A General Betrayal and why MoveOn was right on.

In the weeks leading up to the appearance of Gen. David Patraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker we were treated to the same kind of hype that the I-Phone got before its release at the end of June. Like the I-Phone the General and the Ambassador turned out to be a lot less than we'd been led to believe, need a hefty discount to encourage people to buy what they were selling and proved to have a single source for their communications. Ultimately the MoveOn.org "Betray Us" ad proved to be a great distraction for the neo-fascists starting with that pillar of reason and decency Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and including but not limited to Sen. John (I'll say anything you want if you'll just elect me president) McCain. Though I agree with the ad I think that it was ill-advised because it gave the neo-fascists an excuse to talk about anything but this grossly mismanaged war, Patreus' sycophancy and the fact that the promised draw down of troops is really just smoke and mirrors. It also allowed the neo-fascists to tar, swift-boat, sling-mud-at MoveOn.org in preparation for the 2008 election campaign during which they will undoubtedly use MoveOn.org in exactly the same way that Poppy Bush and Lee Atwater used "card-carrying member of the ACLU" against Michael Dukakis 20 years ago.

Gen. Patraeus pulled the Ollie North stunt of appearing in uniform with all the fruit salad he could fit on his chest in evidence as if that made him an honest man. It doesn't. We heard much about his doctorate from Princeton as if education, persistence and a sufficient level of intelligence to carry off the defense of a thesis meant that he wasn't an ass-kissing suck-up with a permanent pucker. It doesn't. I don't dispute that the General has put his life on the line for this nation. I admire his courage and service in the military but do service and courage automatically mean that every word out of his mouth is honest or even, despite protestations to the contrary, his own? They do not. All of that hype is simply an effort to muddle the minds of people who don't often think all that clearly by mixing unrelated facets of the General's character and pretending that those disjunct facts prove that pigs do fly.

I spent nearly 14 years working for the Federal government in the civilian bureaucracy. I did not work for the military but the agency for which I worked was modeled closely on the military as is, indeed, all bureaucracy. One does not rise in the ranks, civilian or military, without a good, stout pucker, forceful inhaling, a tongue that goes anywhere its sent and callused knees. Gen. Patraeus wouldn't have those 4 stars were he not possessed of those attributes. We have only to look at his September 26, 2004 Washington Post op-ed piece to understand that the General knows on which side his butt is K-Y'ed.

Do you have any idea how many levels of review a piece like that op-ed from a government employee would have had to have passed through before appearing in print? Given that he is a general officer, at a minimum that op-ed had to have the personal approval of then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. More likely, and just like the General's Congressional testimony, it was written in whole or in part by the White House no matter what the General proclaims under oath.

Gen. Patraeus saw how Colin Powell got promoted and extolled for his subservience to Poppy Bush. We also know that, despite his efforts at backpeddling ever since leaving the Cabinet, Powell marched up to the United Nations and smeared lipstick all over the WMD pig in an effort to justify an unjustifiable war. Patraeus, almost certainly figures that he too will find himself invited into some lucrative corporate directorships once he passes the Iraq quagmire to the next would-be member of the Joint Suck-ups of Staff. There is far more of selfish sycophancy than selfless service in Patraeus' plea that he be allowed to have more of the men and women under his command killed and maimed for the greater glory of Dubya, Cheney and Halliburton.

As for Ambassador Crocker, his experience in the region is unquestionable. His integrity when it comes to his current job and his future prospects is just as fungible as the General's. Both men delivered the testimony that they were/will be paid to deliver.

I mentioned the Ollie North-ness of Gen. Patraeus' appearance before Congress which brings up his also mentioned oath. Both Col. North and, I believe, Gen. Patraeus are a bit confused about their oaths of office. North's overwhelming commitment to fascism led him to think that his oath to support and defend the Constitution of these United States meant he'd sworn an oath to Ronald Reagan. It didn't then and doesn't now. By undermining the duly enacted laws of this country Oliver North betrayed his oath and his country. He may have carried out the orders he was given but by doing so he acted as a traitor and should have been prosecuted as such. Gen. Patraeus has similarly confused his oath to the Constitution and before the House and Senate Committees with loyalty to his Commander in Chief and in doing so has betrayed his oath to support and defend our Constitution and perjured himself before Congress. So, though I think that the ad in the New York Times was ill-advised I also think that it was both accurate and prescient.