Newsweek: War of Nerves- Politicians VS Generals

[maddezmom]

War of Nerves
The politicians say we're winning. The generals aren't so sure. How Bush hopes to persuade a wary nation to stay the course.
By John Barry, Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas
Newsweek

July 4 issue - Generals must always speak truth to civilian power. That is the conclusion of a book considered to be required reading by many senior officers in the Pentagon. "Dereliction of Duty," by Maj. (now Col.) H. R. McMaster, argues that the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to do their duty by failing to level with the president, the Congress and the American people about the true costs and requirements of fighting the Vietnam War. McMaster, who is now commanding the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, has briefed at least one gathering of four-star generals. "You need to hear this," former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton told McMaster's audience, America's top 17 four-stars, over a breakfast in January 1998. The message these senior officers were supposed to take away is to be honest about foreign interventions like Iraq—to always tell the hard realities to their civilian masters.

But do they? Almost every week, President George W. Bush holds a regularly scheduled video teleconference with Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East, and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq. Presumably, this would be the time for some truth-telling. Indeed, White House aides say that it is. "The president interrupts a lot and asks questions," a White House spokesman told NEWSWEEK.

How, then, to explain the very different versions of reality in Iraq that come out of the mouths of top Bush administration officials and of senior generals on the ground in Iraq? On Memorial Day, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the Iraq insurgency was in its "last throes." Yet last week, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Abizaid said that, actually, the insurgency has not grown weaker over the last six months and that the number of foreign terrorists infiltrating Iraq has increased. Pressed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat, to choose between the general and the vice president, General Casey seemed to struggle. "There's a long way to go here," he testified. "Things in Iraq are hard." He said that the allied forces had weakened the insurgency—but acknowledged that the number of attacks has remained steady.

No wonder the American public is confused, unsure what to believe, and that support for the war is down to 42 percent in the latest Gallup poll. What is the reality? And why can't the president and his generals seem to agree? The answer lies in the culture of the military, the character of the president and his men and the inherent unpredictability of the Iraq war. It may be that the conflict is going both well and badly (that the Iraqis are making some progress toward democratic self-rule, even as the car bombs burst around them) and that the real question is one of time: how long will the American people put up with a war that in the first two years cost $200 billion and 1,700 American lives—and seems sure to claim many more?

3 more pages: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8359694/site/newsweek/

[jody]

1. McMaster's book "Dereliction of Duty" is well researched and written.

The saddest part in the book are the facts proving that the Commandant of the Marine Corps rolled over for McNamara and Johnson. A sad legacy from military leaders who let ambition overwhelm their moral responsibility to their troops.

[Wright Patman]

2. A military coup

is the only way the generals could stop the neocons and both know it.

The neocons have rigged our elections. They are never leaving office voluntarily. The ballot box is paperless and thus no longer effective.

The only constraint is dollars and whether Greenspan or his successor can both create enough of it out of thin air to both finance the MIC in Iraq and the other 120 places we have soldiers deployed overseas and keep the dollar as world reserve (read: petrodollar) currency.

[Doctor Panacea]

3. They never learn

These medal-wearing sons of bitches never really take those lessons of the past to heart.

Once they find themselves close to civilian political power in Washington, they all turn nelly and bend over. The bastards are totally worthless at doing anything except fighting when directed to do so.

The guys who died in Vietnam or came back mutilated and amputated are the victims of the cowardice of the generals in Washington who did not have the backbone to tell LBJ how they really felt.