To put your excellent point another way, it does little good to only blame people when the system caused more of the problem than the people did. The other aspect involves problem solving, you solve little when you haven’t understood the problem and are only working on the symptoms and not the real problem.

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.

Until then --

bucky1 --

A couple of quotes for the Brit guy ...

Rowan claimed:

Now as to the goody goody libertarians, I agree completely with Mike Sulzer, who said while I was either asleep or hiding my shame and not visiting the thread, "If libertarianism says that everything would be great if everyone would leave everyone else alone except for voluntary interactions, then the realist would say: but everyone won't. And because of that, and in reaction to that, we have governments," except that I would go further, and say that anyone who claims to believe that in the absence of "government" (and at this point one begins to wonder how they define "government") people would spontaneously revert to being nice to each other, is not just being naive, they are being disingenuous, by which I mean, they are sinister, cynical liars.

"Even Noam Chomsky? Major statement there fellow; major accusation."

What is Noam Chomsky's field of expertise? Philosophy? No. Political science? No. Linguistics.

And where does he live his life? M.I.T./Ivory Tower.

Now for a few favorites quotes be the people Rowan says are cynical liars:

"Anarchism is a tendency in the history of human thought & action which seeks to identify coercive, authoritarian, & hierarchic structures of all kinds & to challenge their legitimacy — & if they cannot justify their legitimacy, which is quite commonly the case, to work to undermine them & expand the scope of freedom." — Noam Chomsky

But it isn't the only "tendency" in that history; there is the counter "tendency" that recognizes that the person who mugs you on the street isn't likely to be working in gov't.

And, I note he makes NO mention of responsibility, which in every society of more than one individual is inextricably intertwined with each freedom. Why? Because in every society of more than one individual, freedom is limited by the existence of those in addition to the one.

Unless that one "Libertarian" ignores the reality that freedom is so limited, and ignores or simply doesn't believe in the "personal responsibility" mantra, and says: "Screw everyone else. All that matters is ME!"

"So I said good-bye to government, & I gave my reason; That a really good religion, is a form of treason." — Kurt Vonnegut, anarchist, Cat's Cradle

Mmm, yes: fiction is supporter of "Libertarianism".

"Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no men can be trusted to look after anyone else." -- Nicolas Walter (1924-2000) British journalist, philosopher, atheist, anarchist.

The reality is, of course, that some men cannot be trusted -- regardless whether they are "looking after" anyone. Anyone other than themselves.

That's the history of the human race, the counter-"tendency" to which is the fantasy that if we were to go back to before it was discovered that gov't is necessary, then gov't wouldn't be necessary.

"If I had understood the situation a bit better I should probably have joined the anarchists." (Extract letter, October 1937 written by George Orwell to his friend Jack Common).

Orwell, being the exception to the norm, was perfect. Ergo, his views are perfect, infallible.

"Anarchism has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, 'Freedom.' Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully." -Lucy Parsons (for the ladies, of cource)

Mmm, yes: "infallibility". Freedom to mug, rob, rape, without the "oppression" of gov't putting one's ass in jail for it.

"There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient & yet so terrible, for reasons of state." — Michael Bakunin

And the same long list of adjectival sins are committed every day by non-gov't criminals who claim to be about "freedom" -- with no mention of responsibility.

"Liars all, Rowan?"

Either liars, or lunatic.