In a strange way, Alterman makes sense. He's honoring Zinni, Shinseki, and Clark for being brave (standing up to the Bushies) more than for their actual opinions.Their opinions haven't changed. But with the shift of power in DC and the resulting change in the location of the "center," they went from being marginally left-of-center to be marginally right-of-center. (The position of the new DP leaders isn't very good by my standards.) Then Alterman could argue that these three helped cause the shift of power.
On 11/15/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Eric Alterman: I've picked a short (representative) Honor Roll of people in a variety of fields whose prescience and patriotism led them to risk their positions and/or prestige in public life to warn their nation of impending catastrophe: Soldier. On October 10, 2002, Maj. Gen. Anthony Zinni (Ret.), former chief of US Central Command, gave a speech in Washington in which he repeated numerous points he'd made during the run-up to war (and which cost him his appointment as George W. Bush's special envoy to the Middle East). "If we think there is a fast solution to changing the governance of Iraq," Zinni warned, "then we don't understand history, the nature of the country, the divisions or the underneath suppressed passions that could rise up. God help us if we think this transition will occur easily." Honorable mention goes to: Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was cashiered after accurately informing Congress that the occupation of Iraq would require "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers"; and Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.), who predicted that the result of a unilateral US invasion would be "to supercharge recruiting for Al Qaeda." full: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060417/liberalmedia === November 15, 2006 Military Analysis Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say By MICHAEL R. GORDON WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — One of the most resonant arguments in the debate over Iraq holds that the United States can move forward by pulling its troops back, as part of a phased withdrawal. If American troops begin to leave and the remaining forces assume a more limited role, the argument holds, it will galvanize the Iraqi government to assume more responsibility for securing and rebuilding Iraq. This is the case now being argued by many Democrats, most notably Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who asserts that the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq should begin within four to six months. But this argument is being challenged by a number of military officers, experts and former generals, including some who have been among the most vehement critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies. Anthony C. Zinni, the former head of the United States Central Command and one of the retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, argued that any substantial reduction of American forces over the next several months would be more likely to accelerate the slide to civil war than stop it. "The logic of this is you put pressure on Maliki and force him to stand up to this," General Zinni said in an interview, referring to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. "Well, you can't put pressure on a wounded guy. There is a premise that the Iraqis are not doing enough now, that there is a capability that they have not employed or used. I am not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence." Instead of taking troops out, General Zinni said, it would make more sense to consider deploying additional American forces over the next six months to "regain momentum" as part of a broader effort to stabilize Iraq that would create more jobs, foster political reconciliation and develop more effective Iraqi security forces. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/washington/15military.html === Democrats Must Offer A New Blueprint for Iraq By Scott Ritter, AlterNet Posted on November 15, 2006, Printed on November 15, 2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/44295/ With the dramatic victory of the Democratic Party in the recent mid-term elections, winning as it did a majority in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, there appear to be heightened expectations in many corners of the United States that this new Congress will be able to somehow act on the expectations of the American people and help President Bush chart a new policy course in Iraq. The resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, together with the appointment of the former CIA Director Bob Gates, represents a transition from ideology to pragmatism in a Defense Department torn apart by the ongoing debacle in Iraq. Mr. Gates not only represents a break from the Rumsfeldian past, but also brings with him his recent participation in the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan committee tasked with exploring new policy directions for the United States in Iraq. The political astuteness of the decision by President Bush to replace Rumsfeld with Gates has escaped notice by many Democrats, who seem inclined simply to gloat over the demise of their archenemy. However, removing Rumsfeld not only eliminated an all-too convenient lightening rod for democratic angst over Bush's Iraq policies, but also, by putting Gates up in his stead, bought the Bush administration much needed political breathing room, as Gate's cannot be held accountable for policy failures he had nothing to do with either formulating or implementing. Indeed, given the fact that the Democrats have as of yet failed to articulate anything that remotely resembles a sound policy option regarding Iraq, instead falling back on the age-old tradition of criticizing without offering a solution of their own, a Gates controlled Defense Department will be almost untouchable from an oversight perspective, especially if Gates chooses to act on any of the policy options the Baker-led Iraq Study Group may recommend to the President. (clip) -- www.marxmail.org
-- Jim Devine / "That's free enterprise, friends: freedom to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great thing -- the truly democratic thing about it -- is that you don't even have to be a player to lose." -- Barbara Ehrenreich.
