Ricardo Sanchez said a few days ago that the war had been conducted with criminal negligence from its conception to the surge, and that the American people should hold their civilian leaders accountable for their actions. Bravo, Lieutenant General. Of course, Ricardo Sanchez was the military leader of Coalition forces in Iraq in the first years of the invasion, eluded being court-martialed for Abu Ghraib, and is now retired and planning to write a tell-all book. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show juxtaposed the general's "unbelievable progress" comments when he was in charge, with his recent "nightmare-with-no-end-in-sight" statement. The segment was appropriately called "Now You Tell Us."
Sanchez is only the last one in a too long list of shameless has-beens rushing for the publishing house. George Tenet, former chief of the CIA, tried in vain to absolve himself and blame others in his book. When he was an enthusiastic participant, it was all "slam dunk." Now that he's teaching at Georgetown and selling books, he maintains that his bosses manipulated him and the American people. Remember Colin Powell -the Secretary of State who believed Curveball and lied to the world on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly- and his book "Soldier"? General Richard Myers was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 to 2005, and now that he's retired claims that the strategy that the United States has adopted in the war on terror is wrong and ineffective. He was supposed to be the top dog, the main military adviser to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. They all had the ear of the emperor, but from their accounts they'd have you think that they were merely government clerks.
And it is not just about praetorian subordination. My favorite intellectual contortionists are the neo-conservatives, like Richard Perle or David Frum, who wrote the Axis of Evil speech. Hans Blix himself went from timid and ambiguous reports and statements when he directed the UN inspections team in Iraq, to blunt and fiery criticism when he became a published author. Plugging his book at an event in New York at the end of 2003, where he was received with standing ovations by an anti-war crowd, the only question he left unanswered was posed by a Syrian that asked: "Why didn't you say all this before?" Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has already had some run-ins with angry Americans at book-signings. Why? He says now that the Iraq war is all about oil, and that Bush's tax cuts are atrocious. When he was running the show, he testified in Congress supporting Bush's economic policy. Even the editorial pages of The Washington Post and The New York Times did a one-eighty on their opinion of the war as soon as they found neither WMDs nor smiles and flowers from grateful Iraqis, and went from war cheerleaders to fierce opponents.
In this tragedy, there are two kinds of criminals: those that were wrong, don't admit it, and stay the course, and those that were wrong, didn't say anything when it mattered, and now can't stop chattering to seek absolution and book deals. They have one thing in common: neither the former nor the latter have had the trial they deserve.
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Excellent post, Pablo.
Our government is so unaccountable, our people so blindly patriotic, our opposition groups so neutered, that I wonder if I haven't been teleported back in time to Germany, circa 1938.
You have to give these cowards some credit though: they are brilliant manipulators.
They lie to our faces when it matters, and then tell us what we want to hear - that the war "ain't all that," which in this case just happens to be the truth - when it's too late for them to do a damn thing about it.
When they commit crimes they either scapegoat their subordinates, deny everything and stonewall all investigations, or re-invent the law to legalize their misbehavior - or all of the above.
They malign critics by not only questioning their patriotism, but also implying that critics are traitors who provide aid and comfort to the enemy.
Their intentions are the opposite of their statements, almost exactly: clean-Air Bills soften restrictions on industrial pollution; P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Acts act to attack patriots; operation enduring freedom brings devastation to foreign lands and is used as a justification for stripping our freedoms here at home; child healthcare bills are vetoed in the name of protecting poor children and saving the population from that evil thing called affordable healthcare for all...etc., etc., etc.
When are we going to demand better government? When are we going to stop allowing ourselves to be treated like feeble-minded pussies?
Who are we afraid of?
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