No Bloody Face-saving for Cowardly AWOL Bush

I found the unanimous opposition of the Joint Chiefs to the idea of throwing more troops into the fire a reassuring indication that the White House madness might not be quite as contagious as it used to be. Perhaps some have taken their shots! Most importantly, perhaps some have remembered they are supposed to have a spine.

But it was discouraging to hear today that some senior commanders as well as some troops on the ground were supposedly welcoming reinforcement. Obviously not everyone in uniform has the courage, insight, intelligence, or guts to actually consider thinking for themselves. They're trained and re-trained not to think for themselves, you understand. That's the drill. Especially in the case of the dudes with all sorts of swanky cute bars and stars on their breast and shoulders it is improbable in the extreme that they would ever publicly express an opinion in opposition to the administration. So the prior contrarian position by the Joint Chiefs should be considered earthshaking, and any subsequent obsequiousness by others merely the normal boot-licking.

Just take Colin Powell as an example. He reputedly has some decent history as a member of the military, including being the exponent of some good principles as to when and how we should even contemplate undertaking war. But today of course he is a shameful spectacle, having sold his soul to a criminal administration.

It seems essential to refute at every opportunity the idea that intelligent, well-informed but non-suborned military are generally in support of "surging" the troops in Iraq. And beyond that, it must be made clear that neither they, nor the American people, are in favor of sustaining this invasion and occupation with its dire day-to-day consequences largely to prevent sorry little George Bush from losing face.

Josh Marshall has it this way at Talking Points Memo:

Sunday's Times reports that the top US commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., is now, as the article's headline puts it, "Open to Troop Surge."

Says a 'senior Defense Department official': “They are open to the possibility of some increase in force. They are supportive of taking steps to support the Iraqis in their plan, including the possible modest augmentation in U.S. combat forces.”

This is a silly game we now seem ready to play. In theory at least, senior military commanders give frank advice to the commander-in-chief. But the president is their ultimate superior in the chain of command. They work for him. So they do what he says. Period. The only real alternative is principled resignation. But let's not get distracted from the main point. It seems clear that most of the Army brass oppose an expanded troop presence in Iraq. As the Times notes, until recently, Casey himself has "argued that sending more American forces into Baghdad and Anbar Province, the two most violent regions of Iraq, would increase the Iraqi dependency on Washington, and in the words of one senior official, 'make this feel more like an occupation.'"

The premise of this narrative is that the president is slowly persuading the generals of the logic of his position that we should escalate the conflict in Iraq by inserting however many tens of thousands of new troops into the country. But the premise is bogus because it is the duty of the three and four star generals to come around after the president does not accept their contrary opinions. He's in charge. They're not in charge. That is how we all want it to work -- though, admittedly, it is somewhat harder to stomach when the president is a stubborn, serial bumbler

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