Special Features,

A SYMPTOM OF US MALAISE (Part I) 

"War is too serious a matter to be left to Generals” or to civilians who have never seen a battlefield.  

The retired generals' revolt only highlights the malaise in the US polity, which has crept in, especially in recent decades. The disconnect between an arrogant, ill informed Administration and the military executors of its policies in Iraq has opened a Pandora's box which hopefully might become the tipping point for  much needed changes in US polity. 

Even before the illegal invasion of Iraq and since then, there was dissent from independent analysts, retired generals and diplomats like Ambassador Joseph Wilson who exposed the Administration's false claims that Saddam Hussein tried to obtain yellow cake from Niger. The  efforts , almost from the highest level , to frighten him and other potential whistle blowers , by even breaking the laws , having been highlighted by selected leaks and trial of I. Scooter Libby , Vice President Dick Cheney's chief aide , show up the almost total decline of democracy 's  sentinel . The US media, now in the hands of a few corporate giants and their lobbies. The cases of the politician Le May and lobbyist Abrahamoff are just a tip of the iceberg, and the system would need some overhauling and cleansing.  

Last week at a panel discussion on "Reporting War" at Columbia University in New York, four journalists, Seymour Hersh and Charles Gras of USA, British journalist Robert Fisk, and John Pilger, an Australian journalist, outlined the destruction of journalism in the U.S. by the business culture it is embedded. The goal of its higher calling "to tell the truth." has been debased in America by the over riding commercial concerns of the employer.

As the U.S. media was unable to tell the truth, the American public did not know what was happening in Iraq. Accurate stories could be found only in some of the British media and elsewhere. It is not that American journalists did not know the truth, but they wrote stories under self-censorship or at the behest of their corporate masters. Still it was remarkable that despite the failure of the U.S. media to educate the public about the issues, more than 50 percent of the U.S. population were opposed to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Internet offered an alternative for reporters to write the truth and for the public's right to know.

Hersh sees the current American crisis as the collapse of all institutions. This included journalism, the Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the military. "Constitutional government in the U.S. is in trouble," declared Hersh. "There was a need for a constitutional amendment for a Parliamentary government so there could be snap elections," he observed. [It has not helped in Britain]

Retired generals' opposition to US Administration and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began long time ago, even before the US led invasion on Iraq in March 2003, when Anglo-American leaders were beating the war drums in 2002. “Leaks from some in the Establishment who favored an "inside-out" plan to "take Baghdad and one or two key command centers and weapons depots first, in hopes of cutting off the country's leadership and causing a quick collapse of the government," were dismissed by Marine General Anthony Zinni, a former Commander of Central Command and a US Middle East envoy, as a recipe for a "Bay of Goats" disaster, like the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba."

 Many generals and independent think tanks, not financed by US neo –cons had waned that "a US attack would dangerously destabilize the region, harm the global economy, and infuriate Arab and Muslim masses." It has all come true. "Former British chief of staff Field Marshal Lord Bramall, had warned in a letter to the Times that an invasion would pour "petrol rather than water" on the flames and provide al-Qaida with more recruits. He quoted a predecessor who during the 1956 Suez crisis said: "Of course we can get to Cairo, but what I want to know is what the bloody hell we do when we get there?" (From my article "Bush family's vendetta ", Atimes.com of 27August, 2002)

Constitutional government in the U.S. is in trouble," declared Hersh. "There was a need for a constitutional amendment for a Parliamentary government so there could be snap elections," he observed.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, one of a few sane voices in the administration, but reluctant to stand up, was ignored and then eased out .The Post invasion plans from the State department were ignored or dismissed by what his  chief aide Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson dubbed a neo-cons Cabal around Dick Cheney , led by his old time buddy and patron Rumsfeld , so that among other things , immediate spoils from the invasion could be looted or shared among cronies and their companies like Halliburton and Bechtel , as various US Audit reports have clearly brought out.

Even the neo-cons blue-eyed boy, L. Paul Bremer, the first Consul in Baghdad, complained in his book about shortage of troops for the task in Iraq and culpability at the highest level on other blunders like disbanding of Iraq's armed forces, security and police apparatus, creating a power vacuum and driving half a million trained men into the arms of the Resistance. In the decision to disband the Iraqi army, the national security adviser, neither Condi Rice nor the Joint Chiefs were consulted.

"US chief administrator L Paul Bremer unveiled Iraq's 25-member governing council in Baghdad on Sunday. It now looks like the beginnings of the rule by the British Governor Sir Percy Cox in the 1920s, after the British had carved out three provinces of the Ottoman Empire after its collapse in World War I. After a long national resistance, King Feisel II - of a British-appointed dynasty - and his prime minister, Nuri-as Said, were overthrown and killed in a 1958 military takeover. “From my  " Iraq's history already written “Times, 15 July, 2003.

However, the two principal advocates for the war, besides the president, seem assured of their jobs for the time being. Dick Cheney remains a driving force in the White House, and Bush has stood firmly behind Rumsfeld, despite calls to resign. "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best," Bush said last week. "And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

In an interview with Al-Arabia Television, Rumsfeld contended that he intended to stay in the job as long as Bush wanted him there. The critics were just a few among the ``thousands and thousands of admirals and generals,'' he remarked.

Analysts feel that Bush would be reluctant to make a change now because any Senate confirmation hearing for a successor would inevitably become a high-profile debate on Iraq.

Nevertheless, some analysts believe that political pressure from Republicans who face voters in Congressional elections in November might help push Rumsfeld aside.

"Rumsfeld will have been so weakened by the generals revolt that as the election approaches the White House will signal that his resignation wouldn't be unwelcome, '' said one analyst.

Some 'achievement' in Iraq, such as the formation of a new government, might provide Rumsfeld the face saving opportunity to leave the Pentagon. ``That would be one-way out,'' said another analyst.

US polls find the public weary of the Iraq war and wary of those who initiated it. In USA, if you are not a winner you are held down. Rumsfeld is now seen more as a latter day Robert McNamara — the similarly talented (in business management!) Vietnam-era Defense secretary" who blinded himself to the realities of the war and guided the nation ever deeper into that misbegotten adventure."