Reading the memoirs of German generals after WWI and WWII one is struck by a common theme -- the army was not responsible for those two losses, rather the civilian leadership was. I see Arkin's piece as part of the American military positioning itself to be able to blame Bush and Rumfield for our defeat in Iraq. It is true that these two may very well be the worst in American history, but I believe it is important that the senior military leadership also take the blame.

It is time for the American people to stop worshiping our military and begin to demand accountability.

Listen to which generals?

The ones who were forced or took the opportunity to resign once they realized this Iraq Quagmire was just a big black hole that would suck up American military and economic might?

Or the 20 percent deadender Red Bushies that remain?

Let's get real.

We should leave now.

We gain NOTHING by staying.

We lose EVERYTHING by staying.

Time to cut our losses.

Mission Impossible?

But the real experts are the Iraqis - their the ones with their lives at risk and their ears to the ground. What's their verdict?
Posted by: lowhangingmissiles

LWH
The two nations have at least two different objectives in mind, and therefore more than a singular mission to be pursued.

The governments of both nations are working at cross-purposes. Mr. al-Maliki, made it pretty clear the other day what the Iraqis that he was speaking for were thinking - Yankee go home, and we will move our country along on the course that Iraqi's want to pursue.

Unfortunately, what Iraqis want and what #43 wants are at odds with each other. If #43 gets his way, he had better hope that #44 has the same plan, otherwise, who will be there to continue to force #43's will upon the nation of Iraq? John McCain?

If al-Maliki has his way, the U.S.A. will be gone soon, and Americans will be left to wonder (when Iraq returns to the status quo) - was it worth it?

In other words, the American-installed Iraqi government isn't even buying into the ideals that are being forced down their throats by the American government. So how can you expect the average Iraqi citizen to do so!

#43 should have realized that he could not force his southern, religious-right ideals on a middle-eastern nation!

On the other hand, #43 is fairly adept at getting things done, when the government is on vacation, or in recess!

Arkin says the generals have punched their timecards and gone home on Bush's war. Kieth is in angry denial.

But the real experts are the Iraqis - their the ones with their lives at risk and their ears to the ground. What's their verdict?

50,000-100,000 Iraqis are relocating everymonth. Obviously they don't think the surge is going to work.

However, I'm going to dispute the generals:

"The generals have spoken. They think the war is lost."

Bush's war is lost - we're not going to get a allied nation-state out of Iraq.

As long as we identify our war with Bush's war, it is indeed lost. But why would we want to remain tied to a fool's goals for success? As long as we need to redeploy troops and redefine our mission, what about rethinking our interests and coming up with achievable goals that don't require a sea-change in the Middle East? Just because Bush is president doesn't mean we have to march off a cliff behind him.

Arkin says the generals have punched their timecards and gone home on Bush's war. Kieth begs to differ.

But the real experts are the Iraqis - their the ones with their lives at risk and their ears to the ground. What's their verdict?

50,000-100,000 Iraqis are relocating everymonth. Obviously they don't think the surge is going to work.

However, counter-intuitively I'm going to dispute:

"The generals have spoken. They think the war is lost."

Bush's war is lost - your not going to get a allied nation-state out of Iraq.

As long as we identify our war with Bush's war, it is indeed lost. But why would we want to remain tied to a fool's goals for success? As long as we need to redeploy troops and redefine our mission, what about rethinking our interests and coming up with achievable goals that don't require a sea-change in the Middle East? Just because Bush is president doesn't mean we have to march off a cliff behind him.

LISTEN TO THE BOOTS ON THE GROUND
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

It looks like the surge has worked.

I think everybody agrees that the purpose of the surge is to buy time. We are trying to provide sufficient security for the Iraqi people to be able to solve their own internal problems. Our troops are fighting and dying every day so that the Iraqis can reach political solutions.

Everyone also recognizes that the next weeks and months are crucial. Most in Congress, including many of the remaining GOP supporters of Bush, say that we need to show substantial progress by September. But they are being too shy about touting the progress that has already been made. Fact is, the surge has already worked.

After all their hard work solving these political problems and reaching accommodations to end the violence, the Iraqi Parliament now confirms they feel safe and secure enough to schedule a month-long vacation in August. Yes sir, when the going gets tough, the tough head for the beaches.

I think we should all be proud that these courageous legislators we are supporting have not been intimidated by a suicide bomber blowing himself up in the Parliament a few weeks ago. They are not deterred for a moment by the bodies of dead Americans and Iraqis on the streets. Their bravery in resolutely packing their bags for a 30-day holiday firmly demonstrates they are not willing to allow carnage to interfere with their R & R.

The Democrats are obviously way off base on this. This is not the time to put pressure on the Iraqi government by threatening to withdraw troops or face consequences for their failure to resolve their problems. Doesn't anyone realize how hot it gets in Baghdad in the summertime? Doesn't anyone realize that the parliament isn't even air conditioned when insurgents keep blowing up power stations, shelling the Green Zone and knocking the electrical grid offline? Have these courageous legislators not suffered enough?

I cannot believe that the Democrats and MSM are so invested in the surge's failure that they won't even report this encouraging news.

After all, this is about the Iraqi people and not us. It's their country we're trying to save for them. But thankfully they are responding like the early American patriots.

I remember our history. July 1, 1776. As the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, the country was in dire peril. Washington had marched his army to New York, where he awaited an expected onslaught from Gen. Howe, the British fleet and the Hessian mercenaries. He had spent weeks fortifying the city and the outcome was clearly in doubt.

As Washington braced for the invasion, delegates to the Continental Congress suffered from the heat and humidity, not to mention the pressure of possible charges of treason as they considered a course of independence. And just like the Iraqi Parliament, whose new-born democracy faces similar peril, they made the brave decision ... to go on vacation for a few weeks. This can all wait until fall.

Who can forget the defiant words of Patrick Henry, "Give me fruity drinks at poolside or give me death."

Or the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, who unforgettably wrote that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and a four-week vacation while our cities burn around us."

Or Benjamin Franklin, who told the delegates, "We can all hang out together at the beach or we will surely hang separately."

Of course, this indomitable American spirit has continued through the ages. Who can forget John F. Kennedy's speech at his first inaugural, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how long you can leave the country."

Yes, the Iraqis certainly are showing their mettle and why they deserve our support. Their sense of urgency is compelling and truly worthy our sacrifices.

Imagine the pride of an American Army chaplain going to comfort a grieving American mother who has lost her son or daughter. "Ma'am, your loss is not in vain. Your son made the supreme sacrifice so the Iraqi government can vacation with honor."

How can Democrats DARE to put pressure on these freedom-loving Iraqi politicians? Have we lost the spirit that made America great?

Jaxas, there's also something to be said for this administration consistently placing itself above the law on...well, gosh, on virtually everything. It has turned me into a 100% disgruntled Republican who must now look outside the party for future leadership on both security and military matters.

Our state cannot be hijacked from within and remain viable in both its internal ideals and in world leadership. The tipping point has been crossed, and there's no amount of spin that can bring it back from the brink. We Americans must demand more from our public servants---notably that they don't take on an assumed immunity from all accountability.

We have to get real on why we're even in Iraq (I'm not sure anyone knows anymore or can give even a halfway convincing case,) and how we're going to get out, and, almost more importantly, reposition our nation as folks who actually do care about freedom and democracy, something our recent and, frankly, longterm actions in foreign matters belie as much as they confirm, canceling out that unassailable moral certainty we would wish to claim as our own.

Mr. Arkin, the real story here is not Bush's war strategy. His one, singleminded strategy--winning the war--is lost. He knowsit. The generals and admirals know it. The Jount Chiefs know it and the politicians in Washington know it. The real story then, is Bush's political strategy for shifting blame for what he and everyone else knows is coming. That is why he is being so mystifyingly pigheaded about any serious effort to pull out of Iraq. It is a stalling tactic to push everything off onto the next unlucky slob who gets into the Oval Office. It is all about Bush's legacy. He wants to be able to say that Iraq was not lost on his watch even though everyone knows full well that it was.

This is classic Bush strategy. Take credit for anything good that happens on your watch whether you had anything to do with it or not. Find a scapegoat to pin all your miserable failures on, then lean heavily on all those same sycophants, loyalists, groupies and propagandists to burnish your legacy once you leave office and ultimately rewrite the entire history to make yourself look like the glistening hero you still believe yourself to be.

I am surprised that so many of you in the media have missed this story.

Hi-
Re ignoring military experts. Pres. Stumblebum has consistently ignored expert advice on science, intelligence, security, etc. Is it so surprising that military advice is also ignored? When one speaks to God (and Rove), you know instinctively how to do things. Justice had minor league right-thinking" staffers making important personnel and policy decisions, with some Rovian input (pretty much what happened in the Baghdad's CPA, the EPA, etc.).
It's kind of obvious that this group only respects power. If the military wants to be listened to, only threats are useful. If theater commanders terminate operations, have troops retreat to safe havens, i.e., act to end the madness, the Administration will listen, and to nothing else.

emainland wrote: "...What are Democrats waiting for? 46 percent of Americans want Bush impeached. 54 percent want Cheney ousted. 70 percent want us to exit Iraq. The Republic is in peril and the Democrats are mostly mealymouthed and ineffectual...IMPEACH CHENEY..."

It's the economy, silly.

Employment is under 5%, inflation is under 3%, GDP is still in positive territory. Impeachment will only come to the table if there is stagflation, a recession, or some other significant economic downturn.

This is off topic, but some of the more thoughtful followers of Arkin's blog
might find the following link to William S. Lind's work on Fourth Generation War to shed light on the incapacity of the current civilian and military leadership to comprehend the nature of the spreading insurgency and delegitimization of the state world wide. The US-Israeli imperial venture in Southwest Asia is doomed to fail as military power undermines the very objective of the actors, unless the entree into this quagmire is intended to destroy the moral, finacial, and military power of the USA. Perhaps the neo-conservative authors of american policy in Southwest Asia are themselves non-state actors in the same sense that Hamas or the Mahdi army are non-state actors. The state is losing sovereignty in the world. What will take its place? William S Lind's work contrasted with the valuable reporting of Arkin's insider views and information show that we approach a new dark age if men of good will are not able to comprehend and stop the war machine's march to destruction of the legitamacy of the american ideal of human freedom from domination by non-state actors, many of whom wage war by deception. Anyway, heres the link: http://www.defense-and-society.org/lind/lind_archive.htm

Iraq is the new Congo.

Iraq is the new Congo, and everyone knows it.

Don't these sycophantic careerist generals make you sick? They rolled over for Rumsfeld and they are rolling over for Gates. What a sorry collection of spineless opportunists who put their
personal advancement ahead of defending the Constitution and telling the truth about the pointless agony that is Iraq today. And don't Warner and Lugar make you sick? Warner-Lugar's bill is toothless. We should END THE WAR, NOT NARROW IT. Congress is failing its duty when crimes go overlooked and
unindicted. What are Democrats waiting for? 46 percent of Americans want Bush impeached. 54 percent want Cheney ousted. 70 percent want us to exit Iraq. The Republic is in peril and the Democrats are mostly mealymouthed and ineffectual. That's why Congress's approval rating is 20 percent, even lower
than Bush's. Won't someone besides Kucinich stand up for America? IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST LEST HE BOMB IRAN AND MAKE THINGS WORSE.

Neither Cheney nor Bush want the generals and admirals to do anything but snap to attention and, when ordered to Jump, answer, "How high, sir!!!?" Es lebe das Fuehrerprinzip!

why do conservatives seem to echo the administration's talking points so often? Who the heck would have called someone a surrender monkey before the right-wing machine coined the term? Make up your own phrases! Think for youserlves! Walking around quoting Bill O'Reilly does not impress anyone, besides perhaps Bill O'Reilly's producers. It might give your ridiculous, blood-thirsty positions a teensy bit more weight (whether it was deserved or not).

Hey noname you are really brave. giggle, giggle.

Bush is blaming Tommy Franks, but if I remember correctly, didn't Franks originally want to invade Iraq with something like 450,000 troops? Rumsfeld then kept bugging him and bugging him until he cut the number to a couple hundred thousand. This is from Woodward's "Plan of Attack".

Go back to France you surrender monkey Arkin

poor tommy franks!! by playing the "evil cheney" game of follow the leader, he has become the new whipping boy for the administration. it could not have possibly been the fault of donald rumsfeld, could it? (hey, just where is that guy anyway?) well at least petraeus has fair warning as to what awaits him if he doesn't produce the miracle that is expected from him. altogether, this is beginning to resemble the "bunker mentality" that pervaded the late, not so great adolph hitler in his final days. in the end, hitler thought he was in fact the general of all the armed forces, becoming paranoid to the point of trusting no one and ordering the executions of all those who differed in his approach to the final outcome. well, this america and i suppose all the not so great king george can do now is perform executions by way of the american press. he has also chosen to once again use bin-laden as a kind of "hammer of terror" in order to attempt to scare the american public into believing that the end of civilazation will be near if we do not fight on for five more dreadful years without actually capturing the "evil doers". what does bin laden know and when did he know it? ah! that would be the million dollar question. this is all getting very old and it is truly sad to see just how low our president can go in his futile attempt to usurp constitutional law and power in america. desperate;despearate he is!

These guys are supposed to be willing to die in combat, yet they're not brave enough to do that?

How many generals have I heard say: We saw what happened to Shinseki. Nobody wanted to suffer his fate.

OD

But was bravery the real issue, or was it and is it the issue of competency that is the real concern of the generals? After all, Shinseki did not loose his life on the battlefield; he was killed by unfriendly fire from Washington D.C.!

Dying on the battlefield is one thing, but causing individuals under your command to die needlessly (and as a result of gross incompetence) is a totally different matter.

If I were a general, I wouldn't ask anyone to die under a strategy or policy that I would question myself, for my job would also be to protect those individuals who are under my command, and not to put them needlessly in harms way.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/04/0080995

An ole' saying, 'A man surrounded by yes men, will never accept no for an answer'.

Bush 41, to his credit, listened to General's Colin Powell and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, years ago.

I wonder why #43 would not listen to sage advice from these two accomplished and distinguished generals at the onset?

I suppose it all depends upon which generals believe the way that you do, that matters!

I like Arkin because he's usually willing to fight the standard American urge to give a free pass to anyone in uniform.

But it seems odd that, when he looks at the politicisation of the Pentagon, he concludes it's all Bush's fault.

After all, the Pentagon has been politicised before, in the Vietnam era, and Bush was AWOL with a straw up his nose at the time.

Opinion polls in America show that the public reveres the military. I find that incredible after the last five years, but I can't deny that it's true.

So if, say, the General Staff were to live up to their statutory duty to give candid advice (not passive-aggressive sullen silence) they could be sure of getting vindicated in the court of public opinion. The first one or two might suffer career damage, but public outrage would prevent the White House and SecDef from punishing them all.

These guys are supposed to be willing to die in combat, yet they're not brave enough to do that?

How many generals have I heard say: We saw what happened to Shinseki. Nobody wanted to suffer his fate.

Once, at Sandhurst, I met a German officer who was there as part of a staff college exchange program. His name was Colonel Berthold von Stauffenberg. He had a father who was also a Colonel once, Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg. The heroes of the Pentagon would do well to read HIS bio, then think about what they're really being asked to sacrifice.

# 43 Is A Failed Policy-Maker, Decision-Maker, Strategist & Cheerleader!

He had to put a new face on the war, because the band (Republican base) was no longer playing along, and all of the once beliving fans were abandoning the 'ole Washington team' and going home.

The failed cheerleader, has more and more simply abdicated his once cherished role. He is hoping that by suborning a new mask (the Generals mask), and placing it over the problem, that all of the faithful fans will return and give one more rah rah rah for the ole team!

The sad part about all of this is that America could have won (not an uncalled for war), but the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people (most of whom apparently sided with America in the first place) without shedding one drop of anyone's blood.

The war was lost, when the American people realized that #43 had misrepresented himself!

What a waste of lives and resources! I wonder what will #44 be like?

General Shinseki knew that the only way to win any war is with overwhelming MAN power. He stated it would take 275000-325000 troops to "win the war and secure the peace". He was immediately dismissed for daring to contradict Donald Dumsfelds "small footprint" idiocy. Our military is populated with yes-men and partisan hacks biding time for their "leader". I'd suggest a coup, but they'd F that up too.

Bush only listens to the generals that tell him what he wants to hear. If Bush held this same press conference 9 months ago you could have replaced Petraeus with Abizaid, but Abizaid doesn't believe in Bush's ridiculous surge so he got rid of him and found someone who would - Petraeus.

I can't believe no one in the press called Bush out on his claim that he justs listens to the Generals - where is John Abizaid then??

Also, why is Karl Rove taking part in video conferences with Bush and military leaders in Iraq? Are we do beleive Bush when he says politics do not play a role in his decisions on Iraq?

Disgracefull!!

Bush only listens to the generals that tell him what he wants to hear. If Bush held this same press conference 9 months ago you could have replaced Petraeus with Abizaid, but Abizaid doesn't believe in Bush's ridiculous surge so he got rid of him and found someone who would - Petraeus.

I can't believe no one in the press called Bush out on his claim that he justs listens to the Generals - where is John Abizaid then??

Also, why is Karl Rove taking part in video conferences with Bush and military leaders in Iraq? Are we do beleive Bush when he says politics do not play a role in his decisions on Iraq?

Disgracefull!!

Bush only listens to the generals that tell him what he wants to hear. If Bush held this same press conference 9 months ago you could have replaced Petraeus with Abizaid, but Abizaid doesn't believe in Bush's ridiculous surge so he got rid of him and found someone who would - Petraeus.

I can't believe no one in the press called Bush out on his claim that he justs listens to the Generals - where is John Abizaid then??

Also, why is Karl Rove taking part in video conferences with Bush and military leaders in Iraq? Are we do beleive Bush when he says politics do not play a role in his decisions on Iraq?

Disgracefull!!

It is indeed an astonishing posting, because you (William) make the bold claim that the current generals (not including Petraeus) think the war is lost. However, I didn't find any substance in your posting to back it up.

You reference the joint chiefs of staff being "props", and some disagreement in a 2003 meeting, but have any of them claimed "the war is lost"? If so, let's see specific current quotes. Otherwise, William, please quit interjecting your own opion in the guise of news.

My sentiments echoed:

[July 13 2007] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Looking Back Over My Shoulder I Find It More Difficult To Rationalize My Previous Beliefs - Mistakes Have Not Been Made! The People In Power Have Made This Mess On Purpose, NOT By Accident!

That includes "Listening to the generals"...

NOT BY ACCIDENT! By design.

http://leighm.net/wp/2007/07/13/tth_070713/

[Note: There's hum in the audio due to impending server power supply failure. I recommend the 'player on page', not the archive.org m3us/mp3s, for more listen-able audio

General Eric Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff, said it clearly and well:

"Who stole my fortune cookie?!"

I hope our Congressional members will read your posting...and publically respond in agreement or disagreement.
Yours is an astonishing posting.