Truth

What's notable about Ricardo Sanchez calling for a Truth Commission is that he could potentially be sanctioned by one. He was the top commander in Iraq during the time of Abu Ghraib. He wrote and signed a memo approving certain banned interrogation techniques. But he considers the future more important than his personal liabilities:

The General went on to say that, "during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques."

I interviewed General Sanchez after the event and asked him to elaborate on why he felt the US needed such a commission. "For the American people to really know what happened, " he replied, "...this was an institutional failure, a personal failure on the part of many...."

"If we do not find out what happened," continued the General, "then we are doomed to repeat it."

We can do this with a piecemeal approach, where judges slowly force the truth into light and rumors fly and the worst assumptions about American conduct in the war on terror take root, or we can tell the truth and explain clearly what has been done in our name. I opt for the latter.

Redefining "Phony Soldiers"

While some conservatives push for Peter Pace to accept the duty of being crushed by Mark Warner in next year's Virginia Senate race, they're also smearing a general who dared to speak out. It's a curious construction, reverance for those officers of the military that don't speak their mind, and slander for those who do.

Iraq war/Bush lovers John McCain, Lindsey (DADT) Graham, and Mitch McConnell are now smearing Sanchez, suggesting that as a top general he was supposed to contradict and undermine his commander in chief during wartime by snitching to Congress and the public about Bush's incompetence.

Putting aside the irony of Republicans now suggesting that it's okay to smear our troops - their opinion on that subject changes by the week, and putting aside the irony of the fact that McCain, Graham and McConnell never once dared challenge Bush on the war while they expected Sanchez to do so - I'm equally fascinated that the GOP now thinks that active duty service members are supposed to openly undercut the commander in chief.

They're not, of course, but the GOP has to play with the hand they're dealt. If Sanchez changes his tune after leaving active duty, he must be smeared for a lack of candor. Lord knows what they're going to do with these twelve former Army captains:

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out [...]

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with "the surge," we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents' cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet -- moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts [...]

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

But rather than respect the advice of those closest to the situation, those who were on the ground on a day-to-day basis, they will be told that their eyes deceived them, that they have an "agenda," that they should not be trusted. And in the same breath, they will sanctimoniously say that there must not be any criticism of "our men and women in uniform." This is the new paradigm of the right: "phony soldiers" are those who disagree with the Dear Leader and his warmongers.

UPDATE: That last point that the 12 Army captains make, as MY notes, is very important. You either carry out the strategy with the amount of force required to do the job or you leave. Doing some slow drawdown in between, to save the fragile egos of policymakers, does nothing for the Iraqis and endangers the troops. The worst possible option happens to be the option preferred by most of the leading Democratic candidates. Hopefully they'll have the capacity to listen to soldiers like these once they get into office. You either have to go in or get out. And going in really isn't an option at this late date, either. So get out.

Everyone's A Phony

If this keeps up, Rush Limbaugh is going to be a modern-day Holden Caulfield, muttering to himself about phonies as he walks the streets.

The Marines want out of Iraq:

The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.

The idea by the Marine Corps commandant would effectively leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while giving the Marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command.

(This sounds to me like the various units of the Armed Forces not wanting to associate themselves with the mess of Iraq.)

And then there's Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of US forces in Iraq, slamming the Administration and the war:

In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.” (he got that from the movie -ed.) [...]

“After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors.

General Sanchez is the most senior in a string of retired generals to harshly criticize the administration’s conduct of the war. Asked following his remarks why he waited nearly a year after his retirement to outline his views, he responded that that it was not the place of active duty officers to challenge lawful orders from civilian authorities. General Sanchez, who is said to be considering a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.

“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

It's true, about active duty officers being unable to speak out. But when you see one retired general after another condemning the invasion and occupation of Iraq, when you see some generals retiring JUST to condemn the invasion and occupation of Iraq, you can be pretty sure that the commanders don't find the policy popular. In this way, they mirror the American people.

Or, to Rush, the phony Americans.

Ceci n'est pas une surge.

This kills me.

In April, during the congressional debate over war funding, Gen. David Petraeus pushed back against a withdrawal timeline from Iraq “because we’re only about two months into the surge,” assuring Congress that he would be able to report on progress in September:

"We’re only about two months into the surge. We won’t have all the forces on the ground until mid-June and I pointed that out to them, and noted that Ambassador Crocker and I would be doing an assessment in early September and provide that to our respective bosses at that time."

But now that the debate on timelines has passed, Petraeus is asking for even more time. Today in an interview with Lara Logan of CBS News, Petraeus tried to argue that the surge hasn’t even started yet:

"We haven’t started the surge — the full surge — yet. So let me have a few months."

These are the same people who say that the only reason that the death tolls for American soldiers are rising is because we're in the midst of a surge. It's "surge for me but not for thee."

Maybe they decided that they haven't started the surge yet because what they're doing now isn't working.

An internal US military assessment indicates that three months after the beginning of a troop "surge" in Baghdad, the military has been able to establish tentative control over fewer than one-third of the city's neighborhoods, The New York Times reported on its website Sunday.

The newspaper said that the assessment, which was completed in late May, found that US and Iraqi forces were able to "to protect the population" and "maintain physical influence over" only 146 out of 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.

In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face "resistance," according to the one-page assessment, which summarized reports from brigade and battalion commanders in Baghdad, the Times report said.

Let us know when it begins. Somehow I have a feeling it'll only start when they decide it's working.

UPDATE: Doesn't Ricardo Sanchez know that the surge hasn't started yet?

“I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will — not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat,” Sanchez told the San Antonio Express-News. “It’s also kind of important for us to answer the question, ‘What is victory?’, and at this point I’m not sure America really knows what victory is.” […]

“I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time and we’ve got to do whatever we can to help the next generation of leaders do better than we have done over the past five years,” Sanchez said, “better than what this cohort of political and military leaders have done.”