Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Macnamara's Advice to Bush, One War Criminal to Another.....

host · 05-13-2008, 01:34 AM

I'm wondering if a military led coup, run by frustrated officers who are shocked by the behavior and decisions of their CIC and some of their fellow officers, would even be a bad thing, anymore.

My last posts details the ruling made by a military judge, ordering USAF Gen. Thomas Hartmann, Legal Advisor in the Hamdan gitmo prosecution, to stay away from that case, along with his staff, and not to retaliate against officers who protested Hartmann's unehtical, conflicted, an unprofessional, blatantly politicized behavior.

Today, we have this new example, a prominent, fast track for promotion, high ranking US Army General who would probably serve his country better if he resigned:

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...lman-book.html
Pat Tillman's mother recalls journey for facts in new book

By Scott Lindlaw and Martha Mendoza
ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:54 p.m. May 12, 2008

Frustrated by shifting accounts of her son Pat's death, Mary Tillman sat down with Army officers and got in their faces.

“Colonel, we were given the wrong information,” she recalls telling Col. James Nixon, her son's regimental commander, according to her new book. “If the Army knew he was killed by friendly fire, why were we and the media told he was killed by the enemy and that there were nine enemy dead and all that rubbish?”

“Ma'am, we didn't want to give you false information. No one has deliberately tried to hide anything,” replied Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Pat Tillman's platoon.

Mrs. Tillman recalled thinking to herself: “Everyone appears to be lying.”

In “Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman,” Mary Tillman charts her family's efforts to cut through misleading official accounts of how the one-time NFL star died as a U.S. Army Ranger in Afghanistan. It was just issued by Modern Times books.

The Army told the Tillman family and the public Tillman was killed in an enemy ambush April 22, 2004. It waited about five weeks after it suspected friendly fire was involved before disclosing Tillman's own Ranger comrades shot him in what investigators concluded was a series of terrible mistakes.

“Boots on the Ground by Dusk” is based on Mrs. Tillman's review of thousands of pages of investigative documents stemming from Pat Tillman's death. The Associated Press and some other news organizations have reported on the contents of those reports, but lawmakers granted Mrs. Tillman access to uncensored versions of some documents that were not available to journalists.

Citing documents and eyewitness accounts, Mrs. Tillman says she strongly suspects the men who shot her son stepped out of a Humvee to take aim carefully at him. They were not, as official accounts have asserted, speeding by on a bumpy mountain road. The shooters denied this.

At an Army briefing at the end of one investigation, Mrs. Tillman vents frustration and incredulity at lead investigator Brig. Gen. Gary Jones. He had dismissed the account of Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was just a few feet away from Tillman when the Rangers lit up their position with gunfire.

“No one got out of the vehicle. That early information is incorrect, and O'Neal is the least reliable witness because he was so traumatized,” Jones tells Mrs. Tillman, according to the author.

“You won't believe O'Neal, but you'll believe the guys who were shooting at him!” Mrs. Tillman says.

The book reveals that Bailey wrote an angry e-mail to O'Neal last year when O'Neal told a congressional committee Bailey had ordered him to keep quiet about what he had seen.

Mrs. Tillman reserves special contempt <h3>for Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, currently the commander of the “black ops” Joint Special Operations Command. Just a day after approving a Silver Star medal claiming Tillman had been cut down by “devastating enemy fire,” McChrystal tried to secretly warn President Bush that the story might not be true. The AP obtained and published the memo last year.

“Not only is he lying about the circumstances surrounding Pat's death, as enemy fire had ceased many minutes before, he is proposing false language for the Silver Star narrative,” Mrs. Tillman writes of the Silver Star language. “The false narrative, which McChrystal clearly helped construct, diminished Pat's true actions.”</h3>

The Pentagon recommended last year that McChrystal be held accountable for “misleading” actions, but the Army overruled the recommendation.

Last year the Army censured a retired three-star general, Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, for misleading investigators in the Tillman case. Specifically, a military review found “compelling evidence that Kensinger learned of suspected fratricide well before the memorial service (about two weeks after Tillman's death) and provided misleading testimony” on that issue.

New documents obtained by The AP under the Freedom of Information Act may explain why the Army felt so confident Kensinger had lied.

In a November 2006 written response to investigators, Nixon said he recalled telling Kensinger almost immediately of the possibility of friendly fire.

“I thought I did notify LTG Kensinger that there was a potential for fratricide and that we were beginning an investigation but can not recall the specific conversation,” Nixon wrote in an e-mail message. It was a follow-up to investigators who had interviewed him previously.

Nixon also recalled telling Kensinger's deputy, Brig. Gen. Howard Yellen.

Yellen has testified previously that he told Kensinger of the possibility of friendly fire the day after Tillman's death.

The defense department is trying to pomote this general notwithstanding his involvement in two ongoing scandals:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...0101728_5.html
Page 5 of 5 <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/05/01/BL2008050101728_4.html">< Back</a>
Five Years After 'Mission Accomplished'

.....<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/usa.guantanamo" target="">Elana Schor</a> writes for the Guardian: "A legal brief that exempted the US military from criminal laws following the 9/11 attacks was improperly kept classified for years, the former head of the US government agency in charge of document secrecy said today.


"The March 2003 brief, which allowed Pentagon interrogators to claim self-defence in sidestepping laws against torture, was made public earlier this month.


"J William Leonard, who directed George Bush's information security oversight office until last year, today told Congress that the document never should have been classified in the first place.



"'To learn that such a document was classified had the same effect on me as waking up one morning and learning that after all these years, there is a "secret" article to the constitution that the American people do not even know about,' Leonard said."


And then there's the matter of Bush's attitude toward executive orders.


<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/washington/01justice.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all" target="">Scott Shane and David Johnston</a> write in the New York Times that at the same hearing, senior Justice Department official John P. Elwood "disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities. Mr. Elwood acknowledged that the administration believed that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he or other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation.



"Mr. Elwood, citing a 1980s precedent, said there was nothing new or unusual about such a view.

<h3>
"Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, challenged Mr. Elwood, saying the administration's legal stance would let it secretly operate programs that are at odds with public executive orders that to all appearance remain in force. . . .</h3>


"Mr. Whitehouse, who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, has said the administration's contention that it can selectively modify executive orders 'turns The Federal Register into a screen of falsehoods behind whose phony regulations lawless programs can operate in secret.'"


Whitehouse discussed this, among other concerns, in a <a href="http://whitehouse.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=288537" target="">Dec. 7 floor speech</a>, in which he summarized Bush's position on executive orders as: "I don't have to follow my own rules, and I don't have to tell you when I'm breaking them."



Whitehouse offered this example of the stakes: "Bear in mind that the so-called Protect America Act that was stampeded through this great body in August provides no -- zero -- statutory protections for Americans traveling abroad from government wiretapping. . . .


"The only restriction is an executive order called <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12333.htm" target="">12333</a>, which limits executive branch surveillance to Americans who the Attorney General determines to be agents of a foreign power. That's what the executive order says.


"But what does this administration say about executive orders? . . .


"'Whenever (the President) wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order,' he may do so because 'an executive order cannot limit a President.' And he doesn't have to change the executive order, or give notice that he's violating it, because by 'depart(ing) from the executive order,' the President 'has instead modified or waived it.'


"So unless Congress acts, here is what legally prevents this President from wiretapping Americans traveling abroad at will: nothing. Nothing."



<a href="http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0408/043008v1.htm" target="">Rafael Enrique Valero</a> writes for Government Executive that Leonard, the former secrecy czar, suggested another possibility: That Bush "could change an order governing secrecy and do so in secret, all unbeknownst to Congress and the courts, as if Louis Carroll, George Orwell and Franz Kafka all conspired to come up with the ultimate recipe for unchecked executive power."


Statements prepared for the hearing are available <a href="http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3305" target="">here</a>.


<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003203.html" target="">Carrie Johnson</a> writes in The Washington Post about the one administration concession of the day: "The Justice Department yesterday agreed to grant lawmakers limited access to secret memos that authorized CIA interrogation strategies, an offer that Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) immediately criticized as 'certainly too late . . . and too little, as well.'



"Bowing to intense pressure from congressional Democrats, senior Justice officials said they soon will release unredacted versions of memos drafted by staff members in the department's Office of Legal Counsel. Several of the controversial memos have been repudiated while others remain under fire from critics who say they encourage torture and civil liberties abuses. . . .


"Feingold, who presided over a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday on excessive government secrecy, said that access to the memos would come with strings attached that would make it difficult for lawmakers to conduct a thorough review.


"Under the terms of the arrangement, for instance, the members would not be able to keep paper or electronic copies of the documents.


"'We have had the most god-awful fight getting these opinions,' added Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). 'There's an absolute stone wall being thrown up around this stuff.'"



Torture Watch 



<a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZBw6W3yHB9rfuHrYlJ2k0iVjQzQD90CJCC00" target="">Adam Goldman</a> writes for the Associated Press: "The military continued to use abusive interrogation methods on detainees after a 2003 directive meant to end such practices, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday after reviewing newly released documents.


"The Department of Defense documents shed light on the use of psychologists in military interrogations and the failure of medical workers to report abuse of detainees, the ACLU said.


"'The documents reveal that psychologists and medical personnel played a key role in sustaining prisoner abuse -- a clear violation of their ethical and legal obligations,' ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said. . . .


"The report was largely disclosed in 2005, and a declassified version of the review was made public last year. Some of the documents were initially redacted because they were classified, Singh said. The government claimed that if the information were released it would cause serious damage to national security. The newly released documents are part of the Church Report not previously released.



"Singh called the government's argument bogus, saying it furthered a pattern 'of claiming national security as pretext for withholding information to cover up embarrassing information.'"


There's more on the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/35111prs20080430.html" target="">ACLU Web site</a>.


<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120959895479257747.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_rightbox" target="">Yochi J. Dreazen</a> writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required):<h3> "Lawmakers have delayed a top general's nomination for a key position assisting the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of questions about detainee abuse by forces under his command, according to the Pentagon and people familiar with the matter.</h3>


"<h3>The impasse involves Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a fast-rising officer who oversaw the secretive Special Operations units, including the Army's storied Delta Force, responsible for hunting high-ranking Islamic militants in both Iraq and Afghanistan. . . .</h3>



"Investigators from the ACLU and human-rights organizations have long charged that elite forces received written directives from higher-ranking officers allowing them to use physical interrogation techniques that were off-limits to conventional forces."



FISA Watch 


<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/134930" target="">Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball</a> write for Newsweek: "The Bush administration is refusing to disclose internal e-mails, letters and notes showing contacts with major telecommunications companies over how to persuade Congress to back a controversial surveillance bill, according to recently disclosed court documents.


"The existence of these documents surfaced only in recent days as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by a privacy group called the <a href="http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/cases/C-07-05278" target="">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>. The foundation . . . is seeking information about communications among administration officials, Congress and a battery of politically well-connected lawyers and lobbyists hired by such big telecom carriers as AT&amp;T and Verizon. Court papers recently filed by government lawyers in the case confirm for the first time that since last fall unnamed representatives of the telecoms phoned and e-mailed administration officials to talk about ways to block more than 40 civil suits accusing the companies of privacy violations because of their participation in a secret post-9/11 surveillance program ordered by the White House."



Meanwhile, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/domestic_spying_4" target="">Matt Apuzzo</a> writes for the Associated Press: "The nation's spy court approved a record number of requests to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies last year, the Justice Department said Wednesday.


"The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 2,370 warrants last year targeting people in the United States believed to be linked to international terror organizations.


"That figure represents a 9 percent increase over 2006. The number of warrants has more than doubled since the terrorist attacks of 2001. . . .


"The court denied three warrant applications in full and partially denied one, the Justice Department said. Eighty-six times judges sent requests back to the government for changes before approving them."




Another Perino Dodge 


Blogger <a href="http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15393.html" target="">Steve Benen</a> writes: "It's been nearly two weeks since the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?ex=1366344000&en=196b27df83cc255c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all" target="">New York Times</a> first reported on a Pentagon program in which retired military officers, who've since become lobbyists or consultants for military contractors, were recruited to become propaganda agents of the Bush administration. Throughout the war in Iraq, these retired officers -- or 'message multipliers,' as they were described by internal Defense Department documents -- took on roles as military analysts for all of the major news networks, without noting their puppet-like relationships with the Pentagon. . . .



"At yesterday's White House <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080430-5.html" target="">press briefing</a>, Raw Story reporter Eric Brewer had raised his hand to ask a question for quite a while. Dana Perino ignored him until others intervened, urging Perino to call on him.


"Brewer, after noting that the retired officers' access was cut off if they departed from the Pentagon's talking points, asked, '[D]id the White House know about and approve of this operation?'"


Perino didn't answer directly. "I think that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it," she said.


But Benen writes how disingenuous that response really was: "The press secretary's spin makes it sound quite innocuous. . . . In reality, however, this was as sophisticated a media-manipulation scheme as anything the Bush gang has hatched to date."

.....

Generals Thomas Hartmann and Stanley McChrystal, a couple of chips off their CIC's "block"....the pre-repentant Robert McNamara would be proud of all of them!

Here's the CIC, his Defense Sec'ty and his national security team described, as they set us up for failure, from the outset, in Iraq:

Quote:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_s...-of-two-i.html
A Tale of Two Incompetents (Bush and Rumsfeld)

.....This is the characteristic Rumsfeld style; cruel, manipulative, unconcerned with the truth, eager to escape responsibility for failure. He knows these generals are completely self-serving careerists and that they can be made to do anything that is desired by the implied or direct promise of reward or the threat of punishment. These modern generals have been cultivatd like plants to have the reactions of people on the way up in the business world where the war of "all against all" is the underlying psychological paragdigm. The inappropriateness of this mind set in the military world where cooperation and self sacrifice are called for completely escapes Rumsfeld. For the blind, selfish narrowmindedness that leads to that fatal incomprehension, Rumsfeld must be judged incompetent. pl....

Colonel W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...6831-3,00.html
How Much Did Rumsfeld Know?
Thursday, May. 01, 2008

Giambastiani assigned the task to the Joint Warfighting Center and gave them a pretty tight timeline. So it wasn't long before I was giving the investigative team a complete rundown of everything that had happened in Iraq between May and June 2003. I later learned that Gen. Tommy Franks, however, had refused to speak with them.

A few months later, I was making a presentation at the Joint Warfighting Center and ran across several of the people involved with the study. "Say, did you guys ever complete that investigation?" I asked.

"Oh, yes sir. We sure did," came the reply. "And let me tell you, it was ugly."

"Ugly?" I asked.

"Yes, sir. Our report validated everything you told us — that Franks issued the orders to discard the original twelve-to-eighteen-month occupation deployment, that the forces were drawing down, that we were walking away from the mission, and that everybody knew about it. And let me tell you, the Secretary did not like that one bit. After we went in to brief him, he just shut us down. 'This is not going anywhere,' he said. 'Oh, and by the way, leave all the copies right here and don't talk to anybody about it.'"

"You mean he embargoed all the copies of the report?" I asked.

"Yes, sir, he did."

From that, my belief was that Rumsfeld's intent appeared to be to minimize and control further exposure within the Pentagon and to specifically keep this information from the American public.

Continuing the conversation, I inquired about the "original twelve-to-eighteen-month occupation deployment," because I wasn't sure what he was talking about. It turned out that the investigative team was so thorough, they had actually gone back and looked at the original operational concept that had been prepared by CENTCOM (led by Gen. Franks) before the invasion of Iraq was launched. It was standard procedure to present such a plan, which included such things as: timing for predeployment, deployment, staging for major combat operations, and postdeployment. The concept was briefed up to the highest levels of the U.S. government, including the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, and the President of the United States.

And the investigators were now telling me that the plan called for a Phase IV (after combat action) operation that would last twelve to eighteen months.

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I had never seen any approved CENTCOM campaign plan, either conceptual or detailed, for the post�major combat operations phase. When I was on the ground in Iraq and saw what was going on, I assumed they had done zero Phase IV planning. Now, three years later, I was learning for the first time that my assumption was not completely accurate. In fact, CENTCOM had originally called for twelve to eighteen months of Phase IV activity with active troop deployments. But then CENTCOM had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over and Phase IV was not their job.

That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.

There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.

In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.
From the book Wiser in Battle. Copyright � 2008 by Ricardo S. Sanchez. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Quote:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_s.../05/index.html

Admiral's Mullen's attitude

"Offering an unusual insight into how senior military leaders are anticipating the transition to a new president, Mullen said he is continually thinking about how military decisions taken today will play out under a new administration.

"There are very few either briefings or meetings that I'm in that I'm not thinking about 'How does what we're talking about right now transition to next spring?' " Mullen said. He said U.S. commanders in regions overseas, as well as chiefs of the different services, <h3>are having similar discussions.</h3>

The transition is unlikely to be smooth, predicted Mullen, who assumed his position seven months ago for a two-year term. <h3>He said he hopes to offer a stabilizing influence</h3> as a military leader who will bridge two administrations.

"We will be tested. . . . <h3>I'm preparing that this country will be tested</h3>, and I have a role in that regard, certainly providing advice to whoever the new president's going to be," he said. He said his current priority is to develop military strategies for the Middle East and the globe to "tee up" for a new president.

Specifically, Mullen said he hopes that the change in politically appointed leaders will unfold at a wartime pace, rather than at a "peacetime" one. <h3>"I think it's important for us to get as many principals in positions as rapidly as possible in a time of war," he said. "</h3> Tyson

---------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps Tyson is trying to stimulate discomfort with the idea of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff talking about getting "as many principals in positions as rapidly as possible." If that is so, then she has succeeded with me. Mullen is talking about politically appointed civilians in that last sentence, civilians nominated by the president for confirmation by the senate of the United States.

<h2>What business is that of his?....</h2>

......You have to wonder how much Admiral Mullen's fretting is caused by the prospect of a Democratic Administration. Perhaps the new president should consider the suitability of present leadership in the Pentagon. pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...4/30/AR2008043

Tuesday
May 13, 2008

OPINION DETAILS

Change At The Top Posted 2008-05-07
What The Military Thinks Of The Race

The nation hasn't given much thought to this variable in the political equation, but perhaps it should: No matter who wins the presidency this November, whether Republican John McCain or either of the two Democrats (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) beating each other to a pulp rhetorically, the military will have a new commander-in-chief come January.

What do our men and women in uniform think about such a change?

Well, for one thing, they know it's coming and, hence, have already started preparing for the transition. They understand this inevitable changing of the guard will be a "time of vulnerability" as America will still find itself engaged in two wars.

The military's administrative leader, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael G. Mullen, labels the looming change "extraordinarily challenging." Mullen is particularly concerned about Iran, which revels in its role as agent provocateur, supplying weapons, know-how, and money to terrorist elements in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And speaking of the status quo in general, Adm. Mullen told The Washington Post that rarely a day goes by that he doesn't find himself thinking, "How does what we're talking about right now transition to next spring?"

He senses that the change is not likely to be seamless. Still, no matter who is elected, the bottom line for America's fighting force remains the same: "We will be tested," Adm. Mullen says. "I'm preparing that this country will be tested, and I have a role in that regard, certainly providing advice to whoever the new president's going to be."

We happen to believe that advice would be far better received, and followed, if that new commander-in-chief is Mr. McCain, an old warrior, rather than Mrs. Clinton, who once expressed "loathing" for the military, or Mr. Obama, a defense and foreign policy naif.

http://www.dailynews-record.com/opin...=16649&CHID=36

....and I think Col. W. Patrick Lang has Adm. Mullen "pegged" and the "Daily News Record of Harrisonburg, VA, confirms what Col, Lang and I suspect about Adm. Mullen. He needs to resign now....his arrogant and paritsan politcal attitude render him incapable of following orders from anyone except president Cheney or John McCain. At least we know, now.

<h3>Citizen to Gen. Hartmann, Gen. McChrystal, and Adm. Mullen....you're not supposed to be obviously partisan, unethical, or order or ignore war crimes; you're not to act in a partisan polical manner, at all !!!</h3>

Our military leadership seems as pathetic as our elected leadership, sheesh !