Rubicon

Nobody wants to join the Army

Along with all the other things George Bush is destroying—Iraq, the Justice Department, the Constitution—he's also destroying the US Army. For some odd reason, recruiting has become much more difficult lately, even with the promise of $20,000 signing bonuses up front and free college if you survive. Robert Burns of the Associated Press has the details:

The Army began its recruiting year Oct. 1 with fewer signed up for basic training than in any year since it became an all-volunteer service in 1973.…

[T]he historic dip will make it harder to achieve the full-year recruiting goal — after just barely reaching it in the year ended Sept. 30.

Achieving the Army's recruiting goals — a challenge in the best of times — is not only more difficult now but also of more consequence. That is because the Army has decided that it must grow its active-duty force by several thousand soldiers a year in order to relieve strain on war-weary troops.…

Making it even tougher is the decline in what the Army calls its delayed entry pool, which is the group of enlistees who have signed contracts to join the Army but want to wait before shipping off to basic training. Normally the Army tries to start its recruiting year with a delayed entry pool equal to about 25 percent of its full-year goal, which in this case would equate to 20,000 recruits.

Instead, the Army began with 7,392 recruits, or about 9 percent of its full-year goal.

Last year at this time the Army was beginning its recruiting year with 12,062, or about 15 percent.…

[T]he Army's [decided] last summer to begin offering a "quick ship" bonus of $20,000 to recruits willing to leave for basic training by the end of September. For some recruits that bonus is the equivalent of a year's pay.

The bonus program, which began July 25, was part of a last-minute push by the Army to meet its year-end recruiting goal, after having fallen short on recruiting numbers in May and June.

Falling short. Again. Bush and his tribunes should have figured out by now that you can't run a full-bore empire with hired guns—Blackwater is expensive and uncontrollable, and the "volunteer" Army is so unpleasant and dangerous that few people who have another option are interested these days.

Time to reinstitute the draft. Then perhaps we'd see a full-bore peace movement again. And we might even be able to rebuild an Army tasked with the job of defending this country instead of invading others.

Taguba on torture: another frozen scandal

Major General Antonio Taguba, who directed the first investigation of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, has now retired from the US Army and spoken at length with Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker. His story of torture in Iraq and coverup in Washington is newly shocking.

Since the release in March 2004 of the Taguba Report, and of those now-iconic photos of cavalier mistreatment in May 2004, the scandal of Abu Ghraib has been locked in a deep freeze of inaction. At the time, Taguba found that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees" and there was "systematic and illegal abuse." But only a few low-ranking enlisted soldiers were charged with crimes. Then, under a barrage of lies from George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and their underlings, the scandal disappeared from the mainstream media's attention. Nothing, it seemed, could be done, so it was better that we all turn our attention to other matters.

This story follows the path of many other Bush-administration scandals, as Mark Danner notes. Finally, he says, it seems that:

[T]he accumulated frozen scandals of this administration slowly crack open to reveal their queasy secrets. And yet the problem, of course, is that they are not secrets at all: One of the most painful principles of our age is that scandals are doomed to be revealed—and to remain stinking there before us, unexcised, unpunished, unfinished.

But Taguba is not willing to let that happen with Abu Ghraib; he now has more to say. What is the proper word for the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib? His official report said "abuse." But in a May 2004 meeting with Rumsfeld, attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Cambone, and several top generals, Taguba now says that he corrected the record: "I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, 'That’s not abuse. That’s torture.' There was quiet." The top brass was silently considering how to keep that fact quiet.

The next day, Rumsfeld testified to Congress that he was shocked, shocked, to learn of what had happened. He said, "It breaks our hearts that in fact someone didn’t say, 'Wait, look, this is terrible. We need to do something.'" In fact, Taguba says, his report had said exactly that, and furthermore, the photos had been sent to the Pentagon four months earlier. Rumsfeld knew about them and had every opportunity to see them. If he chose not to look until the night before, as he testified, he had certainly read a description and knew precisely what was in them. He was lying. One lieutenant general put the matter more starkly for himself: "I don't want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?" Remain quiet, apparently.

And what about those few bad apples we heard about so often? Taguba, after 35 years' experience in the US Army, knows how it works. The privates do what the sergeants want them to, the sergeants look to the lieutenants, the lieutenants to the captains, and so up to the secretary of defense, who takes his orders from the president (or perhaps, in Rumsfeld's case, from the vice president). That is the meaning of a military chain of command, and a soldier at any level who deviates from that chain places himself in serious jeopardy. As Taguba told Hersh:

From what I knew, troops just don't take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups. These M.P. troops were not that creative. Somebody was giving them guidance.

The bad apples, the real bad apples, according to Taguba, were Rumsfeld and his cronies:

He and his aides have abused their offices and have no idea of the values and high standards that are expected of them. And they’ve dragged a lot of officers with them.

The extent of the rot became clear when Taguba was confronted by one of those officers, General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, in early 2004. "You and your report will be investigated," he threatened. Taguba told Hersh, "I'd been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia."

The damage to the morale and cohesion of American soldiers is hard to gauge. From their first day in the army—even, for General Abizaid and many of his fellow careerists, from their first day at West Point—the sense of honor and duty is inculcated into every soldier, along with the clear distinction between lawful orders (which must be obeyed) and unlawful orders (which must be disobeyed).

The orders (and veiled suggestions) to torture detainees were unlawful—and Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cambone, Abizaid, and their cohorts should be investigated and tried for their part in the scandal. The first witness should be the courageous General Taguba:

There was no doubt in my mind that this stuff [the explicit images] was gravitating upward. It was standard operating procedure to assume that this had to go higher. The President had to be aware of this.

From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.

Unfreeze the scandal. Impeach Cheney and Bush. Then prosecute the whole Mafia family.

Attention US Military Personnel

Jim Macdonald at Making Light provides this important information to American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, whose training on such matters is often skimpy:

You are not required to obey an unlawful order.

You are required to disobey an unlawful order.

You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The Constitution states (Article VI):

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Here is article 3, the common article, to the Geneva Conventions, a duly ratified treaty made under the authority of the United States:

Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is straightforward and clear. Under Article VI of the Constitution, it forms part of the supreme law of the land.

You personally will be held responsible for all of your actions, in all countries, at all times and places, for the rest of your life. “I was only following orders” is not a defense.

What all this is leading to:

If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, it is your duty to disobey that order. No “clarification,” whether passed by Congress or signed by the president, relieves you of that duty.

If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, this is what to do:

1. Request that your superior put the order in writing.

2. If your superior puts the order in writing, inform your superior that you intend to disobey that order.

3. Request trial by courtmartial.

You will almost certainly face disciplinary action, harassment of various kinds, loss of pay, loss of liberty, discomfort and indignity. America relies on you and your courage to face those challenges.

We, the people, need you to support and defend the Constitution. I am certain that your honor and patriotism are equal to the task.

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Quote of the Week: Donald Rumsfeld

Scandals keep popping up everywhere in the Bush-Cheney administration, and some of the old scandals are uncovering new players. The old scandal this time is the sweetheart deal the Defense Department attempted to consummate with Boeing in 2003–2004 to lease hundreds of jet tankers for nearly 30 billion dollars. The new player we've just learned about is Donald Rumsfeld.

Leasing new tankers was more expensive than buying them would have been, and Air Force experts said the service didn't need that many tankers anyway. But it was a good deal for Defense because the department could spread the cost out over many budget cycles, and a good deal for Boeing because it got the company more money. In short, this was the biggest military procurement scandal in history: the Air Force secretary and Boeing's CEO were forced to resign, while a government procurement officer and Boeing's CFO went to prison.

But somehow Rumsfeld, the Pentagon's man in charge, escaped blame. Obviously, the PR spin went, it must have been another case of just a few bad apples, certainly not corrupt policies from the top. The excuses were surprisingly similar to those for Abu Ghraib and the torture gulag, though these apples were somewhat higher on the tree than Private Lynndie England.

We now learn, however, that Rumsfeld was interviewed by investigators for the Pentagon's inspector general on April 1, 2005, and that he claimed (under oath) to remember very few details about the leasing deal. He was busy thinking about other things: conducting present and future wars, for example, and briefing George Bush about exciting new policy initiatives. True, weapons procurement does consume "nearly a fifth of the $410 billion defense budget, exclusive of expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan," as R. Jeffrey Smith writes in the Washington Post. And that entire system is dysfunctional. Smith provides details:

"DOD is simply not positioned to deliver high-quality products in a timely and cost-effective fashion," the comptroller general of the United States, David M. Walker, said in a little-noticed April 5 critique. The Pentagon, he said, has "a long-standing track record of over-promising and un-delivering with virtual impunity."

Walker based his blistering assessment on a detailed study of 52 different weapons costing a total of $850 billion, including five new multibillion-dollar weapons systems with cost overruns amounting to nearly 30 percent. "The all too-frequent result is that large and expensive programs are continually rebaselined, cut back or even scrapped after years of failing to achieve promised capability," he said. "A lot of it is because in the past, where there have been unacceptable outcomes, there hasn't been any accountability."

Some of the blame, Walker suggested, should be laid at Rumsfeld's office, which "does not seem to be pushing" for the dramatic overhaul of the Pentagon's system needs.

So if Rumsfeld wasn't paying attention, he should have been. The Post, after a year-long wait, just received a copy of the Rumsfeld interview, and it published excerpts of his testimony. Here's what the secretary of defense had to say about the enormous Boeing deal:

I don't remember approving it. But I certainly don't remember not approving it, if you will.… I may very well have said yes. I just don't remember.… I am not going to sit here and quibble over it.

My time basically in the department was focused on those things and certainly not on acquisitions or -- or what have you. Basically I spend an overwhelming portion of my time with the combatant commanders and functioning as the link between the president … and the combatant commanders conducting the wars.… I don't know what I knew then, compared to what I know now.… I am not able to go back and say … what did I know at a certain moment back in that period.

In terms of knowledge that -- that -- from that period, I am without it.

If Rumsfeld does remember, he has committed perjury. If he does not remember—if he is "without that knowledge"—he is not performing his job competently.

Fire Rumsfeld. Impeach Cheney and Bush. Everything is rotten in the ship of state.

The Military Option

George Bush is militarizing the entire government of the United States. When there are two options for achieving a desired purpose, he always chooses the military option.

In dealing with Iraq, he could have allowed the UN arms inspectors to do their work, discovered that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, and then followed a multilateral diplomatic path to achieving peace and security. Instead, he chose the military option and invaded Iraq.

In organizing the intelligence capabilities of the government, he could have relied on professional advice, appointed nonpolitical managers, and strengthened the operational capabilities of the CIA and the FBI to function lawfully. Instead, he chose the military option and gave free rein to the NSA and the Defense Department to spy on Americans and ignore real threats.

In dealing with Iran, he could have decided to work diplomatically through the IAEA, respond positively to the recent Iranian overtures, and open frank and serious discussions about nuclear proliferation and other matters of mutual concern. Instead, he now brandishes the military option and threatens Iran with aerial attack.

In confronting the complex issues of legal and illegal immigration into the US, he could have solicited ideas from relevant groups and experts; developed a set of proposals that recognizes the needs of immigrants, would-be immigrants, American workers, and businesspeople; and proposed an approach that would unify citizens and noncitizens. Instead, he proposes the military option, sending the National Guard to patrol the Mexican border.

George Bush has a toolbox with one tool, the blunt tool of military force, and he uses it for every purpose. When the military is used in missions for which it was not designed, or for undemocratic, imperial purposes, it is weakened for its principal role, domestic defense. And we are one step closer to a dictatorship.

General Dissatisfaction

My father was a lieutenant colonel in the US Army who served during World War Two and the Korean War. He refused to discuss any political matters—candidates he voted for or against, policies he supported or opposed—during his 22 years of active duty, and after retirement he broke that silence to speak only of local issues and candidates in his adopted hometown, Lubbock, Texas. It was a matter of duty, and of pride, that he was a professional who followed orders, without publicly questioning the decisions of those above him in the chain of command.

During the Vietnam War, I confronted him about Lyndon Johnson's wrong-headed policies and the military's despicable actions in Indochina. I said soldiers should refuse to obey immoral orders. Wasn't that what the Nuremberg trials were all about—that everyone must take personal responsibility for his actions, even in wartime? He said it was a bad analogy, that there was no comparison between American troops in Vietnam and Nazi troops in Poland. Then I asked him whether he thought the Korean War was different from Vietnam. He flushed, growled "It was my job to follow orders," and strode furiously out of the room. We never broached the subject again. And he never broke his silence.

Good soldiers, in the American tradition, do not question their orders and do not criticize the civilians who control the military. They remain staunchly apolitical as long as they wear the uniform. And that seems in general a very good thing for democracy, despite Fred Kaplan's "odd thought" in Slate that "a military coup in this country right now would probably have a moderating influence."

But when soldiers are no longer on active duty, when they have returned to being civilians, it seems to me that it is their duty as citizens—citizens with a special set of experiences and relevant expertise—to speak out, to let everyone know how the political and military situation looks from their unique perspective. Their duty is then not merely to the discipline and success of the military enterprise (as defined by their commanders), but to the nation's welfare in a larger sense. Lt Col Ike Wilson, who teaches at West Point, has a thoughtful discussion of what it means to be a good soldier at Democracy Arsenal, and he suggests that even active-duty officers should speak out when the occasion warrants.

The retired generals now calling for Donald Rumsfeld to resign as secretary of defense are doing their duty. To tell the truth about his effect on military morale and his flaunting of the military code of honor is patriotic. And to publicize Rumsfeld's lies and the wrong-headed policies he has imposed on the military and on Iraq is essential.

As Richard Holbrooke writes in the Washington Post:

The major reason the nation needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent [than accountability]. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld's famous "long screwdriver," with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy that is absolutely essential in both war zones.… Unless the secretary of defense is replaced, the policy will not and cannot change.

That first White House reaction will not be the end of the story. If more angry generals emerge -- and they will -- if some of them are on active duty, as seems probable; if the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan does not turn around (and there is little reason to think it will, alas), then this storm will continue until finally it consumes not only Donald Rumsfeld.

Lt Gen Greg Newbold, one of the seven generals speaking out against Rumsfeld, writes in Time of the "invented war":

What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results.…

So what is to be done? We need fresh ideas and fresh faces. That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach. The troops in the Middle East have performed their duty. Now we need people in Washington who can construct a unified strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve it. It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.

Those "many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach" include Dick Cheney and George Bush. They and Rumsfeld are inextricably linked, because they devised the disastrous policies together. Bush cannot fire Rumsfeld without admitting that that he is wrong, that they are all wrong. And Bush knows that he has never made a mistake.

In fact, the president's ouster is really what the generals want, if only subconsciously. As Justin Frank points out in the Huffington Post, their call for Rumsfeld's head is really an instance of "displacement": they want Bush out, but they are still too much in the good-soldier mode to criticize the commander in chief directly. Colin Powell, the quintessential retired general, admitted to Robert Scheer that he "never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat," and he blamed Cheney and the CIA—but he cannot bring himself even now to criticize Bush of anything worse than following Cheney's "misleading advice."

Powell's is a sad case, since he was in a position to do much more than anyone else to stop the war juggernaut—or if he failed, at least he could have denounced the perpetrators as he left their administration. As secretary of state, he was not in a military position; nevertheless, he expended every cent of political capital and personal credibility he had when he appeared before the UN Security Council to repeat Bush and Cheney's lies about the imminent threat of Saddam Hussein.

It's not easy for military men to break the mold and express their dissatisfaction. We are fortunate that more and more are finding the courage to take that step.

Stopping Fanatics

Last Friday, Dick Cheney said, "None of us wants to turn over the future of mankind to tiny groups of fanatics committing indiscriminate murder and plotting large-scale horror." He's right, of course. And one of the tiny groups of fanatics he was speaking of, I'm sure, is the group around Cheney himself, including Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld.

The two Downing Street memos (apparently leaked from the British Foreign Office by a contemporary Deep Throat, as Jefferson Morley reports in the Washington Post)  prove beyond doubt that Cheney and his coconspirators were secretly plotting large-scale horror for at least eleven months before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is a matter of public record that they have been committing indiscriminate murder since that time. They have also created a situation of insecurity and chaos in Iraq that allows other fanatics to commit indiscriminate murder, as Juan Cole continues to report nearly every day.

The dangerous power now held by Cheney and his fellow fanatics has other consequences:

1. Two recent polls show that Americans are increasingly of the opinion that US troops should be withdrawn from Iraq. The Pew poll counts 50 percent who want to keep them in Iraq "until the situation has stabilized" and 46 percent who think they should "come home as soon as possible." The Gallup poll has 56 percent of respondents who say it was not worth going to war and 59 percent saying that some or all the troops should be withdrawn now.
   
2. The all-volunteer military is running short of volunteers, who don't find the prospect of death in Iraq enticing. The Army missed its recruiting goals for the fourth straight month, and the Army Reserve and National Guard are attracting less than 80 percent of their requirements.
   
3. Free college education and an officer's commission are not sufficient rewards for a bright teenager. The number of applications to the service academies fell this year, by 9 percent for West Point, 20 percent for Annapolis, and 23 percent for Colorado Springs.

In short, Americans are noticing with increased clarity that the Bush administration has made their lives less secure. The secretly planned invasion of Iraq has created a military, political, and moral quagmire.

Osama bin Laden and his fellow fanatics murdered almost 3,000 people on 9/11/2001. Dick Cheney and his fellow fanatics have murdered over 100,000 people since that date.

Fanatics who plot such large-scale horror should be punished, whatever their ideology. The leaders of putatively democratic governments who lie about their secret plotting deserve a special circle of hell for the additional sin of hypocrisy. The Downing Street memos reveal the extent of public lying before the invasion by Bush, Cheney, and friends.

Impeach Bush and Cheney. Impeach them now. They have violated their oath of office.

Indictment for crimes against humanity—before the International Criminal Court or a national court—can wait for another day, after these fanatics are removed from power.

America Is a Sherman Tank

Several years ago, an English friend was trying to explain to me how he thought of America. It is as though a large tank came roaring down the high street in your village, he said. You're helpless; there's nothing you can do. The tank rumbles to a stop in the central square and idles for a moment, waving its turret about, looking for something worth shooting at. There is no resistance. The soldiers pop up, smiling, and toss some candy to the children. And then the tank roars off, leaving in its wake a few smashed cobblestones and a sense of fierce resentment.

I tried to place myself in his shoes, imagining how I would feel if my comfortable, green country were invaded by a much greater force and I were powerless to resist. Even if the invasion were not explicitly military, I would resent the onslaught of foreign movies and computers and business practices and tourists and moneyed investors rolling over my land. All wrapped in a naïve sense of entitlement and a smug idea of generosity. Yes, I began to understand, it would feel like a tank.

And that was before George Bush, and it was in a country that shares more history and language and culture with the US than any other. When your Motherland resents you, you know the whole family is dysfunctional.

But the American invasion is not just cultural and economic; it is explicitly military. The tank is more than a symbol; it is a literal tool of imperial conquest. Ever since World War Two, and increasingly since the end of  the Cold War, the US has strewn military bases around the world, and Americans have increasingly become comfortable as invaders, occupiers, and bullies. We're bringing the poor benighted heathens so much, we're entitled to be in charge—that's the delusion.

Several excellent writers have been exploring this subject recently. Chalmers Johnson's book The Sorrows of Empire (2004) explains the history and the current imperial reality:

Americans like to say that the world changed as a result of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.… It would be more accurate to say that the attacks produced a dangerous change in the thinking of some of our leaders, who began to see our republic as a genuine empire, a new Rome, the greatest colossus in history, no longer bound by international law, the concerns of allies, or any constraints on its use of military force. The American people were still largely in the dark about why they had been attacked or why their State Department began warning them against tourism in an ever-growing list of foreign countries.… But a growing number finally began to grasp what most non-Americans already knew and had experienced over the previous half-century—namely, that the United States was something other than what it professed to be, that it was, in fact, a military juggernaut intent on world domination.

In his book War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (2003), Chris Hedges writes eloquently about the attendant psychology and nationalistic myths, the ways in which our animal excitement disguises the horrors of militarism:

In mythic war we imbue events with meanings they do not have. We see defeats as signposts on the road to ultimate victory. We demonize the enemy so that our opponent is no longer human. We view ourselves, our people, as the embodiment of absolute goodness. Our enemies invert our view of the world to justify their own cruelty. In most mythic wars this is the case. Each side reduces the other to objects—eventually in the form of corpses.

Now Andrew Bacevich has written a book that synthesizes both kinds of information and extends the argument. The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War (2005) is a particularly interesting addition to the dialog because, as Tom Engelhardt explains, Bacevich is no flaming leftist. He positions himself as "culturally on the right. And I continue to view the remedies proffered by mainstream liberalism with skepticism. But my disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the present Bush administration and its groupies, is just about absolute. Fiscal irresponsibility, a buccaneering foreign policy, a disregard for the Constitution, the barest lip service as a response to profound moral controversies: these do not qualify as authentically conservative values."

The Uniformed President

At his latest war-president photo-op the other day, George Bush wore a custom-tailored Marine tanker jacket with epaulets to address the troops at Camp Pendleton. The pictures brought to mind again his premature "Mission Accomplished" speech on the carrier in May 2003—and his aerial arrival in full military flightsuit. It brought to mind, more generally, the tendency of right-wing governments to rely on the symbolic trappings of militarism and war to define national unity and leadership. It brought to mind, too, what Alexander Hamilton said of such displays: "Real firmness is good for everything. Strut is good for nothing."

Traditionally, the US military has made it a point of pride that this country's soldiers and sailors are under civilian command and that there is no place for political partisanship in military life. It's the principle that has protected us from military coups, though Douglas MacArthur tested the limits during the Korean War when he pressed for an invasion of China. Harry Truman fired him for insubordination, and the issue seemed settled again: soldiers don't meddle in politics. (My father was an officer in the US Army in the forties and fifties, and like all of his cohort he kept his political ideas completely private, even after he retired. I never knew how he cast his vote.)

That nonpartisan stance during service often carried over as nonideological pragmatism when a military man entered politics. In 1950 Dwight Eisenhower, after his triumphs in World War II but before he became president, was interviewed by author John Gunther, who asked him what his political leanings were. He said he was "militantly progressive," believing that "all processes should be for the benefit of all the people." He believed that a person could hold both liberal and conservative views at the same time, and that "Roosevelt was an extreme liberal about child labor and about old age pensions, but he was an extreme conservative about the Bill of Rights." Eisenhower later remarked, "I've gotten so that I hate both terms because those two terms mean all things to all people."

The separation has almost always worked the other way round, too. US presidents have emphasized their status as civilian leaders, and though they are legally commanders in chief of the military even in peacetime, they traditionally assume that role de facto only when absolutely necessary. Even in wartime no sitting president before Bush has worn a military uniform (full or partial uniform), so far as I can discover—with the single exception of George Washington, who donned his general's uniform when he fought the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Of course, Washington was actually leading 12,000 troops in the field (with Hamilton at his side) through the wilds of western Pennsylvania, so he was temporarily a true commander in chief. But Ulysses Grant did not wear his uniform when he lived in the White House, and neither did Eisenhower.

Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower were real military leaders. Each led the nation to victory in a crucial war as the commanding general, and each later became a thoroughly civilian president who tried to keep the nation out of war. George Bush took a different path. He avoided combat service during his abbreviated time in the reserves as a lieutenant, and now he likes to dress up as a warrior and strut his way through military bases, while sending soldiers to die in an unnecessary war he chose to incite.

Breaching the wall between civilian and military realms is dangerous to the republic. The theatrics of war leads to the consolidation of power, the waning of democratic discourse, secretive government, and more war.

Take a look at that photo above—click on it to see a larger version. What is the gesture our uniformed president is making to the troops, anyway? It looks a bit too stiff-armed to be merely a wave.

Bush's War against American Soldiers

A few extra dead soldiers is a small price to pay to get back into the White House for four more years. That's the Bush Doctrine.

We've known for a long time that the Bush cabal sacrifices policies for power—and principles for power. But we couldn't be certain until now that these cold-hearted megalomaniacs were willing to sacrifice lives on the battlefield for power. Mark Mazzetti exposes their deadly calculations today in the Los Angeles Times:

The Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.

Although American commanders in Iraq have been buoyed by recent successes in insurgent-held towns such as Samarra and Tall Afar, administration and Pentagon officials say they will not try to retake cities such as Fallouja and Ramadi — where the insurgents' grip is strongest and U.S. military casualties could be the highest — until after Americans vote in what is likely to be an extremely close election.

"When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," said one senior administration official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications" of a large-scale offensive, the official said.

It's chilling. Bush didn't listen to the military experts before invading Iraq, he didn't listen to them about the immediate postinvasion chaos, he didn't listen to them about entering Fallujah or about leaving Fallujah, and he's not listening to them now. He's afraid that big battles and big casualties in the next three weeks will endanger his (re)election campaign, so he's willing to take a few more gravestones. Brave, isn't he?

As Kevin Drum inquired:

What was it Bush said during last Friday's debate? Oh yeah: "I don't see how you can lead this country in a time of war, in a time of uncertainty, if you change your mind because of politics."

It's time for a new Iliad, beginning:

Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of George's son George,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Americans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and chickenhawks.