"What if a Democrat wins?"

Admiral Mike Mullen conflates the "general's revolt" against Rumsfeld with the notion that it is anathema to the senior military that a "Democrat" could win the Presidency:

The highest-ranking U.S. military officer has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the United States approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

"The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times," wrote Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway."

"No matter which party" is a ridiculous statement. The Democrats hold power in the House and Senate as a matter of course. The Republicans hold power in the Executive Branch as a technical matter only, since they have proven they cannot govern or adhere to actual Congressional oversight.

The statement to the armed forces is the first essay for the journal Mullen has written as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and veteran officers said they could not remember when a similar "all-hands" letter had been issued to remind military personnel to remain outside, if not above, contentious political debate.

The essay can be seen as a reflection of the deep concern among senior officers that the U.S. military, which is paying the highest price in carrying out national security policy, may be drawn into politicking this year.

The war in Iraq already has exceeded the length of World War II and is the longest conflict the United States has fought with an all-volunteer military since the Revolutionary War.

In particular, members of the Joint Chiefs have expressed worries this election year about the influence of retired officers who advise political campaigns, some of whom have publicly called for a change in policy or others who serve as television commentators.

This is what they are most concerned about--pushback against the policy of staying in Iraq for the next hundred years. The DoD is going to align itself with McCain for purely procurement reasons, even though McCain has forced the DoD to accept some bitter pills in recent years. (The air tanker issue being just one example.)

Among the most outspoken were those who joined the so-called generals' revolt in 2006 demanding the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, as well as former officers who have written books attacking the Bush administration's planning for and execution of the war in Iraq.

The so-called general's revolt is exactly correct. It was not a revolt. It was a respectful and honest assessment that change was needed because the troops were paying too high of a price. It was a wake-up call to an out-of-touch defense secretary who had a laughing, dismissive "stuff happens" attitude that was entirely out of touch with reality. It is a proven lie--McCain never really did call for the "firing" of Don Rumsfeld. But for the DoD to consider aligning itself with McCain is proof that what they fear the most is a Democratic administration that will enforce ethics rules, turn off the lucrative spigot of procurement for many, and reduce the contractor work force.

While retired officers have full rights to political activism, their colleagues still in uniform fear its effect on those trying to carry out the mission, especially more junior officers and enlisted personnel. Active-duty military personnel are prohibited from taking part in partisan politics.

Is that name "Boylan" ringing any bells?

"As the nation prepares to elect a new president," Mullen wrote, "we would all do well to remember the promises we made: to obey civilian authority, to support and defend the Constitution and to do our duty at all times."

"Keeping our politics private is a good first step," he added. "The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia."

Mullen said he was inspired to write the essay after receiving a constant stream of legitimate, if troubling, questions while visiting U.S. military personnel around the world, including, "What if a Democrat wins?" and, "What will that do to the mission in Iraq?"

There USED to be an Honor Code, but that is, apparently, gone.

For the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to actually have to make that statement to a professional military is a clear indication that there ALREADY EXISTS a politicization of the military and that there ALREADY IS a problem that Mullen would like to distance himself from. Clearly, Mullen is getting some bizaare correspondence from officers who ought to know better but are, for some unknown reason, openly and flagrantly positing a very troubling question--should they retire en masse on January 20, 2009 or bureaucratically "resist" the orders of a Democratic President as many did against Bill Clinton in the early 1990s?

Given that Mullen felt "compelled" to have to make such statements, it is more than likely imperative that whoever wins in November will have a choice to make. Either cashier vast numbers of senior flag officers or be prepared to wage an ongoing struggle with an intransigent Pentagon bureaucracy.

There is one other point to make--this blog regularly carries a "Friday News Dump" of bad news released after regular business hours on Friday afternoons. The Pentagon does that to hide embarrassing details or information about certain events or policies from the public in order to benefit the Bush Administration. This is proof positive that there already exists a politization of the defense establishment. The next President, should that President be a Democrat, would do well to ensure that bad news is released when bad news happens, regardless of what day it is.

When The Generals Lied - "The Nation" Was On to Them In April, 2003

I don't know how many more of these I will end up doing--maybe a couple more in the next few weeks, as time allows. There really is no end to what you'll find when you go digging in this mess.

The New York Times article by David Barstow has a kindred spirit in this article, from April 2003, that appeared in The Nation:

Perhaps Americans can be excused for imagining that "regime change" in Iraq would be a cakewalk. So did Don Rumsfeld, who lashed back at critics accusing him of approving a too-optimistic war plan. Like Rumsfeld, a veritable army of ex-generals playing military analysts on TV seem to have gotten the story wrong, too, and are only now, very belatedly, changing their tune.

One might have expected a pro-military slant in any former general's initial estimation of the US invasion. But some of these ex-generals also have ideological or financial stakes in the war. Many hold paid advisory board and executive positions at defense companies and serve as advisers for groups that promoted an invasion of Iraq. Their offscreen commitments raise questions about whether they are influenced by more than just "a lifetime of experience and objectivity"--in the words of Lieut. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a military analyst for NBC News--as they explain the risks of this war to the American people.

McCaffrey and his NBC colleague Col. Wayne Downing, who reports nightly from Kuwait, are both on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a Washington-based lobbying group formed last October to bolster public support for a war. Its stated mission is to "engage in educational advocacy efforts to mobilize US and international support for policies aimed at ending the aggression of Saddam Hussein," and among its targets are the US and European media. The group is chaired by Bruce Jackson, former vice president of defense giant Lockheed Martin (manufacturer of the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and other aircraft in use in Iraq), and includes such neocon luminaries as former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle. Downing has also served as an unpaid lobbyist and adviser to the Iraqi National Congress, an Administration-backed (and bankrolled) opposition group that stands to profit from regime change in Iraq.

NBC News has yet to disclose those or other involvements that give McCaffrey a vested interest in Operation Iraqi Freedom. McCaffrey, who commanded an infantry division in the Gulf War, is now on the board of Mitretek, Veritas Capital and two Veritas companies, Raytheon Aerospace and Integrated Defense Technologies--all of which have multimillion-dollar government defense contracts. Despite that, IDT is floundering--its stock price has fallen by half since March 2002--a situation that one stock analyst says war could remedy. Since IDT is a specialist in tank upgrades, the company stands to benefit significantly from a massive ground war. McCaffrey has recently emerged as the most outspoken military critic of Rumsfeld's approach to the war, but his primary complaint is that "armor and artillery don't count" enough. In McCaffrey's recent MSNBC commentary, he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle," and added for good measure that the "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker." In March alone, IDT received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware.

Downing has his own entanglements. The colonel serves on the board of directors at Metal Storm Ltd., a ballistics-technology company that has contracts with US and Australian defense departments. The company's executive director told the New York Times on March 31 that Metal Storm technologies would "provide some significant advantage" in the type of urban warfare being fought in Iraq.

So much for predictions. Everything in the article from 2003 appears largely confirmed as fact in Barstow's article, and that just shows everyone that not only was The Nation solidly in front of this story but that Barstow was dead-on in his collating of everything that has been going on since April 2003. There's a book here, between these two articles, and someone could probably do it justice. Would it sell? That's the part that breaks your heart. No one gives a shit.

How else can you explain the fact that many of these officers will continue to appear on Television every night, speaking in hushed tones about how wonderful everything is? It's clear that McCaffery's early opposition was tempered by 2006--why the reversal? Could it be all of that procurement money was speaking louder than the truth? At what point did they get to him? Did someone walk into his office and tell him to "knock this shit off" and get behind the war or the gravy train was going to end?

When it comes to procurement, there seems to be a gaggle of former military officers who were willing to say anything publicly in order to ensure that their business interests weren't threatened by a Pentagon that might award a contract to another company. The procurement boondoggle has been around forever. It was there in 1775 when the chaotic and disorganized elements of the Continental Army were trying to find blankets and shoes, and the people in Boston and New York were only too happy to oblige with whatever rotting stock they could sell at a markup to an agent who was supposed to be acting on behalf of the soldiers. By the end of the war, these agents were rich men, at least the ones who weren't caned and beaten for being corrupt.

“We knew we had extraordinary access,” said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that “some four-star could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’ ” For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the analysts about the progress of Iraq’s security forces. “I know a snow job when I see one,” he said. He did not share this on TV.

“Human nature,” he explained, though he noted other instances when he was critical.

When I read things like that, my first reaction is to yell "bullshit." I personally don't think Mr. Eads was paying attention. He was probably more interested in lining his own pockets than he was in looking at Iraqi police officers and their gear. Anyone who has seen the dog-and-pony show knows one thing--the participants don't give two shits about anything that doesn't directly affect them. As in, where are the drinks, where's the food, where's the goodie bag, where do I go shopping, when do we get to fly fast in the Blackhawk.

To say, well after the fact, that he thought it was a "snow job" is to expect him to have a level of sophistication that hasn't yet been demonstrated. General Petraeus was writing, in 2004, of how great the Iraqi police were. I'm supposed to assume retired LTC Eads was "smarter" and more "knowledgeable" than the new CENTCOM Commander? Was he just spreading the same lies? Or did he think he had more insight? If so, why didn't he call Petraeus on it publicly in the early years of the war, when Petraeus was busy failing to achieve his mission and train the Iraqi police? Well, the proof of that would be if Eads actually said, at the time, what he thought was the "snow job" part of the whole matter.

Whoops! He didn't tell anyone. We have to take his word for it. Pardon me if I do not.

You see, when these men are caught lying, they have to try to justify and explain themselves. They have been caught lying about something they know nothing about, and that's war. How sad is it that we have a generation of military men that had their careers slotted between Vietnam and the start of the Iraq War in 2003 and, by and large, to a man, they know absolutely nothing about war? A full scale reform of the service academies, the schools and the courses, and the very organization of the military itself should be front and center. Sadly, it's glossed over.

If an analyst who was always wrong about everything gets caught in that lie, the first thing they are going to do is to try to dodge accountability by claiming "private" views that were correct all along, thereby mitigating the fact that their "public" statements were consistently wrong. That's called covering your ass, because who's going to hire someone who's paid to be right but has a track record of being wrong about everything? That wingnut welfare only extends to the civilians, you know. Retired military officers do get that pension, you know. That's more than Bill Kristol and Michael O'Hanlon get.

Procurement seems to be the part that keeps surfacing when I look into the details of this article. Yeah, it's been out for a while, and no, the media isn't running with this ball. They're running AWAY from the story, simply because it makes the corporate ownership uncomfortable.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces.

Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood.

Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice president. At the time, the company was seeking contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. In addition, wvc3 Group had a written agreement to use its influence and connections to help tribal leaders in Al Anbar Province win reconstruction contracts from the coalition.

In 2003, in the same article above, The Nation wrote:

At Fox News, military analysts Lieut. Col. Bill Cowan and Maj. Robert Bevelacqua are CEO and vice president, respectively, of wvc3 Group, a defense consulting firm that helps arms companies sell their wares to the government. It recently inked an exclusive deal with New Zealand's TGR Helicorp and will help the company hawk its military aviation equipment to the United States. The firm trades on its inside contacts with the US military, and a message on its website reads, "We use our credibility to promote your technology" (accompanied by the sound of loud gunfire).

The networks don't seem too concerned about what the analysts do on their own time. "We are employing them for their military expertise, not their political views," Elena Nachmanoff, vice president of talent development at NBC News, told The Nation. She says that NBC's military experts play an influential role behind the scenes, briefing executive producers and holding seminars for staffers that provide "texture for both on-air pieces and background." Defense contracts, she adds, are "not our interest."

I don't know about you, but that last bit speaks volumes as to why the networks don't care to have this story continue to be talked about. Everyone "seems" to have understood that the war was a boondoggle--if you spoke favorably, you got to ride on the gravy train. If you didn't the train ride was over and you were tossed off the side with nothing.

How did any of that serve the best interests of the American people or the soldiers we sent to fight?

Really, I don't know how much more obvious it has to be. Why can't anyone see that that was what was going on? Doesn't anyone in this country, aside from those of us who hang out here, even care?

When The Generals Lied - LTC Robert Maginnis

One of our esteemed colleagues, Batocchio, gave us a link to this site, PR Watch. They are a great resource and actually gave me a lot of stuff that I used against "Uncle Jimbo" and his ilk last month.

While certainly NOT a general officer and more of retired busybody with an obsession about homosexuals serving in the military, LTC Robert Maginnis appeared in the New York Times story last Sunday as a kind of "voice of reason."

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling “very disappointed” after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being “manipulated” to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

There's something really interesting about Maginnis--he used to write articles for Gary Bauer's Family Research Council. I'd love to share them with you. Unfortunately, all of the articles he wrote the in the 1990s about homosexuals in the military were scrubbed from their website. If you find some of his more popular writings, let me know. I confess I didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to track down his anti-homosexual wingnuttery.

Allow me to editorialize--I spent seven years on active duty. I served with a number of homosexuals. It was no big deal. And, for the record, the only people who ever presented a theat to "good order and discipline" were immature assholes who couldn't accept that someone might have more skills or authority than they had, criminal malcontents who had no business being in the Army in the first place, and zealously religious Christian activists who were openly recruiting people into their wacko sect by putting informational fliers on their door to their offices in Brigade headquarters.

Here's another thing that is really striking about Maginnis--he's a West Point Grad who should have made General. Check out his bio and explain to me how THIS guy didn't retire without hoisting his flag:

In July 1993, Colonel Maginnis retired from an assignment in the Pentagon where he served as an Inspector General. He is an airborne-ranger infantry officer with an assignment history that includes Korea, Germany, Alaska, and several posts in the continental United States. He served in command and staff positions in four infantry divisions from platoon to division level. The colonel was the chief for the U.S. Army Infantry School’s leadership and ethics training branch. He developed curricula, taught, participated in leader development research and consulted with leaders and soldiers throughout the Army. He is the author of more than fifty articles published in professional military journals concerning ethics, leadership, and personnel matters impacting the military. Colonel Maginnis service in the armed forces was commended with the Legion of Merit, one of the highest Army peacetime decorations, as well as with five meritorious medals and four commendation medals.

In the last eight months of his military service, Colonel Maginnis was a member of the Army’s study group examining the homosexual ban. He also was advisor to the Defense Department Military Working Group on homosexuals in the military. In that role, he debated the issue in the media as well as speaking in various forums - including testifying before a House subcommittee.

Colonel Maginnis received his B.S. from the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York in 1973 and a M.S. from the Naval Postgraduate School, California, in 1983. He is a graduate of many military schools, including the Command and General Staff College and the US Army’s War College strategy course.

I mean, what the hell? He retires at twenty with O-5? I realize his timing couldn't have been worse--graduating from West Point in 1973 doesn't exactly guarantee you fame and fortune in the world of the United States Army, unless you're General John Abizaid, who was in the same class as Maginnis.

One of the many appearances that Maginnis made last year was on Fox News, as an analyst, to condemn the British sailors detained by Iran as cowards. Make no mistake about it--Maginnis is a classic wingnut:

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX News: "So, heroes under the gun or cowards under pressure? Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis says 'cowards." Captain Robert McGovern says 'heroes.' ... So, Col. McGinnis to you first. Not pleased with their performance?"

COL. BOB MAGINNIS: "Well, it looks like Holiday in Tehran. You ment - indicated there, Neil, that they were standing in front of Ahmadinejad, and you know they were thanking him for their kind treatment, for letting them go. He was giving them Persian candy and all sorts of souvenirs to take home. And then, by the way, get on this airplane and have a happy Easter. Now, this is great politics. It plays well, perhaps, across the world but the reality is they won big time, the Iranians. In other words, no penalty. Essentially, the oil went way up. He padded his pocketbook in a time of inflation and unemployment. Certainly he bloodied the nose of a key western ally, and, of course, you know, he's the big hegemon in that part of the world, par excellence and he has great ambitions and it looks as if he might realize those."

Maginnis has also run afoul of religious tolerance advocates:

Lt. Col. Robert L. Maginnis (U.S. Army, Ret.) has written a paper for the conservative Christian group, the Family Research Council (FRC). He is the director of their Military Readiness Project. The paper seems to have been triggered by a boycott of some conservative Christian groups against the U.S. Army.
The FRC was initially organized by Focus on the Family, another conservative Christian organization, under the leadership of Gary Bauer, a candidate for the presidency of the U.S. in the year 2000.
The conclusion of the paper is that the "Pentagon should withdraw recognition of Wicca for readiness reasons." Maginnis feels that certain religious rights of Wiccans in the army should be terminated, because Wiccans are a threat to unit cohesion, morale, and efficiency in the Army...

Not sure how you could make THAT case, but what puzzles me about Maginnis is this--he's a relatively low-ranking, low-rent type of commentator. Why such prominence for a man of modest achievement? Why do they elevate him to "commentator" rank?

In his many roles, Colonel Maginnis has appeared on ABC, NBC and CBS evening news shows, CBS 60 Minutes, CBS This Morning, ABC Good Morning America, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, MSNBC Equal Time, Hardball, Internight, and The News with Brian Williams, Court TVs Pro and Con, Fox News The OReilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, and is a regular guest on On the Record, CNN’s Crossfire, Larry King Live, Talk Back Live, Wolf Blitzer Reports, Late Edition as well as other programs, such as Donahue and The Jenny Jones Show. He has been quoted many times in newspapers and magazines across the world such as The New York Times, US News & World Report and Time Magazine. Since 1993, he has written more than 500 articles, many of which have been published in distinguished newspapers and magazines nationwide.

He was certainly an attack dog--witness this attack on retired General Shalikashvili:

Claiming that gay activists may be trying to take advantage of him as he recovers from a stroke, retired Army Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis (the same Bob Maginnis who once served as the vice president of policy for the vehemently anti-gay Family Research Council, where he wrote more than a few gay-decrying papers) responds to Gen. John Shalikashvili's recent'y released condemnation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by saying:

"I just believe he’s being used by those that want to use this as a political mechanism to pry open the military and to use it for their own social experimentation"

I'm thinking he's "right with the Lord" in the eyes of a conservative White House and Pentagon. They know they can go to him anytime there's an issue with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So, in effect, the main reason why he enjoys his access is because he's one of the God Boys who have been so beneficial to the military. If someone makes noises about tolerance, they can run to Maginnis and he'll trot out his anti-gay rhetoric and smear anyone so designated by the Pentagon. And access equals dollars, no matter what anyone says. Maginnis has a few pet issues and he beats them to death--and one of the reasons why he got that access is because of his political affiliation and orientation. Had he been a liberal, he'd be a retired O-5, and probably a cranky blogger.

When the Generals Lied (a proposed Series)

It might be worth our while to do this as a series.

This is from the New York Times article, a supplementary piece which shows the actual communications and memos. It's pretty devastating.

It should also put to rest any idea that this was all made up. In fact, what I plan to do is to try to correlate procurement and public support for the war. I don't know what I will be able to find, but here's some of the methodology that will likely be used.

I plan to start looking at various retired generals or admirals who comment regularly on CNN, Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, CNN and whoever else is out there. I suspect that a number of print or online organizations have had this "message spin" done to them in different ways as well.

I think you can then track down instances where a positive spin was given in public by a general AND a subsequent award of a contract within the procurement realm of DoD. Now, I'm not alleging anything illegal--procurement in and of itself is very detailed and I'm not going to allege that something was awarded to a company that did not produce adequate bids or documentation. I think it's important to begin aligning the positive spin, the business benefits, and who was responsible for giving that spin while sitting on the board of a company that then benefited from a DoD procurement award.

When you start with this info:

Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their analysts’ military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. “None of that ever happened,” said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006.

“The worst conflict of interest was no interest.”

Mr. [Wayne] Allard and other analysts said their network handlers also raised no objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq — a clear ethical violation for most news organizations.

And then when you start to think about this kind of thing:

CNN, for example, said it was unaware for nearly three years that one of its main military analysts, General Marks, was deeply involved in the business of seeking government contracts, including contracts related to Iraq.

General Marks was hired by CNN in 2004, about the time he took a management position at McNeil Technologies, where his job was to pursue military and intelligence contracts. As required, General Marks disclosed that he received income from McNeil Technologies. But the disclosure form did not require him to describe what his job entailed, and CNN acknowledges it failed to do additional vetting.

“We did not ask Mr. Marks the follow-up questions we should have,” CNN said in a written statement.

In an interview, General Marks said it was no secret at CNN that his job at McNeil Technologies was about winning contracts. “I mean, that’s what McNeil does,” he said.

CNN, however, said it did not know the nature of McNeil’s military business or what General Marks did for the company. If he was bidding on Pentagon contracts, CNN said, that should have disqualified him from being a military analyst for the network. But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq, General Marks was working intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 2006.

General Marks said his work on the contract did not affect his commentary on CNN. “I’ve got zero challenge separating myself from a business interest,” he said.

But CNN said it had no idea about his role in the contract until July 2007, when it reviewed his most recent disclosure form, submitted months earlier, and finally made inquiries about his new job.

“We saw the extent of his dealings and determined at that time we should end our relationship with him,” CNN said.

I sure would like to know how the hell this went on, and at what cost to our government.

When the Generals Chose Lies Over Their Soldier's Lives...

We are returning this post to the top of the page. This is the story that everyone should be talking about. This is the story that should have us taking to the streets. Stars on the collar do not automatically equate with honor. These shameless men need to be held up and singled out for special scorn and ridicule. They are traitors and they are complicit in the deaths of 1600+ American service members. Hold them accountable.

UPDATED, to fix the link, to categorize some of the items here, and see below for what we propose to do with this subject as a series of posts throughout the next few weeks or so...




Ultimately, we will never view the words "military analyst" or "retired General" in the same light again. We used to look upon these people as noted experts, members of a small elite of military officers that had perspective that few Americans possessed, and, ultimately, honest brokers of the information that they were sharing with the American people. I'm going to use this article from the New York Times to break down how we have traded the lives of soldiers for access, and how a select group of men have betrayed their country for a few measley dollars.

In April 2006, Pentagon officials, starting with then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, met with various "analyts" who were then appearing on various television networks. These "retired military analysts" were also men who sat on the boards of various defense contractors, and were given increased access to people like Rumsfeld in exchange for properly disseminating a pro-administration view that the war in Iraq was going better than what was really going on. At the time of this meeting, there were generals who were opposed to the war, and opposed to Rumsfeld personally, and they had started what was dubbed a "revolt of the generals" in order to get the message across to the American people that the war in Iraq was going off the rails. When the details of that meeting were leaked, and when they were written about in the New York Times, the American people were only given an inkling of what was really going on--and that is, a major campaign was underway to lie to the American people to give the Bush administration political cover:

In damage-control mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and directed that communications with analysts be kept “very formal,” records show. “This is very, very sensitive now,” a Pentagon official warned subordinates.

On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr. Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.

“I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ”

“What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?”

There was little discussion about the actual criticism pouring forth from Mr. Rumsfeld’s former generals. Analysts argued that opposition to the war was rooted in perceptions fed by the news media, not reality. The administration’s overall war strategy, they counseled, was “brilliant” and “very successful.”

“Frankly,” one participant said, “from a military point of view, the penalty, 2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 minutes, is relative.”

That's right--at that point, only 2,400 US troops had lost their lives, and it was being bandied about as all "relative." Think of how many we could have saved if the American people had been told the truth.

The meeting ended and Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing pleased and relaxed, took the entire group into a small study and showed off treasured keepsakes from his life, several analysts recalled.

Soon after, analysts hit the airwaves. The Omnitec monitoring reports, circulated to more than 80 officials, confirmed that analysts repeated many of the Pentagon’s talking points: that Mr. Rumsfeld consulted “frequently and sufficiently” with his generals; that he was not “overly concerned” with the criticisms; that the meeting focused “on more important topics at hand,” including the next milestone in Iraq, the formation of a new government.

Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined:

“Focus on the Global War on Terror — not simply Iraq. The wider war — the long war.”

“Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran.”

But if Mr. Rumsfeld found the session instructive, at least one participant, General Nash, the ABC analyst, was repulsed.

“I walked away from that session having total disrespect for my fellow commentators, with perhaps one or two exceptions,” he said.

Omnitec was a company hire to--get this--measure just how much the military analysts were able to effectively spread the pro-war message that the Pentagon was trying to put out there. Never again will we look at these men without wondering..."who has bought them off? Have they been co-opted? What boards do they sit on? Does the Secretary of Defense have a hand up their back and is he moving their mouths?

Better yet--how did this even happen? Well, without Congressional oversight, this is how it all came to be:

In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld’s private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself.

“Oh, you have no idea,” Mr. Allard [General Wayne Allard] said, describing the effect. “You’re back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV.” It was, he said, “psyops on steroids” — a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. “It’s not like it’s, ‘We’ll pay you $500 to get our story out,’ ” he said. “It’s more subtle.”

One of the Generals who participated in the elaborate shell game that helped cover up just how badly the war in Iraq was going back in 2005 used an apt analogy that should send shivers down the spine of everyone who knows just how badly the American people were manipulated during the Vietnam War:

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

At a time when these men could have--COULD HAVE--stepped up and done something to save the lives of US troops by pointing out the woeful shortages of equipment, these men went before the American people and tried to spin the situation. And I use spin as a euphemism for "fuck the soldiers over to provide political cover for the Bush Administration."

Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets. Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. “They can’t shoot, but then again, they don’t,” one officer told them, according to one participant’s notes.

“I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,” General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times.

The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.

“You can’t believe the progress,” General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months.

“We could not be more excited, more pleased,” Mr. Cowan told Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. There was barely a word about armor shortages or corrupt Iraqi security forces. And on the key strategic question of the moment — whether to send more troops — the analysts were unanimous.

“I am so much against adding more troops,” General Shepperd said on CNN.

What is clear from this article is that the silence of the generals equated to a betrayal--a betrayal bought and paid for with dead Americans. Instead of telling the truth, these generals lied to the American people, so that they could hold on to their "access" to key Pentagon officials and the continued flow of money from the Pentagon into the companies they represented:

Some analysts said that even before the war started, they privately had questions about the justification for the invasion, but were careful not to express them on air.

Mr. Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq’s purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. He recalled asking the briefer whether the United States had “smoking gun” proof.

“ ‘We don’t have any hard evidence,’ ” Mr. Bevelacqua recalled the briefer replying. He said he and other analysts were alarmed by this concession. “We are looking at ourselves saying, ‘What are we doing?’ ”

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling “very disappointed” after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being “manipulated” to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

Mr. Bevelacqua and another Fox analyst, Mr. Cowan, had formed the wvc3 Group, and hoped to win military and national security contracts.

“There’s no way I was going to go down that road and get completely torn apart,” Mr. Bevelacqua said. “You’re talking about fighting a huge machine.”

Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage. Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006.

“Recall the stuff I did after my last visit,” he wrote. “I will do the same this time.”

Punishment for ANY general who stood up to the Rumsfeld information machine was swift:

On Aug. 3, 2005, 14 marines died in Iraq. That day, Mr. Cowan, who said he had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the “twisted version of reality” being pushed on analysts in briefings, called the Pentagon to give “a heads-up” that some of his comments on Fox “may not all be friendly,” Pentagon records show. Mr. Rumsfeld’s senior aides quickly arranged a private briefing for him, yet when he told Bill O’Reilly that the United States was “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq, the repercussions were swift.

Mr. Cowan said he was “precipitously fired from the analysts group” for this appearance. The Pentagon, he wrote in an e-mail message, “simply didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t carrying their water.” The next day James T. Conway, then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, presided over another conference call with analysts. He urged them, a transcript shows, not to let the marines’ deaths further erode support for the war.

“The strategic target remains our population,” General Conway said. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen.”

“General, I just made that point on the air,” an analyst replied.

“Let’s work it together, guys,” General Conway urged.

Finally, and I know this has been one of the longer posts we've done, the major networks have been shamed into silence by the revelations in this story:

CBS News declined to comment on what it knew about its military analysts’ business affiliations or what steps it took to guard against potential conflicts.

NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring military analysts. The network issued a short statement: “We have clear policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a perception of a conflict of interest.”

Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for ABC, said that while the network’s military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its full-time journalists, they were expected to keep the network informed about any outside business entanglements. “We make it clear to them we expect them to keep us closely apprised,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Fox News said executives “refused to participate” in this article.

CNN requires its military analysts to disclose in writing all outside sources of income. But like the other networks, it does not provide its military analysts with the kind of written, specific ethical guidelines it gives its full-time employees for avoiding real or apparent conflicts of interest.

All I can add is, shame on these men. Shame on them, and may they never make another nickel off of their access or their use of their background. Congress MUST step in and call these men to appear and hold hearings to determine how much a soldier's life is worth. Apparently, the lives of our soldiers are worthless to men who'd rather trade them for no-bid contracts, a meal with Don Rumsfeld, a free plane ride, and a lucrative gig telling the American people that all is well in a war where we now know, finally, at long last, that all is not well.

A General's Revolt?

It has been said many times that it was easier to convince the entire population of Athens of the necessity to launch a war than it was to convince a single Spartan of the same. That is because the Spartans were professional warriors, and war was not taken lightly by them. It was judiciously considered and employed only as a last resort.

The Times of London reported Sunday (admittedly not the most unimpeachable source going) that no less than five flag-rank officers currently serving in the U.S. armed services will resign their commissions if the Cheney-Bush administration pursue their singularly focused warmaking ways and attacks Iran openly. (Quite a lot of hostile activity directed toward Iran has already been going on, it's just happening "below the CNN line.")

This is unprecedented, and if five flag-ranks left en masse, it would be a devastating blow and could quite possibly bring down the administration.

Put bluntly, it would be the hugest thing ever. How huge it would become would depend on how many command level officers followed the Generals and Admirals, but I can see a scenario playing out that makes me want to hide under the bed and set the alarm for six months. You can't win a war without field commanders. I can't make it any plainer. The only time in the history of the United States military that would compare to such an event would be the secession of the Confederacy, when half of the military, officers and all, left with it.

It is not only the military on the verge of revolt. The intelligence community is at odds as well, career professionals are disgruntled and openly voicing opposition to the political appointees they answer to, and to administration policies in general.

This is the last thing in the world I want to see play out, and I hope the Honor Code and dedication to upholding the Constitution means as much to the Officers serving right now as they do to me.

Watching this chess-match play out will be disquieting at best, and quite possibly horrifying. The odds of the latter seems pretty good to me, since we have "Checkers Men" at the helm.

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]