You Know We're Really Screwed When ... Even The Anti-War Propaganda Has A Pro-War Bias

At A Tiny Revolution (good blog!), Jonathan Schwarz has been highlighting a new book by former U.S. Army colonel Andrew Bacevich [photo], who is now a professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

Bacevich's new book is called "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism" and in it he hits some "notes" that I consider "right", such as the assertion (which is, or is close to, the central thesis of his book) that

the lessons drawn from America's post-9/11 military experience are the wrong ones.

I agree with Bacevich when he says

America doesn't need a bigger army. It needs a smaller -- that is, more modest -- foreign policy.

But I found it hard not to gag when I read:

Far from producing a stampede of eager recruits keen to don a uniform, the events of 9/11 reaffirmed a widespread popular preference for hiring someone else's kid to chase terrorists, spread democracy, and ensure access to the world's energy reserves.

"What does Bacevich want," I asked myself, "300 million Pat Tillmans?"

YES.

Andrew Bacevich continues:

In the midst of a global war of ostensibly earthshaking importance, Americans demonstrated a greater affinity for their hometown sports heroes than for the soldiers defending the distant precincts of the American imperium. Tom Brady makes millions playing quarterback in the NFL and rakes in millions more from endorsements. Pat Tillman quit professional football to become an army ranger and was killed in Afghanistan. Yet, of the two, Brady more fully embodies the contemporary understanding of the term patriot.

Just so we have this straight: Pat Tillman [photo] was an exceptionally gifted athlete, with extraordinary courage, above-average intelligence and a solid moral core. He wasn't quite sharp enough to see that 9/11 was a fraud, so he threw away his stardom and his multi-million-dollar career, joined the Army, became a Ranger, went to Afghanistan, saw for himself what the war was about ... and decided to do something about it.

For his efforts he was promptly drilled three times in the forehead by his own "friends", who then burned his uniform and disappeared his diary, and whose superiors lied to Tillman's parents and put them through hell.

Then those same "leaders" lied to the nation, too, in a cheap and sleazy fiction whose only possible purpose was to make political hay out of Pat Tillman's murder -- specifically denying the basic truth that our hero had seen -- too late! -- but couldn't be allowed to express.

And Andrew Bacevich, the former Army colonel and supposedly anti-war author, would clearly like to see more people do the same thing Pat Tillman did, so we won't have to hire "someone else's kid to chase terrorists", let alone "spread democracy"...

Oh, spreading democracy?

Is that what we're doing there? Nobody told me ...

But seriously, if this sort of "anti-war" posturing is the best we can get, shame on us all.

On second thought, shame on us all, anyway.

~~~

UPDATE: Here's a bit more of Bacevich's pro-war "wisdom", from Bill Moyers via Chris Floyd:

"The pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism, has induced a condition of dependence on imported goods, on imported oil, and on credit. The chief desire of the American people is that nothing should disrupt their access to these goods, that oil, and that credit. The chief aim of the U.S. government is to satisfy that desire, which it does in part of through the distribution of largesse here at home, and in part through the pursuit of imperial ambitions abroad."

Oh, please! We're fighting in Iraq so we can have cheap oil? Sorry -- that doesn't wash with me at all. We could have had every drop of that oil for a quarter of what we're paying now, if we'd just left Iraq in peace and bought it. But that's not what our government wanted to do. It wanted to steal the oil from the Iraqi people and give it to the richest corporations on the planet.

The more I read of Andrew Bracevich, the less I like him. But I suppose this is the best we're ever gonna get from a career Army man. The Kool-Aid just rots your brain after a while, I guess.

An Open Letter To Andrew Bracevich:

Listen up, sir! It's been a long time since the "chief aim of the U.S. government" was "to satisfy" the "desire" of its people, sir!

Heck, it's been a long time since the U.S. government stopped pretending that it had any interest at all in satisfying the desire of its people, sir!

Where you been, sir?

Ah, right: over at the Kool-Aid dispenser.

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Surprises Everywhere

"Hope for the best, but expect the worst," said my mother, the Winter Matriarch. Her advice has come in very handy lately, under the volcano of impending tyranny. My expectations are continually being met -- and quite often exceeded! Thus ...

George Bush says Karl Rove is protected under Executive Privilege and orders him not to testify before Congress, despite -- or maybe because of -- a subpoena he received last week. So Rove's aide shows up and ducks all the questions on his behalf.

The BBC says British troops are stressed out.

More than 1500 "Liberal bloggers" are expected for the second annual YearlyKos Convention. The press and seven of the eight declared Democratic candidates will be there. Joe Biden and I will be elsewhere.

The South African cricketers are getting set for a visit to Pakistan but nervous about security and asking for the list of venues to be reviewed.

"They are not comfortable with Peshawar," PCB [Pakistan Cricket Board] sources said.

Australia's A side are due to visit Pakistan in September. If the South Africans are nervous about security, what must the Australians be thinking? Hint: How many South African troops are involved in the GWOT?

You heard it here first.

Former Secretary of Defense Ronald H. Dumsfeld and some other current and former brass were questioned by a congressional oversight panel which learned nothing of value; the New York Times ran a "news" article (or here) which buried all the key questions in the introduction, like so:

With Donald H. Rumsfeld seated at the witness table, the chairman of a House committee investigating the bungled aftermath of the friendly fire death of Cpl. Pat Tillman told a packed Capitol Hill hearing room Wednesday that the time had come for some answers. What did Mr. Rumsfeld and other top Defense Department officials know about Corporal Tillman’s accidental killing by American forces, he asked, and when did they know it?

They're still trying to unravel the coverup, and asking "Who knew what when?" But no attention at all is paid to the central question: What happened to Pat Tillman? This is the standard operating procedure, exactly what the media -- even much of the supposedly dissident media -- have done since Tillman's murder. Damned "Liberal media."

Larisa Alexandrovna reports that the Bush administration has been covertly arming Gulf states since 2004.

The administration has also kept secret a court ruling that its illegal surveillance program is illegal.

Bush has declared a state of emergency based on some unspecified threat to the government of Lebanon and claimed even more anti-Constitutional powers.

A Marine has been convicted of murder in Iraq.

USA Today has yet another appalling human-interest propaganda piece.

When Steve Yelda, a 17-year-old Iraqi high school student, visits the Al-Ameer market, he heads straight for the Pringles display case.

"The taste," Yelda said, "is incredible."

Watch out for all the salt, Steve. In Baghdad there's no running water, or very little; some people have had none for weeks; they have electricity a couple of hours a day if they're lucky; daytime temperatures have been approaching 50C (120F) and the search for ice has become deadly.

In perhaps the biggest surprise of all, Feds Look the Other Way While United Fruit Company Peddles Death and Corruption in Latin America. As Chris Floyd points out, this story "could have been written any time in the last 100 years or more".

This -- all this! -- is the fruit of our hard-earned tax dollars at work, not to mention a broken electoral system, a corrupted congress, a predisposed supreme court, a lapdog media, a touch of transparently false-flag terror and an endless repetition of the emergency phone number "coincidentally" embodied in the date of same; and it's all brought to you by an administration whose nature is becoming increasingly obvious every day, even to those who are, shall we say, less sensitive to such things than others.

But still life goes on, almost as normal.

And all the people trapped in the lies seem like they'll be happy to replicate the fiction forever, or until it consumes them. We all know which will come first.

Meanwhile the people shedding the lies seem like they'll be unhappy forever, or until something else finally comes along and consumes them. We're going to find out more about this soon ... too soon, in my opinion.

Last but certainly not least, signs of serious trouble have been appearing in several crucial nodes of the blogosphere.

Just one surprise after another, as the last vestiges of reality slip away...

New Details Support Old Story: Pat Tillman Was Murdered!

A new report from the AP's Martha Mendoza confirms what has been obvious all along: Pat Tillman was not the victim of accidental "friendly fire".

With three bullet holes in his forehead, with his diary and uniform burned, with his opinion of the war ("so fucking illegal") well-established, with his access to mainstream American media absolutely guaranteed, there was never any reason to accept the Army's changing story of Pat Tillman's not-so-accidental death.

Quite simply, the former Arizona State and NFL star could not be allowed to return home to tell what he had seen. He couldn't even be allowed to talk to Noam Chomsky on the telephone.

According to "news" reports which have mostly tried to paint her as crazy, Pat Tillman's mother has felt all along that her son was killed deliberately -- by people who should have been on his side. I have felt the same thing ever since I heard he was dead, and especially once the details of the tragedy began to emerge.

The Army has told lie after lie after lie about this, and the media have gobbled them up, as in the following stenography by Julian E. Barnes, who disgraces the Los Angeles Times:

Tillman, the NFL player who gave up a multimillion dollar contract to enlist in the Army, was mistakenly killed in Afghanistan by another member of his platoon. The Army initially announced that Tillman died in combat and not from friendly fire. Although officers knew the truth soon after the shooting, the military waited a month before telling Tillman's family he was not killed by Afghan militants.

With "reporting" such as this "leading the way", the media have managed to contain the discussion to questions like "Did the Army lie?" and "Who in the Army lied?"

They've stayed away from more dangerous questions, like "Why did the Army lie?" and the even more explosive "Why was Pat Tillman killed?", even though the answers to these questions are entirely obvious.

One can hope -- faintly, perhaps -- that the following article will change all that ... extended excerpts from Martha Mendoza of the AP, via the Washington Post:

AP: New Details on Tillman's Death

SAN FRANCISCO -- Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors -- whose names were blacked out -- said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.

The medical examiners' suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Among other information contained in the documents:

* In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."

* Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.

* The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions.

* No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene -- no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.

The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman's death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.
...

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters and they had said no," the doctor testified.

Also according to the documents, investigators pressed officers and soldiers on a question Mrs. Tillman has been asking all along.

"Have you, at any time since this incident occurred back on April 22, 2004, have you ever received any information even rumor that Cpl. Tillman was killed by anybody within his own unit intentionally?" an investigator asked then-Capt. Richard Scott.
...

Investigators also asked soldiers and commanders whether Tillman was disliked, whether anyone was jealous of his celebrity, or if he was considered arrogant. They said Tillman was respected, admired and well-liked.

A Double Glimpse Of Truth

Reading the following article closely gives us some insight into what's really going on at Guantanamo Bay, as well as some insight into what's really going on at the Pentagon:

Pummeled MP sues Pentagon: Soldier was impersonating unruly Guantanamo detainee in training

A U.S. military policeman who was beaten by fellow MPs during a botched training drill at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for detainees has sued the Pentagon for $15 million, alleging that the incident violated his constitutional rights.

Spec. Sean Baker, 38, was assaulted in January 2003 after he volunteered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee. Baker said the MPs, who were told that he was an unruly detainee who had assaulted an American sergeant, inflicted a beating that resulted in a traumatic brain injury.
...
The Pentagon first said that Baker's hospitalization after the training incident was not related to the beating. Later, officials conceded that he had been treated for injuries suffered when a five-man MP "internal reaction force" choked him, slammed his head several times against a concrete floor and sprayed him with pepper gas.

You see? Somehow, somewhere, somebody convinced the Pentagon that lying about everything was the way to win the war.

But it's not true. Lying about everything is never the way to accomplish anything. And so ... not only are the Pentagon liars losing the war in Iraq, but they're losing it at home too. And it's because of incidents like this...

... and all the lies about the death of Pat Tillman

... and all the lies about the rescue of Jessica Lynch

... and all the lies about Iraq's fictional people-shredder

... and all the lies about the heroic fictional Iraqi rape-victim

... and I could go on and on ... I could even mention the lies about what happened on 9/11 ... but what would be the point? It only takes one lie to lose your credibility.

Oh yeah ... What credibility?

Dead Soldier's Parents Strike Back

The Washington Post has a major story on the front page today: Tillman's Parents Are Critical Of Army

Former NFL player Pat Tillman's family is lashing out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year were a sham and that Army efforts to cover up the truth have made it harder for them to deal with their loss.

More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They say the Army's "lies" about what happened have made them suspicious, and that they are certain they will never get the full story.

"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman said in her first lengthy interview since her son's death. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Sure it is! How could it not be? The fact that lying has become a way of life for the military doesn't make it any less disgusting, does it?

Tillman, a popular player for the Arizona Cardinals, gave up stardom in the National Football League after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to join the Army Rangers with his brother. After a tour in Iraq, their unit was sent to Afghanistan in spring 2004, where they were to hunt for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Shortly after arriving in the mountains to fight, Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy as he got into position to defend them.

Immediately, the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers. After a public memorial service, at which Tillman received the Silver Star, the Army told Tillman's family what had really happened, that he had been killed by his own men.

In separate interviews in their home town of San Jose and by telephone, Tillman's parents, who are divorced, spoke about their ordeal with the Army with simmering frustration and anger. A series of military investigations have offered differing accounts of Tillman's death. The most recent report revealed more deeply the confusion and disarray surrounding the mission he was on, and more clearly showed that the family had been kept in the dark about details of his death.

The latest investigation, written about by The Washington Post earlier this month, showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor.

That information was slow to make it back to the United States, the report said, and Army officials here were unaware that his death on April 22, 2004, was fratricide when they notified the family that Tillman had been shot.

Over the next 10 days, however, top-ranking Army officials -- including the theater commander, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid -- were told of the reports that Tillman had been killed by his own men, the investigation said. But the Army waited until a formal investigation was finished before telling the family -- which was weeks after a nationally televised memorial service that honored Tillman on May 3, 2004.

Patrick Tillman Sr., a San Jose lawyer, said he is furious about what he found in the volumes of witness statements and investigative documents the Army has given to the family. He decried what he calls a "botched homicide investigation" and blames high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public.

"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."

Patrick Tillman isn't the first one to accuse "people in positions of authority" of "scripting" scenes from this war. And your lowly and nearly frozen blogger has written about this kind of thing before, too (here and here, for example). Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same.

Army spokesmen maintain that the Army has done everything it can to keep the family informed about the investigation, offering to answer relatives' questions and going back to them as investigators gathered more information.

Yeah, sure they did! What do you expect them to say? Do you expect them to admit the truth?

No, you should never expect them to admit the truth. Telling the truth is not their job. Their job is killing people. That's what the military is, and that's what it's for. It's not for liberating people from their dictatorial regime. It's not for nation-building. It's not even for peace-keeping. It's for ruining things and destroying people. Let's never forget that.

Army officials said Friday that the Army "reaffirms its heartfelt sorrow to the Tillman family and all families who have lost loved ones during this war." Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, an Army spokesman, said the Army acts with compassion and heartfelt commitment when informing grieving families, often a painful duty.

"In the case of the death of Corporal Patrick Tillman, the Army made mistakes in reporting the circumstances of his death to the family," Brooks said. "For these, we apologize. We cannot undo those early mistakes."

I love the smell of bullshit in the morning! It smells like ... victory!!

Oh come on, General Brooks. Why don't you throw away your cushy job and your hefty retirement package and tell the bloody truth for a change? Mr. and Mrs. Tillman were not supposed to notice that the death of their son was being used to create a fictional heroic aura about the bumbling bloody fools who accidentally killed their own guy, and one of their best guys, too. It's bad enough that the military refuses to admit its mistakes until it is absolutely cornered. But trying to spin one of their worst mistakes into a heroic tale... is enough to make any honest patriot sick! Fortunately there are still a few of those around.

Patrick Tillman Sr. believes he will never get the truth, and he says he is resigned to that now. But he wants everyone in the chain of command, from Tillman's direct supervisors to the one-star general who conducted the latest investigation, to face discipline for "dishonorable acts." He also said the soldiers who killed his son have not been adequately punished.

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," he said. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."

That their son was famous opened up the situation to problems, the Tillmans say, in part because of the devastating public relations loss his death represented for the military. Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.

I have to say I think Mr. Tillman is right. Lying really isn't a big deal anymore ... the military lies without compunction [and sometimes they will even admit it], and the White House does it too. Then the major American media echoes the lies until it seems that they will reverberate forever.

Most of the time. But not always. Every once in a while a brave an honest patriot steps forward. And every now and then a member of the major media pushes a story about the war-deception to the forefront of the nation's news diet. Or tries to anyway. Thanks and best wishes to the Tillman family. And thanks to the Washington Post, not only for running this story but especially for putting it on the front page.

Perhaps the country will start to realize how badly it has been misled, and how horribly it has been abused. Perhaps this very sad story will be one of the many forces which move the country in the direction it now needs to go: toward skepticism about its government, toward a renewal of interest in its foreign and domestic policies, toward a badly-needed increase in energy for things political. Perhaps, this very ill nation will begin to regain its mental health. If all these things happen -- if any of these things happen -- then perhaps Pat Tillman will not have died in vain.