Ray McGovern: Are Petraeus and Westmoreland Birds of a Feather?

[babylonsister]

Are Petraeus and Westmoreland Birds of a Feather?
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 07 September 2007

The killing in Hawijah, Iraq, of 18-year-old Cpl. Jeremy Shank of Jackson, Missouri, (population 12,000) merited an article in the Southeast Missourian. Corporal Shank was killed on September 6, 2006, and I was in that part of Missouri when his body came home for burial. According to the Pentagon, Shank was on a "dismounted security patrol when he encountered enemy forces using small arms."

Corporal Shank's death came two years after President George W. Bush greeted then-Prime Minister Iyad Allawi at the White House, proudly announcing "months of steady progress" toward a free Iraq, despite persistent violence in some parts of the country. His death came two weeks after National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley acknowledged that the mid-2006 upsurge in violence meant that the new challenge in Iraq "isn't about insurgency, isn't about terror; it's about sectarian violence." Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki underscored the point, "The most important element in the security plan is to curb the religious violence."

So what was the mission of Corporal Shank while on security patrol, and who were the "enemy forces" he encountered? Was his mission to prevent Iraqi religious fanatics from killing each other?

On September 7, 2006, the day after Shank was killed, President Bush in effect mocked Jeremy Shank's death by drawing the familiar but bogus connection to 9/11:

"Five years after September the 11th, 2001, America is safer - and America is winning the war on terror will leave behind a more peaceful world for our children and our grandchildren."

Not for children and grandchildren of Jeremy Shank.

Put Themselves in Harm's Way?

At the First Baptist Church in Jackson, the Rev. Carter Frey eulogized Shank as one of those who "put themselves in harm's way and paid the ultimate sacrifice so you and I can have freedom to live in this country." That was a stretch - a staple of FOX and other "news," but still a stretch. And I have been asking myself in the year since how many young men and women like Jeremy Shank have been, and will be, killed trying to stop Shia and Sunni from killing one another. A few weeks after Shank's death, President Bush described "our job" as being "to prevent the full-scale civil war from happening."

Was/is that the mission? And is it worth what is so facilely called the "ultimate sacrifice," or the penultimate one - tens of thousand veterans trying to adjust to life without an arm or leg?

more...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090707R.shtml

[bobthedrummer]

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