CENTCOM Commander’s Veto Sank Bush’s Threatening Gulf Buildup
WASHINGTON - Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush’s nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.
Fallon’s resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration’s Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon’s resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.
The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the Gulf had been a key element in a broader strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.
Admiral Fallon’s resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last January, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.
Explaining why he recommended Fallon, Gates said, “As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job.”
Bush administration officials had just leaked to CBS News and the New York Times in December that the USS John C. Stennis and its associated warships would be sent to the Gulf in January six weeks earlier than originally planned in order to overlap with the USS Eisenhower and to “send a message to Tehran”.
But that was not the end of the signaling to Iran by naval deployment planned by administration officials. The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.
Two well-informed sources say they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported Feb. 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was “likely”.
That would have brought the U.S. naval presence up to the same level as during the U.S. air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, when the Lincoln, Constellation and Kitty Hawk carrier groups were all present. Two other carrier groups helped coordinate bombing sorties from the Mediterranean.
The deployment of three carrier groups simultaneously was not part of a plan for an actual attack on Iran, but was meant to convince Iran that the Bush administration was preparing for possible war if Tehran continued its uranium enrichment programme.
At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defence Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran’s leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.
“He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it,” says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon’s message from a Pentagon official who had read it.
Fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”.
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, “You know what choices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”
Fallon’s opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon’s predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post’s Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending “pointed messages” to Iran.
CENTCOM commander Fallon’s refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on Apr. 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, “There is no plan to overlap them at all.”
The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.
Within two weeks, the administration’s stance had already begun to shift dramatically. On Jan. 12, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dismissed direct talks with Iran in the absence of Tehran’s suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as “extortion”. But by the end of February, Rice had gotten authorisation for high level diplomatic contacts with Iran in the context of a regional meeting on Iraq in Baghdad.
The explanation for the shift offered by administration officials to the New York Times was that the administration now felt that it “had leverage” on Iran. But that now appears to have been a cover for a retreat from the more aggressive strategy previously planned.
Throughout March and April, the Bush administration avoided aggressive language and the State Department openly sought diplomatic engagement with Iran, culminating in the agreement confirmed by U.S. officials last weekend that bilateral talks will begin with Iran on Iraq.
Despite Vice President Dick Cheney’s invocation of the military option from the deck of the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf last week, the strategy of escalating a threat of war to influence Iran has been put on the shelf, at least for now.
Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam“, was published in June 2005.
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service
While I completely disagree with Bush and his chickenhawk ways I must take great pause when we consider that a military officer is subverting civilian control, no matter how reckless and stupid, of the military. Civilian control of the military is an essential protection of our liberties - and the price is George W. Bush, Commander-In-Chief. If the actions of this admiral are described as they actually occurred then a dangerous step has been taken.
thm, Bush still had the option to order a third carrier group into the Persian Gulf so I dont think he was faced with a military coup. Because he didnt want to take the heat he backed off. He has been saying for years that he was just following the needs and assesments of his his commanders in the field. Of course he doesnt want to now add “that is-unless they disagree with me”.
thm107, you are misreading the article. Admiral Fallon threatens to resign (”you know what my options are”) rather than give the order requested. The Administration does not want the commander of CENTCOM publicly to break with its message. (I assume that, as the article implies there were other senior military leaders who too would have resigned rather than order the third carrier to the gulf to rattle the sabers at Tehran.) The point is, the Administration is too weak politically to have senior military commanders resigning over its escalation with Tehran. CENTCOM is the primary imperial command responsible for most military operations in much of the world (except Latin and North America, I believe).
I too, get a queasy feeling when I hear about generals and admirals questioning orders. But there’s a big difference between refusing to take action, and taking action without legal authority.
I think Fallon was perceptive enough to understand that Bush & Cheney don’t have the cojones to issue a threat and then not use it. With three carriers on station, Bush would have to do something, or lose face (again). Fallon was willing to put his job on the line to “support our troops”.
It’s tragic that our soldiers, from Erin Watada to Admiral Fallon have become the ones who have to “put the crazies back in the box”.
That supposed to be the job of the voters.
thm107, I agree with Josh May. I would like to add that although civilian control of the military is indeed preferable in a healthy, democratic republic, the military is also bound by oath to the US constitution. This means that ‘Befehl ist Befehl[’an order is an order’, a common idea in the Third Reich]’ might not apply when the orders that are given to the military are either blatantly ilegal, or absolutely not in the interest of the USA (or of anyone else, for that matter, if to follow an order might lead to an escalation that includes the possibility of a (nuclear?)chain reaction of hostilities (remember the beginning of WWI? Imagine a nuclear version of such an uncontrolled escalation) that could destroy most humans (including Americans, of course: lest we forget that Americans have an interest in the common interest of (wo-)mankind).
I am glad that Admiral William Fallon is not a brainless follower-of-orders. If Fallon were no more than a programmable robot, the Pentagon should consider the option of fundamentally revising its policies with regard to promotion within the military.
That was my modest outsider’s opinion. But, hey! Who, in a globalised world, is an outsider, really.
Good luck to y’all!
European Student
thm107: it’s not subverting when you’re challenging someone who has subverted the military to such a degree that they are no longer operational ready for anything, not even withdrawal from Iraq. He probably told Bush that he cannot wave his wand and instantly expect a carrier group to appear out of think air into the Gulf. Bush is clueless and anyone who claims to be just obeying orders already knows this Nuremberg defense doesn’t hold water.
I’ve wished for Generals to launch a coup and install Kucinich, who they know would turn right around and order each of them disarmed and the entire military to start transforming itself into the Dept of Peace.
Fallon is a commander who is not a politician. He’s a military man and must act with regard to the consequences. His decision is based on sound military judgment. Bush on the other hand is a politician who wants to be a commander. He’s a politician so he will act in the best interest of his corporate buddies. His decision is based on sound political wisdom. Fallon can’t change the policy but he can make it more difficult to implement.
Hoa binh
“There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”
and Bush is the “Crazy in Chief”
I am glad that cooler heads are prevailing..when is the coup?
Fallon understands that Bu$h and Cheney are fucking crazy. Looks like it’s going to take the military to put a hold on these bloodthirsty maniacs. Ironic, but true. A real leader won’t start another criminal war, and Bu$h is too weak to get rid of him. He doesn’t have the political capital to spend anymore.
I’m missing something - aren’t there 3 carrier groups in the Gulf right now?
It may well be true that constitutionally the military ought to be under the control of the executive power, but it would seem that the relationship between the two has evolved differently since the 1950s. Here are a few quotations by Chalmers Johnson on the topic, from his book “Blowback”:
“The relationship between the civilian elite that runs this country and its powerful military has undergone a sea change since the 1950s. […] In the wake of Vietnam, with the military transformed into a purely volonteer career choice, the gap between the experiences of the civilian and the military hierarchies has only widened — and with the threat of the former USSR ended, the fact is that the military has for the first time begun to slip beyond civilian control.”(70)
“The Pentagon’s most recent route around accountability is ‘privatization’ of its training activities.” (85)
“The Pentagon’s global industrial policy, which keeps its corporate support system in place and well funded, regularly overrides more traditional foreign policy concerns…” (89)
“Ten years after the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon monopolizes the formulation and conduct of American foreign policy.” (93)
It would seem that the situation now is such that the Pentagon and the military only go along with the President insofar as they agree with the President. If they disagree, the President must yield.
See also Chalmers Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire,” which deepens the analysis of the place and role of the military in the United States.
of all the branches of the military, the Navy is the only one not stretched to the max. Initiating actions against Iran would likely lead to the inclusion of the Navy in that category. While the air power the carrier groups possess is certainly sufficient to avoid any meaningful losses, the same cannot be said for the floating inventory. Even if Iran has half the weapons most analysts agree on, they presents enough of a deterrent to not engage naval forces. Talk about subversion of authority in admiral Fallon’s refusal to participate in yet another Mideast debacle is a purely academic exercise, however warranted. American taxpayers can be grateful at least one commander has enough huevos to reject the current administration’s leaning.
Admiral Fallon has behaved just as he should. He has the right to resign for any reason. Many officers are in a position to do so. Slavery was outlawed in the United States.
jjohnjj May 15th, 2007 4:05 pm
I too, get a queasy feeling when I hear about generals and admirals questioning orders….
Not me. And especially not when it’s REFRAINING from bellicosity.
Generals and Admirals — like privates and petty officers — take an oath. That oath ISN’T to the President, but to the constitution.
I’d have been much more impressed if the generals and admirals had refused BLATANTLY ILLEGAL ORDERS in the first place. After all, these aren’t ignorant “volunteers” but presumably highly educated career military men who should have been intimately familiar with the constitution and the UCMJ and damn well should have known better.
Fallon did the right thing — but way too little and way too late.
Just my opinion.
spartacus jones
www.spartacusjones.com
a military coup doesn’t sound bad. it would be ironic having one at home after spreading them around the globe (although this time to fix the problem rather than creating it!). Admiral Fallon should keep all options on the table!
A military coup sound terrible but a military refusing to carry out an illegal and unjust policy of aggression is a great thing. They should be more beholden to international law than to the whims of the executive.
“Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush’s nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.”
This man deserves much respect if he keeps his word.
The way I see it is that Bush does not care anymore. The goal of this adnim, and that of PNAC, was to create chaos in the ME. They already got Afghanistan and the gas pipeline deal. They also got Iraq and its oil fields. Now they want Iran’s humongous energy resource. They don’t care anymore whether Bush the nitwit is impeached or not. Once they strike Iran, the chaos would last through the next few admin. The war profiteers would reap at the expense of US reputation and its taxpayers.
civilians yes they’re supposed to be in charge. but they are supposed to be working with men in the military not robots that do as told. men who have taken an oath to uphold the constitution of th usOa. that doesn’t allow chicken shits to have wars whenever they want to enlarge the bank accounts of their previous places of employment at the expense and lives of others, hundreds of thousands of others. got a problem with that? go back to kiddie school. Thank you Admiral Fallon.
Looks like Admiral Fallon (1) is a man of some integrity, intelligence and love of country, fellow man and humanity who (2) was doing his background research (on Sunburn and other technologies available to the primitive Persians ) whilst monkeyman was busily scratching around in his brush..
And yet there is something creepy about it. I suggest we do our research to determine whether banana republics (other than our own) have had incompetent governments immediately preceding a military take-over.
If this article is true, certainly, Fallon seems to come out ahead of Bush. But again — if true — how is it that the military system produced a more sensible person than “democracy”? Does that say something extraordinarily negative about the health of our democracy? The system must be quite horribly broken.
Paul.. Because Admiral Fallon has integrity and intelligence??
And YES, the US system is in terminal decline.
Let us hope that as it implodes, it does not take too many Good People with it, American or otherwise.
Action by a committed military may be all that will minimise the consequences.
Thank you Admiral Fallon! I don’t think I am wrong in assuming that Fallon has pretty much the same access to pertinent intelligence information that Bush has. In other words, he is in a position to understand whether or not Iran is a HUGE, imminent threat to U.S interests, the propaganda and manipulation of war-hawks not-with-standing.
I repeatedly get told I am “crazy” by right-wingers for suggesting we absolutely shouldn’t strike Iran *unless* it proves to be an imminent threat. They tell me “should we wait for Iran to set off nukes in Manhattan?”. No hard facts; its always fear-mongering and Zionist hand-wringing which is why I don’t buy into their “we must bomb Iran now!” mantra. I guess this makes Fallon as “crazy” as I am!
The U.S is long overdue for a military coup, especially with this adminitration. I may be wrong(I am not an historian), but the U.S has never had a military coup, correct? Yes Fallon, please do keep “all options on the table”.
In reply to those who are worried that a military officer is refusing to take orders from Bush, it should be obvious that he is taking Bush at his word that he listens to his officers and also that he remembered that his oath is to defend the Constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic. Any military person has the OBLIGATION to disobey an illegal order, and an attack on Iran would be illegal just as the attack on Iraq was “fucking illegal” (Pat Tillman).
I admire Admiral Fallon for taking a stand. I feel better, not worse about our democracy over this. What we have to fear I think is a commander ignoring an order not to commit an act of aggression. The commander-in-chief can always find another general/admiral to carry out an order (I hear we now have a new “war czar” - at last, unfortunately). What I would be afraid of is our military being turned on us.
Truman was right to fire MacArthur for ignoring his order to stop chasing the Chinese back across their border. Whether or not it was a good decision on Truman’s part to pull back, it was his decision.
Bush could have fired Fallon, or let him quit. He did neither. I’m not sure why, maybe some handler - besides Cheney - pointed out he’s politically vulnerable right now. Maybe more will come out about this. One thing, recently, information is leaking out of this administration all over the place now. Signs of breakdown.
i do not understand why americans are so addicted to war. anybody?
“There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”
The above quote is similar to a quote made by CIA personnel in reference to Cheney and Rumsfeld. What we are possibly witnessing is a break in trust between the current administration and the high military command.
Could this be a possible sign of the military industrial complex flexing its authority? Or is this the voice of sanity from high ranking officials, saying enough is enough?
Would it be such a bad thing if all the troops in Iraq just went back to their bases and refused to participate in the insanity of this war?
It will be fascinating to see if the single world power begins to understand that “might does not make right” and refuses to use the power it took so long to accumulate.
terryb:
It may be that Americans, by and large, are not “addicted to to war” but simply ignorant of war, its realities and its motivations.
Only a small percentage of the American population have any military experience and a very small fraction of those have ever seen combat. For most of the remainder, war is an abstraction that is marketed in such a way as to appeal to viscerally satisfying illusions of national superiority.
The potency of those illusions is rooted in the deep, unarticulated fears of a culture that has, for two generations, exhibited an increasing preoccupation with feeling good rather than being good.
Perhaps that is the core addiction, and war is but one of its symptoms.
All sweeping generalizations are false (including this one) but some are worth considering. Sample:
*** At the end of days we shall find that winning and losing are illusions, provoked by an infantile fear of insignificance. *** skeptimist
THM107 is absolutely right. Politicizing our military is a dangerous event. That is how coups start. The Argentine military started its “dirty war” to save the country. If we get to that point, our military may feel compelled to do the same thing. Bush has made loyalty to him central to being patriotic, and Americans are ideologially vulnerable to a fascist message like that. Hitler required the military to take an oath of allegiance to him personally. Our military still takes an oath to “defend the Constitution of the United State against all enemies foreign and domestic.” I hope we do not develop a Friecorps (we’d probably call them militias) that forgets that oath, or a standing military that decides independently who the domestic enemies are. We need to remember how close we came to a fascist takeover in 1933, before General Smedley Butler put an end to it.
No one should support or participate in imperialist wars of aggression whether they are civilians (in power or not in power) or military (retired or active duty; generals or foot soldiers).
Fallon did the right thing. We could use about 145,000 more like him.
Checks and balances are part of the constitution too.
Some of the comments here remind me of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Basically, it means that for any non-trivial logical system, any set of rules is incomplete and one can always encounter situations for which the existing rule set is inadequate.
Generally, we want military commanders to follow civilian orders, with the exception that since the ultimate loyalty is to the Constitution and not the President they should not follow what they perceive to be illegal orders. However (ignoring that there is and should be no prohibition against resigning), one can easily imagine a situation where we would want a commander to disobey a legal order. Some may recall that there was a situation in the 1980s where a Soviet officer at the controls of a nuclear weapons system disobeyed orders by not triggering a nuclear counter-attack when his information (incorrectly) indicated an attack by the US. Because he disobeyed his orders, the people of the US and the Soviet Union survived the incident.
The challenges we face in life are unbounded in complexity and no rule set covers every situation. But we can all determine our most fundamental goals and try to act consistently with those to the extent possible. And I am glad that Admiral Fallon appears to have done just that in this situation.
thm et al
THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IN THE US HAS BROKEN.
I’m sure I don’t have to list all the laws that have been broken by the Bush administration while they remain in power.
The laws are being broken left and right and some of you want the military to be silent and obedient?
Obedient to what? criminals in office?
I think if Bush had continued we would have seen eventually a military take over of the US government.
If you want a system that is following the Constitution then support impeachment to remove these criminals from office.
IF this is true, the only reason Bu$hites would change their mind is the political fallout. They would have had to fire Fallon over the issue. If this war was morally right, or politically popular - Fallon would have been outed and attached to a scandal real or faked.
There is no whiff of treason in refusing orders that are illegal. It was his duty. The military oath is to the Constitution. An attack on Iran is in violation of treaties we have ratified and signed. Iraq was also illegal - for anyone who knew for a fact that the weapons of mass destruction story was a lie. The patriot Scott Ritter tried to tell us, but was discredited and suppressed by the Bu$hites and the media.
George W. Bush uses signing statements to determine the constitutionality of new laws unilaterally, and interpret any ambiguities, real or imagined. He then implements the laws as modified and/or limited by his signing statements.
Precedent dictates that during the remainder of this administration, military commanders do the same in implementing orders of their Commander in Chief.
If the Garreth Porter article is accurate, Admiral Fallon did not refuse to obey an order, nor did he arrogate to himself any of the legitimate constitutional functions of the civilian executive… in this case, a genuine ‘civilian’, ersatz ‘executive’.
What he DID was his patriotic duty. What he DID was demonstrate manly HONOR, an attribute so lacking in most of the brass capons who strut around the Pentagon and the command posts like so many feisty bantam roosters, in miltary uniforms…
By placing his career on the line, by risking a fall from grace WHILE ON ACTIVE DUTY, he manifested the COURAGE of his convictions, in fulfillment of his DUTY.
What he said was: “Mr. President, I’m honored to be considered for this job. But you should know, beforehand, that I do NOT support your further pursuit of wet dreams in the matter of additional strike carrier groups in the Persian Gulf… and should I be appointed to head the CENTCOM command, I’m so morally and militarily convinced you’re wrong about it, that -should you then order me to deploy- I will resign my command and my service, rather than assist you in your vain quest for yet another neo-Con nocturnal emission.”
Ergo, the concerns of thm107 (and amen corner) are -in essence- obfuscating…
Were they relevant, they would nonetheless express a rather naive’ and achronological apprehension: adherence to a founding document myopically revered, ‘tho never observed in terms of its advertising, in American history… a concern not unlike worrying about closing the corral gate after the horse has bolted… coupled with an insistence that a dutiful military officer (but not a criminal president) observe it.
The U.S. Constitution (hence, the spirit and essence of a commonweal, which it purported to ensure) has been, from its very beginning, a legal document constantly interpreted by the Federal Courts as conferring on the executive IMPLIED POWERS (as asserted by the now- proven-to-be-accurate anti-Federalists, but piously denied by the Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison coterie) -AND- since 1861, has been a dead letter… form without substance… sauce for the goose, but not for the gander… license to steal from domestic citizens and denizens… power to oppress and destroy foreign nations, in pursuit of wealth for the few and penury for the many… empire… fulfillment of many of Patrick Henry prophetic utterances concerning it (in his arguments AGAINST ratification by Virginia), e.g.,
“Our Legislature will indeed be a ludicrous spectacle - 180 men marching in solemn farcical procession,
exhibiting a mournful proof of the lost liberty of their country—without the power of restoring it.”
As Paul Bramscher put it: “The system must be quite horribly broken.” Amen.
Kudos, Admiral William Fallon !
And -in closing- some sentiments of Sir Walter Scott for Caligula Bush:
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.
From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”, Canto VI
I have the greatest respect for the abilities and education of our highest ranking military officers. the real problem is that part of their training is dedication to “The Mission”, and “the Mission” takes precedence over all else. The result is that the civilian control of the military (for which I am very grateful) is subverted by being surrounded by YEs men, who just salute, say “yes Sir”, and set out to obey orders. Their responsibility is much more than that, and Adm. Fallon measured up to that responsibility. The fact is that highest ranking officers have a much greater knowledge of history, tactics, strategy,sociology and psychology than all the rest of the Bush administration oput together. The Allies established at the end of WWII that “just obeying orders” was no excuse for complicity in war crimes.
I can’t believe folks are getting “queasy” reading about Generals and Admirals refusing to take orders…..MY GOD, what’s wrong with you folks? Sometimes ORDERS ARE WRONG. German soldiers in Concentration-camps were “taking orders” in lock step…..orders many knew were wrong. These Admirals and Generals who stand up to piss poor war planning deserve our greatest gratitude…..and curse all you who think otherwise.
Thanks for the curse, VooDoo. I can feel needles sticking me in the backside even now - ouch!
But - You appear to be unfamiliar with the Law of Unintended Consequences, sometimes known as “Blowback”.
It may be necessary and even heroic for Generals to alter political policy today, but future generations may regret that this precident was set.
MacArthur & Truman have been mentioned here.
But let us also remember how Gen. George McClellan refused Lincoln’s orders to attack the Confederate Army for months.
Lincoln finally replaced him. If McClellan had acted when ordered, the Civil War might have been over in months, rather than years.
This analogy has absolutely nothng to do with Bush and Fallon. Ths war is wrong. The admiral acted correctly and courageously.
I’m just saying that the sword can cut both ways. Those who love liberty should be a little concerned by this turn of events.
kathyodat May 16th, 2007 1:07 am
“Bush could have fired Fallon, or let him quit. He did neither. I’m not sure why,…”
Kathy: Think about all the top military brass and former CIA employees who have come out of the closet over the past 3 years, even if it was late. And now we have Admiral Fallon who is still head of CENTCOM, telling us that “he is not alone” with regard to this decision.
These are powerful men and women who worked for decades within the military/industrial complex and know very well how it operates. They could easily expose the elitist, “perpetual war” activists and charge them with treason and sedition.
Some of the top military officials who have made their careers in this area, and some in the intelligence community, are getting fed-up with the bullshit that undermines the Constitution and the people of this country.
Their oath is to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic….” This government was established “by the people and for the people”; the first duty of a soldier is to protect the Constitution and the people!
So… We have senior military officers describing the administration politicians as “crazy”. We have many political commentators increasingly describing Bush and those around him as “detached from reality”, “delusional” or using similar phrases. The rest of the world has diagnosed long ago Bush as being mentally ill (the reports of his hearing voices telling him to kill other people would qualify him for a padded cell in a civilized nation).
When will the American Congress wake up and realize that America has been led for the past few years by a band of mentally unbalanced people (not metaphorical, but a literal statement of truth)? It’s obvious to the rest of the world. And unfortunately for Americans, they get tagged with the “lunatic” label for continuing to allow lunatics to take over the asylum for so long.
“a military coup doesn’t sound bad. it would be ironic having one at home after spreading them around the globe (although this time to fix the problem rather than creating it!). Admiral Fallon should keep all options on the table!”
This little soundbite is a very, very dangerous idea, and as a joke it fails to be humorous. Jaded Prole is voicing the desperation so many of us feel about the Bush administration, but it is a desperation we MUST reject out of hand - American democracy can survive even this, and we must allow this to play out and recover democratically. We are a nation of laws, and the laws are in place both to ensure we can move on, and we can, if we have the will, to punish those who have perpetrated crimes. Bush will pay, or America as a whole will pay for our failure to address his ineptitude and criminality.
What we cannot do is submit to the desire for the ‘quick-fix’, in this case evidenced by a military coup or subversion of civilian control of the military. That is a lose-lose scenario, and we all know what the road to hell is paved with.
We don’t need a military coup in this country. We need a revolution. The military is a racket as is war. With the lucrative executive jobs given to pentagon brass at companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, GE, and Boeing and the interlocking corporate boards between defense contractors ,oil companies, banks, investment houses, and their control over the media, the government, choosing our representatives, spying on our phone conversations, internet activity, cameras on corners, national IDs , gps tracking cell phones, RFIDs, DNA databases, medical records, financial records, data mining, employment records, educational records, credit cards, television viewing preferences, police records, driver licences, tax records, all at the ruling classes finger tips. I would say America as a nation of free people is over. democracy in this country is laughable. Bush has signed executive orders suspending habeas corpus, authorization to spy without warrants or oversight, he has authorized torture. The CIA has been kidnapping people and sending them to other countries to be tortured, The military has been infiltrating and spying on peace organizations. Bush has appointed anti unionists to head the national labor relations board, he appointed people from trade associations to oversee the consumer protection agency, he has used the civil rights division of the Justice Dept. to suppress voters and voting. He is deliberately bankrupting the government making a mockery of every agency and department with his appointments, privatized everything he could, cleaned out the treasury of the peoples money and given it to his rich friends and supporters without even asking them to bid. He has not done one thing for the vast majority of the people in this country in six years he has managed to waste almost 16 trillion dollars and widen the gap between rich and poor at a rate never before seen. Terrorism has jumped threefold under his watch, most of the world sees this nation as the number one threat to world security. Under Bushes watch more elected officials have been indicted and convicted of corruption than any other administration and this is after he did his best to stack the ag offices and the judiciary. By far the majority of those indicted have been from his party. There is not one action or policy of this administration that doesn’t have a partisan or criminal agenda underlying it. Yet the Democrats who control both houses of Congress after so many people worked so hard to get them elected, have chosen to be complicit with this pig in the White House than to do what the people elected them for, that being to impeach Bush and bring some measure of sanity back to government. We the people need to take our government back.
Sounds to me like Fallon wanted to be able to live with himself, like we all do.
I don’t believe one word of this story! No underling in the military will ever be able to stop the supremo commander Bush. Bush is untouchable and can commit murder without prosecution so how in hell can he be stopped in his buildup in the Gulf? Use your heads for God’s sake! That SOB is ready to strike Iran with nuclear weaponry. His public story is that talks are going well but Bush has another 911 up his sleeve and this time it will be nuclear and he can blame it on Iran and blow them to Kingdom Come. Did you forget that Bush is the new Hitler?