The Generals vs Cheney:
Four Days in September
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The story of September converges from four corners:
1. Weeks ago — on 9/11 — two top-drawer generals, Charles Krulak and Joseph Hoar, came out of retirement to blast Cheney on torture in the Miami Herald.
The timing and some particulars struck me as odd, portentous and a tiny bit ominous: Why this and why now?
Hoar was the commander of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees the mideast, from 1991 to 1994.
And his co-author is a former Commandant (top dog) of the Marines and — curious — is the son of another General Krulak, Victor, who once was an ally of JFK in his struggle with the Pentagon over Vietnam policy. (See last link above.)
2. Nine days later, September 20, President Obama, during a whirlwind tour of five Sunday talk shows, went off topic (health care) to talk about Pakghanistan — and for the first time publicly cast doubt upon the policy that he had cheerleaded without reservation during the long campaign, and had then inherited:
He said before he decided whether to send more troops, he needed to determine whether the United States was pursuing the proper military strategy.
“The first question is, are we doing the right thing?” Mr. Obama said on CNN’s State of the Union. “Are we pursuing the right strategy?”
The next morning 66 pages from General Stanley McChrystal appeared in the Washington Post, predicting “failure” in Afghanistan unless the Pentagon’s request for tens of thousands of new pairs of boots were soon granted.
3. Five days later, we noted remarks by General Michael Lenhert — who built and for a time ran the Bush-Cheney Gitmo prison — denouncing the prison as a bad idea from Day One. He didn’t name Cheney (in reports I’ve seen) but, simultaneously, Cheney was telling think tanks that Obama is wrong to try to shut the prison down.
Harpers also noticed Lenhert’s remarks and quickly put out a piece that extends them to explicitly target the former vice president: “The Generals vs The Cheneys.”
Krulak & Hoar on torture. Lenhert on Gitmo. Three big guns, trained upon Cheney as he bellows about the speaking circuit. Curious …
It seemed curious that such men would suddenly raise their profiles and such a ruckus, merely to blast a retired, old and disgraced vice president, on issues that the new president had already turned around.
Or … Was Dick speaking for more than himself — for something yet vital in the power scheme?
4. Days later (early this week), NewsMax.com, which feeds Fox News fodder, published an elaborate memo explaining why a military coup to solve the “Obama problem” was “not unrealistic” and not a bad idea.
Chris Matthews jumped in, and appropriately so. See the Hardball clip embedded in the Harpers link in item 3 above.
And note that the clip comes from Human Rights First — and that the two military men Matthews talks with — including Lt General Henry Soyster, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, criticizing Cheney’s fear-mongering and his Gitmo campaign — are explicitly associated with Human Rights First on its webpage.
And note that Generals Krulak and Hoar, too, associate themselves with HRF.
Reading the Krulak-Hoar piece alone, in its oddness, provoked a question: Do these high generals sniff something unpatriotic fermenting within the wide circles of their brassy acquaintance?
However that may be, that a roomful of such men suddenly gathered to speak loudly against Cheney in September is reason to not summarily dismiss the NewsMax blip as lunatic-fringe fantasy signifying nothing.
The Beer Hall Putsch was lunatic fri — HA !
Matthews goes on to mention MacArthur — versus Truman! — in the same breath as McChrystal — and then asks his brassy guests if we’ve seen this movie and it’s Seven Days in May — HA !
A fortiori forsooth: It seems that sometime this summer a bevy of high-brow brass was organized to oppose a right-wing call-it-what-you-will — movement? — the poster children of which are Cheney and, for the moment, McChrystal.
Gathering under a Human Rights banner to grapple with Dick, blow by blow, topic by topic, might be a way for august generals to tell their wide acquaintance the Preakness pool has been closed until further notice.
That President Obama would sooner or later have to face down the Pentagon he inherited with so little complaint (disturbing neither Gates nor Mullen nor their vision for victory in Pakghanistan) — and would then tred paths parallel to those of JFK and LBJ — was apparent and a worry during the interregnum last winter.
Vegas odds remain stacked against deposing any president with an army.
But the bile-laden bullet points in the NewsMax memo itemize real thoughts inspiring right-wingers with rage. JFK’s inner circle initiated the production of the Seven Days in May film, and saw the work through with unprecedented support — evacuating the White House to make way for the film crew — because by 1963 they knew the novel was not fantasy.
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ed says:
And now David Letterman’s going wack.
WTF is going on …
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:53 am
ed says:
LA Times piece on theme — the Generals vs Cheney — on Gitmo prison closure and in suport of Atty General Eric Holder re the CIA interrogation issue.
October 5th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
ed says:
Gates rebukes McChrystal for going public with policy ideas on Pakghanistan.
And assures public that the Pentagon will faithfully execute the President’s decisions.
Supports the notion that serious dissent exists across the river.
And suggests (second time now) that Gates perhaps leans more toward the White House than Mullen-Petraeus on Pakghanistan.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
ed says:
Follow the arm-wrestling on the Pakghanistan policy this thread here.
When specific items re Unhappy Generals appear, I’ll continue to file them below.
(You’re aware you’ve stumbled into my filing cabinet, I presume.)
October 10th, 2009 at 11:22 am
ed says:
And now the head of the VFW tells the President to shut up and just listen to his generals — all the policy debate is endangering the troops.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/15/world/international-uk-afghanistan-usa.html
Swifting Boating.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:09 am
ed says:
A fortiori, I don’t think the events of September (outlined in top post above) were without significance:
A feature piece in the Times this morning airs the growling of anonymous generals about the President “pulling out the rug” from beneath them in Afghanistan, and moving to cut their budget. The nerve …
October 20th, 2009 at 9:43 am
ed says:
Here however is another top-drawer general out there blasting Cheney and Bush as incompetent war leaders in Afghanistan:
http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1442
General Eaton is a member of an organ founded in 2006 to temper/oppose the character of Bush-Cheney foreign policy. The advisory board includes Richard Clarke, Sandy Berger, Wesley Clark, Lesie Gelb — and Ted Sorenson, JFK’s speechwriter and top braintruster:
http://www.nsnetwork.org/about/board
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 am
ed says:
WOW — a biography of Krulak (senior, aka Brute) has come out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/books/10book.html?src=dayp
November 9th, 2010 at 10:43 pm