Letters to the Editor
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PierreSD @ 9:32.
Whatever happened sure impacted them. They are stuck back in toddler stage? okay. Maybe puberty. There needs to be a surgeon general physician `round somewhere to call an emergency parent/stunted/child night.
Break the news gently? They may go psychotic.
The group to inform needs to be a honest assembly.
Call together the Auschwitz, `Nam, and veterans of war.
Make sure the gathered group will testify to the whole truth.
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Dollared
Do we have anything connecting the generals' on-screen performances (good and bad) to board positions, contract renewals or terminations, etc.?
I wrote briefly here about Shepperd's work as a consultant for defense contractors and much more extensively on that topic in the piece I linked to that I wrote about Brian Williams.
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A Question Glenn
Is there any basis for filing a civil suit against these corporations for their role in disseminating this propaganda? Just curious, thought it would be interesting to see some level of accountability taken against this program.
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@GC
I don’t want to ruin your day and bring up bad memories, but today’s Salon story about Army snipers in Iraq (see my sig) clearly shows that some military leaders and certainly most Busheviks refuse to learn anything from history.
This is another example of where Cheney, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon leadership deliberately set up conditions, ala the Stanford Experiment, where torture and other terrible things would occur and then top leaders could blame the troops and escape responsibility as they did when the Abu Ghraib photos and story came out. They also set up Lt. Gen. Sanchez the top commander in Iraq at the time to take the fall even though he told all his troops that the Geneva Convention applied to all prisoners.
NPR’s Fresh Air on Wednesday aired an interview with Sanchez who in his book, Wiser in Battle, and the interview makes clear that the Pentagon deliberately ensured that the CIA and Special Forces who were not under Sanchez’s command, were told that the Geneva Convention did not apply in Afghanistan or Iraq. They went to Abu Ghraib, tortured prisoners and taught our military to do the same. Sanchez made clear in two memos that the Geneva Convention did apply to all the troops under his command. He explained why he is speaking out as a retired general about his role in the war and criticism of the Busheviks in his book preface:
Over the fourteen months of my command in Iraq, I witnessed a blatant disregard for the lives of our young soldiers in uniform. It is an issue that constantly eats away at me. During that time, 813 American soldiers lost their lives, and more than 7,000 were wounded. I cannot do, say, or write anything that would dishonor them. But to not set the record straight would, I believe, dishonor the legacy of their service. There is a camp of commanders who feel that retired generals should not stand up and voice their views on any policy, much less against a policy gone awry. I am now making camp with those who believe our voices must be heard in order to help America prepare for the future battles it must win—so that democracy itself survives.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90229404
As an Air Force public affairs officer for 28 years, I am appalled at the illegal use of propaganda by the Pentagon and the casual dismissal by broadcast executives of their continuing role in the torture, death and destruction of so many lives. Surely these executives have enough of a conscience to not play the same role in the pending attack on Iran, although I won’t hold my breath.
Thanks to Glenn and others, the truth is slowly coming out in the plethora of books and news stories about all of the law breaking and government abuse. We have to do all we can to push Congress to absolutely bring these ghouls the public punishment they so deserve.
Another way to keep abreast of the torture issue is to read the blog Humanity Against Crimes.
http://humanityagainstcrimes.blogspot.com/
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Mike Sulzer
The latter is not so much from stupidity of the people, but because the information control is just so much better done these few decades later in a subtle rather than coercive manner.
I don't see it as being all that subtle, the indoctrination is overwhelming and omnipresent, anything but subtle actually. But you have to have an outsider's viewpoint to see the forest for the trees.
What the US does have that the triple C-P didn't is lots of distractions.. American Idol, professional sports and so on. Magically do away with the distractions and far more Americans would notice the man behind the curtain.
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Thanks
Great piece GG, thanks. I look forward to the time when you may have some staff or other assistance so that you can expand your original investigation power/scope. The NYT piece took months of research--and currently there is no other news form that I know of that can dedicate that level of effort and resources to news content. The networks simply won't do it, and the left-o-sphere can't (yet) do it. With the constant cutbacks in print news resources, so too are investigative resources being curtailed by neglect.
You have probably done this before, but I'd like to know more about the illegality angle. Babbin's attack of Democrats generally and Durbin in particular, based on a government-funded and Pentagon-hosted trip seems to be a dead-cinch for a Hatch Act violation at minimum. But what other laws would apply here, ones that are more severe than the rather tame Hatch Act?
Also, on another aspect of this story, NPR has responded to the issue of military consultants, and should be given some form of credit. I commented on this in the williams thread I think, and included links.
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These pro-war creeps will be renown for just that. Creeps.
Maybe there is a dog therapist. Name all the generals beagle puppy Snoopy? A anxious snoopy general reads here at UT and may go manic?
Why not call Brian Williams sexy anchor baby?
See the wood nose? Study Penology? Jail 'um.
Gitmo would be a safe place for the bad GOPS.
Pinch them? They are already dead. Long nose.
Pinochet was a general they seem to aspire to.
A good rhinoplasty can take out a dark heart?
They have no humanity. They joined the beast.
It's basic common sense 101. It's easy to see.