-Perhaps it is best summed up by something Stormin' Norman said:

Any soldier worth his salt should be anti-war. And yet there are things still worth fighting for.-

With all due respect to Gen. Schwartzkopf, CBC's the fifth estate reported a few years back that the Patriot Missile's record of a near 100% kill rate against Iraqi scuds in Gulf I were falsified and Schwartzkopf was one of the main characters implicated in the scam. In fact they had closer to a zero kill rate. Raytheon made hundreds if millions selling them to Israel who subsequently ended up developing their own ABMs that were said to actually work as advertised.

"April 2, 2003

THE CAN'T MISS MISSILE

It was touted as the best defence money could buy against Iraqi Scuds and other deadly missiles. But as the fifth estate's Bob McKeown demonstrated on our February 5 programme, the Patriot missile turned out to be a bust in 1991. And now in the early days of the war in Iraq, it seems as if the Patriot has revealed one more fatal shortcoming. It is having trouble telling the difference between friend and foe. A whole new take on a cautionary tale about military hardware and military obfuscation."

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/archives02-03.html

-"Americans want to believe the honesty and integrity of anyone in a military uniform..."

Hence, Codpiece/Mission Accomplished Day. Hard to question the honesty and integrity of a guy in the military drag of a third world dictator.-

I had the very same thought....

with retired generals explaining military tactics and strategy vis a vis an ongoing war. Who else would you rather have explain how a particular battle/strategy/tactic is going? Of course they should be challenged when their commentary becomes pure propaganda. But by and large I would argue that you are conflating two separate discussions: Is the war good/right/just etc?; and Are our military leaders conducting it as it should be conducted? Your anti-war types are germaine to the first question, retired generals to the second.

But I believe that to go ahead and remove that regime, to then temporarily occupy Iraq, to change it from a fascist regime to some type of democratic governance will then give us a geopolitical advantage in that region to change the status quo, which will affect Iran, it will affect the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, it will affect the Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

The "change it to democratic governance" part has been fantasy, but everything else has worked out just like the General, Dubya, and the neocons wanted, albeit a little rougher around the edges than they had hoped. They've got their base from which to threaten Iran, they've supported Israel against Hezbollah while bombing the cr*p out of Lebanon, and they've abandoned any pretense of trying to help the Palestinians. The fact that they've bankrupted the U.S. and severely damaged the military in the process is just too bad for the American people. (The dead, wounded, and displaced Iraqis with their ruined country don't come into the equation at all.)

I think the General was one of the few folks telling the truth before the invasion. All this WMD and democracy crap was just for the rubes.

but even w/r/t using retired generals for strategy war/tactics, there's no necessity in using "Pentagon-approved" or pro-administration retired generals.

You've got a long row to hoe if you can't even get it for AM radio today.

Fairness Doctrine hammered 309-115

By Alexander Bolton

Posted: 06/28/07 06:27 PM [ET]

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using taxpayer dollars to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters who feature conservative radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

By a vote of 309-115, lawmakers amended the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill to bar the FCC from requiring broadcasters to balance conservative content with liberal programming such as Air America.

The vote count was partly a testament to the influence that radio hosts wield in many congressional districts.

It was also a rebuke to Democratic senators and policy experts who have voiced support this week for regulating talk radio.

House Democrats argued that it was merely a Republican political stunt because there is little danger of the FCC restricting conservative radio while George W. Bush is president.

Republicans counter that they are worried about new regulations if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008...

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/fairness-doctrine-hammered-309-115-2007-06-28.html

Northwestwoods,

I'm not familiar with that source. I'm sure there are credible and reputable sources in Canada.

I'll take the FAS as a credible source on the matter.

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/docops/wwwapena.htm

I see at least one problem with your analysis. If as you say, the generals should be the go to's for issues of strategy, and others for political questions, then what of politicized strategies. As one example, a mission to search for WMD's in the weeks following the invasion, when everyone knew there were none. Such a military expert could drone on about strategies and tactics, but to an obviously useless objective. He could just as well be speaking of the military's quest to find the gold on the other end of the rainbow--if the journalist never brings up the fact that there are no leprechauns--or has no anti-rainbow activists on to challenge the military specialist, then the explanation of the operations are little more than absurdities.

pow wow - thank you very much for the correction and my apologies to all for the misdirection. i should have caught that before posting it.

glenn - is it possible to either delete my prior comment, or put a correction on it so that no one else is misinformed? the way comments work here, i fear that my comment will be seen but not pow wow's correction. thanks. and again my apologies to all.

Congress has essentially abdicated its constitutional role and responsibility and now is almost solely concerned with prerogatives. Pretty much where the Roman Senate was as it was made irrelevant...

Of course We, the People, through our representatives in congress assembled, have the constitutional authority, right and duty to set standards and limits for the media which benefits so handsomely from the public commonwealth.

But our congress won't do it. Except with regard to body parts and swear words. Now THAT they are more than happy to exercise their power over. Propaganda? Not so much.

I like the notion that it doesn't matter whether the media institutions "agree" with the proposition that presenting uncontested government/military propaganda is wrong, they must be made feel the figurative lash if they do it. The problem is how, if the Congress won't act.

Two examples come to mind of moral suasion on resistant institutions: making drunk driving an enforcement priority with resistant civic authorities and police departments and making the resistant Catholic Church pay attention to its molestation problem.

I don't know that either is a perfect model for changing the attitudes of resistant media institutions but they do clue us to the fact that legal, financial, and public pressure can and do make a difference.