Friday, June 25, 2010

McChrystal's Lament / The Wimps Strike Back

McCHRYSTAL'S LAMENT / THE WIMPS STRIKE BACK

















The true test of a person's character is not how they handle adversity but how they handle power. General McChrystal has obviously failed that test but the White house wimps have little to celebrate in occupied Afghanistan. McChrystal is a clear symbol of a corrupt and failed Obama / Patraeus policy: Allen L Roland

Gen mMcChrystal's recent blatant act of self-sabotage is symbolic of a failed Obama Afghanistan policy where General Patreaus has now assumed control of the badly floundering Titanic. So the deck chairs have been re-arranged but the ship is still steaming full speed ahead into the Bermuda Triangle of Empires ~ the killing poppy fields of Afghanistan,

" While McChrystal's comments were highly improper, they will strike many observers as having a ring of truth. Even if the president gives the general the ax, the whole episode is further grist for the developing media narrative of an administration that is incompetent and adrift." ~ Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

As Joshua Holland / AlterNet correctly writes ~ regarding MIchael Hastings's Rolling Stone article on McChrystal and Afghanistan ~ " Hastings told a tale of a project with no hope for success. His story shows us that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is all about tactics dressed up as a strategy. It’s a profile of a military establishment running on inertia ~ unable to withdraw because withdrawing is an admission of defeat, but also unable to accomplish the wholly unrealistic tasks put before it."

This is perhaps the most revealing passage from Hastings’ Rolling Stone report:

" [Team Obama] are trying to manipulate perceptions because there is no definition of victory ~ because victory is not even defined or recognizable," says Celeste Ward, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation who served as a political adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq in 2006..."

American Progress Report writes "The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country," says a new congressional report. The report says the security arrangements "violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations."

As to General Patraeus, the butcher of Baghdad will now become the butcher of Kabul and bring with him the same soiled baggage he accumulated in Iraq. In particular, Gregg Mitchell's updated 2008 article on Petreaus' close link to the infamous 2005 suicide in Iraq by top officer and ethicist, Col. Ted Westhusing.

Excerpt: " The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious and seriously underreported problem. One of the few high-profile cases involves a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing ~ who, in his 2005 suicide note, pointed a finger at a then little-known U.S. general named David Petraeus. Westhusing's widow, asked by a friend what killed this West Point scholar, had replied simply: "Iraq."

Now there is a disturbing update on this case.
" Before putting a bullet through his head, Westhusing had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis. His suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on "corruption, human right abuses and liars." One of those commanders: the future leader of the "surge" campaign in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/gen-petraeus-and-a-high-l_b_94458.html

Shades of Pat Tillman ~ another patriot supposedly felled by friendly fire before telling his truth before the 2004 election. Col. Westhusing was another Patriot who saw the moral corruption and abuses of Iraq and was silenced ~ and his supposed suicide remains a question mark. McChrystal's resume also was sullied by a controversy in that same theater: the misclassified death of Pat Tillman ~ and McChrystal reported to Gen Patraeus. In many ways, the devil's advocate has been replaced by the devil himself as Patraeus replaces McChrystal in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is a living moral nightmare and McChrystal's resignation is a blinking red light that something is going terribly wrong in this illegal and corrupt occupation ~ not war.

Stop funding this corrupt and scandalous operation before we go morally and financially bankrupt.

Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/mcchrystals-lament-wimps-strike-back.html

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Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his
weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Cartoon courtesy of Pat Oliphant / Washington Post


ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

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