Wes Clark Didn't Get it Completely Wrong

When General Wes Clark said this:

CLARK: He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, "I don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not, do you want to take the risk, what about your reputation, how do we handle this publicly? He hasn't made those calls, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Can I just interrupt you? I have to say, Barack Obama hasn't had any of these experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

CLARK: I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.

He was probably speaking to an issue that goes beyond "fighter pilots" in general. And the biggest misconception was that McCain was a "fighter pilot." The plane that he flew in Vietnam was a fighter plane in name only.

The mission of an A-4 attack squadron is to attack and to destroy surface targets in support of the landing force commander, escort helicopters, and conduct other operations as directed.

McCain flew the A-4 Skyhawk--the plane that was used by the Blue Angels for aerial acrobatics. It was not the aircraft designated by the Navy for plane-to-plane aerial combat, however--and in the fighter plane food chain, it was, essentially, at the bottom.

I disagree with anyone who thinks that a fighter pilot isn't qualified to be President--the first President Bush was supremely qualified to be President and he was a fighter pilot. His qualifications stemmed from the things he went on to do later in life. I disagreed with him, I hated his policies, but he was qualified, nonetheless. George McGovern was a bomber pilot--and an extremely brave one, at that. He flew in a plane that was far more vulnerable. Supremely qualified, of course. Then you have the likes of Al Gore--a reporter in Vietnam and an enlisted man. A vastly different experience, but still supremely qualified. Then you get into the Veterans vs the Non-Veterans, and the discussion gets murky.

UPDATE: This is what I mean by murky.

Arguably, the top fighter pilot of the Vietnam War was a guy who topped everyone in the category of "air superiority," that is, the category of pilots who flew against other pilots. That wasn't McCain. McCain bombed targets and dodged SAMs and anti-aircraft fire. The stuff thrown at McCain was pretty lethal, for its day, as the Soviets were sending advisors into Vietnam to help the Vietnamese use the Soviet bloc-manufactured equipment. But McCain was no Duke Cunningham, that's for sure. And where the hell is Duke nowadays? I think anyone will tell you, even the best fighter pilot of the Vietnam War can turn out to be a guy who, shall we say, less than qualified to be President.

DDay makes several key points:

1) Clark is right. He's not blatantly lying about McCain's political service or even disparaging it. Earlier in the interview he called McCain a hero to "all of us in the service." He's making the simple point that military service and executive experience aren't the same thing. Because we've been saturated with this "commander-in-chief" stuff for the last 7 years, and this false notion that criticizing the President's policies equals "criticizing the troops," this dangerous blurring has occurred.

2) I seem to remember a post about the media seeing in McCain a certain honor that they recognize as lacking in themselves and that's why they constantly feel inadequate in his presence and continuously looking up to him. That's what this is going to be about. Bob Schieffer literally couldn't believe anyone would take on McCain's perceived strength, and now that Clark has done so the rest of the media herd will take it the same way.

3) I have few doubts that Clark will handle this head-on. Let's see how the rest of the Democrats handle it. Will they run for the hills screaming? Undercut Clark at the knees?

The important thing is context--and what Wes Clark should have said was, "John McCain's judgement as a fighter pilot was called in question long before he became a Prisoner of War, and if he's going to run on his military record, then in all fairness, that record is fair game, just like John Kerry's record was fair game."

And when you look at McCain's record as a pilot, including his bizarre claim that he was going to "make admiral," all you can do is shake your head:

"I have never heard a story, even remotely, that John McCain was going to be a flag officer. I was early selected for captain, in 1976, and I was regular selected for admiral in 1981. So it’s probably five or six years, I guess. I’ve never heard of anybody being selected for flag rank within three or four years of making captain, ever."

Retired Admiral John R. Batzler, former commanding officer of the U.S.S. Nimitz, also promoted to rear admiral in 1981, agrees with Retired Admiral Booth. "I made rear admiral in about five years. I wasn’t selected early, and I wasn’t selected late. I find it incredible that someone made that statement that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to admiral two years after he made captain. First of all, telling him at all is not kosher, but we all know the Secretary of the Navy does what he damn well pleases, in particular John Lehman. This whole idea that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to flag two years after he made captain sounds preposterous to me." All of the evidence, indications and comments that the New York Times published a flattering lie about McCain’s career on its front page are easy for John McCain to refute. All he needs to do is sign Standard Form 180, which authorizes the Navy to send an undeleted copy of McCain’s naval file to news organizations. A long paper trail about McCain’s pending promotion to admiral would be prominent in his file. To date, McCain’s advisers have released snippets from his file, but under constrained viewing circumstances. There’s no reason McCain’s full file shouldn’t be released immediately. In June 2005, seven months after he lost his bid for president, Senator John Kerry signed the 180 waiver, authorizing the release of his complete military service record to the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press. ** Unlike Kerry, McCain shouldn’t wait until after the election to do so. The Navy may claim that it already released McCain’s record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP’s Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages — a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain’s career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain’s file, of which 617 weren’t released to the Associated Press.

Some of the unreleased pages in McCain’s Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain’s sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush’s.

Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment — to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "’the Airdales,’ the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth’s surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain’s would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain’s naval file.

McCain’s file should also include records and analytic reviews of McCain’s subsequent sub-par performances. Here are a few cited in two highly favorable biographies, both titled John McCain, one by Robert Timberg and the other by John Karaagac.

Timberg:

"[A]fter a European fling with the tobacco heiress, John McCain reported to flight school at Pensacola in August 1958…. [H]is performance was below par, at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn’t love it. What he loved was the kick-the-tire, start-the-fire, scarf-in-the-wind life of a naval aviator. …One Saturday morning, as McCain was practicing landings, his engine quit and his plane plunged into Corpus Christi. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom….McCain was an adequate pilot, but he had no patience for studying dry aviation manuals…. His professional growth, though reasonably steady, had its troubled moments. Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines, which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral…. [In 1965] he flew a trainer solo to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Flying by way of Norfolk, he had just begun his descent over unpopulated tidal terrain when the engine died. ‘I’ve got a flameout,’ he radioed. He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."

Adds Karaagac:

"In his memoir, everything becomes a kind of game of adolescent brinksmanship, how much can one press the limits of the acceptable and elude the powers that be….The [fighter jocks’] ethos of exaggerated, almost aggressive sociability becomes an end in itself and an excuse for license. There is a tendency for people, not simply to believe their own mythology but, indeed, to exaggerate it…. Fighter jocks, like politicians around their campaign contributions, often press the limits of the acceptable. It is a type of mild corruption that takes place in a highly privileged atmosphere, where restraints are loosened and excuses made….McCain gives some hint in his memoirs about where he stood in the hierarchy among carrier flyers. Instead of the sleek and newer Phantoms and Crusaders, McCain flew the dependable Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in an attack, not a fighter squadron. He was thus on the lower end of the flying totem pole."

It's worth noting that Bush the younger was a marginal pilot who basically went AWOL--definitely as aspect of his judgement that should be remembered. Bush and McCain sure had that whole flying thing down, didn't they?

NOT LONG AFTER Reisner's delicate trip to Midland[summer 1976], Bush banged on the door of Susie and Don Evans on an otherwise placid Sunday afternoon and suggested to Don that they head out to the airport and spend a few bucks for a spin over the desiccated Permian Basin in a single-engine Cessna. Susie Evans, who had gone to elementary school with Bush, was a longtime Midland presence, and when she had been dating her future husband in Houston, she had frequently stayed at the Bush house. She had moved back to Midland, and after she had heard that Bush was back in town, she and her husband had frequently invited him over.

Her husband Don Evans... Willard... was a short, fastidious, narrow-faced oilman in his early thirties who was poised to assume control of the Tom Brown Company, one of the legendary older names in the West Texas patch. Bush had begun spending more time at the Evanses' apartment in the Windsor Courts, drinking cocktails with them and leaving his laundry for Susie to do. Bush liked Evans's politics, he liked that they were about the same age and that both of them had recent MBAs. He liked the fact that Evans's old man had landed on the beach at Normandy during World War II.

Evans said he'd love to go flying. At the airport he watched Bush stare at the controls, at the panel, and he realized that Bush-though not admitting it-had no idea how to fly the thing properly. After finally figuring out how to launch the plane, Bush pushed the Cessna hard down the runway. Evans screamed, "Give it some gas!" The Cessna's warning system was blinking and crackling. Bush tried to lift his craft fast, almost as if he were piloting a jet back in the Texas Air National Guard. The plane wobbled into the air, and the unsubtle maneuvering threatened to shove it into a stall. Now the rented plane was rattling in the sky over Midland

The endless petrochemical complexes, all the aluminum and steel and smoke stacks that pockmark the Permian Basin, were spiking up just below the aircraft. Bush nervously turned to Evans, put his hand on his knee and blurted in his self-mocking West Texas way, "Okay, Evvie, I’ve got it under control."

After more seemingly endless moments, he somehow got control of the plane again. He aimed the aircraft down, and the landing was as shaky and brutal as the takeoff. The plane careened off the runway and onto the desert. Evans sighed in relief. Then an unbelieving Evans braced himself as Bush suddenly and unexpectedly spun the plane and bounced back along the runway. Evans stared at Bush. He could see the fear and panic flooding his face. Bush pressed on. Evans had no idea why Bush wanted to go again. The plane wobbled uncertainly back into the West Texas skies, and Bush turned to Evans. "Hey," said Bush airily, as if he had just had an original, amusing idea, "let's fly around Midland."

The men began cracking up. Bush brought the Cessna back to the airport. It was the last time he flew a plane. Evans would be one of the three people at Bush's side in almost every public venture for the twenty-three years.

So was Wes Clark wrong to bring up the fact that McCain lost five planes in his career? Absolutely not. And I think the comparison of McCain to Bush, and the fact that neither one of them were particularly successful pilots, is an apt comparison to make.

Ask yourself this--if McCain were a Democrat, how many Republicans would be screaming about not getting reimbursed for those planes?

It's a curious thing to question someone's war record. The Republicans probably should have gone with a nominee who didn't have one.

"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.

McMaster Promoted

Abu Muqawama says it finally happened:

Yes, Abu Muqawama has heard McMaster is off to TRADOC. Probably not what he would have wanted, but it might be the best thing for the Army as an institution. McMaster has written what might as well be the motto of this blog: "Beyond highlighting the limits of so-called transformational technologies, the principal lesson of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and southern Lebanon might be that military campaigns must be subordinate to a larger strategy that integrates political, military, diplomatic, economic and strategic communication efforts."

The Washington Post has more:

Army Secretary Pete Geren asked Petraeus to head the board, which convened in late 2007, and instructed it to stress innovation in selecting a new generation of one-star generals, the officers said. Several of the colonels widely expected to appear on the resulting promotion list, which has not yet been released, are considered unconventional thinkers who were effective in the Iraq campaign, in many cases because they embraced a counterinsurgency doctrine that Petraeus helped craft, the officials said.

They include Special Forces Col. Ken Tovo, a veteran of multiple Iraq tours who recently led a Special Operations task force there; Col. H.R. McMaster, a senior Petraeus adviser known for leading a successful counterinsurgency effort in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar, and Col. Sean MacFarland, who created a network of patrol bases in Ramadi that helped curb violence in the capital of Anbar Province, according to the officers.

In an article published this year on the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, McMaster challenged what he called the military's preoccupation in the 1990s with technology, to the neglect of the political and cultural dimensions of war. Military leaders must end the "self-delusion" that high-tech weapons and a "minimalist" commitment of forces can solve conflicts, he wrote.

The promotion list has attracted keen attention from younger Army officers who are weary from multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. "This sends a signal to the junior officers who are laboring in the trenches, literally, that the Army is trying to cast itself in a new mold," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., a defense consultant and former head of the Army War College. "The quickest way to change the Army is at the brigadier general level. That is the surest way to turn the ship, because those names are how those young officers intuit where the Army is going," he said.

The one-star-general list, which requires congressional approval, was expected to be released months ago but has been delayed, partly due to a requirement that to qualify for promotion Army colonels must attend a course designed to improve their understanding of other military services. Several colonels who served under Petraeus -- including some said to be on the list -- are currently attending or are scheduled to attend the 10-week course, called Joint Professional Military Education Phase II in Norfolk.

When The Generals Lied - Part V - Brian Williams is Lit Up by Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald takes Brian Williams to the woodshed and gives us a fitting addition to our series about the generals who lied...

Like Fox and CBS, NBC News outright refused to answer any questions about the allegations when asked by the NYT's David Bartsow, and its prime time anchor, Brian Williams, has delivered seven broadcasts since the story was published and has not uttered a word to NBC's viewers about any of it. Yesterday, I wrote about an entry on Williams' blog -- which he calls "The Daily Nightly" -- in which Williams found the time to mock one frivolous cultural puff piece after the next in the Sunday edition of the NYT, even as he still had refused even to acknowledge the expose in last Sunday's NYT that calls into serious question the truthfulness and reliability of his "journalism."

After I wrote about Williams' blog item yesterday, his blog was deluged with commenters angrily demanding to know why he has failed to address the NYT expose. In response, Williams wrote a new blog item last night in which he purports -- finally -- to respond to the story, and I can't recommend highly enough that it be read by anyone wanting to understand how our establishment journalist class thinks and acts.

The essence of Williams' response: he did absolutely nothing wrong. Nor did any of the military analysts used by NBC News. Nor did his network. These are all honest, patriotic men whose integrity is beyond reproach. Here's but a sampling of Williams' defense:

A few of you correctly noted I’ve yet to respond to the recent Times front-page article on the military analysts employed by the television networks, including this one.

I read the article with great interest. I've worked with two men since I've had this job -- both retired, heavily-decorated U.S. Army four-star Generals -- Wayne Downing and Barry McCaffrey. As I'm sure is obvious to even a casual viewer, I quickly entered into a close friendship with both men. . . .

All I can say is this: these two guys never gave what I considered to be the party line. They were tough, honest critics of the U.S. military effort in Iraq. If you've had any exposure to retired officers of that rank (and we've not had any five-star Generals in the modern era) then you know: these men are passionate patriots. In my dealings with them, they were also honest brokers. . . .

At no time did our analysts, on my watch or to my knowledge, attempt to push a rosy Pentagon agenda before our viewers. I think they are better men than that, and I believe our news division is better than that.

Williams argues that the two retired Generals whom he identified in particular -- Downing and McCaffrey -- voiced "harsh criticism of the Rumsfeld Pentagon and the war effort." As proof, he cites a McCaffrey quote from 2006 -- more then 3 years after we invaded Iraq -- in which McCaffrey said there was a civil war there and that "it's a very bad situation, and it's getting worse." He also said Downing was angry that we didn't use more troops for the invasion.

You gotta love it when they squirm like this. It proves they've been trying to avoid listening to their conscience.

Greenwald even digs up that excellent Nation article I talked about--you know the one where they called all of the networks on this bullshit in 2003:

But far worse, the specific, undisclosed conflicts of both McCaffrey and Downing -- the two Generals cited by Williams to prove NBC did nothing wrong -- were disclosed more than four years ago by The Nation. And there is no way that NBC and Williams can claim not to have known about them, since The Nation described those ties as specifically as could be. Did NBC ask the Generals about these ties? Did they consider disclosing them to their viewers? Did the undislcosed ties violate NBC News policy? Does NBC have policies now to prevent this from happening again? Who knows? NBC refuses to comment on any of this.

In fact, it appears that NBC was informed of these specific conflicts by The Nation four years ago. From The Nation article:

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."

Well, their little program is shut down. We'll be watching. And we'll scream bloody murder if they try this shit again.

A tip o the hat to the mighty trex for this story...

BREAKING - When The Generals Lied - The Briefings Are History

This doesn't surprise me, but that's what the news dumps are for--putting the bad news out when no one will see it.

The secretary of defense will no longer brief retired military officers-turned-network television analysts, the chief Pentagon spokesman said Friday.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings said he suspended the program this week amid media scrutiny of the practice.

An article in the Sunday New York Times alleged that the analysts were used to push the Bush administration's messages topics including the war in Iraq and what was going on in the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report also claimed that some of the analysts were involved in business contracts with the Pentagon -- information the newspaper said was rarely or never disclosed, even to the networks.

The briefings were started by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2003, during the buildup to the war in Iraq.

Hastings said that since his arrival at the Pentagon this year, the group of analysts has not met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. But he was unclear whether the analysts had ever met with Gates, who took over the post in December 2006.

And with good reason--Gates isn't interested in lining the pockets of sycophants. That's the difference between Gates and Rumsfeld. Gates isn't going to let anyone profit from what he controls. Case closed.

That's why I'm so glad we went in-depth with this story and I think we both feel vindicated for our outrage. I was mocked on Sunday and Monday on another blog, which shall remain nameless, for being bent out of shape about this. Well, for those folks, and for the Generals who lied and made money, I got one thing to say:

Who's laughing now, bitches?

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 - LTG Thomas McInerney

LTG Thomas McInerney is the first stop in our series. Out of the group of senior officers profiled in this story, McInerney appears to be one of the more corporately connected officers.

McInerney is a Fox News analyst. This is his bio sketch:

General McInerney is the founder of Government Reform Through Technology, a consulting firm that works with high-tech companies. GRTT conducts business with federal, state, city and local governments to help them introduce advanced technology into the public sector.

Prior to this, he was the CEO and the president of Business Executives for National Security, a national, nonpartisan organization of business and professional leaders.

For 35 years, General McInerney served as a pilot, commander, and strategic planner in the U.S. Air Force.

He retired from military service as Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Director of the Defense Performance Review, reporting to the Secretary of Defense. He led the Pentagon's "reinventing government" effort, visiting more than 100 leading-edge commercial companies to assimilate their ideas about business re-engineering.

General McInerney graduated from the United States Military Academy and earned a Master's degree in international relations from George Washington University. He also attended the Armed Forces Staff College and National War College.

This part has either been deliberately left out or was not relevant to include:

Ezenia! Inc., (OTCBB:EZEN.OB), today announced that Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney USAF (Ret.) has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors. His appointment is effective immediately.

[snip]

General McInerney also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Alloy Surfaces Company, KIL Inc. Kilgore Flares Co, LLC, SABA (Federal Advisory Board), Pan American International Academy (Flight Simulators), Agusta Westland NA, Nortel Government Solutions and Crescent Technology Ventures Plc .

According to the New York Times, McInerney was receiving "talking points" from the Pentagon:

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

“Good work,” Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking points in late 2006. “We will use it.”

Coincidentally, McInerney was serving on various company boards in late 2006--as outlined above. He has worked in the corporate world throughout his career, and there's nothing wrong with that. But one of the companies he was working with, Ezenia! Inc., was almost wholly dependent on contracts with the Department of Defense:

These risks and uncertainties include the considerations that are discussed in the Company' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, such as the evolution of Ezenia!'s market, dependence on the United States government as its largest customer and on other major customers, continued funding of defense programs by the United States government and the timing of such funding

At the same time that McInerney was disseminating favorable talking points for the Pentagon, Ezenia! was given a monetary award:

Nashua, N.H. (November 27, 2006) - Ezenia! Inc. (OTCBB:EZEN.OB), a leading market provider of real-time collaboration solutions, today announced the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, New York has awarded the Company a $1 million contract extension for Phase II of its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract.

Despite McInerney's presence on the Ezenia board, the company failed to show significant profitability. In 2007, tough times hit Ezenia!:

NASHUA – Computer networking company Ezenia Inc. lost $4.5 million last year – a decline of more than $8 million from a profitable 2006.

The Nashua company attributes some of the loss a to $2.2 million increase in operating expenses amid declining revenues. Ezenia spent extra money on product improvements, sales and marketing, and legal fees, the company reported Wednesday.

The company also faced expenses from the closing of its Colorado office and the consolidation of those operations into the Nashua headquarters. That move is expected to eventually soften quarterly losses.

"Management expects that the company will continue to be under pressure for at least the first half of 2008 as market conditions remain uncertain," Khoa Nguyen, chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.

However, a decision by DoD in February, 2008 to award Ezenia a lucrative contract renewal for a tenth consecutive year seems to have turned things around:

NASHUA, N.H., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ezenia, Inc (OTCBulletinBoard: EZEN) , a leading provider of real-time collaboration solutions for corporate and government networks, announced today that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has renewed its license subscription for InfoWorkSpace under the Joint Intelligence Virtual Architecture (JIVA) contract, for a tenth consecutive year.

Sponsored by the DIA, JIVA provides the Intelligence Community with state- of-the-art DCID security, ensuring that critical data is delivered to only the appropriate individuals. Over the last 9 operating years, InfoWorkSpace has a track record of proven, reliable collaboration capabilities unparalleled by any other collaboration product. Using InfoWorkSpace has ensured critical information gets delivered so a rapid response can be coordinated. The secure data being distributed enables a seamless coordination to geographically dispersed organizations, and assists in the successful execution of critical missions around the world. This architecture touches not only all direct U.S. intelligence agencies, but also each individual branch of the U.S. military. Ezenia is extremely proud of the historic use of InfoWorkSpace in the context of this mission.

Dozens of companies could provide this same service--but in the 9th year of this contract, Ezenia! was losing money. So why would DoD keep feeding a small company that couldn't make money from this program? McInerney's term on the board of directors was set to expire this year, and he was not reappointed. But it does call into question whether or not this company was able to stay afloat, win contract renewals, win a one million dollar bonus and survive a management shakeup if McInerney wasn't on their board while doing the legwork of the Pentagon to help sell the war to the American people.

Could it be because General McInerney was on their board--and was actively disseminating the talking points of the Pentagon? It gives one pause.

UPDATE I 11:00AM

Here's a snippet of what kind of thinker McInerney is:

I might sleep easier if this were merely Becker’s invention. But all of it, he writes, is prefigured in the Pentagon’s OPLAN 5027, a scheme for ‘defeating the enemy in detail’ (whatever that means). Last March [March, 2004] the Atlantic convened a ‘war game’ with former American diplomats and generals to see how a new conflict with the North might play out. Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, an air force strategic planner with decades of experience, played the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ‘Would we win?’ he asked. Well, ‘there’d be a lot of carnage,’ but yes, we would win – ‘quicker than we did in Operation Iraqi Freedom’ most likely, or in the worst case it might take an extra month. Civilian casualties in Seoul could be kept down to no more than 100,000 (not one South Korean was invited to participate in this ‘game’). North Korea’s nuclear weapons upset the balance of power in the region, he thought, so the US should give nukes to Japan and South Korea for pre-positioning. Once the war begins, for every nuke the North use ‘we will use a hundred.’ That also applies should the North transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists: ‘If any nuclear weapons go off in the United States, you are a target,’ General McInerney would tell Pyongyang, even if it weren’t clear where the weapons came from. The opaque and uncontrolled Other excites exterminationist impulses: it would be nice to say that this is merely McInerney’s view, but the pattern runs deep in American history.

And, This little nugget from September, 2007:

General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander, said last week: “Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Critics fear Abizaid has lost sight of Iran’s potential to arm militant groups such as Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. “You can deter Iran, but there is no strategy against nuclear terrorism,” said the retired air force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney of the Iran policy committee.

“There is no question that we can take out Iran. The problem is the follow-on, the velvet revolution that needs to be created so the Iranian people know it’s not aimed at them, but at the Iranian regime.”

What is the "Iran Policy Committee?"

It appears to be part of the Nuclear Control Institute, although the connection is murky, to say the least. Coincidentally, Captain Charles Nash and Major General Paul Vallely were prominently featured in the New York Times article, alongside McInerney. It's interesting that such vocal supporters of the war in Iraq would be part of the Iran Policy committee.

HERE is an excellent explanation as to why McInerney is ideologically suspect:

On the April 12 [2006] edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing the potential use of military action to thwart Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, Fox News military analyst retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney purported to "lay out a campaign today that will take Iran down very quickly." When asked by host Bill O'Reilly if his military strategy "would be all air, no infantry, and maybe some Special Forces trying to help," McInerney responded that was "correct." But neither McInerney nor O'Reilly mentioned that McInerney also said in 2002 that the military campaign in Iraq, which has now lasted longer than three years, would be "shorter" than the 42 days it took to complete the Persian Gulf War in 1991, adding, "It is going to be absolutely awesome, and that's why this war, if we do it properly, will go very quick, and we'll have less civilian casualties than we did last time."

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.

General-ly Speaking

Now we have an active duty General speaking up that he does not have sufficient troops to do the job he has been tasked with, and he is doing so publicly. Major General (two stars) Randy Mixon has expressed his need for more troops since taking his command in Diyala province in September. "I'm going to need additional forces," he said, "to get that situation to a more acceptable level, so the Iraqi security forces will be able in the future to handle that."

He was absolutely scathing in his assessments of the Iraqi government.

Mixon emphasized that he had asked for more troops shortly after arriving in Iraq last September, well before the U.S. troop buildup was started in Baghdad. Mixon said he saw that violence was rising and the region was becoming a stronghold for Sunni extremists tied to al-Qaida in Iraq.

He said he had been given a battalion in reinforcements, or about 800 soldiers, and that Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander in Iraq, has said he would send additional forces when possible.

"The level of violence began to increase before the surge," Mixon said. "It has increased, of course, during the surge . . . (because) we are sure that there are elements, both Sunni extremist and Shia extremist, that have moved out of Baghdad."

It is rare for an officer of Mixon's rank to publicly call for more troops. When Donald H. Rumsfeld was secretary of Defense, there were intense pressures on officers to not make such requests, even privately, according to officers who served in Iraq.

Mixon's comments were the first of what could be a succession of blunt evaluations by officers under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a veteran of the Bosnian conflict who is now an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations.

"I suspect the new Defense secretary has told general officers to speak their minds," Nash said. "It's going to be hard for some in the administration; suddenly they're going to feel it from the inside. I think you're going to see more of it."

One Pentagon official said Mixon's public request for more troops was being viewed as an attempt to pressure the new commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, into sending more troops to Diyala from Baghdad, since the overstretched Army is currently unable to send substantial numbers of additional reinforcements from the U.S.

Mixon is not known for publicly airing problems he faces in the field. One recently retired Army general close to the northern Iraq commander said his frankness likely stemmed from a new "command climate" under Petraeus that is more conducive to blunt evaluations.

Many Army generals also have been stung by disclosures by lower-ranking officers. A recent article in the Armed Forces Journal by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq War veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, accused the Army's top generals of botching the war and misleading the American public and Congress.

"That's weighing on the consciences of the general officers of our Army," Nash said. "(Yingling) said they failed to live up to their sacred oath of telling the truth. As a consequence, I think everybody is saying, `Not me. I'm not going to be guilty of that.' "

Frankly, Yingling called out a group of men who should not have needed to be called out. Every last General in uniform now was either a junior officer during Vietnam, or came in right after. In either case, they know the devastation to the officer corps and the rank and file when the Pentagon propagates lie upon lie and tries to justify unjust conflict and bloodshed.

Look for more active duty Generals and Colonels to make with the public proclamations.

Make no mistake – this is happening for one reason and one reason only…the SecDef has bestowed his blessing on senior officers to speak out. (But why? Gates doesn’t have his morning coffee without considering four agendas that no one else knows about.)

I am watching Gates operate right now, and wondering, frankly, just what the fuck he is up to.

He is a rogue Secretary – the one man that Karl Rove has no dirt on – in fact, the inverse of that is probably true. He is the one man in the administration that the Mayberry Machiavellis can not control, and that wildcard makes watching the interactions between the White House and His Father’s Man, sent to save him, interesting. Especially if you are familiar with Gates earlier work, as I am. I detest the man, don't trust him any farther than I can throw a bull by the tail; but damn, I respect the talent.

Taking the Generals to task

George Bush keeps yammering on about how he won’t accept a bill from Congress that “ties the hands of our Generals.”

I’m not so sure that would be such a bad idea. (For the record, I have never thought it would necessarily be a bad idea to rein in the current crop, familiar as I am with some of their past work.)

A sea-change among the officer corps is signaled today with the publication of A Failure of Generalship by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in the May issue of Armed Forces Journal.

Yingling doesn’t beat around the bush – he makes his charges early – then he lays them out.

America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

What Lt. Col. Yingling gives voice to is a largely discontented command-level officer corps. Captains, Majors, and Lt. Colonels are unhappy. This is reflected in the fact that they are resigning commissions at a rate unseen since Vietnam – and entirely unprecedented in an all-volunteer military. "Talk to the junior leaders in the services and ask what they think of their senior leadership, and many will tell you how unhappy they are" asserts retired Marine Col. Jerry Durrant, now working as a contractor in Iraq.

Younger officers have been privately voicing their discontent with the conduct of this war by a feckless president and a general officer corps that has been all-too willing to enable his folly. In so doing, they have betrayed the men and women who are subservient to them in the ranks, the men and women, who must, by UCMJ statute, follow their every order so long as it be legal. (Moral and legal are not synonymous.)

Some younger officers have stated privately that more generals should have been taken to task for their handling of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, news of which broke in 2004. The young officers also note that the Army's elaborate "lessons learned" process does not criticize generals and that no generals in Iraq have been replaced for poor battlefield performance, a contrast to other U.S. wars.

Top Army officials are also worried by the number of captains and majors choosing to leave the service. "We do have attrition in those grade slots above our average," acting Army Secretary Pete Geren noted in congressional testimony this week. In order to curtail the number of captains leaving, he said, the Army is planning a $20,000 bonus for those who agree to stay in, plus choices of where to be posted and other incentives.

And still they resign. In droves. It is to the point that the Army is short 3500 officers and the Army Reserves has 11,000 unfilled billets in the Lieutenant and Captain ranks alone.

Lt. Colonel Yingling (I say bypass the bird and slap stars on his shoulders today – and yes I know that’s not how things are done – I’m just sayin’…) beseeches Congress to review the performance of flag-rank officers as they retire and to exercise its power to retire them at a lower rank if their performance is deemed inferior. The threat of such high-profile demotions would restore accountability among top officers, he contends. "As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war”

[Cross-posted to Watching Those We Chose]