Alternate Brain has picked up a story from the Asia Times, part one is here, part two is here.
Note that one of the themes going through the articles is the subtext of the military saying: "This mess isn't our fault, we knew better, but we were only carrying out our orders. And don't believe the words of the neo-cons that the Surge has worked, either."
All this shows the truth of the old saying that "victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan." One of the oldest rules of bureaucracy is Thou Shalt Deflect the Blame.
If they knew that the Bush Administration was screwing the pooch early on, they had other options besides just saluting and doing their job. The courageous choice would have been to have taken off their stars, but courage is something that is required of those with the rifles in their hands, not those with the PowerPoint presentations.
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Indeed. The only honorable thing to do would have been, if ordered to invade Iraq, take off the stars and walk out. Then the next officer in the chain of command do the same when promoted to fill that gap. And so on and so on. If there were any courage in what ole' Hack called the "Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon", they would have resigned en masse as each was promoted and ordered to invade Iraq.
But, of course, there is no courage there, just ambition. The courageous officers leave after they see how it's going to be. It's just the craven political hacks good at sucking up to their superiors (and knifing their rivals in the back) who stay and get multiple stars on their shoulders.
- Badtux the Military Penguin
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