Nine U.S. soldiers died the day Gen. David H. Petraeus addressed Congress about the Iraq war on - of all days - Sept. 11. Trumpeting success for the president’s “surge,” Petraeus dazzled politicians with his chest ablaze with all the colors of the spectrum.
The general wore ribbons of imperial purples, sforzando reds, wild Irish greens, romantic blues, loud yellows and oranges, rich maroons, sentimental pinks, all the half-tones from ultraviolet to infrared, all the vibrations from the impalpable to the unendurable.
I pilfer verbatim here from H.L. Mencken’s 1922 description of an officer’s tunic with two rows of ribbons. Petraeus’ were stacked nine-deep on the left breast, with a row on the right, some two dozen in all.
These speak to the world of the general’s assumed valor, bravery and of the mounting body count in defense of George W. Bush’s singular bad judgment on Iraq.
The president sent Petraeus two days ahead to soften up Congress with the splendor of his pendants, gold stripes and stars. Bush spoke to the nation Thursday in his civilian tie and blue suit.
Only 5 percent of Americans trust Bush-Cheney to resolve the Iraq conflict, according to a poll for CBS and The New York Times. The public trust for Congress is four times greater. Ironically, some 68 percent of the public trusts the very military commanders serving at the pleasure and under the orders of the president.
This Petraeus trick was pulled on the American public last week. The other piece of chicanery had Congress agreeing to stage its Iraq hearings on Sept. 11. This linkage lends symbolic credence to Bush’s illicit invasion of Iraq as a strike against the al-Qaida terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Each of these tragedies, though perpetrated by evil forces, was executed for quite separate reasons.
In promoting the Iraq war, Petraeus exploited Americans’ need to trust army generals. Stars and gaud aside, this credibility eludes even the slickest of politicians when wars go bad.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, the slickest of them all, resorted to sending Gen. William C. Westmoreland with a stay-the-course speech in 1967 to subdue Congress and the public when LBJ got stuck knee-deep in the quagmire of Vietnam.
As a staff officer and Ranger captain at the Military Assistance Command Vietnam headquarters, I was privy to the drafting of Westmoreland’s speech in Saigon, though I didn’t work on this one. The ghost-writers were particularly proud, I recall, of the call for “resolve” at home, and of such hedging phrases as “I have seen no evidence that …”
Westmoreland allowed no such hedging in promising victory over the communists’ “war of national liberation.” He told LBJ, Congress and the American public, “I can assure you here and now, that militarily this [communist] strategy will not succeed in Vietnam.”
Westy, as we called him, was as eager to please LBJ as Petraeus is to please Bush. No four-star general arrives at his post by displeasing officers and politicians above him, to say nothing of his commander in chief.
As Bush shifts his eyes toward his post-White House days in Texas, he requires Petraeus to preach the wisdom of maintaining the 30,000 surge until deep into the election-year summer of ‘08. (Halliburton and other multinationals expect to make billions in Iraq forever.)
In his address to the nation, Bush stuck his tongue out at Congress by envisioning an “enduring” relation with Iraq well beyond his presidency, if not forever.
If Monday’s U.S. body count was maintained and extended to the date Bush plans simply to end the surge, some additional 2,700 GIs would die, with 20 times as many Iraqis.
But who in the bloodletting Bush-Cheney administration counts or cares about this senseless loss of life on all sides?
The American people have come to care and care deeply, with two-thirds wanting to end the Iraq conflict. Their polled confidence in Bush’s war policy barely clears the margin of error, at 5 percent. Still, Congress can’t find its hook.
So the republic remains in the grasp of those in the White House who hijacked it in 2000. God help us.
© 2007 Newsday Inc.
I would listen to Admiral Fallon any day. I wonder if certain American Officers get medals for brushing their teeth under adverse conditions. I have seen photographs of the Nuremberg Trials where Americans were entitled to their medals which they earned - a fraction of what Petraeus displays. Stop trashing the Middle East for its natural treasures and adapt to reality. 1.2 million Iraqui’s dead and still rising ? Some democracy you guys peddle.
Some Republicans have labeled those who have challenged or criticized General Petraeous’s testimony as despicable, which may have a measure of validity in a few cases.
However, the degree of slander contained in any remarks made against General Petraeous are eclipsed by the unprecedented vicious character assassinations against Senator Max Cleland, a decorated triple amputee Viet Vet with an outstanding senate record. They were in responce to Mr Cleland’s sponsorship of an investigation into the causes of 9/11 which was opposed by Bush, who used his status to avoid real military service by joining a champagne unit at our expense. They displayed Senator Cleland’s picture with Osama Bin Laden and some even said he should have not stepped on the mine.
The most disturbing aspect of that horrific event is that it worked. Senator Cleland was unseated by a person who avoided military service and was compatable to Bush’s secretive policeies.
Why are these critics so vocal now–but so silent then?
Why is Heorge W. Bush against investigation of what really happened on 9-1-1?
The general does have a lot of medals. But one can check his biography at Wikipedia, scroll to the section on awards and get a explanation of the awards he has received and what they were given for. Most are of the “meritorius service/was a member during..” variety. Only one (Bronze star with V) can be attributed to direct combat. mY impression is that most of his time has been spent in aide/staff positions.
“The general does have a lot of medals.’
How does that save him from being an enemy of all humanity?
These crimes against humanity cannot be absolved by being a soldier who was just following orders.
This one certainly is a first class example of just following orders.
The question is does the US of A stop the killing now or continue its crimes against humanity?
In the US, ALL those who wear stars on their shoulders and lapels are of the same feather. During WW2, at least early, the enemy had sufficient competence and arms to thrash the US military for its incompetence and dishonesty. The US military had to adopt a system of internal (not external) honesty and competence to survive. Since then, no external enemy has been strong enough to enforce this. The traditional system of mutual ass-kissing reasserted itself, resulting in a string of failures with a few successes in-between, albeit for the easiest jobs.
Dr. Zimmerman, you noticed the medals too. How could anyone miss all those decorations. But you know, what went though my mind is are any of those medals really earned? There’s was a time when that thought would never have crossed my mind, but the swift-boat attacks on John Kerry during the last presidential campaign changed the way I think about military medals forever. It just never occured to me before that time that medals of decoration for valor in battle could be given to anyone without being earned. But the swift-boat guys said, “yes, it’s so” medals can be given by the military without being earned! Wow! Sure glad they wised me up. Now whenever I see a chest full of medals worn by one of our “alledged military heros,” thanks to the swift-boat committee, I figure the medals, and the guy wearing them, are fakes.
Right on (comments) Dr. Zimmerman!
Petraeus didn’t dazzle. Unless you are a magpie.
Well, the USA public really needs a crutch. It has lost Daddy (the President), it is rapidly losing Mommy (the Congress), so it must find another. The military seems to be it. There was a time when the USA public found little to like about the military. True, it did latch onto certain individuals (in the 1870’s and 1880’s one had to be a Civil War officer to get elected), but that adoration did not wash over to all of the military.
With the rise of the Military-Industrial Complex (about which Eisenhower warned the USA) The military has received adoration even when it didn’t deserve it. It is too bad this doesn’t wash over to the lowly grunts and swabs.
Bless Move On for that Ad…
Not sure why Americans are so protective of military people. They are simply a necessary evil in a crazy violent world.
If soldiers were dying to protect the shores of America then I might consider them heroes, but sending our young men and women over seas to fight a war for corporate America, well that’s completely another issue.
Why are we surprised and shocked when our young soldiers are constantly being accused of killing civilians unnecessarily?
And now America has turned a lawless bunch of mercenaries (Blackwater) loose in a foreign country. Kill, kill, kill. Rah, rah, rah.
I can see respect and hero worship for peace loving scholars and diplomats who see good and not evil in most of our fellow humans, but respect for those who we train to kill predominantly innocent civilians, why?
Thank you MoveOn for speaking truth to power.
We have been Betrayed by our decider in chief and the puppet generals he hand picked that agreed with his policy and his war.
I guess it is true that you can fool some of the people all of the time, at least the 30% or so that still support the fool in the white house.
If you are a career officer, you’ll wind up with a lot of medals on your costume. Could you see generals and admirals with only two rows of ribbons? They have to look like heros for the public. That perception has some validity to it. ‘Been there, done that, all for god, country, mom, and apple pie…oh, and oil too!’