Is revolt within the military against Bush brewing? (Blumenthal)

…A revolt within the military against Bush is brewing. Many in the military's strategic echelon share the same feelings of being ignored and ill-treated by the administration that senior intelligence officers voice in private. "The Pentagon began with fantasy assumptions on Iraq and worked back," one of them remarked to me.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1192218,00.html

It looks like rove will have to lose some of those overseas absentee ballots this year. Well, if the military isn't solidly behind chimpy, that leaves the hard core freepers and the konservative fundies.

Hmmmmm. I am enjoying seeing the unraveling at the seams, I like the hotseat they (the admin, including W), have been forced to sit on. I would like to see more fire under the feet of our media here in the states. Daily I become more enraged at what is being broadcast as news to Americans. I swear, if I see much more red white and blue. I just don't know..... I want my flag back, quiet like.

Sorry for the impromptu rant........

I don't honestly know why we are all waiting to vote. There are so many violations of our laws that this administration are guilty of committing, I just do not understand. Why aren't we demanding accountability? Don't they work for us?

Our military personnel are being screwed all up and down the line. Did anyone see Diane Sawyer's expose last week about the Veterans Administration Hospital system? Get to know the veterans of every war within your community and on the internet. They are a tremendous resource for commentary and they deserve all the support we can give.

Worst of all we have 1,000's, not hundreds, but 1,000's upon 1,000's, coming home from this war for our "freedom, safety and democracy", injured or dead. They and their families are going to need our help and we need to take care of them.

Start making calls, take care of our Vets.

They work for an aristocracy whose fortunes are bound up with corporate entities that have become in many respects more powerful than, and substitutes for, STATES.

The primary function of the media, or so it seems, is to SUSTAIN THE ILLUSION of free speech, democracy--and all that.

Remember this thread? FOLKS - here it is again. TWO posts' worth of excellent resource material for media contacts. Includes the 9/11 Commission and other stuff from several of us.

Please note, here, The World's Greatest Lists of Media Contacts - not one but TWO of 'em - in the following thread:

LINK:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1380003

IF THEY THINK WE DON’T CARE, THEY WON’T, EITHER!

Please everyone, send these lists of contacts to everyone you know, print them down and start to use them everyday!

There is only one way this "war" is going to end. US.

I compiled them both into one LLLLLOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG post, with another separate post of 9/11 Commission contact info. Thought I'd better do that because there are more contacts that I've collected since these were first posted.

The most recent is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1413842

Thanks back atcha, anarchy. Your UBER-cool list is what gave me the idea.

The ways things are going, if we follow the PNAC plan to its completion, we would bankrupt the nation as we grow weaker and weaker ultimately selling ourselves as slaves to a few financial institutions.

Remember Russia’s fate in Afghanistan.

Sorry.
n/t

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

:dem"

"Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs, but has them orally summarised every morning by the CIA director, George Tenet. President Clinton, by contrast, read them closely and alone, preventing any aides from interpreting what he wanted to know first-hand. He extensively marked up his PDBs, demanding action on this or that, which is almost certainly the likely reason the Bush administration withheld his memoranda from the 9/11 commission. "

No wonder the Bushies didnt want to release Clinton's stuff ....

Even Clinton's margin notes loom like a huge penis before the eyes of this GOP government .....

The Clenis smashes Poor Bushie to smithereens no matter what the subject area .... President Clinton is superior to Bush in EVERY way, and it shames them ....

A new and terrifying genitalia. Will it never end?

"The ultimate revelation was Bush's vision of a divinely inspired apocalyptic struggle in which he is the leader of a crusade bringing the Lord's "gift." "I also have this belief, strong belief that freedom is not this country's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom." But religious war is not part of official US military doctrine. "

My qustion to the military would be to ask WHO put him THERE in the first place? It wasn't the electorate! The military should keep that clearly in mind. "BUSH" is a president in name only. The man, himself, lacks any intelligence what soever. Therefore, what is important is THOSE WHO SURROUND HIM. It is they who are the real "players" in this game of NATIONAL SECURITY.

If you want to be a dictator then your military is your most important asset. It is your right arm and your sword. High troop morale is one of your best friends. Kings and tyrants throughout history have known this and kept their armies happy with riches, status, and the best equipment money could buy. And they usually listened to their generals. By cutting veterans benefits, extending tours of duty, issuing second-rate gear, and ignoring the brass Bush is abusing the military in such a way that it may well not be there for him when he needs it most. In fact, as this article indicates, it may even turn on him.

Another thing a smart dictator doesn't do - that Bush is doing - is depend on mercenaries for manpower. Since soldiers who sell themselves out to the highest bidder are generally the most unreliable.

I'm being a little extreme, perhaps, but not much.

What would our world look like if "militaries" did not belong to STATES but belonged to corporations?

How close are we to that now?

Non-traditional covert warfare waged not by the military as we think of it, but by competing groups of "mercenaries".

and holding an election. I believe France did this to put Charles DeGaule into the Presidency in 58 after a series of fuckups re the war with Algiers.

The concept interests me.

The commander in chief is the head of the chain of command, is he not?

Under what circumstances can a senior officer legitimately question orders directed from above?

What responsibilities do officers have in relation to their oaths on the one hand and their direct orders on the other?

from the fridge, then the Generals may have a case.

Come, we go drink, mo fun

& Bush will find it!

"It was the cook and his gang, they ate the strawberries"

Most likely the American People, enough of them anyway, will vote Bush outta office.

He has pissed off too many people, whole Nations overseas to boot.

Messed up our econ and overspent like there is no tomorrow.

arghhh, the list is too long

He has not given good reasons enough for reselection. He is a one trick Pony.

transformation"?
There's been a coup, of sorts-it was planned for during the highly politicized Clinton era imo. This has failed.

Revolution in Political and Military Affairs/RPMA from USAF October 1996
http://www.guerrillacampaign.com/coup.htm

Revolution in Military Affairs/RMA from US Army July 1994
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/rmaWarCollege.html

Pentagon Muzzles CIA
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/22/dreyfuss-r.html

Office of Special Plans (The Vulcans)
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

The one from 1994 is especially telling. Seems like Rumsfeld and company just ignore any info that they don't like...

to 'DEAL' with us... who, LET THEM... GET AWAY with, TREASON!

think about it...

peace

he thought that was why they were extending the troops stay. It sounds so sick, but he said that if they let them come home now and they started talking about how badly they were treated and how horrible a job Halliburton has done, just with, say, feeding them, that it would cause a "wave of dissent" in this country, so he felt like they would be held over there for as long as possible for damage control if for no other reason. I heard today most of their stays have been extended for at least three months.

another man called and said that a friend's son was actually at his homecoming party in CA and got a cell phone call telling him he was being shipped back to Iraq. Disgusting and disgraceful.

you can't put nothing past this bunch but there certainly seems to be a need for more troops if we continue to follow the IRON HAMMER strat over their.

this has got to STOP.

al franken says he's for the war and that we can't pull out i wan't to ask him what he thaught of nam... does he think we sould have stayed after wreaking so much horror? :crazy:

it's gonna be a bad summer both here and there =(

peace

and that we can't pull out now and that we must WIN.

yes he said all that, just yeaterday.

peace

They do NOT want those kids back in the good ol' USA talking a blue streak about the HORRIFIC ABUSE to which they've been subjected by their own gub'mint.

so they will die instead of get cancer from depleted uranium. They are all poisoned. What was that John Wayne movie? They Were...

When he purged the Pentagon of 13 Generals into early retirement who were not supportive of the Iraq invasion and less so toward the PNACers.

The Military is the Police Force on the Intl. level. They are used to protect property and maintain Capitalism. They are the private force of the Plutocracy. This Freedom talk is pure hype to keep the naive troops and civilians in line. Once soldiers get into combat they forget all the nonesense about patriotism,democracy and reedom and try to stay alive and keep their buddies alive.

Most of the savy troops know by now that they got the screw job by
their masters.

I keep thinking back to the campaign of 2000, in which they actually put forward the idea that it didn't matter that Bush* was not all that bright and knew nothing -- the heavy hitters would be there to back him up and help him run the world.

I hope that idea has been put to rest forever.

One was named Odom, didn't catch the other. Both were quite negative about the Iraq adventure, especially Odom who said that OBL was the greatest beneficiary. So this tends to support Blumenthal's case.

"Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs, but has them orally summarised every morning by the CIA director, George Tenet. President Clinton, by contrast, read them closely and alone, preventing any aides from interpreting what he wanted to know first-hand. He extensively marked up his PDBs, demanding action on this or that, which is almost certainly the likely reason the Bush administration withheld his memoranda from the 9/11 commission."

AUGH!!!!!!

AUGH! AUGH! AUGH! AUGH!!!!

Jesus. He can't read his own fucking briefs? Or does he just not care?

This is just humiliating.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

How could he possibly answer their questions? That's why this is so awkward for them. They certainly can't admit he doesn't read these reports. Paul O'Neill kept submitting reports to him and requesting meetings, but he never got any feedback, even when he did see him face to face. Just a blank stare.

and arrested the criminals?

For National Security Reasons.

I truly do believe:

• Bush is not very smart. His otherwise empty head has been filled by people with a very narrow fields of vision.
• Bush has delusions of grandure. (All this talk of God talking to him, telling him he is the 'chosen' one, is truly creepy.)
• Bush is being USED by people who do not have the best interests of this country at heart.
• Some within the military must know that the events of 9/11 were a covert operation, most likely conducted by private "security" forces for hire (aka "mercenaries" or "terrorists").

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so. If all those taken together do not constitute a REAL threat to our National Security, I don't know what would.

I attended a forum on military law in NYC about 6-8 weeks ago. The keynote speaker was an attorney who was a junior officer in the Army and has been practicing military law for over 25 years now.

He said that there was a lot of dissent within the ranks of the military right now, and that the brass had been letting some of it get out because they didn't want to completely plug it and allow it to turn into a pressure cooker -- eventually exploding.

As a junior officer in the Army Reserve myself -- and one of the dissenters -- I can say that this is absolutely true. Many of the soldiers who served under me during my stint as a platoon leader were recently deployed to the Middle East for a 1-yr tour, and several of them told me in no uncertain terms that they considered it to be pure bullshit.

If dissent starts coming from the brass, then you'll know that the shit is really hitting the fan. Career military types don't really like what's going on right now, but they unquestioningly carry out their orders (one thing I could never do).

As the iconic image of the "war president" has tattered, another picture has emerged. Bush appears as a passive manager who enjoys sitting atop a hierarchical structure, unwilling and unable to do the hard work a real manager has to do to run the largest enterprise in the world. He does not seem to absorb data unless it is presented to him in simple, clear fashion by people whose judgment he trusts. He is receptive to information that agrees with his point of view rather than information that challenges it. This leads to enormous power on the part of the trusted interlocutors, who know and bolster his predilections.

This calls to mind one of the meetings Paul O'Neil related in Suskind's The Price of Loyalty: Bush was actually questioning the wisdom of a second (or third?) round of tax cuts, but Rove & Cheney immediately jumped in to press his hot buttons: "Don't flip-flop. Stay the course. Stay the course." Naturally, he took the bait and followed the plan.

The military is solidly Repug. They might not be happy with Shrub, but they'll support their party.

This reminds me of the other wishful thinking threads about the CIA.

and he has spent a career looking out for the best interests of both our enlisted forces and veterans. If I were in the military it would seem the choice for prez this year is a no brainer.

If the military can realize how much of a screw-up this repugnant president Bu$h is, then maybe there is hope for the Fundies.

and that the role of the military is to protect our national security ...

It goes to follow that getting rid of Bush would be good for our national security.

I think it's absolutely necessary for our national security.

Bush has basically nullified America's military. It might as well not exist at this point. It is tied down in Iraq and we have abandoned the war on the actual terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of it. Even Musharraf has complained.

Our national guard troops who are supposed to protect our actual mainland, are all in Iraq getting shot at and killed.

We are unprotected right now. Completely vulnerable. All because of Bush.

Now if that ain't an argument for taking the guy out of office, I don't know what is.