MASTERS OF WAR

I just waded through a seven page expose' in Sunday's NYT because God does not want me to sleep too much tonite. When I finish with this essay I am going to take a long shower, because the filth described in this article makes a Roast to Flavor Flave seem like a Disney cartoon.

We honor the Generals and Admirals of our Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force for many reasons.

The Armed Forces represent a meritocracy. People earn their way to the top. There are exceptions. But as a system, show me a better one.

Because of Harry Truman, the Armed Forces were and are a model for desegregation. There is a lot of work to be accomplished with women in the military, and with homosexuals, but show me a better working model in this regard.

Many of those generals, fought on the field of battle and risked their lives. Some, many times. Some carry scars both physical and mental in nature.

For these reasons and many others, we must refrain from attacking them. Refrain from imputing less than honorable motives to their actions. Attempt to take them at their word.

This is for them, this is for the country.

To this day I have continued to cut Secretary Powell some slack with regard to being a member of what I consider one of the dirtiest, most criminal Administrations this country has ever seen.

But I think he was lied to by Administration. That his voice was muted by the Administration. And I think he walked away from the Administration extremely demoralized, embarrassed and shamed.

Again, it is difficult to ascribed dishonorable motives to General Powell and there is no evidence to do otherwise.

This is not the case for certain generals who have appeared on cable news over the last six or seven years. They come on as color commentators, as experts and as translaters of a sort. Translating military language into standard English to give the viewers some idea of what is 'going on on the ground.'

They answer questions like:

What do our men and women need on the ground?

How is the battle, surge, strategy working?

Is it a good idea for our troops to be in a certain location?

How long is this battle, action, surge going to last?

Sometime ago, it was disclosed that some of the generals that served in these capacities on cable news-and on CBS, NBC &ABC-had some "affiliations" with corporate entities that should have been disclosed to the public.

As with attorneys and politicians, retired generals are supposed to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

I really did not pay much attention to this issue at the time. Retired generals have always double dipped. They get their pensions, most of them served for 30 years or more. They sit as mostly honorary members of a board of directors for some corporation. Who cares? Good for them.

But the New York Times article gives a different picture and it paints this picture with some real follow-up, research and documentation that this newspaper is famous for and it does so in more than 8 or 10 paragraphs. And it should make any good American nauseous.

General Macaffrey, for instance appears on news shows all the time.

" General McCaffrey made his debut as a military analyst in the weeks after 9/11. NBC anchors typically introduced him by describing his medals or his exploits in the gulf war. Or they noted he was a West Point professor, or the youngest four-star general in the history of the Army."

You see, as a viewer you are trying to get the facts and what better way to get the facts than from a decorated war hero....How could MSNBC or NBC do any better than this?

The first example of fraud in article describes a propaganda campaign by the Bush Administration that used many generals, including this one, to act as shills--addressing the public as if they were seasoned and neutral observers:

"With a few exceptions General McCaffrey has consistently supported Mr. Bush’s major national security policies, especially the war in Iraq. He advocated invasion, urged building up the military to sustain the occupation and warned that premature withdrawal would invite catastrophe.

In an article earlier this year, The New York Times identified General McCaffrey as one of some 75 military analysts who were the focus of a Pentagon public relations campaign that is now being examined by the Pentagon’s inspector general, the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Communications Commission. The campaign, begun in 2002 but suspended after the article’s publication, sought to transform the analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration, records show. The analysts, many with military industry ties, were wooed in private briefings, showered with talking points and escorted on tours of Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba."

So, if you watched this gentleman giving 'color' to your favorite newscast, you probably did not know this. You did not know that he was working for the Bush Administration the entire time. But there is a second fraud going on here that is worse than not exposing his relation to the Administration and his marching orders as far as the limits on his opinions. Some of these 'analysts' were and are making ungodly amounts of money from defense contractors. Not five grand a month as an honorarium. But potentially millions:

"The Pentagon inspector general is investigating whether special access gave any of these analysts an improper edge in the competition for contracts.

General McCaffrey offers a case study of the benefits that can flow from favored access: an inside track to sensitive information about strategy and tactics; insight into the priorities of ground commanders; a private channel to officials who oversaw war spending, as the Defense Solutions example shows. In that case the company has yet to win the contract it hired General McCaffrey to champion.

More broadly, though, his example reveals the myriad and often undisclosed connections between the business of war and the business of covering it."

Special access is a term of art that is best explained by looking at Cheney and his history with Halliburton.

Cheney gave some pretty good contracts to Halliburton when he was defense secretary. Within two years after his President was no longer in office, Cheney took over as CEO of Halliburton. Not some honorary board position, mind you--but Chief Executive Officer. And his first act as CEO was procuring a 2 1/2 billion dollar low interest loan from his old department, the Department of Defense. Now, this is an example of favored or special access.

It works both ways of course. After Cheney becomes VP, Halliburton ends up with 60 to 80 billion dollars in defense contracts, most of which were procured without bids. Even the contracts procured with bids demonstrate that Halliburton was now an expert at bidding on defense contracts.

Now Macafferty is taking trips to Iraq and Afganastan on the Pentagon's dime. NBC is not paying for this.

And this whole time, McCafferty had a special relationship with a defense contractor called Veritas. I especially like that because Veritas means truth in Latin. McCafferty is asked to explain this relationship:


"In his written statements to The Times, General McCaffrey said his role with Veritas was “governance, not marketing,” and Veritas insisted that he never “solicited new or existing government contracts.”

General McCaffrey did, however, play an indirect role in helping Veritas win one of its largest contracts, to supply more than 8,000 translators to the war in Iraq. The contract had been held by L-3 Communications, but when General McCaffrey got wind that the Army was considering seeking new bidders, he called his friend James A. Marks, a major general in the Army who was approaching retirement and was versed in the uses of translators, having served as intelligence chief for land forces during the Iraq invasion.

As General Marks recalls it, General McCaffrey asked him to lead an effort to win the contract for Veritas. General Marks, who became a CNN military analyst after his retirement in 2004, would be named president of a new DynCorp subsidiary, Global Linguist Solutions, created in July 2006 to bid for the translation contract. In August 2006 Veritas designated General McCaffrey as chairman of Global Linguist. According to a 2007 corporate filing, General McCaffrey was promised $10,000 a month plus expenses once Global Linguist secured the contract. He would also be eligible to share in profits, which could potentially be significant: the contract was worth $4.6 billion over five years, but only if the United States did not pull out of Iraq first."

Now we have not just a shill for the Bush Administration, but someone who is going to make more money than God the longer the country stays in Iraq.

Read the whole article. I saved it on hard disc to refer to it later. It is a long and complicated thread. It explains how, every time McCafferty would say something bad about how the war was being run by the Bushies, Rummy would pull the rug out from McCafferty so that he would lose his 'favorable access.' Magically, McCafferty would appear on TV reversing his previous opinion.

I am not going to ever believe another general as he gives some opinion unless I know his entire financial background.

"He would also be eligible to share in profits, which could potentially be significant: the contract was worth $4.6 billion over five years, BUT ONLY IF THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PULL OUT OF IRAQ FIRST.
(Emphasis added.)

So the more favorable his opinions on the management of the war, the more favorable access he got from Rummy. And the longer we stayed in Iraq, the more money he made.
Masters Of War

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead