WB: Unfriendly Fire – Moon of Alabama

November 4, 2006

WB: Unfriendly Fire

Billmon:

That Rumsfeld now needs to go is self-evident to everyone but Dick, Shrub and Don himself. Based on this Vanity Fair article, I’d say it’s the one thing both the neocons (who have their own sins to atone for) and the generals can agree on. But trying to make Rummy the sole scapegoat for America’s failures in Iraq is as big a lie as Shrub’s insistance that he has done, and is doing, a great job. In the end the Times papers are simply pandering to their special constituency (something that was also their editorial bread and butter when I was there.)

Unfriendly Fire

Posted by b on November 4, 2006 at 05:36 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Thank-you billmon. A thousand thank you’s.
Now this is ‘META’ folks. Seeing and thinking from a continuum. The cognitive panorama. The ulitmate in critical thinking.
The media’s “metanarrative” –usually accomplished by what Catholic theologians call “the sin of omission–,” would rather you choose it’s brand of prop-agenda.
In the media’s metanarrative, the incontestable facts that Persian Gulf oil has been central to American strategic planning since World War II, and that Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force generated maps of Iraq’s oil fields in early 2001, have absolutely nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq. It’s just a serendipitous “coincidence.”
This is bigger than the current figureheads.
What the kossack’s demopublicans forget (or omit) is that consensus-reality is a modified limited hangout.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 4 2006 6:37 utc | 1

I’ve waited and pointed at the seventh for two years, knowing how important it was to plug at least one hole. To start the documentation, to slow down the machine. And the time is here, and the landscape couldn’t be better.
But from now on it just gets messier and muddier. And meaner – if that’s possible. Kinda beats a guy down.
Just happy that a win might change the equation a bit – it gives a chance that the end won’t be sooo ugly.

Posted by: canucklehead | Nov 4 2006 7:56 utc | 2

To put it bluntly – fuck the generals. They are under civilian control. They don’t like it , then don’t sign up , we don’t need you.
And yes, DKossers would generally applaud a coup, then be appalled (!) when the same logic gets applied to the left. And the left always suffers more under a militarized government.
A coup is not the way to solve anything. Mass mobilization, that challenges the power structure, is the best way to fundamentally change society.

Posted by: folkers | Nov 4 2006 8:12 utc | 3

Coup?
Where? What?
To some this may come as good news, but to the military leadership it’s an enormous disaster: the U.S. fighting forces, men and materiel, are being destroyed in Iraq. The materiel from constant wear and tear in hostile terrain (just imagine what the fine sand is doing to the helicopters; and how the tracks on the vehicles are being worn down – there’s a huge shortage).
The fighting force itself is being chewed up. The number of wounded, and the kinds of wounds we are dealing with, is actually far more serious than the number of killed. And both are contributing towards a serious drop in recruitment, which is calamitous for a volunteer army. (And the military chiefs know they won’t be able to get the draft back).
And all for what? To give Iraq to Iran? To give Saudi oil to the fundamentalists?
A fatally flawed plan was forced upon the military, and the military chiefs are now trying to save the scraps of their army and equipment.
And I beg to differ, Billmon, Rumsfeld is the enabler throughout this ridiculous military adventure. He’s the one who wanted to bomb Iraq because there were no good targets in Afghanistan. It was his plan, his priority and his apparatus that made this happen. (His first action when moving into the Pentagon was to install a tall desk made for standing at when working, modeled on that of Julius Caesar – he was certifiable from day 1).
You are now decrying that the military has spoken up, when many have asked why it didn’t speak up sooner. As the editorial clearly states, this is unprecedented, but so are the consequences of what is happening: the destruction of the U.S. as a military fighting force on the ground (which raises the spectre of the U.S. sorting out its eventual troubles with WMD from above. You’ll have conflicts going from Hot-Spot to No Man’s Land in milliseconds under that alternative).
BTW – for those keeping count during this concerted CIA and Military pay-back against the Bush Administration: how long will it be before the TANG documents are released? Documents that will show how the Shirker in Chief went AWOL before his codpiece moment?
Shouldn’t be long now.

Posted by: SteinL | Nov 4 2006 8:56 utc | 4

This banter against Rumsfeld from the generals at this time is merely another symptom of the overall pathology that is going to play itself out during this midterm election cycle, regardless of who “wins” (“remains” might be le mot juste).
The criticism that the generals are voicing isn’t that the policy is in error. They are only saying that Rumsfeld has betrayed them with his ineptitude. Replace Rumsfeld, they reason, and the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan will suddenly be strewn by those roses they were promised by the POTUS in 2003. Of course, that’s absurd, but so is the larger picture here.
Yes, Rumsfeld is inept… and yes, that does represent a political liability… but installing a more able Secretary of Defense in his place will not suddenly make a flawed neocon policy of pre-emptive wars any more rational. It’s been said before that the criticism isn’t that the US military hasn’t the legal or moral right to engage in these sorts of policies… the criticism is simply that we’re losing. That being the case, we haven’t learned anything.
Under two terms of George the Younger, the neocons have not revisited their basic philosophy and decided that it has empirically proved to be a failure. They still just think the “right people” can make this lunacy work. Make it work, what an asanine mantra. If a craft isn’t seaworthy, it’s ridiculous to ascribe its sinking to the fact that the captain happened to be incompetent. In fact, a competent captain would never have gotten near it in the first place.
But how fundamentally different is this call on the part of the generals to replace Rumsfeld from the lead the Democrat party is enjoying in the polling data? The basic logic is the same… replace the people, but never, NEVER question the efficacy of the sacred cow of a process. Just make it work. Pointing out that the parts are imperfect does not make the design of the machine any better… it just extends the period of time in which you can play denial games about the nature of the machine.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 4 2006 9:59 utc | 5

For establishing the OSP under Feith, to cherry-pick intelligence, (under cover from Tenet), so that he could have a war worth fighting, (Iraq rather than Afghanistan); for that alone, Rumsfeld deserves a heap of payback.

Posted by: ww | Nov 4 2006 10:26 utc | 6

(And the military chiefs know they won’t be able to get the draft back).
What planet do you live on? If Rove were smart he’d let the New Republican (xDemocratic Party) take over the House. It’s not for nothing they’re filling it up w/the likes of ardently Reactionary Woman-HatingTrash like jimmie webb. They’re running on Increasing the military by 50,000. One of the first things they’d do is bring back the draft, making it even worse. In their inimitable hideously smarmy style calling it Universal National Service, requiring everyone to serve this Gangsta State. Perhaps in exchange cutting the ruinous interest rates on college loans to the merely obscenely usurious.
Beyond that Idiot-in-Chief Can’t Fire Top Dogs ‘cuz they’ll spill the beans on him. Not to mention that his replacement would still be carrying out Cheney’s policies, so what’s the point.

Posted by: jj | Nov 4 2006 11:53 utc | 7

The Dems may applaud now, but if I were them, I’d be extremely wary of the precedent. As a group, the joint chiefs are developing a taste for bureaucratic blood — they’re trying to destroy Rumsfeld just as they destroyed Les Aspin and emasculated Wesley Clark. Only now they’re doing it openly (or at least semi-openly) and in the middle of an election campaign.
The miltary meddling in politics? In America? Say it ain’t so!
With a history of 12 generals out of 43 Presidents, the idea that the military remains above the American political fray is about as quaint a notion as Washington never telling a lie. Certainly Wes Clarke was no politcal neophyte even before he traded in the uniform for those too-wide pin stripes. And lest we forget, the general most responsible for fragging Les Aspin after the Somalia debacle was a guy named Colin Powell.
The only precedent being set here is that the brass is finally sniping at Republicans for a change – as opposed to their traditional Dems-only policy the post-Viet Nam era.
And about time too.
I think the Cheifs are at long last coming to their collective ‘Ike moment’, when they finally understand that the inevitable result of out of control defense budgets is out of control wars.
Oh sure, the Generals have done pretty well for themselves sucking up to the civilian war fetishists. But now they finally realize that the crazies are not arming for defense, but simply so they can put them in the arena to watch them fight. The miltary has ceased to be soldiers and are now gladiators, slaves who slaughter other slaves not for country but for the sick amusement and healthy profit of a tiny core of elites.
Yet even after the total disgrace and humiliation the last three and a half years, and with more sure to come, the generals are still not (as far as we know) plotting to have some latter day Von Stauffenberg deliver a suitcase bomb to Cheney’s bunker.
No, these battle hardened veterans, who have suffered so much lost dignity at the hands of their erstwhile patrons, are doing something even more unthinkable.
They are (gasp) writing a protest letter!
Personally Billmon, I’ll take bureaucratic bloodletting over the real stuff any day.

Posted by: Night Owl | Nov 4 2006 11:56 utc | 8

This might be intertwined with the comming decision on attacking Iran. If the analysis that the troops in Iraq could suffer stupendous losses if the Shites rose together to attck them if Iran is attacked is accepted by the Generals and Rummy and CheneyBush don’t believe it or don’t care, then what?
Then the Generals are in a tight spot. Can they disobey an order to attack if they are of firm belief it could lead to the biggest defeat in American miliatry history. Imagine the Green Zone overrun. Troops fleeing, or trying to, to the large interior bases. Safe there one suppposes but cut off, awaiting only the flights out,in defeat. Yes they can disobey but then we have a politial/constitutional crisis. Not that all will disobey. One admiral could launch the air assault. Getting a call from Bush giving the direct order. Could he be resisted.
All that is pure fantasy but the point is if parts of it are true then one can guess that the military is hoping againt hope that somehow they can get someone to push back hard against the crazies. Someone who can sidetrack the nightmare scenario of having to choose a possible military disaster or a political/constitutional crisis.
A new Sec of Defense appointed by Bush isn’t likely to be the one to do it. It’s absurd to think such a person would be installed and impossible to imagine who it might be. McCain? Oh my God. Running for president from the Pentagon, now there’s a nightmare scenario.

Posted by: rapier | Nov 4 2006 12:35 utc | 9

Could a possible Bush reaction to the generals’ letter be the replacement of Rumsfield (though I’m with MoDo (TimesSelect) on the Cheney-Rumsfield marriage) with Lieberman, win or lose in CT? This would make Bush look “responsive” to the generals and supply him with a new ally for an attack on Iran at the same time.

Posted by: Hamburger | Nov 4 2006 12:58 utc | 10

Old news, but I hadn’t seen it: Perle wriggles off the hook in respect of Hollinger fraud (= no failure of oversight of “Lord” Conrad Black).
You couldn’t make it up.
I heard Perle on BBC Radio recently defending Rumsfeld, so are the neocons setting up Dubya to take the fall after Nov 7?

Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 4 2006 16:31 utc | 11

Link to MoDo’s art. Hamburger mentioned above W. is the hood ornament, but Cheney & Rummy are the chitty chitty bang bang engine of this administration.

Posted by: jj | Nov 4 2006 17:10 utc | 12

Rapier:
The military has a get-out clause for an attack on Iran, should it choose to use it, on the basis that it’s illegal under international law and that any such order for the use of military force was unlawful.
It’s probably also possible to use a variety of bureaucratic tools to stymie any political decision, slow down the planning, request a level of resources that cannot be provided, throw diplomatic spanners into the process and so on.

Posted by: dan | Nov 4 2006 17:35 utc | 13

JJ:If Rove were smart he’d let the New Republican (xDemocratic Party) take over the House. It’s not for nothing they’re filling it up w/the likes of ardently Reactionary Woman-HatingTrash like jimmie webb. They’re running on Increasing the military by 50,000. One of the first things they’d do is bring back the draft, making it even worse.

Don’t get me wrong — our Republicrats are stupid … but hopefully not that stupid. The moment they mention a draft, we could very well enter Vietnam Era demonstrations and riots all over again. The only difference is it’ll be much worse in the streets of America because our National Guard is dying for the Halliburtons, Bechtels, and Exxon-Mobils over there in Iraq instead of rounding up commie liberal Murika-hating draft-dodging terrorist peaceniks here.
Of course, I say hopefully — one never knows with our Republicrats. At some point after the great “Ownership Society” deed swapping that our mid-terms elections this Tuesday most certainly entail, they could crucify whatever remains of their Schaivo-esque brainmatter and caterwaul for a draft ….
I sure hope everybody’s property is well insured.

Posted by: Sizemore | Nov 5 2006 12:26 utc | 14

Back to Main