental Commission on Military Reform
P.S. Well, I meant to give a brief statement (essentially what was contained in the first paragraph about my own role), but got carried away. My apologies to Commander Tulp for usurping his own defense.
]