Well, according to Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report it sure wasn’t the Democrats in Congress:
When the CIA and elements of the Pentagon do more – much more – than the Democrats to restrain the Bush gang from plunging the planet into an even wider spasm of war, it is time to recognize the absolute irrelevance of the Democratic Party – certainly, under present leadership.
Jaws dropped in capitals all around the globe when the combined intelligence agencies of the United States yanked the rationale for war with Iran, like a rug, from under George Bush’s feet. It was a mutiny, centered in the CIA and in the Pentagon’s nine separate intelligence agencies, designed to prevent Bush and Dick Cheney from expanding, against all military and political logic, their failed jihad in the Persian Gulf. Visibly startled, Bush behaved like he’d been knee-capped by his own men – which he had. The Pentagon-CIA revolt – witnessed by the entire planet – is unprecedented in modern times. Anyone who tells you differently is too blinded by imagined spy-novel schemes to recognize a mutiny when he sees it. […]
The intelligence agencies only look like temporary saviors of the planet in comparison to the Democratic Party, which has done nothing to put the brakes on the Bush-Cheney war machine, or to hold these criminals accountable for a phone book-full impeachable offenses. When spies and generals are more useful to the cause of peace than Democrats, when career intelligence officers and life-time military men conspire to derail the insane schemes of their Commander-in-Chief – yet the opposition party offers no resistance whatsoever – then one must accept that the Party is…worthless.
Please read Mr. Ford’s entire commentary. His remarks regarding the Democratic Party and its leadership are quite damning, and rightfully so.
And I can’t say I disagree with his analysis of the situation one iota. This was an unreported mutiny by the US intelligence agencies and certain high placed Pentagon Generals and Admirals (General Casey and Admiral Fallon, CENTCOM commander, to name but two) that kept Bush from advancing his plans to attack Iran, at least for now. The Democrats? They helped pass the Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment, which made Bush’s job to justify another aggressive, illegal “preventive” war against Iran easier.
What this “mutiny” says about our democracy is far more disturbing than we are being told by the national corporate news media. It means that the only real power base which can effectively assert opposition to the Bush administration is the CIA and the military. I feel fortunate that they did what they did, but fearful of what it means for future conflicts between our civilian leadership and the military and/or the intelligence community. Much as I feel we are indebted to them this time, what they did to stymie Bush sets a bad precedent for the future. We are a country predicated on the principle of civilian control over our armed forces. The military and intelligence agencies have now tasted their first victory over our civilian leaders. I doubt it will be their last, and next time their motives and agenda may be less pure.
It’s worth noting that there was opposition to the Vietnam War at high levels within the military, but the consensus was that it was better to go along with a bad war than to mutiny and take a giant step along the road to a military dictatorship.
There are worse forms of government to live under. Of all the varieties of dictatorships military dictatorships are the least likely to engage in the sort of purely ideological totalitarianism that political and religious regimes typically produce. That said, I’d really prefer to keep the republic, if we can.
One thing is certain: if we don’t want to get used to looking to the military for salvation from the civilian kookocracy, we need revolutionary reforms. Our 18th century constitution is way past its freshness date, and the anti-democratic factions in our society have figured out how to get around all of its protections and checks and balances.
prefer to keep the republic, if we can
Republic already gone. This is what government, in the post-democratic world, looks like.
Actually there were mutinies in Vietnam on the part of the troops, plus mission refusals and fragging. So one could draw a loose parallel to this situation–the intelligence “foot-soldiers” changing the situation in Iran at a time when the generals in Iraq are pushing the neocon agenda.
All the major presidential candidates have promised to base their Iraq strategies on listening to the generals. With any luck the troops in Iraq will be heard from too.
This was a veto by the cousins: a negative.
A positive is something else again, and I don’t see the US military going down that road…
The intelligence agencies are just getting even. There is nothing positive to it. We only lucked out in that this political battle happened to benefit the country. Cheney won’t be able to cherry pick and replace intelligence estimates with curveballs for awhile.
The CIA is usually a willing accomplice when an administration wants a war but Bush and Cheney have managed to piss them off. Enjoy it while it lasts they overestimated the soviets GDP for years to keep everyone freaking out. Spies are paranoid by nature and nothing has changed.
all they did was provide an intelligence assessment. What this is saying is that a refusal to fudge intel is a revolutionary act. Sadly, this says more about low expectations than anything else. Although there is some truth in those low expectations.
that they also REFUSED TO ALTER THE NIE ONE WHIT for Cheney and his henchmen. I think that probably took some doing as just LOOKING at Cheney gives me the all overs!
This time.
Finally.
Hi BooMan. It’s a pretty good chance that someone at the CIA threatened to go public with the NIE if the administration didn’t stop delaying it. The CIA tape destruction leak happened at the same time too. There looks to be some strategic whispering and gamesmanship going on, not just a refusal to fudge intelligence. I think there may be some interesting books a few years from now…..
IIRC, Cheney was hospitalized with a heart-related issue just before the release of the intelligence assessment. Is it possible that the intelligence community rebellion included a message to Cheney, something to the effect of “Screw with us again and it won’t be a clot…”?
If he had been given that message, he would not have had this look on his face on the day his office “accidentally”: cought fire.
Bet on it.
AG
reminds me of “Grandfather” in the munsters! Just the hair. The rest, including body language, looks like he is trying to get control once again.
Who killed JFK and the other leaders?
Who set up Nixon?
Who kneecapped Carter with Iran-Contra and the failed so-called hostage rescue?
Who set up Clinton and ran that knee-padded fool Lewinsky?
C’mon, folks.
Business as usual.
Just as it has been for about 50 years.
Left?
Nope.
Right?
Nope.
Just business-like.
The only change?
They have gotten better at their game.
Hidden even deeper in the layers of American society.
They now have a hand in EVERYTHING.
When something goes wrong…by their lights, anyway..,.they “fix” it.
Big Brother?
Nope.
Big Hypnotist.
Big Magician.
That Wizard behind the curtain?
He ain’t a schlemiel any more.
BET on it.
AG
You got it. People wonder why the Dems are afraid of Bush. It’s not so much Bush as the people running the country.
Fantastic post Steven. I wrote about the military angle a while back and it looks like the grownups may have wrested control for the moment. As one of your commenters said we shouldn’t depend on the military to do THAT job for us and it’s an absolutely scathing indictment of the Democratic leadership. Here’s hoping for lots of successful primary challengers on the left and a Ron Paul upset on the right.
for lack of leadership when the majority of us refuse to leave our cocoon and protest ANYTHING!
The military and intelligence agencies have now tasted their first victory over our civilian leaders. I doubt it will be their last, and next time their motives and agenda may be less pure.
I have been thinking the same thing for quite some time now. But as our political culture continues to implode, what choice do the worker bees of our national security apparatus have?
I have a terrible feeling about all of this.
AG
Which is why we can expect a purge of the CIA/Military leaders who did this.
Plan on it. It has already started.
when Bush put the repub representative in office. But after a while, with the Bushian fete accompli, the morale tanked and good people left (assuming they didn’t push the good people out the door!) The last go around, they brought back a more seasoned spook.
Their first victory over their civilian leaders? Like someone said up the thread, this is the way it’s been for the last fifty years. Better to notice it fifty years late than never, but I suspect next week people will be wondering about why Pelosi and Reid are so cowardly.
At a public forum on NAFTA about 15 years ago, in answer to a question from the audience, I made a statement that capitalism was becoming so aggressive and unbridled, that it would only continue to alienate not just what is usually thought of as the working class, but more and more sectors of society, including highly trained, highly educated professionals with plenty of skills, power and resources themselves. Although I never would have imagined it would come to the military itself, that is exactly what we’re seeing here. The “military-industrial” complex has gotten way out ahead of the military itself, and the Bush maladministration, who are nothing but the shills and lackeys of the M/I complex and the oil industry, have long since alienated the military. That is why all this talk of martial law is missing the point: No question Bush/Cheney are fascists, and the Bush family have been supporters of fascism — and I mean that literally — from almost the beginning of fascism. But the US military won’t support them.
It’s no secret that the military has been a major power base in this country for a long time now. The people of this country are opposed to the war, but for reasons that may be a little more complicated than they are often portrayed by people on the Left, they have not been effective in opposing the Bushies, although mainly in the area of congressional investigations, they have been doing some important things. But they may be the only power bloc at the moment that can effectively thwart the crazies. And thank God for that. It’s in their own interest, sure, but it just happens to be in the interest of the people of this country and the rest of the world. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I don’t see any “precedent” for the future in it. The real problem is the Democrats, and I think we already know that.
Whoever stopped the war against Iran, may be seeing a much larger picture and are beheading another beast:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18926.htm
thanks for the link to the whitney article about russia.
very informative.
“But they may be the only power bloc at the moment…”
Sorry, this wasn’t clear. I meant
“But the military may be the only power bloc at the moment…”
Declaring the military arm of a “legitimate” government to be a terrorist organization is extremely dangerous. It sets a precedent for another country to consider our own military as terrorists, and outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention. The implications of that action are far-reaching and extremely dangerous to the young men and women that we send to defend us overseas.
What could the congress have been thinking? Yes, Iran’s “government” is fractionated, and yes, at least some elements of it are supporting Hezbollah. It’s the same in Pakistan. Hell, it’s the same here. The CIA isn’t exactly supporting the Bush administration, is it? But what if Iran (legitimately) declared the CIA a terrorist organization? From their standpoint, I could think of a dozen factual situations to justify that claim. That would mean they would be severely endangered.
I’ve listened to Senator Clinton’s explanation for voting “yes” on that action, and frankly, it makes no sense at all. WHile I respect her intelligence, she seems to have been in outer space on that vote. Was it her Jewish constituency? Or her true, underlying philisophy of international relations? I’m struggling with it.
Democrats voting ‘aye’ on Kyl-Lieberman:
While there is some correlation between religious faith and this vote, it’s too small mean anything. What is obvious is that members that work on Armed Services and intelligence matters are the ones that were most likely to support it.
Correlation isn’t causation…
There may have been heavy pressure from the Israeli lobby; that same pressure might make certain people request those committee assignments.
Note: none of this is meant to defend Iran, but only to point out that this is a complex problem and calling the legitimate army of a sovereign nation a terrorist organization is a dangerous precedent. Our history of involvement in Iran is scandalous.
without any question, Jewish-Americans show a tendency to seek out positions in Congress in two main areas: foreign policy and the judiciary. I would not jump from that to the idea that the Israel lobby is behind this, although they certainly depend on it.
First of all, it is quite natural for Jewish-Americans of all political persuasions to have an interest in foreign policy and in Israel’s security. That doesn’t dictate how they view policy.
Notice, that Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden all voted against Kyl-Lieberman, while Cardin, Coleman, Feinstein, Kohl, Lautenberg, Levin, Lieberman, Schumer, and Specter all voted for it. As I said, there’s a correlation. We might expect liberals like Lautenberg and Cardin to vote against hawkish legislation like this. But there is a far stronger correlation between members that work on national defense voting for Kyl-Lieberman than on religious faith. It’s at least as surprising to see pro votes from Whitehouse, Reed, Akaka, Durbin, and Menendez, as it is them from Lautenberg and Cardin.
The most common denominator is that members have some responsibility for the well being of our troops, not that they have some tangential connection to Israel.
It was senior officers in the USSR military who were threatening Stalin with similar rebellions that led Stalin to purge the officers in the late 30’s.
That’s the normal authoritarian reaction to the kind of rebellion we are seeing. I wonder how soon the totalitarian Republicans will start? Or if they already have?