The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq.
What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation's history.
In op-ed pieces, interviews and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. generals have broken ranks with the culture of salute and keep it in the family. Instead, they are criticizing the commander in chief and other top civilian leaders who led the nation into what the generals believe is a misbegotten and tragic war.
“The ethos is: Give your advice to those in a position to make changes, not the media,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. “But this administration is immune to good advice.”
These are the credible military voices that our leaders should be listening to, not those who must still toe the policy line in order to ensure that they will still get promotions, citations, and respect from their peers.
No active duty general would dare speak out against the Commander in Chief, no matter how little is their respect for man and his decisions. So to expect that General Petraeus would say anything but what the White House wants him to say is extremely naive.
and did MSM cover what they had to say ....and their Wisdom ? ah nope...
ReplyDeleteIn General Ricardo S. Sanchez's observation, the four years of American media's coverage of the Iraq war continues to be problematic due to a near lack (if not total absence) of accountability.
ReplyDeleteGeneral Ricardo Sanchez refers to the way the Iraqi conflict is handled asking point blank: “Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management of this war?”
Media outlets ought to answer why it hasn’t sufficiently lobbied for access to alternate sources that
can keep the US news corporations on their toes to give frank and fair reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Had American tax payers an easy access to alternate information sources it wouldn’t have taken them four years to question the wisdom of the “cakewalk” bunch
i.e. the likes of Ken Adelmen who misled the American media by claiming “measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.”
Thus encouraging and embracing alternate sources of media has become increasingly important at a time when many US media organs tiptoe around issues in fear of overstepping their boundaries.
An Italian scholar of the Arab media, Donatella della Ratta rightly suggests that the West should seriously consider before blaming or blocking channels like Aljazeera that are in fact educating tools to inform rather than a medium providing an embedded version from a warring side. If the likes of Aljazeera English had wider access in to American homes it would not have taken this long to see the contradictions between the lofty claims made at the Capitol and actual realities faced on ground.
At a conference, "Creating Connections: New Partnerships for Understanding in the Middle East," sponsored by the Vermont Peace Academy, Vermont Council on World Affairs and Norwich University. A participant said: "It's an intellectual tragedy that the United States has cut itself out of Al Jazeera English's contribution to [informative] conversation. Everything that's happened to us in Iraq shows that's very dangerous. The lesson of Iraq is: Ignorance kills." See: http://tinyurl.com/2gwad8
Instead of making wrong choices and pursuing wrong approaches that are just goose-chasing and witch-hunting exercises US needs to befriend with the ones that capture and portray the facts professionally and far effectively. Now more than ever the USA public and its opinions makers need tools that can help them separate the wheat from the chaff not occasionally but on an on-going, round the clock basis.