NYT on the Generals' Revolt

Coming as it does after years of promoting Judith Miller and other liars on their front page - which some have seen as either craven kowtowing to the power elites or else burying their heads in the sand - the editors of the New York Times seem to have thrown caution to the wind and published a scathing article critical of this sitting president's conduct of the Iraq occupation, and specifically how his administration - and Donald Rumsfeld in particular - using the very generals various news programs call upon to give unbiased, professional military commentary - attempted to mold public perceptions about the situation on the ground in Iraq with what can only be characterized as no less than an illegal PsyOps against the American people. In other words, brainwashing by the Pentagon.

Given the track record of the entire mainstream media and its (choose one) naive, cynical or manipulative reporting (or lack) of the Long War, I am moved to ask the following:

Q: Are the Bilderbergs actually beginning to think that this engineered recession might not be such a good idea after all, and looked the other way as the NYT published this article? or,

Q: Is the NYT becoming a real newspaper again, and published this article despite the Bilderbergs?

Q: Are the Cowboys beginning to lose ground to the Yankees in the war for the Republic? (1) (2) (3)

Q: Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Q: Will the Chicago Cubs take the pennant this year, or will they wimp out and blame it on the start of WWIII?


Inquiring minds want to know.


Thanks and a tip 'o the hat to Chris Locke

Update: PDF of a transcript of one of Rumsfeld's meeting with his pet media generals is here.

Update: Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, in an interview with the Guardian newspaper yesterday talked about the travel plans of the Bush administration lawyers who wrote the Guantanamo torture memos,

"Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and - at the apex - Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court."

current-events

Surge more like tidal wave

At first I thought that the "surge" proposed by the Shrub (21,500 men and women) was the total number of troops to be thrown into Iraq. One would normally divide this figure by two or even three to arrive at the actual number of fighting forces, with the rest as support personnel (motor pool, intel, quartermaster corps, etc.) to arrive at a real total of shooters of about four to six thousand. It turns out that anybody who was assuming that 21 thousand plus is the total number of troops to be sent to Iraq is flat out mistaken.

From TPM MUckraker.com:

An analysis released today by the Congressional Budget Office shows that the administration, in its public comments, has vastly underestimated the actual number of extra troops that will be deployed to Iraq under the president's "surge" plan.

The administration's estimate of approximately 21,000 extra troops only counts combat units, according to the analysis, and because combat units require support forces, the actual number of additional troops who will be in Iraq will likely exceed 35,000.

So not only are we expected to put an additional 21 thousand plus ground pounders at risk, we're adding an extra 12 to 14 thousand troops as potential targets.

Which still leaves unanswered, where the hell are we going to get these folks from?