How Generals in Iraq Became Bush's Flacks

[bigtree]

from HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gareth-porter/how-generals-in-iraq-beca_b_55312.html


Posted July 7, 2007 | 09:26 PM (EST)

The press conference by Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Division in Iraq, is a reminder that in Bush's Iraq War the top generals in the theater have become flacks for the administration.

Lynch was deployed by the administration through the magic of video conferencing to make the case for its policy of keeping the additional 30,000 "surge forces" in Iraq indefinitely just one day after key Republican Senators were beginning to abandon Bush on the issue. Thos forces, he said, "are giving us the capability we have now to take the fight to the enemy." He warned that, if they were withdrawn, "you'd find the enemy regaining ground, re-establishing a sanctuary, building more IEDs, carrying those IEDs in Baghdad and the violence would escalate."

This is the kind of tendentious and highly politicized statement that has become all to characteristic of U.S. commanders in Iraq. It should be recognized as part of the administration's sales pitch for its policy rather than a legitimate comment for a military officer. Unfortunately, after more than four years of war, even alert news junkies have become so accustomed to having U.S. commanders in Iraq defend administration policy that they are no longer conscious of it.

It is one thing for the commander to brief the press on what his forces are trying to do and providing an account of the results achieved - however skewed to show that they have been favorable. It is quite another thing for these generals to take on the function of explaining why the administration's war policy is certain to be eminently successful and why it is absolutely necessary.

But that is exactly what U.S. commanders in Iraq have done at the behest of the Bush administration. Much of what they talk about to the media has to do with Iraqi politics and the attitudes and interests of Iraqis rather than military operations. And what they tell the media about those issues is not their independent view but is a reflection of the current White House political message.

It process of turning the top generals in Iraq into flacks started with Gen. George W. Casey, the top commander in Iraq from mid-2004 to early 2007. He was ordered back to Washington frequently to voice the administration's message of progress in the war on television talk shows. One of the top priority messages during much of that time was to reassure Americans that the U.S. mission in Iraq had not been essentially rendered irrelevant by rise of sectarian civil war. Thus in October, 2005 Casey responded to a question from Wolf Blitzer about the danger of civil war in Iraq, by telling Blitzer that "the people of Iraq think of themselves as Iraqis. And people are not interested, necessarily in the fragmentation of the country, and I don't see that happening."


more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gareth-porter/how-generals-in-iraq-beca_b_55312.html



my take:

Monday, June 18, 2007
Bush and his generals substituting their judgment for the American peoples' in Iraq

Generals will always find a 'way forward' on the battlefield, but it should be the determination of our civilian leadership - which carries their mandate directly from the American people - just who our forces will be tasked with laying down their lives to defend or fight against; not the military.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_070618_bush_and_his_general.htm

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[napi21]

1. Complete and total obedience to the Comander in Chief is hammered

into EVERY military person from the moment they sign their name on enlistment papers! We're certainly heard from enough RETIRED Generals who only felt it OK to disagree with Shrub AFTER they officially retired!

Even the low level enlisted soldier knows if you disagree, you KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!

[bigtree]

2. the difference here is the degree that Petraeus and the generals who remain in place

are willing to offer views on the political elements of their mission. They do this by casting the Iraq occupation as an integral part of our national security, much like Bush does when he describes Iraq as the "center' of his terror war.

Fact is, the decision on whether to continue to support the Maliki regime by propping them up with our military doesn't have anything at all to do with our national security, despite the portrayal by Bush and his generals of the Iraqi 'al-Qaeda' as a direct or potential threat to the U.S. "They'll follow us home . . ." :eyes: That's the hook Bush is relying on as he presses forward, and Congress has to respond to that.

For Petraeus to use his position to argue to remain in Iraq may be a natural response from a soldier, but he isn't the one who Americans should look to to make that decision, no matter what he thinks. That decision is the responsibility of Congress in their authority to declare who our country wars against, or what foreign government will benefit from the sacrifices our nation's defenders. Petraeus is crossing the line as he uses the lie about some 'al-Qaeda' threat from Iraq as he argues for continuing.

[Benhurst]

3. Our best top people have either been forced into retirement or

taken retirement out of disgust.