That was great --- you elaborated this idea a lot better than I could.

I think if we're ever going to learn anything from this debacle (I know, always a dubious proposition), or even just understand what happened, we're going to have to first identify the mechanisms ... as Glenn has done a stupendous job with here ... that exploited the institutional vulnerabilities, and then pull apart the actions of individuals.

When we do, there will be the obvious criminals who pushed the campaign, the enablers and waterbearers in the center and peripheries, and then the ones who failed through inaction, ambiguity, moral failure, as well as those who might have actually tried to do the right thing and not been up to what was in front of them. It's going to have to go beyond, 'But why didn't you quit, then?'

It's easier to just call the whole thing criminal, stop there, and boil everyone in oil. If we even get to that point, we can all feel relieved that justice has been served. But if we ever hope to fix anything, to try to prevent the same things from happening again (and sooner), we need to be willing to examine the institutional gaps that opened when pressure was placed on those on the periphery, and look at their situations just as you did in this comment.

Going back to highlighting Hannah Arendt now ... some lines seem a lot more relevant these days than they used to ...

So these generals and colonels rationalized that it was their job to talk about military operations and cheer for a war victory instead of warning that Iraq was not a threat to the US and that so many American men and women would be involved in a civil war quagmire that would result in terrible death and destruction. Their loyalty was terribly misplaced and still is because they also have supported the surge and passed out the nonsense that we are now winning. Winning what?

RMP, in this graf you've touched something that is so essential to the whole argument, but which I predict no one will ever drag out of this mess and examine, no matter what happens. Winning what, indeed?

Nevermind that the generals may not have been in a position or conceived their role as taking part in a national conversation about whether or not to go to war in Iraq. Assume all of them were on the offensive after 9/11, and wanted to encourage the country to support a 'total war' in response. Fine. Even under that assumption, though, what are they doing cheering on the MAJOR DISTRACTIONS of aggressive action against anyone whom we've ever had a case of the ass at (Saddam, also Hugo Chavez, Assad Jr), who had FUCK ALL to do with it, when we're supposed to be in the middle of a frigging war with al Qaeda and global terrorism networks?

As you know, this isn't just a seminar question, or a matter or academic debate. This is doctrine. This is what they were taught, what they contributed to, what they commanded in accordance with, and what they lived.

They aren't just abandoning some lofty role we might want to assign them, or even an ethical consideration they don't seem to understand (see Allard's and Bateman's responses at links in my previous letters on this thread) --- what they have abandoned is their own professional DNA; in pursuit of ego, advantage, access to power, or financial gain, or whatever. And they've betrayed us --- the American people, the people in uniform who are living out (and dying for) what they unleashed in Iraq, and those of us who served alongside them and kept the faith.