To Mtn Goat: you must be clicking on the wrong site. You see this is Common Dreams, not "The World Net Daily". So go play on that site!

A fitting line here is from THE EXORCIST: "Pay no attention to the Devil. He is a liar. He will mix lies and truth in order to confuse us."

WmC -

Powell didn't follow the Powell doctrine, in any phase of the 17 year Iraq war. Relative to the Gulf war, 4 and 6 were not done. 4 was not policy; attack timing was based on readiness and fear Saddam would capitulate. 6 was not done before or after; risk of a 9/11 was not assessed (let alone the massive overreaction.)

Powell is as phony as Petraeus, and just as impressive.

One contemporary general we SHOULD have listened to is Colin Powell, when he promulgated the Powell Doctine. You'll notice that not one of the pre-conditions is being met in the continuing occupation of Iraq.

The Powell Doctrine:
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?

WILLY BILL: Eloquent and wise words!
GDE & WHAT FOOLS: Good points, well-stated.
MIRF59: Excellent analysis.
LAWLESSONE: Your account of the soldier's context is what "fair and balanced" analysis should be about, a vanishing species in MSM. Thank you for sharing it.

For those interested in a psychological analysis of warmongering, I have recently completed a 10-minute online video entitled "Resisting the Drums of War." It examines how the Bush administration has promoted the misguided and destructive war in Iraq by targeting five core concerns that often govern our lives--concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. Looking ahead, the continuing occupation of Iraq--or an attack on Iran--will likely be sold to us in much the same way. The video examines these warmongering appeals and how to counter them. It's available for viewing HERE.

I think the dynamics here are simple. Generals are presented by civilian leadership as experts in the field presenting expert assessments. But, they are still employees of the Commander-in-Chief who would not have ascended to a position of power and influence unless they were in alignment with the power interests above.

So, the utterances of these generals are political, not objective. Presenting them as subject matter experts rather than the political creatures they are is a form of political maneuvering and is the sort of thing that is called "dishonesty" outside of the political realm.

Mtn Goat,

Hey, good to see you back in action. I think there's a simple answer to your question. No one has time to gather these facts independently. I am not going to be able to quit my job and spend months or years in Iraq gathering information in the field that I can use to compare against someone else's claims.

I am going to be stuck consuming information presented to me second hand. The credibility and reliability of the information that is presented then becomes critical.

How do we know if the information is credible and reliable if we can't gather independent data and compare? The only thing we are left with is the credibility of the source.

Isn't this the entire basis of the legal system which is the critical enforcement mechanism if all our liberties are to be preserved?

With respect to the War in Iraq, Petraeus or any other General that is chosen by George W. Bush to do a White House commissioned and sanctioned report on the war must be assumed at the outset to lack credibility, objectivity, independence.

The politicization of everything is the universal trademark of the Bush Administration. Science has been politicized. The Justice Department. The CIA. The FBI. Every federal group that formerly derived significant value from its political independence has been tainted.

The most spectacular event was Colin Powell's "slam dunk" case for WMD presented to the UN. As a result of this and all the other such events that have characterized the Bush Administration, it is advisable to assume that this report is a political sham, and the burden of proving its relevance rests on its sponsors.

There is no benefit of the doubt left here to be exploited. It is foolish to extend these people the benefit of the doubt based on prior performance.

WOLF! WOLF! WOLF!
No really.. WOLF!
I'm serious this time really... WOLF!
No joke now, this is really, really serious.. WOLF!
How many times can I fool you?
Anyone that ever served in the armed forces knows the soldier mentality. When you are told to do something you say "Yes Sir" and do it. Do not assume for a second that General Petraeus will say or do ANYTHING other than what is told. Freewill is not a military term. Also, do not blame General Petraeus either. If he lies it is because he was told to do that. Petraeus answers to the Commander in Chief (bush). Whatever he says will be what bush tells him to say.

It isn't that we're not going to listen Mtngoat. It's that noone exists anywhere in our government with enough credibility to present a believable report. It's scary but a foreign government could present the Iraq assessment report with more clout than ours.

General Who? Sorry, wasn't listening.

Most of us have personally known a chronic liar or two in our life, and the natural instinct is to tune them out after a while --webwalker's reasonable point.

But the author's headline -When Patraeus Speaks Don't Listen - is offensive. It smacks of an order from the Thought Police.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld, are the ones who've shown they're chronic liars. Nobody can honestly accuse Patraeus of that, yet -even though I think Patraeus is intellectually dishonest and morally wrong for agreeing to manage Bush's war, and that he will probably pad the account in his report, on orders from you know who.

So, I'm making uselss disinction? Maybe. But I think it makes the anti-war author sound like a fundamentalist goon and his reader like children in need of corralling when he presumes to tell me what I should or shouldn't listen to.

I'm clear that the war is criminal and that bush is deranged. But I'd have personal doubts about anybody who'd bark such an order at readers more than once. Maybe it was a thoughless mistake. But the author ought to admit it was a dumb choice of words and change the title.

If he sees nothing wrong with his article's title, then I would have to think there's something wrong with him.

SEPTEMBER 15
Mass March in Washington DC!
Gather at 12 noon at the White House

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

ezeflyer has it right. Neither Bush, Cheney, Rice, Addington, nor any of the other Bushits will ever accept any responsibility for anything that taints their own self images. This started long ago, approximately 1948, when McCarthy took a dump on the U.S., boosting Nixon to his own "imperial presidency."

The Republican aristocracy shot themselves in both feet, their ass, and their privates in 1964 with the slogan, "extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice." Not only did San Francisco and the entire state of California turn against the Republicans, all of Arizona and the rest of the country decided to elect the (slightly) lesser of the two evils, LBJ.

Taking this as a personal affront, the Repubs decided to blame their failure on the Devious Demos, thus initiating the harvest we have today.

Now the Repubs are building gated communities in Jackson Hole, the Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Paraguay....

And the current Devious Demo Congress is slavering at the gates, hoping they will have their chance to enter political heaven.

Wasn't General Petraeus the general in charge of the distribution of all those weapons that went missing a while back. This was before he was promoted. Isn't that what Bush does to all who screw up , promote them?

"The big question is whether the media and the Democrats in Congress will stand up to the general or will surrender again to the politics of fear, as they did in the push for war during 2002."

My bet is, they will surrender to Bush just like they
did on the wire tapping bill. I'm thinking they are no
better than the chicken hawks that promoted this mess.

MtnGoat,

You are so funny. Thanks for the consistent humor injected into this blog!

There's just something about having been lied to approximately 476 times - it's not that i "decide in advance" that they do "not already agree" with me - it's that they have lied and lied and lied and lied and lied and lied and lied and i think i sort of see a pattern here.

i know, there is something about the way your brain works, when their lies enter your brain somehow they don't look like lies, so it is difficult for you to engage in conversation with people who recognize the lies for what they are. Keep the jokes coming though!

Bush finally found a patsy.

So just how is anyone supposed to expect you folks are 'fact based' if you decide in advance not to listen to what anyone says that does not already agree with you?

"SAME ARMY, DIFFERENT WARS"
Or, Rank Has its Version

General David Petraeus, a former commander of the 101st Airborne Division on its last tour in Iraqis currently in charge of Bush's "surge" efforts there. He will be returning shortly to pontificate on how Bush's latest plan to "win" the war supposedly has been going. The snippets he has leaked to date suggest he will proclaim it's, metaphorically, going great guns. In an alternate view published recently by the New York Times, seven sergeants who have actually been on the streets carrying out the surge provided their own personal observations and they could not be more contrasting.

What the two versions reveal is that there are basically two types of soldiers in most wars, those with the rank of major and above and those with the rank of captain and below. The former see the war as symbols on a map or, at closest, from helicopter height. These days, their's is the world of air conditioned comfort, hot meals, and clean, even pressed, uniforms. The only natives they meet tend to be just the local warlords and ward healers, usually corrupt ones at that. These upper rank officers, the ones with lots of gold braid and shiny brass, may get out in the field occasionally, but seldom for long. And, far too many never listen to those below them, particularly those in the enlisted ranks. The field grade officers, a misnomer, typically remain isolated even when completely surrounded by obsequious underlings.

The soldiers actually in the field, the grunts, those at the sharp end, see the war very differently. They see it up close and personal. They can't miss the puddled blood and splattered gray matter. Perhaps circumstances force them to lie in it at times. They get to smell the indescribable stench of long dead or burned flesh that never leaves the nostrils once experienced. They taste the grit. They freeze. They bake. They hear, or worse, actually feel in their chest, the uniquely terrifying deep krump concussion of mortars dropping nearby. They understand that unlike in the movies, it does not matter how much a super soldier you are if the mortar shell decides to share your foxhole or if the AK-47 bullet happens to share the same airspace. They walk at night unable to see the trip wires, notwithstanding the high tech starlight scopes and infrared gear they wear. They often have reason to curse the limits of technology toys, particularly the untested new ones foisted on them by defense contractors more interested in surging profit than supporting the troops. They know the limits of human endurance by packing 80 pounds of gear on their own backs and eating cold MREs. They experience the real effects of the war, not the sanitized versions the history professors will later write. The grimy sweaty enlisted men and the lowest ranking officers actually leading them on foot learn all too well what war does to both to their own friends and the civilians they were there to protect. Interestingly, the enemy combatant sometimes earns greater respect than the REMFs who "lead" our own troops only from bunkers located far in the rear.

In any event, the view of war from the perspective of the ordinary infantryman carrying a rifle and searching buildings is one of almost relentless stress, worry, dirt, thirst, pain and fatigue. The one good thing, and occasionally very bad thing when death sickles a buddy, is the close comradery that can develop from the shared, often communal, experience among those fighting the war as captains, lieutenants, sergeants and privates.

These two very different views of the same conflict; i.e. the "higher highers" vantage point versus those scuttling, sometimes literally, on their bellies seeking cover, are so dramatically different that it is almost as if they are fighting different wars. Neither can really understand the other, yet both desperately need to communicate because each has critical information the other lacks.

The best commanders, sadly they're quite rare, seem to be those who have endured enough close combat at some point in their careers to develop a genuine and lasting empathy with the enlisted ground pounders permanently assigned to kick down the doors. It needs to be long enough for the commander to discover that the enlisted men have useful and practical information. It needs to be long enough for the adrenalin rush to hard wire the experience into muscle memory. Merely earning the combat infantry badge is not enough. That only necessitates being under fire once. Unfortunately, what is probably needed for the lessons to really take hold is to be under fire long enough to lose someone they really cared about. That is when they finally learn the uncountable costs of combat and to not be wasteful of others' lives. They certainly need to have taken the combat tour assignment for something more than just getting their ticket punched to show they met all their future promotion requirements.

Is General Petraeus one of those commanders men in uniform would consider worth following up a hill? I don't know. Having served in the 101st Airborne myself, I hope so out of unit pride. But, if it becomes a question of whether to believe the seven doubting sergeants who have been carrying out Bush's "surge" house to house or believing some general arbitrarily put in power by Bush, my inclination is to put more trust in the observations of the ones who happened to have observed events at grenade distance. They may not have the "big picture," but the big picture type of guys like Bush's buddies seem to have been uniformly and horribly wrong.

Besides, when breaking in doors and interacting with civilians in other ways, it is pretty easy for the average boot wielder to get a pretty good feel for at least whether or not the locals are genuinely interested in behaving. Body language is quite eloquent in situations like that. The number of bobby traps discovered divided by whether or not the locals give warnings before such traps are discovered the hard way equals the pucker factor. It is usually a far better predictor than the ideologies and egos of those at high levels who never have contact with the average citizen of the country sought to be subdued.

And, since we are not trying to simply exterminate the populace, isn't that the one key question in Iraq; i.e., whether they are really interested in behaving themselves? As almost every guerilla war in the past century seems to have shown, until the populace decides they really want to have peace and solve their own problems, it becomes just a bottomless pit. On that subject, the cynical pessimists (which combat troops usually become after extended months under fire) are less likely to indulge in wishful thinking except the wish to go home. Therefore, is General Petraeus routinely seeking the unfiltered comments of his enlisted men who go out beyond the concertina wire every night? If he is, I would feel more confident that his reports will be reliable.

What is bothersome regarding the unknown qualities of General Petraeus is that Bush is not known to allow anyone in a position of authority who might disagree with his particular world view, even in private. Bush unconsciously seems to prefer someone more incompetent than himself so that he can look good in comparison. (How else would you explain "Heckofajob" Brownie for instance.) Consequently, a logical fear is that General Petraeus might be another crony type or an ambitious one. After replacing all the generals who accurately predicted the mess before the war even started and got fired for saying so, it is hard to have confidence that Bush's latest selection is unafraid to report reality.

Even if General Petraeus is fully competent, inclined to speak his own mind and has good intelligence regarding Iraq's present situation though, there probably will not be any genuine two way communication between him and Bush. In fact, General Petraeus might be expressly ordered by his commander in chief not to convey any message or facts contrary to the White House daily delusions. Remember, although Bush obviously likes to pretend he is a warrior by dressing up in flight suits, he was too gutless actually put himself where he could even hear the sound of guns which means he has no shared combat experience on even war in general, let alone Iraq, despite his brief sneaks into the county at night. Once again, it suggests what the seven sergeants and those like them have to say on whether the surge is serviceable is more likely to be accurate than what a higher ranking politically appointed general has to say.

It should be noted I have nothing per se against those who quite wisely seek to avoid places where you can be killed. If Bush had confined himself to hiding out during the Vietnam War, that would merely have been self preservation instincts at work. I do have a problem though when the person hiding out insists that the war is a great idea and that others go in his place. The reason I draw the distinction is because when our "deciders" lack that shared sacrifice under fire so important to comprehension, it almost insures a lack of understanding as to both the realistic capabilities of our soldiers and the full costs when trying to conquer.

Let us hope General Petraeus is one of the good commanders who can still remember when he was younger huddling scared in the same hole as his men. Let us hope he recognized that others had valuable information. Let us hope he has the cajones to attempt to educate his boss. A good start might be for General Petraeus to bring those seven sergeants with him on his next visits to the White House and Congress.

If Bush would ever listen to what the troops actually have to say, as the seven sergeants have attempted to share, we would be a lot stronger or wiser, at least not have as many dead and wasted. Of course, that would require that Bush actually care about the troops he so willfully expends.

[Written by a former SSG, 3rd/187th battalion, 101st Airborne, Vietnam era]

[more irreverence at resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]

The generals' lies are more than bad judgment. US military culture is full of a series of official big lies one must repeat on cue in order to advance. By the time stars are on the shoulder, most haven't any clue as to what real integrity is, only the appearance of it.

I learned a long time ago not to believe anything that the Generals Mayhem or anyone from the Pentagram says. Sometimes folk tales teach a lesson and some times they are only trying to sell snake oil. Or is it that the snakes are only trying to sell oil? There's nothing worse than selling your birthright and firstborn for someone else's pipe dream. There's nothing New about this Neo-Con game.

My personal rule for Bush-speak is: If it sounds like he's serious, it's a lie and the opposite is the truth. If it sounds pie-in-the-sky, look for something very terrible that anybody can see that he is avoiding.

It seems to work very well.

The Loonitary Decider, from the new badseller (brain) "Dead Certain":

"No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react."

July 12, 2007:

"I will rely on General Petraeus to give me his recommendations for the appropriate troop levels in Iraq."

When any loyalbushie speaks, listen. And then run to the fact-check department...

willybill,

President Shrub also has approved the use of force in Iran whenever those who are there "see it fit" to do so.

willybill,

President Shrub already has attacked Iran through authorization of sending in covert CIA operations commandos.

I'm sure the Vichy Democrats will stand up to Genral Betray-us. When 500 Carmelite nuns line up in front of the White House and get into a cat fight over who gets to blow me first.

This is all so true. Well done. In answer to the quetion posed at the end: "The big question is whether the media and the Democrats in Congress will stand up to the general or will surrender again to the politics of fear, as they did in the push for war during 2002." I bet they SUNRENDER. Any takers? The Demon-o-crats love this war as much as the Republicans do and ,as they have shown us since the last election, they will continue to fund it and then on to Iran! Syria! THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The first hint of an attack on Iran will be MY jumping off point. When that happens, I'm going to DC and sitting on the sidewalk as close to the White House as I can get. When they ask me to move, I will...to another place..but, I will not leave. Join me..use this as YOUR jumping off point. We have to start somewhere, otherwise it's all talk...............

There is an old saying among mechanics that if nothing else works, get a hammer, and if that doesn't work, get a bigger hammer.

When nothing else works to, the neocon strategy is occupy a country, and when that doesn't work, to occupy another country, and another, and another...

Although we may not be certain of his sincerity, at least LBJ expressed the desire to conclude the Viet Nam occupation. The neocons continue to remind us that there is no end to the war on terrorism and Iraq is the epicenter of that war. Their occassional meaningless soundbites about "the US standing down when the Iraqis stand up", and "some other president will end this war" are about as close as they get to alluding to a possible conclusion.

For confirmation that we have a one-party political system:
from NY Times 9/6/07:
"After short-circuiting consideration of votes on some bipartisan proposals on Iraq before the August break, senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, "If we have to make the spring part a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that." "

Until the US populace gets the courage to take to the streets and follow the example of Gandhi's non-violent marches and demonstrations nothing will change.

The people have got to WANT the Constitution restored enough to ACT accordingly. If there is no such desire, there will will be no more US Constitution (except in name only).

Things will change only when the populace is alienated and hopeless.
Then they may :
STAND UP - for what they beleive to be right.
SIT DOWN - in the nearest street to bring transportaion, retail, everything to a standstill.
FIGHT - I hope like Gandhi's Pathan friend Badshar Khan(Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) (check him out)a Pashtun nonviolent Muslim
FIGHT - Even if it means sacrifice to themselves to totally repudiate the oligarchy
FIGHT - As if their lives depend on active resistance - which they do

When people realize that they cannot ignore the actions of the government and realize they themselves are the governmet, only then is change possible.

What a shame to let cowardice bring down such a noble experiment of human governance!!

Here are some comments by a man who stood by Gandhi - Badshah Khan, who led a 100,000 person army of non-violent Pashtuns from the Khyber pass region. He was a Pashtun (Afghan) political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule during the final years of the Empire on the Indian sub-continent. He was a lifelong pacifist and a devout Muslim. He was known as Badshah Khan (sometimes written as Bacha Khan), the `King of Chiefs', and `Frontier Gandhi'.

"To me nonviolence has come to represent a panacea for all the evils that surround my people. Therefore I am devoting all my energies toward the establishment of a society that would be based on its principles of truth and peace." –
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

"Today's world is traveling in some strange direction. You see that the world is going toward destruction and violence. And the specialty of violence is to create hatred among people and to create fear. I am a believer in nonviolence and I say that no peace or tranquility will descend upon the people of the world until nonviolence is practiced, because nonviolence is love and it stirs courage in people." – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan to an interviewer in 1985

His story is contained in 'Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man To Match His Mountains', by Eknath Easwaran (Published by Nilgiri Press).
Also see NPR highlights:
http://www.npr.org/programs/musings/2003/jan/khan.html?sc=emaf

willybill.....

You said it better than I ever could.....

all the best

When will the American Citizen, the true and remaining soul of this country, stop listening to the lies of the talking heads, the bought and sold generals, the duplicitous congress and the most corrupt administration in the history of this United States? What will it take for our populous to look to the God in our hearts who will surely tell us that WAR IS NEVER THE ANSWER? What will it take? Another Nagasaki? World War III? How much more pain? How much more sacrifice? How many more limbs? Eyes? Dead infants? Where is the jumping off point? When will we have had enough? For what new holocaust do we wait??

Bush drinks his Kool-Aid with a straw. Only the peasants go to the rusty basin, stick their faces in and guzzle. So what new and improved flavor will General Petrie-Dish be introducing in the coming days?