Your incessant comparison between the President and a military soldier makes my point.
mean·ing·ful /ˈminɪŋfəl/ Show Spelled[mee-ning-fuhl] Show IPA
adjective
full of meaning, significance, purpose, or value; purposeful; significant: a meaningful wink; a meaningful choice.
Meaningful | Define Meaningful at Dictionary.com
Meaningful criticism is something that has value to the person being criticized. You can write a letter to the President and completely rip him up one side and down the other, but that doesnt mean that anything you say will be meaningful to him. He will know that since you weren’t there when he made his decisions, you cant know what went in to the process. The same can be said about the soldiers in this story. You can tell them how stupid you think their actions were, but i doubt anything you say will make them feel any differently since in their minds, you cannot understand what went through their minds that caused them to make the decisions they did.
Your criticism obviously has meaning to you, but why do you think it has meaning to them?