Where is the coverage pertaining to NYT's "Pentagon's Hidden Hand" story? Why isn't this at the top of the Nation category?

But when you have a government like the US - with so many extremely qualified advisors and administrators... I still rightfully feel as though it is an act of either follishness or ignorance

plainfacto,

You are my man, however, do you still believe in Santa Claus too?

Perhaps that is where the source of the problem lies. You give these guys far too much credit, and you place too much of the blame on the media in my opinion.

You don't agree with me, however, Franks and company did not get out of Dodge for naught!

Americans are a lot smarter than you are giving them credit for, they can see through a ruse when they are motivated to do so, and that is why 75% of Americans have rejected the Bush fiasco and Bush for that matter.

Also, I am certain that your dad must have told you about the jaundiced good ole boys network, mostly veterans, that thrives at CIA headquarters and abroad. Many are not as qualified as you have given them credit for, they are simply a part of a patronage system! Donald Rumsfeld apparently did not feel that they were very qualified either!

However, why blame the advisors, GWB and company rejected much of the information that was derived from the CIA (General Powell and others )in the first place, except when they wanted to use either one to support their magical thinking and venal purposes.

Harry Truman said it best, "the buck stops here". GWB has played the blame game for 7 years; he blamed alQaeda, Saddam, Iraq, Iran, Syria, American liberals, WMDs..., and we all know that his agenda was in place before he ever took office!

Conservatives, some of them who were and are considered to be fairly astute have spoken up and distanced themselves from GWB and company. Everyone knows that GWB and 'his government', not the people's government was and is wrong; even those who out of loyalty - stand by the man!

Cheney said it best, "I don't care what the American people feel". What 'the Bush government' is doing in Iraq is wrong plainfacto, the buck stops with Bush, and they really don't care what the American people, America's allies or anyone else thinks!

Sound like Hitler!

//..at times one's government can SIMPLY BE WRONG!\\ -The Rev

Yes it can. Anyone can be wrong; you, me, or ANYBODY. Governments can be wrong. But when you have a government like the US - with so many extremely qualified advisors and administrators in the military and intelligence involved in the nation's defense, I still rightfully feel as though it is an act of either follishness or ignorance - which is helped being perpetuated by the media - to believe that the need for US involvement is misdirected or ill-concieved.

This is not blind patriotism, Rev - although you feel that it is. My Dad - as you know - was a Military Intelligence/CIA guy. My point? He often discussed with me that things are often distorted by the news/media. Another point he made is that not every detail to a wartime situation is/has been revealed by the media. There is a protocol of the military to release that info which cannot serve the enemy's ability to succeed through our press.

When you add up what you see in the media (ha!), most people end up deciding what they do about the war through the bias of their favorite news carrier. Good, bad, biased, or indifferent - they just suck it up and ask for more. What I am attempting to point out is that it is ultimately up to the reader to beware of the quality of their media source in which they listen to most often.

IMHO, I take all of it with a grain of salt (another way to say they are FOS) and read between the lines as carefully as possible. That usually works. My apologies to the many press agencies and their subordinates, but most of you guys can't agree on the color of scat or find your own butts with both hands! You blame the gov't; and I blame the lack of credibillity of the various press.

//The reasons people retire from the military are as varied as retirees themselves. And I would not dismiss out-of-hand Rev's thought that some senior military leaders have retire because they find the White House's war-related policies incompatible with their own philosophies and principles.\\ -Frank

You are playing politics - Frank. You and I both know well what I meant. By the time ANY commander gets to the point of retirement - or is offered a higher position in the military - it has PRECIOUS little to do with politics and EVERYTING to do with fitness of command, ability, and age.

To quote a military axiom - as well as you Frank - "it's either lead, follow, or get out of the way."

Your veracity and consistancy has fallen a notch or two.
I'd work on it...

We really don't know how much money the military needs until the junk wished upon it by the Administration, the industrial side of the military/industrial complex , advocates in Congress for the Star Stars Missile defense systems, and private contractors doing military jobs are eliminated. Some of the money wasted their can go to the real needs of the services. While I believe the Military needs to be prepared for a variety of missions, We need to look at the real needs of the services now and in the future.
As to Russia, Iran, and China, there is no problem that cannot be handled by diplomacy. My major disagreement with the Chinese is our trade relationship, which is largely the fault of the Clinton/Bush "Free Trade Policy". If we regain control of our own economy, we can solve our own economic problems. Both the U.S. and China need to look at internal development rather than trade.

Well. As you know, I believe intellectual honesty is essential for understanding. And understanding is far more important than agreement.

Frank,

You and others on this blog would make great statemen and stateswomen!

As soon as I get my friend plainfacto to become intellectually honest and to ignore blind patriotism, he would make a great statesmen as well!

For example, patriots stood by the American government's partiality, and preferential treatment of one group of American citizens above the other. Thank God, some of those patriots began to break ranks, having listened to a higher call.

Frankly, no pun intended, at times one's government can SIMPLY BE WRONG!

to Plainfacto,

The Exchange between Senator Warner and General Paetreus during the Senate Hearing a week ago:

Senator Warner: Was the war worth it?

General Petraeus: ... we followed our best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.

Senator Warner: Will it make America safer?

General Patraueus: I don't know, I have not sat down to think about it...!

Do you get it plainfacto, according to the distinguished General, America achieved its [venal] objectives; this war was never about American safety. Patreaus knows that what America is ultimately seeking after will never be achieved militarily!

We must change our draconian policies which has always encompassed a belief in a double-standard, one standard for America to remain atop the world order, and another standard for the rest of the world and satrap nations (our allies) beneath it!

If you consider America's internal domestic divide, it remains intact today because America has always had a double-standard, one for its preferred class and another for its diminuitive class!

Get in the real world plainfacto, you are supporting a mockery of true justice!

Rev writes:

-- ... even when you disagree with me! --

Well. As you know, I believe intellectual honesty is essential for understanding. And understanding is far more important than agreement.

And I would not dismiss out-of-hand Rev's thought that some senior military leaders have retire because...!

Frank
Thank you Frank. You and I fight from time to time, however, I am always appreciative of your objectivity and candor - even when you disagree with me!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I will never understand the blatant dichtomy/incongruence between what American policymakers and most American citizens believe is good for Americans, and America's perpetuation of the doctrine of totalitarianism which it uses the military to spread abroad.

In my opinion, this kind of American schizophrenia only hurts America abroad. However, when I think back to the founding of this nation, there has always been a double-standard.

In the final analysis, America's desire to be a world leader, other than by military force, subterfuge or economic strangulation of nations who will not submit to the will of the American juggernaut, has been defeated!

We need to go back to the drawing board!

Plainfacto

Given Washington's insistence on micromanaging the war, its ignoring the will of Army Command, its broken promises, that General Franks had already passed on to the troops (that the troops would soon be going home), General Franks and the top Commanders in Iraq under him all left Iraq.

In public, General Franks appeared to have supported his boss Mr. Rumsfool, however, in private he expressed his true feelings which have since been made public. The actions of Ambassador Bremmer, disbanding the Iraqi Army without consultation and against the will of Army Command was the last straw.

Even retired General Garner who was originally dispatched to oversee Iraq was immediately upstaged by Presidential envoy Paul Bremmer.

How do you suppose that Junior General Sanchez got the job of top Commander - everyone else left, Plainfacto.

The fact of the matter is that Commander Tommy Franks and the Brass under him decided to exercise their options (including retirement), and get out of there, just as I have reported!

The rest of the military would be smart to follow their lead and to get out of there -and that is the will of the majority of the American people.

How does it feel to be a minority Plainfacto?

Dimitry writes:

-- This used to be the case, but is no longer, after we started the invading and the price of oil skyrocketed. I guess, we can consider our actions as an anti-poverty plan for oil-producing nations.--

Your suggestion that the war cauaed increased oil prices is widely open for debate. As reported today in the WP, economists have not even come close to reaching a consensus opinion on the relationship between the war and oil prices/the nation's economy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402639.html

plainfacto writes:

-- They either retire because they already have put in their twenty-two years of service - and either get moved up to the JCS or other top Pentagon positions or retire to their goat farm in Missouri. Ask Frank; he'll verify that. --

The reasons people retire from the military are as varied as retirees themselves. And I would not dismiss out-of-hand Rev's thought that some senior military leaders have retire because they find the White House's war-related policies incompatible with their own philosophies and principles.

The second Indochina war, the American Vietnam war, saw the american military and allied forces defeat three armies raised by 'North Vietnam'

Political pressures and the failure of resolve caused the Americans to quit the field and not engage the fourth army raised by North Vietnam.

The Democratic People's Republic of Vietnam never attacked the United States or one of our core allies. American interests were not served by our military involvement in Vietnam. It never was our war.

Vietnamese communism was and is highly flavored by Vietnamese nationalism and never would have formed a cohesive force with China or Soviet Russia.

Please know that I state these observations without any admiration for the communists.

The United States Army Republic of Vietnam collapsed as a military organization due to internal stressors that outside political authority would not allow to be relieved. (see Gabriel and Savage, and the report commissioned by Gen. Westmoreland)

Our present situation in Iraq seems to be having the same corrosive effect upon our Army.

This effect is having consequences upon our tactical ability to prosecute our war in Afghanistan and our strategic ability to choose response levels in meeting any other situation in the world requiring a military response.

This constant strain may tax our political system past its ability to maintain our constitional republican form of government.

Vietnam 1969-70 1971-72

For uncensored news please bookmark:

www.wsws.org
www.onlinejournal.com
www.globalresearch.ca
www.takingaimradio.com

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3167.shtml

Is the CIA behind the China-bashing Olympics protests?

By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Apr 11, 2008, 00:28

Around the world, Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games has become the target of unprecedented, well-orchestrated and extremely hostile mass protests.

Meanwhile, geostrategic realities, and historical and current parapolitical fact, suggest that the protesters and passionate activists (in time-honored form) have once again become the willing dupes, propaganda shills, and street bullies for "causes" created, fronted, and pushed by Anglo-American intelligence agencies (CIA, British intelligence, etc.) that continue to target a government (this time Beijing), in a host of long-term subversion and sabotage plans.

Tibet: imperial pawn

Behind the powerful din created by the popular and celebrity-embraced "Save Tibet," campaign is the fact that the CIA is behind the Tibet independence movement.

According to many reports, the Dalai Lama himself may be a long-time CIA asset. See The Role of the CIA behind the Dalai Lama's holy cloak and The Tibet Card.

In addition to being geostrategically situated, Tibet is also rich with oil and gas, and minerals -- and this is just part of the larger superpower warfare between the US and China. See Tibet, the "great game", and the CIA.

The legions of pro-Tibet activists also seem largely unaware of the historical fact that the "holy land of compassion" has been a CIA pawn since the end of World War II. The infamous Tolstoi Mission sent CIA operatives into Tibet, with plans to establish it as a US military base, from which the US could control the entire Asian region. This activity flourished under the US-supported, opium-banked Nationalist Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

When the Communists rose to power, the CIA trained Tibetans in guerrilla tactics to use against the regime in Peking, and thousands of Tibetans lost their lives in these battles. Who benefited? Who really gave the orders then -- and who is driving the agenda now?

There is little doubt that Anglo-American interests continue to use Tibet, exploit the image of Tibet as a holy place under siege, and bamboozle naïve (and well-heeled) outside activists with slick marketing, in order to undermine Beijing.

Denunciations of Beijing's brutal crackdowns do not take into account the covert operations and outside infiltrations that triggered the crackdowns in the first place.

Outside forces behind Falun Gong

On the surface, and to uncritical eyes, practitioners of the practice of Falun Gong, a school of Chinese qi gong, are the innocent victims of horrific suppression by Beijing. In a situation parallel to the crackdowns in Tibet, it is also a fact that Falun Gong has been the recipient of years of vicious crackdowns and human rights atrocities across China.

But just as is the case with Tibet, there is more to the Falun Gong case than simple persecution. Outside political forces and corporate interests can be found pushing Falun Gong into increasingly political activities, including well-funded, well-organized, and ubiquitous worldwide protests against the Chinese Communist Party.

Among the foreign (predominantly Western) Friends of Falun Gong, we find the likes of Mark Palmer of Freedom House. Freedom House is a quasi-intelligence front created by the CIA-connected Open Society Institute of elite George Soros. In addition to Palmer, Freedom House has counted among its top management the former CIA Director James Woolsey, neocons Bernie Aronson and Diana Negroponte, super elite Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Clinton National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Clinton Commerce Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and the late Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife.

Freedom House is backed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which former CIA agent Philip Agee, and many others have amply documented, is a US intelligence apparatus that has been a driving force behind opposition forces ("democracy revolutions") in many countries.

As pointed out by William Blum in his book, Rogue State, the CIA has created a host of "Trojan horses" such as the NED specifically to subvert foreign countries, under the guise of humanitarianism:

"The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of the negative revelations about the CIA, in the second half of the 1970s . . . The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.

"It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations and of cynicism.

"The National Endowment for Democracy was set up to 'support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts' . . . In actuality, every penny of its funding comes from the federal government . . . NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization). The NED is a 'GO.'

"In a multitude of ways, the NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries . . . In short, NED's programs are in sync with the basic needs and objectives of the New World Order's economic globalization, just as the programs have for years been on the same wavelength as US foreign policy.

"The NED, like the CIA before it, calls what it does supporting democracy. The governments and movements whom the NED targets call it destabilization."

An analysis conducted in 1999 (during the Clinton administration) offers a glimpse of the NED's role behind a long list of "democracy" fronts -- including Tibet independence and Falun Gong. Just imagine what this list looks like today, in a time of war, spearheaded by the Bush-Cheney milieu.

For legitimate reasons, Beijing clearly suspects US and CIA involvement behind Falun Gong. Denunciations of human rights offenses committed against Falun Gong, however legitimate, are one-sided if they do not also take into account the funding and co-opting of the group by outside political forces.

Manipulation behind Darfur

Similar to the "Save Tibet" movement, the "Save Darfur"/"Stop Darfur Genocide" movement has become a worldwide cause celebre, embraced and trumpeted by a host of Hollywood celebrities and headline-loving political bigwigs, and aggressive activists. While this cause is continuously promoted by propaganda, and one-sided "Hotel Rwanda" type fare, the real geostrategic game being played in Africa is being largely ignored.

China and the US are just one of many nations whose political and corporate interests are battling over which controls the energy spoils in Darfur, and the entire horn of Africa.

It is not just China doing business there. In fact, the Western oil companies have engaged in far more aggressive activities, for many years more.

Darfur is brimming with covert operations, and Anglo-American military-intelligence involvement behind tribal warfare, elections, cross-border military skirmishes, and massacres is undeniable.

In other words, there is a "great game" being played in Africa, just as there is one being played around Tibet. Through propaganda, China is being made into the single arch-villain.

Off-target passions, easily manipulated

Virtually every government on the planet is guilty of human rights abuses, and these abuses deserve to be exposed and protested. But to simplemindedly (and, with more than a little racism thrown in) protest China, based on human rights "causes" created, manipulated, and co-opted by Anglo-American intelligence propaganda is to fall directly into the hands of the exponentially greater violators of human rights all over the world: the United States and its allies.

Indeed, activists and protesters all over the world must ask themselves whose side they are really on, and to whose orders are they marching? The vast majority of both pro- and anti-Chinese protesters fail to acknowledge the complexities underlying their pet causes, or the corruption poisoning the situation from every side.

Far from actually alleviating any suffering in Darfur, Tibet or within China itself, activists are being guided into deepening the suffering; assisting the Anglo-American empire's own plans to destabilize and conquer (energy-rich and strategically situated) Africa and (energy-rich and strategically situated) Tibet, and politically hamper Beijing.

China is the target of long-term US military and political aggression. A full-blown superpower conflict is underway. China is being simultaneously used as the labor engine for the world's capitalist economy, while being geostrategically and militarily encircled. China is also in the process of being financially seized and gutted by the World Trade Organization. Every move made by the Beijing government, particularly for its own stakes in oil and gas, have been violently contested by the Western powers.

China's attempted rise to the world stage, out of decades of isolation, is headed off by rapacious US-led machinations. Today's anti-Chinese Olympics protests are simply the latest manifestation.

It is no surprise that US presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have jumped on the anti-Chinese Olympic boycott bandwagon, joining the worldwide anti-China propaganda noise. It is now politically expedient for all of the presidential nominees, as well as the Bush-Cheney administration, to hammer at Beijing, without bothering to mention the true complexities of US-China politics.

It is tragically ironic that the predominantly Western/developed market-based "Save Tibet" and "Save Darfur" activists and anti-China protesters have done relatively little, if anything to "save themselves."

Compared to the militant zeal expended against China, relatively little passion or outrage has been aimed at the Bush-Cheney administration. These "activists" would rather focus on "saving those poor Tibetans and Africans," even as their own human rights, liberties, material assets and well being have been systematically ripped away, by an openly criminal administration that (with the help of a corrupt Supreme Court, Congress, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, etc.) enjoys absolute unchecked power.

The "Save Tibet," "Save Darfur," and "Help Falun Gong" movements are as deceptive as the "war on terrorism." The "causes" are controlled by Anglo-American intelligence apparatuses and/or co-opted by them, in order to provide the masses with the propaganda justification for wars and intervention, and resource conquest.
The CIA's "mighty Wurlitzer" has never been more deafening, and the masses are dancing to its tune.

Rev: //American military can enter into 3-rd world nations, topple their governments and destroy the infrastructure in record time\\

PF: ==A country that produces oil is not a third world country - it is an economic impossibillity. ==

This used to be the case, but is no longer, after we started the invading and the price of oil skyrocketed. I guess, we can consider our actions as an anti-poverty plan for oil-producing nations. Russia, Iran and Venezuela think this is a pretty swell deal. Heck of a job, Bushie!

==Despite the slow learning curve of the greater American public, the infrastructure of Iraq is anything but shambles.==

Yup, it is all relative. Lower Botswana is probably worse. Besides, who really needs more than 4 hours of electricity and water per day, anyway?

//And that is the reason that many of them stepped down, left or retired!\\ -The Rev

Wrong. They either retire because they already have put in their twenty-two years of service - and either get moved up to the JCS or other top Pentagon positions or retire to their goat farm in Missouri. Ask Frank; he'll verify that.

//American military can enter into 3-rd world nations, topple their governments and destroy the infrastructure in record time\\

Wrong again! A country that produces oil is not a third world country - it is an economic impossibillity.
Maliki has taken the lead role - even though his last effort was off-kelter - but still proved that he is in control.
Despite the slow learning curve of the greater American public, the infrastructure of Iraq is anything but shambles.
And you know this; it is really academic for me to repeat it.
Yup...

C'mon Rev, this is already academic

Many of America's top brass in the military came to realize that the solution to a non-existent problem in Iraq was a non-sequitur! And that is the reason that many of them stepped down, left or retired!

There never was a reason for the military to have sent to Iraq in the first place. GWB had the military dog chasing its own tail!

The only thing that GWB proved, and got his rocks off on was that the American military can enter into 3-rd world nations, topple their governments and destroy the infrastructure in record time, and afterwards stand around and ask themselves, SO NOW WHAT DO WE DO Beetle Baily?

Properly speaking, most people in the USA do not want to know anything about Iraq. They only desire quick and easy solutions. Maybe we should just send our troops home and pretend that things will work out properly. Maybe we should send in 500,000 more troops and properly commit ourselves to be active participants in their civil war. There is no quick or easy solution it's about time that we properly face these facts. However there are limits to what can be properly accomplished with military force. Iraq, or what is left of it, will need to learn how to properly care for itself. Until that time, maybe 25 years from now, the US Military will still be there making sure the Iraqi oil us used properly. That is what it is all about. Oh; I forgot about all that oil in Iran. It might take 100 years to properly secure the region.

billy,

If the USA had not broken international law and attacked Iraq on March 19, 2003, the neocons and their supporters on the killer Right would have us to believe that none of us would be here today.

Further, America would have been destroyed with all of its weaponry, airplanes, submarines and satellites given the joint efforts by the 'mighty Iraqi Army (decimated in Desert Storm) and alQaeda'.

And, all of those who would have managed to survive the overwhelming attack by Saddam and alQaeda would be wearing burkas, both men and women, and worshiping Allah by now. But thankfully, GWB and company saved us. LMAO would get a kick out of that himself - wait until he gets back to his barracks from defending us today and reads this!

Picking up on your point about time-investments. American policy all too often is based on mere soundbyted inuendo and unsubstantiated misinformation mind you, that has been garnered from America's DIA, Israel's Masoud and elsewhere.

The neocons and their accomplices on the killer Right (and Job Lieberman and company) are quick to launch into battle without making an investment in time to understand disparate people or what is really going on in the world!

And when the soundbyted information that was used as an excuse to attack innocent people is proved to be wrong (yellow cake and all), the moral relativists on the right and Joe Lieberman and company simply say, oh well - we brought those people Freedom!

Now who is going to free those people from the American dictatorship?

"If these mutts on Capitol Hill want so badly to prove how tough they are, then let them go get a bikini wax. That should do the job."
_________________________________________
Gotta like that suggestion.

I used to live across the street from Walter Reed. We lived in that area for about six years. I saw the then current soldiers and older vets on Georgia Avenue, some missing limbs and otherwise wounded. Back then the hospital was better funded than it is now.

These chickenhawks that started this bloody, protracted disaster do not merit the vets' service.

Properly speaking, most people in the USA do not want to know anything about Iraq. They only desire quick and easy solutions. Maybe we should just send our troops home pretend that things will work out properly. Maybe we should send in 500,000 more troops and properly commit ourselves to be active participants in their civil war. There is no quick or easy solution it's about time that we properly face these facts. However there are limits to what can be properly accomplished with military force. Iraq, or what is left of it, will need to learn how to properly care of itself. Until that time, maybe 25 years from now, the US Military will still be there making sure the Iraqi oil us used properly. That is what it is all about. Oh; I forgot about all that oil in Iran. It might take 100 years to properly secure the region.

it's the oil, stupid! why does anyone think we fought this war? because W is an idiot? he's not an idiot; the millions and millions of people who voted for him are idiots. because W wanted to spread democracy? then why do we support with money and policies the completely undemocratic ex-soviet states, or egypt, or columbia? was W trying to 'free the iraqis'? then why do we (especially W) do so much business with the worst people in the world, the Saudi family? was W trying to be a bully? of course not, there are many easier targets around the world we could have picked on. was W concerned for our security? every expert in the world laughed at the idea of baathist iraq posing a danger to america. why not invade a country that really poses a threat to world peace, like n. korea or syria or russia or isreal? the W administration started this 'war' for one reason and one reason only: to make billions of dollars selling cheap gas to all the brand new car drivers in china and india. everyone in the media is too cowardly to say what we all know: it's the oil, stupid.

//"How much more American and Iraqi blood must be spilled between now and January 20 so George W. Bush can boast that Iraq wasn't lost on his watch, that he never cut and ran and that -- never mind -- it wasn't al Qaeda or Iran that defeated us in Iraq, it was the Democrats?" Some might make this argument Joe, but, again, no one is going to be confused about who was responsible for defeat. The Bush administration not only was and is responsible but it has shown, with the hearings last week, that it is also the biggest agent of surrender and withdrawal.\\ -Arkin

Yeah, and a month ago you were screaming and bawling - about the 'fact' that we were never getting out of Iraq.

Not to say that you are indecisive - Arkin - but I am afraid that you wouldn't be satisfied to be hung with a new rope!

Or so it would seem by your ever-changing posture...

Unfortunately history has shown us that most if not all governments use their military for political purposes.There were lessons to be learned from Vietnam. Many who stayed in the army after that conflict continued to move up the ranks and rebuild the army applying those lessons. Now we have an administration that so conflated the truth many people do not know where the truth begins and ends. All that effort to rebuild our military after Vietnam seems to be lost. Once again it seems that yet another generation of veterans will be screwed. When the definitive history of this debacle is written I doubt that no more than 30% to 35% of the "blame" will be placed on the military leadership-if it is even that much. Even with some of the more serious incidents that haved occurred I think that our men & women in Iraq and Afghanistan have done an incredible job considering the civilian leadership in power .
It has been a constant hallmark of our nation that the military reports to the civilian in charge. This has been stretched before in Vietnam . It seems that during the Korean War it was the opposite of what we have happening today.We are living in troubled times lead by the blind & ignorant. I think that when this chapter of history has closed it will be noted that more damage was done to the United States than Iraq. In considering the damage that has been done; the expansion of the executive branch beyond what is prudent, the political manipulation of the justice department. policies based on political ideology & fear based possibilities not probabilities , and with our military forces being used as instrument of our foreign policy our country will never be the same. Indeed the situation has changed since 9/11/01 and not for the best.

This column is entertaining most days at the very least. However, I have seen one theme pop up (3) times from this writer that I don't understand. He says today, "we got shorter combat tours" like it's something that we had to give to a reluctant union to get them to sign the deal. I got news for you, pally; a combat tour last a lifetime! I don't care if it's 12 or 15 months. I get a kick out of everyone trashing everyone else everyday and I agree with some of it but you need to lay off the grunts! Take their 12 month tours and multiply them by 4 or 5 tours and they got more combat time than you have bar time. Well, maybe(?) This fight does not involve the military. They go where they are told, when they are told and can't even tell the mutts that are giving the orders that they are morons. GWB hid out in the Texas Air Guard to avoid Viet Nam and then skated out of training to work on a political campaign. But now, he wants to show the world how tough he is by using the military as a toy. Put his butt within 5 miles of any hot LZ's and I can almost guarantee that the peace will reign immediately. At least if GHB and Barbara have anything to say about it. This is why doing away with the draft was a bad idea in '72 and it's a bad idea now. If we as a country are going to take a bite of a poop sandwich then everyone should be taking the same bite. Not the same guys having to do it over and again. One of these days, some bunch of generals is gonna have enough and when the whitehouse says go invade Canada we want their snow. The generals are gonna say NO. Then what??
We Cannot keep sending the same guys back into that meatgrinder tour after tour. It's moronic at best and probably doomed. If the guys on the ground don't believe in their missions then what you got is a cluster. I think that particular issue was invented in Saigon by it works as well in Basra. Get these guys out! Keep them out!! If these mutts on capital hill want so badly to prove how tough they are then let them go get a bikini wax. That should do the job.

Mr. Arkin, thank you for telling it like it is-almost. The winner of this war has been and will continue to be the Fascist Criminal Enterprise of Bush/Cheney, the GOP, the RNC with all of it's slithering swift boat minions and their Militsry Industrial Complex. The Deaths and disabling injuries of our Brave Soldiers mean nothing to them, they are interested in lining their pockets-depleting the Treasury-that our children and grandchildren will have to pay for 25-40 years. This is the Largest Robbery In History and there is no end in sight.

"It's not that the Pentagon and the national security establishment are addicted to permanent war. It's more that they are over 9/11 and the mantra, uttered for seven years now, that "everything changed." In fact, nothing changed."

Thanks for putting it on paper. Does this mean we're all waking up from the dream of the neocons? I sure hope so! Time to throw a party!

It is another 'Inconvenient Truth'...'

that nothing has changed, except for the losses that have been sustained by Iraqis, hard-working Americans, families who have sacrificied their children (on both sides) to a jaundiced policy - and the rest of the world!

It would appear that American military leadership, minus a few like Rumsfool, knew what the majority of level-headed Americans knew all along - just what this rush to war, invasion and murderous occupation was all about from the onset.

America employed Hitler's methods in order to go after what it wanted in Iraq, having forgotten that Hitler was eventually defeated by attrition.

We have been at it longer than Hitler and America has been defeated because of injustice, attrition, willful ignorance, arrogance and incompetent self-serving leadership!

The sad fact: not only is the other alQeada still out there and still in place, the American alQeada predator is still out there as well, and it has mastasticized and is spreading all over the world.

We lost in Vietnam for similar reasons, and factually we have lost in Iraq, and the latter will be more evident if we ever to stop occupying Iraq at gunpoint. At least in the aftermath of the Vietnam war loss, we finally realized under new leadership that it was time to pack it in and to go home! We need new and englightened leadership who will admit that 'it is time to go home'!

But for the Iraqis it isn't.

Nice. Murder a million, displace at least twice that many... and like a child who gets bored with a toy, trashes it.

Reverend Wright is proven right, and I suspect there's the fire NOW, not the next time, even IF we spend every (almost worthless) penny in the US treasury on weapons systems that DO work.

Surrounded by animosity worldwide for the rest of America's miserable existence.