| ||||||||||||||
Baltimore & Maryland
06.14 Public Can Make Summer 'Historical' at “Chautauqua 2007: Food for Thought” Health & Environment
06.01 Fixing Our Broken Food System Ref. : Environmental Health News Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it? Ref. : Global Warming Links Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
US News Media Criticism
07.02 Will the Press Idiocy Ever Stop? 07.02 Blacked Out by the Corporate Media, Impeachment Advances 06.30 USA Today's 'Sicko' Debate 06.28 Slandering the Dead: The American Massacre at al-Khalis 06.25 The Iraq-gate Cover-up Continues 06.19 Sunday Sun Hits New Low 06.19 Alliance With Atrocity: Bush's Terror War Partners in Ethiopia 06.12 Things Your Media Mama Didn't Tell You 06.12 Incendiary Weapons Are No 'Allegation' 06.11 Powell Belies 'Commander Guy' Bush 06.11 THINKING FLUFF 06.09 Romney's Iraq Gaffe Ignored 06.08 GOP/Media Rewrite Iraq War History 06.05 The New Assault on Al Gore 06.02 Bush's Global Warming Foot-Dragging 06.02 Can Democrats End the Iraq War? 06.01 Treated Like a Democrat 06.01 Journalists' Group Unmasks Sen. Jon Kyl as “Senator Secrecy” OP-EDs & Opinion
07.03 Terrorism As a Virus: Baudrillard's Post-2001 Significance 07.03 "Justice for All": Just a Sop for the Masses 07.03 Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's Just Not Worth It 06.28 Congress Needs to Stop Playing in Bush's Court 06.28 Next Generation of 'Family Jewels'? 06.28 Why They Hate Us 06.28 One More Good Reason Why Rupert Murdoch Should Not Get Dow Jones 06.26 Research on Human Nature is Cause for Optimism 06.16 Dare We Call It Tyranny? 06.14 Unintended Uighurs 06.12 War Foretold 06.08 Impeachment on a Roll 06.01 The Hariri Case & Double Standards US Politics & Policy
07.03 The Libby Cover-up Completed 07.03 Beyond Recklessness 06.26 Nancy & Harry: Bringing Down the House (and Senate) 06.26 Thinking About Baggage 06.25 Goodbye to the city upon a hill and to its fabled economy 06.25 Is Obama Getting 'Colin-ized'? 06.22 Sen. Levin's False History & Logic 06.22 Which Candidate Do You Support? 06.21 Slap Doesn't Stick: Corrupted Congress Will Help Bush Escape Court Ruling 06.20 Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic 06.20 Iraqi Labor Leaders Blame US for the Bloodshed in Iraq and say Get Out! 06.19 The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand 06.19 Democrats in Congress: The Wheels are Coming Off 06.13 America's Fragile Republic 06.12 Congressional Failure and the Democrats' Last Chance 06.12 The Neocon Threat to World Peace and American Freedom 06.12 Sic Semper Tyrannis: A Slap in the Face of the Crawford Caligula 06.11 Everything They Say About Promoting Democracy Is, And Always Has Been, A Damnable Lie 06.09 Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran 06.07 Last Plamegate Worry for Bush-Cheney 06.06 Some democracy, America Economics
07.02 Thinking Upside Down 06.20 Reader response: Inflation? You'd Better Believe It! 06.18 THINKING INFLATION 06.11 Losing the Economy to Mythology 06.04 Thinking About Budgets—the “La-La” Land of Governmental Accounting Africa
06.13 'Kill Anyone Still Alive': American Special Ops in Somalia Middle East & Asia
07.02 Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran 06.30 The New Bush-Blair Vanity Play 06.19 Newly Discovered Nuances to the Camp David Accords 06.19 Crocodile Tears 06.07 Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
|
MEDIA CRITICISM:Powell Belies 'Commander Guy' BushFor the past several months, the Washington press corps has dutifully reported George W. Bush’s attack on Democrats as politicians who wish to impose their Iraq War judgments on the military commanders in the field.
Very few U.S. journalists have dared to contradict this presidential fiction, even though they watched in December and January as Bush spurned the advice of virtually all his top commanders before adopting recommendations of neoconservative theorists for a “surge” in U.S. forces. Bush then fired key commanders who opposed him. Nothing new there, you might say. The U.S. press corps has played the role of handmaiden to Bush’s lies for the past seven years. But now, Washington journalists face a tricky dilemma. One of their all-time favorite “wise men” – former Secretary of State Colin Powell – has belied Bush’s “commander guy” fiction, albeit in an understated way. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on June 10, host Tim Russert asked Powell why his prediction of a troop drawdown by early 2007 hadn’t come to pass. “A different choice was made by the President,” Powell answered. “The President received advice from his military advisers last fall that said, do not send more troops. “Gen. [John] Abizaid went before the Congress, the commander of Central Command, and said he had consulted with all his division commanders in Iraq and all of the senior commanders, and none of them wanted to send additional troops. “They thought the strategy at that point should be to put the burden on the Iraqis to resolve what I call a civil war.” Abizaid’s position was supported, too, by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and last fall even by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who sent the President a memo on Nov. 6 suggesting a redeployment of U.S. forces away from police functions, echoing earlier recommendations of Democratic Rep. John Murtha. The Surge Purge Two days after that memo, Bush fired Rumsfeld. The President then turned to the “surge” idea being promoted by neoconservative theorists, such as historian Frederick Kagan. As White House neocons embraced the notion of a troop escalation, Bush began purging dissident military officers.
Bush removed the two top generals overseeing the Iraq War, Abizaid and George Casey – and last week extended the purge to Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Peter Pace. Bush removed the two top generals overseeing the Iraq War, Abizaid and George Casey – and last week extended the purge to Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Peter Pace, who also had offended the neocons by resisting pressure for military action against Iran.
After Bush announced the “surge” plan in January and installed more compliant commanders to carry it out, such as Gen. David Petraeus, the President seamlessly shifted back to rhetoric about how he listens to the advice of the military experts on the ground. When faced with Democratic positions that mirrored those of the experienced senior commanders – opposition to the “surge” and calls to pull U.S. troops out of policing a civil war – Bush said on May 2, “the question is, who ought to make that [military] decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear – I’m a commander guy.” Given the track record of the U.S. press corps, Bush may have had sound reasons for his confidence in making a statement so clearly at variance from the truth. Given the track record of the U.S. press corps, Bush may have had sound reasons for his confidence in making a statement so clearly at variance from the truth.
No press uproar followed his “commander guy” comment just as there was no protest over the past four years whenever Bush insisted that Saddam Hussein didn’t let U.N. inspectors into Iraq before the invasion. [For details on that fib, see Consortiumnews.com’s “GOP/Media Rewrite Iraq War History.”] But now on “Meet the Press,” a high-profile Washington news show, media darling Colin Powell has spelled out that Bush repudiated the counsel of virtually every senior commander in order to clear the way for a neoconservative scheme that has escalated the pace of U.S. military deaths in Iraq, which now exceed 3,500. Many Americans, however, won’t be surprised if the U.S. press corps still manages to look the other way and leave the responsibility of pointing out these unpleasant facts to Internet sites and blogs. Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' This article is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.
Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on June 11, 2007. |
|