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There's much more to this story than a "sexual indiscretion." The sudden firing of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Commander, four star General and New York City native Kevin P. Byrnes, one of only 11 four star generals in the Army, has much more to do with a policy dispute than an anonymous Pentagon-reported story about an alleged "extra-marital affair."

Although Byrnes has recently been involved in divorce proceedings, Pentagon insiders report that Byrnes was fired for insubordination. Byrnes' firing fits a pattern of neocon demonizing of policy opponents by tossing out unsubstantiated charges from "anonymous source." For example, when Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski was demoted to Colonel over trumped up charges over her role as commander of Iraqi prisons during the time of the prisoner abuse (and after she revealed the presence of Israeli interrogators in Iraqi prisons), the Pentagon spin machine, joined at the hips with neo-con think thanks and media outlets in Washington, cited a dated and totally unsubstantiated shoplifting accusation against her.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who Donald Rumsfeld hauled out of retirement to head up the Army after Gen. Eric Shinseki was fired and after no other active duty general wanted the job, relieved Byrnes of his command at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Byrnes had previous run-ins with the neo-cons in the Pentagon. In 2002, Byrnes was faced with being retired at Lt. Gen. after he clashed with then-Rumsfeld aide Stephen Cambone over proposed troop strength cuts. Then Army Secretary Thomas White, intervened on behalf of Byrnes and he received his fourth star. White was later fired by the Pentagon neo-cons.

What has not been reported is that recently, one of Byrnes' subordinate commands, Fort Rucker in Alabama, had been told to stand by for an influx of 50,000 military trainees -- a level the base has not seen since the Vietnam War. Byrnes' relief of command came on the heels of the Pentagon announcing that it might permit Spanish-language entrance examinations. Byrnes, who was in charge of Army training, would not only face recruits with lower education levels and past criminal records, but a lack of proficiency in English. Pentagon insiders report that it was Byrnes' policy disagreements with the Pentagon neo-cons over the new recruitment policies and the potential for calling up Army retirees and reinstating military conscription without adequate TRADOC funding that resulted in his firing. The personal misconduct charges were concocted by the Pentagon to cover up the fact that there are serious disagreements with Bush and Rumsfeld among the flag officer ranks in the military.

Byrnes was also associated with a group of officers who spent time at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. The Army War College has been a center of opposition to the war in Iraq and it is believed that Byrnes was recognized by the neo-cons as one of the unofficial leaders of a group of Army flag rank opponents of Bush's war in Iraq and potential military action against Iran.

News is flying in regard to the nuclear terror drill set for this month. It is feared by informed researchers that an actual nuclear detonation may be piggybacked on the drill, as was the modus operandi in the 9/11 and 7/7 inside jobs.

As reported at this site, the drill involving a nuclear warhead being smuggled into Charleston, South Carolina is to involve the Atlanta-area FEMA office and be run out of Fort Monroe, Virginia. Today, the four-star general in charge of Fort Monroe was fired. Anonymously-sourced and speculative reports on the leading alternative media websites posited General Kevin Byrnes was fired for attempting to prevent the drill from going live. (See Lehrman/Physics911.net, Szymanski/Arctic Beacon, Jones,Watson/PrisonPlanet, Skolnick/Cloak).

Now a Washington Times report, also anonymously-sourced, highlights the flimsy basis on which he was fired -- adultery. Not the Jeff Gannon kind of military adultery popular in the White House; but involvement, while separated from his wife, with a woman in a separate command. It also turns out Rumsfeld tried to chase him out the military three years ago. Looks like he finally found a pretext.

From WashTimes August 10 :

An official announcement yesterday did not specify why Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, 52, was removed from his command of all soldier training and doctrine development, but two retired Army officers said it was for having an extramarital affair.

Adultery is illegal in the military, constituting conduct unbecoming an officer. The sources said they think the woman was not a subordinate of Gen. Byrnes at U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Va.

It is rare in modern times for the Army to relieve a four-star general. ...

Gen. Byrnes, one of 11 four-star Army generals, was nearing the end of a three-year term at U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command when Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, relieved him of command yesterday. [...]

Gen. Byrnes had been under investigation for some time and had been in the throes of a divorce.

A number of officers went to bat [for Byrnes] in 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld threatened to end his career at lieutenant general. [...]

And, like the several drills occuring on 9/11, the Fort Monroe Casemate for August 5 reports a series of terror drills at the base on August 17.:

An antiterrorism exercise to test the effectiveness of installation plans and procedures in response to a terrorist attack will take place here Aug. 17.

A series of live emergency response drills are scheduled throughout the day, according to Bill Moisant, Fort Monroe's antiterrorism officer. ...

Impacts could include extremely thorough security checks at gates, restricted movement near emergency response drill sites and temporary closure of some customer service activities.

Moisant explained that the Fort Monroe Crisis Action Team, first responders, supporting agencies, and assigned and tenant organizations will be evaluated on their ability to respond to a simulated terrorist incident. He said the exercise could involve City of Hampton police and fire officials, as well as other off-post agencies. [...]

Exact times and locations of exercise site events are not indicated due to OPSEC requirements. Cooperation by personnel and agencies affected by the exercise is greatly appreciated.

The exercise is not open to the general public or local news media.

The top American commander in Iraq has been privately rebuked by the Bush administration for openly discussing plans to reduce troop levels there next year, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

President George W Bush personally intervened last week to play down as "speculation" all talk of troop pull-outs because he fears that even discussing options for an "exit strategy" implies weakening resolve.

Gen George Casey, the US ground commander in Iraq, was given his dressing-down after he briefed that troop levels - now 138,000 - could be reduced by 30,000 in the early months of next year as Iraqi security forces take on a greater role.

The unusual sign of US discord came as Iraqi politicians and clerics drafting a new constitution continued their own wrangling over autonomy demands by various factions. [...]

Former Navy Lieutenant Harvey Tharp of Iraq Veterans Against the War spoke publicly for the first time on July 4 during a lunchtime break of the National Education Association's Representative Assembly. His talk was sponsored by the NEA's Peace and Justice Caucus.

Tharp was honorably discharged from the Navy in March 2005. Six months after the invasion of Iraq, Tharp, along with five others was, in Tharp's words, raided from the Navy Staff Corps. Tharp was called upon because he had studied Arabic five years earlier. Although Colin Powell had spent five million dollars on a study for how to operate in post war Iraq the study was nixed and the neo-conservatives wouldn't send experienced Arabic speakers or diplomats to Iraq.

Tharp says that when he showed up in Baghdad his co-workers said, "Wow, we have people to send out." Tharp, armed with 180,000 dollars in reconstruction for a population of one million was sent to Kirkuk. When asked how he could communicate with Baghdad, he was told to sign up for a hotmail account. As for security he was armed with an AK-47 and provided a security briefing. Having no body armor, Tharp sent off to bulletproofme.com to acquire his own. When he asked who his CO was, he was told, "We're working on it." Kirkuk wasn't as important as the Oil Ministry, which had the South African Army and Halliburton to provide security as well as an unlimited budget.

The Navy was unable to rob Tharp of his humanity. Working with Iraqis he was impressed by their manners and decency. When he heard about Abu Ghraib, he thought to himself that he was glad that he was no longer in Iraq because he didn't think that he could face the Iraqis who worked for him. "This was not Animal House," he said about Abu Ghraib. He quoted the British Major General who said that Americans treated Iraqis as if they were untermenschen and remarked, "American society doesn't care about lives of people overseas."

The lies perpetuated by the Bush administration are mere "window dressing for the ultimate reasons we're in Iraq." Reasons cited by Tharp include oil, protecting allies, and control of the world.

Tharp, faced with another tour in Iraq, which would require him to direct combat, felt certain that "having met those people changed my perspective [and I knew that] I could not voluntarily nor involuntarily kill them." Luckily for Tharp, the Navy had a surplus of lieutenants and he was able to resign; unfortunately this is not the case for enlisted personnel.

"I am going to do everything I can to end this war as soon as possible," Tharp says. "The one thing that we can do is to keep them from getting fresh mortar bait." His mission now is to caution children that to join the Army or Marine Corps right now is a "bad idea." For teachers, it is important to understand that the "weak point of the military machine" is in the recruiting.

Harvey Tharp is the first person in the US Military whom I have encountered who acknowledges the humanity of the Iraqis and who has not been brainwashed regarding the reasons we are there.

ROME (Xinhuanet) -- Italy is starting to withdraw troops from Iraq, about one month ahead of schedule, local media reported on Saturday.

The withdrawal process was put forward because 130 Marines in southern Iraq had finished their mission and it is pointless to replace them as Italy had planned to pull out 300 troops in September, a spokesman of the Italian contingent in Nassiriya was quoted as saying.

The 130 troops will leave for home soon, he said.

An official of the Italian Defense Ministry, who refused to be named, said the decision was purely logistical and financial, rather than political.

Italy has some 3,000 troops in Iraq, the fourth largest foreign contingent there after the United States, Britain and South Korea. Most of the Italian forces are deployed in southern Iraq.

Although Doug Stout, 77, won't pin illegal entry on his property to his harsh comments about Bush, but says one thing for sure "I don't smoke pot and everybody in town knows it." After hovering over his property with a helicopter, officers then swarmed on his land, looked at some shrubbery and then left without any explanation.

Don Stout looked up into the Midwestern sky one afternoon two weeks ago and saw a strange helicopter flying over his five-acre piece of land in rural Albany, Ohio.

Before he knew what happened, the 77-year-old long-time resident, law-abiding citizen and Korean War veteran had eight law enforcement officials swarm on his property, checking the place out for marijuana.

Never before having a run-in with the law, Stout said the heavy-handed looking group of law enforcement thugs "came and went without saying a word" after suspiciously looking at a large bush on his property not in the slightest bit resembling a pot plant.

"I've been here since 1994 and everybody's knows me including the sheriff. I never smoked marijuana and they know it, but I think they just like terrorizing people," said Stout in a telephone conversation from his rural home, adding he still hasn't received an answer from anyone why law enforcement officials invaded his privacy and entered his land without a proper search warrant.

"It scared the hell out of me as eight or ten men swarmed my place. I was weeding my garden and the next thing you know, they were on my property, looked at this bush and left without saying a word. It was ridiculous, but the sheriff, the deputy sheriff and the game warden all raided my place for no reason and I am still looking for an explanation."

Although Stout can't pinpoint why authorities entered his property without a warrant, earlier that day he aired his strong opinions against President Bush, calling him an outright liar, on a free speech and truth-telling talk radio show on the popular WAIF AM770 local radio station.

Stout said he has been calling in regularly voicing his anti-Bush opinions, saying people in rural Ohio are finally starting to wake up to lies, deceit and treachery imposed on the American people by what he calls a "lying dog of a President."

"I think he and the rest of his buddies are corrupt, down right crazy and Bush should be impeached plain and simple for lying to the people about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," said the former Korean War veteran, who lashed out at Bush for going to war illegally and in the process killing thousands of innocent civilians, including more than 1,700 GI's.

"I think George Bush is a liar and is personally responsible for the deaths of many good young men in order that his rich buddies could profit from this illegal war."

Considering himself a "true American" who honorably fought for his country and drove a Greyhound bus for many years, the plain speaking Bush critic thinks America is in a crisis and at the brink of martial law at the hands of government tyrants bent on destroying the country from within.

"I think we have lost this country and many people feel it's too late and feel helpless about doing anything about it," said Stout. "I am pretty outspoken about a lot of things and it wouldn't surprise me if another terrorist hits us harder than 9/11, putting the country under a state of emergency and martial law while at the same time taking the heat off Bush.

"This reminds me of Nazi Germany. The people are being fed propaganda and in turn the dollar is going to hell as are the rest of our freedoms. I don't think we should give up our freedoms in order to be safer, when all the government is trying to do is take us over from within.

"The Founding Fathers would have never stood for what is going on and would have thrown Bush and his buddies out on their ears. I think the people of Ohio are starting to wake up and I do not intend to stop talking about how I feel on that talk radio show."

Besides the strange raid on Stout's property, the radio station giving the thumbs up to air the controversial truth-telling radio program in the traditionally conservative heartland also has reported mysteriously having its transmitter knocked out on two occasions from "two mysterious bolts of lightning."

Housewife Lauren Dowling, another avid WAIF listener and unofficial promoter of the truth-telling show that schedules many of the guests for broadcaster Sharon Elliot and station owner Joe Edwards, isn't pointing fingers but said this week from her rural home that the two "bolts of lightening" in the last six weeks was very unusual.

Although Elliot and Edwards have been airing a controversial show from their station headquarters in Nelsonville, Ohio, radio for quite some time, it hasn't been until recently that they decided to bring on even more controversial figures like anti-establishment broadcaster Alex Jones and others to talk the traditionally mainstream audience at WAIF.

"And Maureen Jones just came on the other day educating people about fluoride in the water, which was very interesting," said Dowling, adding calls have been coming in from all over the South East quadrant of Ohio, including parts of West Virginia about the station that has small town roots but a large broadcast reach.

"I thought it was time the people of our community heard the truth from people like Alex Jones, who by the way, probably shocked a few listeners, but had a very important message which has been basically censored by the mainstream press.

"I'm just an average Mom, giving out a common sense dose of the truth to these arrogant leaders."

Besides Jones, WAIF is scheduling for future morning shows other alternative broadcasters and activists basically silenced in rural America by the Bush propaganda machine and a cooperative press.

Plans also include interviewing many people who have had their voices silenced about 9/11, especially eye-witness, victims and journalists who have struggled hard to wake up a sleeping country.

"It's never too late and people around here are starting to open their hearts and minds, tuning in to listen and participate," added Dalling.

And Stout, who many people in the community believe had his civil rights violated by law enforcement officials for voicing his regularly on WAIF, had one last message to President Bush before getting to the bottom of why officials illegally swarmed down on his private property:

"I don't intend to trade of security for my rights as an American. I believe we need to take our country back from these thugs and brown shirts before or jobs, our financial security and our lives are taken away from us right before our very eyes."

"I want the American people to know that a lot of other people here in Ohio feel like I do and also know the election was stolen by Bush. He is losing popularity because a lot of people over here are finally starting to see through his lies, lies that are costing young American lives every day this illegal war continues."

JESSICA LYNCH, the former US army supply clerk who became a national icon after her capture and rescue during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, says she was "used" by the Pentagon to "show the war was going great".

Ms Lynch, 22, told Time magazine: "I think I provided a way to boost everybody's confidence about the war . . . I was used as a symbol. It doesn't bother me anymore. It used to." Ms Lynch says that her book, I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story, will "set the record straight".

Ms Lynch said that the television movie of her life was inaccurate. Ms Lynch said that she hopes to become a teacher. In a few weeks she begins classes at West Virginia University, where her tuition fees have been paid for by the state.

Ms Lynch, from Palestine, West Virginia, was a private in the US Army when she was captured in Iraq on March 23, 2003, near al-Nasiriyah, a crossing point over the Euphrates River. She suffered two spinal fractures, nerve damage and a shattered right arm, right foot and left leg when her Humvee crashed during a firefight.

Eleven other soldiers in her unit were killed in the ambush. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital by US forces on April 1, 2003 - the first rescue of an American prisoner of war since the Second World War.

However, accounts of Ms Lynch's rescue were contradictory and it was claimed that the rescue was staged.

Anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq, is calling for Bush's "impeachment," and for Israel to get out of Palestine!

"You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism," Sheehan declares.

Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: "My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny...you give my son back and I'll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we'll put this war on trial."

"And now I'm going to use another 'I' word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."

The 48-year-old California mom remains tented up in a ditch along the one-lane road that leads to Bush's Texas ranch.

As her protest entered its second week, hundreds of people with conflicting opinions about the war in Iraq descended on the area.

TIME mag reports in new editions on Monday: Sheehan gets support from her surviving son, Andy, in principle, but he recently sent her a long e-mail imploring her, "to come home because you need to support us at home."

Developing...

The shameless savaging of Cindy Sheehan continues.

Bill O’Reilly says she’s a tool of “far left elements.”

The New York Sun echoes the charge, evidently reading the same rightwing talking points.

In an editorial on August 11, it says Sheehan “has put herself in league with some extreme groups and individuals.”

This is old-style McCarthyism, straight on down to the red-baiting.

The editorial quotes Sheehan about some of the groups she’s involved with, including Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and Military Families Speak Out.

It then notes that these groups are on the steering committee of United for Peace and Justice, along with the Communist Party USA. (A person representing that party is one of the forty-one members who was voted onto the steering committee.)

This classic guilt-by-association trope just shows the reflexive response of the right: When your critic has credibility, and you can’t find anything else on her, destroy her with the old standby: You’re a communist dupe!

The Sun also points out that Sheehan is working with the Crawford Peace House, and it says that group’s website “includes a photo depicting the entire state of Israel as Palestine.” Actually, it depicts a protester holding a sign showing four maps of what is now Israel and the Occupied Territories, noting how Palestinians have been allowed less and less land over the past 60 years.

“Nobody is anti-Israel here,” says John Wolf, one of the founders of the Crawford Peace House. “We’re just asking for peace with justice and respect for international law.”

But for the New York Sun, the Crawford Peace House’s view of the Israel-Palestine conflict is convenient enough to tar Cindy Sheehan with.

Rightwing talk show host Phil Hendrie goes even lower, writing an article amazingly entitled “Anti-War Mom: Another Ignorant Cow,” Hendrie called Sheehan a “self-righteous ignoramus,” and then went into full mockery mode: “A mother grieving her loss. The inhumanity of war. Oh, the wickedness of it all.”

I’ve seen callousness before, but this piece may top them all. And catch Hendrie’s defense of the Iraq War: “This war was unavoidable, brought on by an historic clash of culture and ideal, powered by the American people themselves, rising to meet the future, pissing off the rag heads.” Rag heads?

By the way, Hendrie’s screed was posted on the website, freerepublic.com, which calls itself “the premier online gathering place for independent, grassroots conservatism on the web.”

Sheehan responds to her critics: “Nothing you can say can hurt me or make me stop what we are doing. We are working for peace with justice. We are using peaceful means and the truth to do it.”

The invective toward Cindy Sheehan seems to know no bounds. Phil Hendrie’s “ignorant cow” line drew some criticism at the posting site, but it also attracted the following remarks:

“In a more civil society, we’d toss her ass in jail for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”

“This woman deserves nothing more than a swift kick in the ass.”

“The only pain I hear from this woman is the pain of having to live in a nonsocialist society.”

“I think her son would call her worse things.”

On drudge.com, the Drudge Retort (as opposed to the Drudge Report), there is a long exchange on Sheehan. Here are some of the uglier comments:
“Shut your pie hole bitch. Let your son rest in peace.”

“Another lying liberal bitch with an agenda.”

“Seditious cunt.”

“What would have been funny is if this crazy ho was to blow herself up on live TV.”

If you find additional outrageous comments on Sheehan, especially from rightwing media figures, please forward them to Matt Rothschild at The Progressive, at editorial@progressive.org. I’ll try to post some of them here. Thanks, Matt.

The right wing attacks on Cindy Sheehan -- desperate, pathetic, and grasping at straws -- expose much less about their target than about the attackers.

I mean, trying to slime a grieving Gold Star mom because she is inconveniently questioning the reasons her son was sent off to die in Iraq? Why that would be like trashing a much-decorated war hero or outing an undercover CIA agent…

Oh, right…

How much longer can the Bushies get away with mauling the very values they profess to stand for before their supporters start getting wise to the fact that the only value they really value is power?

Think about it, they’ve shown absolutely no compunction about turning the sleaze machine on an undercover agent who’d spent her career working to protect us from weapons of mass destruction, a Silver Star/Purple Heart veteran who volunteered to fight in a war the administration chickenhawks gamed the system to avoid, and now the mother of a dead soldier.

The right wing smear machine whirrs on -- using its media mouthpieces to do this dirtiest of dirty work. First it was the lie that Sheehan had, in the words of Drudge, “dramatically changed her account” of her June 2004 meeting with Bush. Despite the fact that this supposed flip-flop was a total distortion created by taking quotes out of context, the story quickly made its way into the hands of conservative bloggers… and allowed the TV jackal-pack to start tearing away at Sheehan’s flesh. For all the details on how this went down, check out Media Matters blow-by-blow description. The lowlights included Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin tag-teaming up to push the idea that Sheehan’s “story hasn’t checked out”. O’Reilly also claimed Sheehan “is in bed with the radical left”, and, later suggested “this kind of behavior borders on treasonous”… and, for bad measure, tried to slime Sheehan by linking her with “people who hate this government, hate their country”.

Rush Limbaugh played his usual role, parroting the flip-flop party line, saying that Sheehan was “trying to pull a little bit of a swindle” and that “she’d been totally co-opted by…the whole Michael Moore leftist mentality.” Fred Barnes piled on, saying of Sheehan: “She’s a crackpot” (no doubt using the same video-based diagnostic technique pioneered by Bill Frist). And Michelle Malkin went all Patricia Arquette on the case, using her heretofore unpromoted ESP powers to let us know that Sheehan’s dead son Casey wouldn’t approve of “his mother’s crazy accusations”.

Beyond contempt. But I will say this for these sleazeballs: they are nothing if not resilient. After the Cindy as Flip-Flopper story was revealed as a very poorly done hatchet job, a second load of sludge was quickly dumped: the ludicrous statement from the (ahem) “Sheehan Family” condemning Cindy’s “political motivations and publicity tactics” (run under a banner headline proclaiming “Family of Fallen Soldier Pleads: Please Stop, Cindy”).

Where do I start with this piece of manufactured offal? How about the fact that no one put their names on the statement, which was “signed” by “Casey Sheehan’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins”. Don’t these folks have names? The only name attached to the “Sheehan Family” statement (delivered to Drudge via email with permission “to distribute as you wish”) belongs to Cherie Quartarolo who describes herself as Casey’s aunt and godmother. So did I miss something? Since when does godmother outrank mother? What I really want to know is: how does Casey’s second-cousin-twice-removed feel about Cindy’s vigil? How about his ex-brother-in-law’s cleaning lady?

Cindy deals with all this very succinctly in her latest post, but suffice it to say that Casey’s dad and their three other children are all supportive of what Cindy is doing. Hmm… I always thought conservatives were big proponents of the importance of the nuclear family. Does James Dobson know about this attempt to undermine the primacy of a mother?

I guess it takes a village to trash a grieving Gold Star Mom.

Retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey to Time Magazine: "The Army's wheels are going to come off in the next 24 months. We are now in a period of considerable strategic peril. It's because Rumsfeld has dug in his heels and said, I cannot retreat from my position."

Cindy Sheehan testifying at Rep. John Conyers public hearings on the Downing Street Memo: "My son, Spc Casey Austin Sheehan, was KIA in Sadr City Baghdad on 04/04/04. He was in Iraq for only 2 weeks before [Coalition Provisional Authority head] L. Paul Bremer inflamed the Shi'ite Militia into a rebellion which resulted in the deaths of Casey and 6 other brave soldiers who were tragically killed in an ambush. Bill Mitchell, the father of Sgt. Mike Mitchell who was one of the other soldiers killed that awful day is with us here. This is a picture of Casey when he was 7 months old. It's an enlargement of a picture he carried in his wallet until the day he was killed. He loved this picture of himself. It was returned to us with his personal effects from Iraq. He always sucked on those two fingers. When he was born, he had a flat face from passing through the birth canal and we called him ‘Edward G' short for Edward G. Robinson. How many of you have seen your child in his/her premature coffin? It is a shocking and very painful sight. The most heartbreaking aspect of seeing Casey lying in his casket for me, was that his face was flat again because he had no muscle tone. He looked like he did when he was a baby laying in his bassinette. The most tragic irony is that if the Downing Street Memo proves to be true, Casey and thousands of people should still be alive."

Donald Rumsfeld testifying before the House Armed Services Committee in March, 2005: "The world has seen, in the last 3 1/2 years, the capability of the United States of America to go into Afghanistan . . . and with 20,000, 15,000 troops working with the Afghans do what 200,000 Soviets couldn't do in a decade. They've seen the United States and the coalition forces go into Iraq. . . . That has to have a deterrent effect on people." (Ann Scott Tyson, "U.S. Gaining World's Respect From Wars, Rumsfeld Asserts," the Washington Post, March 11, 2005 [scroll down])

George Bush on arriving for a meeting with families of the bereaved, including Cindy Sheehan and her husband on June 17, 2004: "So who are we honoring here?"

A teaser at the "Careers and Jobs" screen of GoArmy.com: "Want an extra $400 a month?" Click on it and part of what comes up is: "Qualified active Army recruits may be eligible for AIP [Assignment Incentive Pay] of $400 per month, up to 36 months for a total of up to $14,400, if they agree to be assigned to an Army-designated priority unit with a critical role in current global commitments."

Who Is in That Ditch?

Casey Sheehan had one of those small "critical roles" in the "current global commitment" in Iraq that, in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's words, "has to have a deterrent effect on people." As it happens, Sheehan was one of the unexpectedly deterred and now, along with 1,846 other American soldiers, is interred, leaving his take-no-prisoners mother Cindy -- a one-person anti-war movement -- with a critical role to play in awakening Americans to the horrors, and dangers, of the Bush administration's "current global commitments."

Over the last two years, administration officials, civilian and military, have never ceased to talk about "turning corners" or reaching "tipping points" and achieving "milestones" in the Iraq-War-that-won't-end. Now it seems possible that Cindy Sheehan in a spontaneous act of opposition -- her decision to head for Crawford, Texas, to face down a vacationing President and demand an explanation for her son's death -- may produce the first real American tipping point of the Iraq War.

As a million news articles and TV reports have informed us, she was stopped about 5 miles short of her target, the Presidential "ranch" in Crawford, and found herself unceremoniously consigned to a ditch at the side of a Texas road, camping out. And yet somehow, powerless except for her story, she has managed to take the President of the United States hostage and turned his Crawford refuge into the American equivalent of Baghdad's Green Zone. She has mysteriously transformed August's news into a question of whether, on his way to meet Republican donors, the President will helicopter over her encampment or drive past (as he, in fact, did) in a tinted-windowed black Chevrolet SUV.

Faced with the power of the Bush political and media machine, Cindy Sheehan has engaged in an extreme version of asymmetrical warfare and, in her person, in her story, in her version of "the costs of war," she has also managed to catch many of the tensions of our present moment. What she has exposed in the process is the growing weakness and confusion of the Bush administration. At this moment, it remains an open question who, in the end, will be found in that ditch at the side of a Texas road, her -- or the President of the United States.

Confusion in the Ranks

Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post reported last week that "a U.S. general said... the violence would likely escalate as the deadline approached for drafting a constitution for Iraq." For two years now, this has been a dime-a-dozen prediction from American officials trying to cover their future butts. For the phrase "drafting a constitution" in that general's quote, you need only substitute "after the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons" (July 2003), "for handing over sovereignty" (June 2004), "for voting for a new Iraqi government" (Jan. 2005) -- or, looking ahead, "for voting on the constitution" (October, 2005) and, yet again, "for voting for a new Iraqi government" (December 2005), just as you will be able to substitute as yet unknown similar "milestones" that won't turn out to be milestones as long as our President insists that we must "stay the course" in Iraq as he did only recently as his Crawford vacation began.

After each "spike of violence," at each "tipping point," each time a "corner is turned," Bush officials or top commanders predict that they have the insurgency under control only to be ambushed by yet another "spike" in violence. This May, for example, more than three months after violence was supposed to have spiked and receded in the wake of the Iraqi election, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Richard Myers offered a new explanation -- the "recent spike in violence… represents an attempt to discredit the new Iraqi government and cabinet." When brief lulls in insurgent attacks (which often represent changes in tactics) aren't being declared proof that the Iraqi insurgency is faltering/failing/coming under control, then the spikes are being claimed as "the last gasp" of the insurgency, proof of the impending success of Bush administration policies -- those "last throes" that Vice President Cheney so notoriously described to CNN's Wolf Blitzer as June ended.

Recently in a throw-(not throe-)up-your-hands mode, Army Brig. Gen. Karl Horst, deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which oversees Baghdad, offered the following, taking credit for having predicted the very throe his troops were then engulfed in: "If you look at the past few months, insurgents have not been able to sustain attacks, but they tend to surge every four weeks or so. We are right in the middle of one of those periods and predicted this would come... If they are going to influence the constitution process, they have only a few days left to do it, and we fully expect the attacks to continue."

You would think that someone in an official capacity would conclude, sooner or later, that Iraq was a spike in violence.

It's an accepted truth of our times that the Bush administration has been the most secretive, disciplined, and on-message administration in our history. So what an out-of-control couple of weeks for the President and his pals! His polls were at, or near, historic lows; his Iraq War approval numbers headed for, or dipping below, 40% -- and polls are, after all, the message boards for much of what's left of American democracy. As he was preparing for his record-setting Presidential vacation in Crawford, George and his advisors couldn't even agree on whether we were in a "global struggle with violent extremism" or in a Global War on Terror. (The President finally opted for war.) He was, of course, leaving behind in Washington a Special Counsel, called into being by his administration but now beyond its control, who held a sword of judicial Damocles over key presidential aides (and who can probably parse sinking presidential polls as well as anyone).

Iraq -- you can't leave home without it -- has, of course, been at the heart of everything Bushworld hasn't been able to shake off at least since May 2, 2003. On that day (when, ominously enough, 7 American soldiers were wounded by a grenade attack in Fallujah), our President co-piloted a jet onto the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier halted off the San Diego coast (lest it dock and he only be able to walk on board). All togged out in a military uniform, he declared "major combat operations" at an end, while standing under a White House-produced banner reading "mission accomplished." Ever since then, George has been on that mission (un)accomplished and Iraq has proved nothing if not a black hole, sucking in his administration and the American military along with neocon dreams and plans of every ambitious sort.

The Iraqi insurgency that should never have happened, or should at least have died down after unknown thousands of its foot soldiers were killed or imprisoned by the American military, inconveniently managed to turn the early days of August into a killing zone for American soldiers. Sixteen Marine Reservists from a single unit in Ohio were killed in a couple of days; 7 soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard were killed, again in a few days. Thirty-seven Americans were reported to have died in Iraq in the first 11 days of the presidential vacation, putting American casualties at the top of the TV news night after night. And yet the administration has seemed capable only of standing by helplessly, refusing to give an inch on the "compassion" President's decision -- he and his advisors are still navigating by the anti-Vietnam playbook -- not to visit grief-stricken communities in either Ohio or Pennsylvania, or ever to be caught attending the funeral of one of the boys or girls he sent abroad to die. He did manage, however, to fly to the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico to sign the energy bill and also left his ranch to hobnob with millionaire Republican donors.

In this same period, cracks in relations between an increasingly angry military command in Iraq and administration officials back in Washington began to appear for all to see. The issue, for desperate military officers, was – as for Cindy Sheehan -- how in the world to get our troops out of Iraq before the all-volunteer military went over an Iraqi cliff, wheels and all.

As July ended, our top general in Iraq, George W. Casey, announced (with many conditional "ifs") that we should be able to start drawing-down American troops significantly by the following spring -- that tens of thousands of them were likely to leave then and tens of thousands more by the end of 2006, and Don Rumsfeld initially backed him up somewhat edgily. Then, as Rumsfeld hedged, more military people jumped into the media fray with leaks and comments of all sorts about possible Iraqi drawdowns and there was a sudden squall of front-page articles on withdrawal strategies for a hard-pressed administration in an increasingly unpopular war. At the same time, confusingly, reports began to surface indicating that, because of another of those prospective "spikes" in violence, the administration would actually be increasing American troop strength in Iraq before the December elections by 10,000-20,000 soldiers.

Finally, after a war council of the Rumsfeld and Rice (Pentagon and State Department) "teams" in Crawford last week, the President held a press conference (devoted in part to responding to Cindy Sheehan) and promptly launched a new, ad-style near-jingle to explain the withdrawal moment to the American people: "As Iraqis stand up," he intoned, "we will stand down."

But in a week in which the American general in command of transportation in Iraq announced that roadside bomb attacks against his convoys had doubled over the past year, such words sounded empty -- especially as news flowed in suggesting that, while the insurgents continued to fight fiercely, the new Iraqi military seemed in no rush whatsoever to "stand up" and that our own commanders believed it might never do so in significant numbers. At his news conference, our never-never-land President nonetheless spoke several times of being pleased to announce "progress" in Iraq. ("And we're making progress training the Iraqis. Oh, I know it's hard for some Americans to see that progress, but we are making progress.")

He spoke as well of attempts to ease the burden on the no-longer-weekend warriors of the National Guard and the Reserves (who are taking unprecedented casualties in August). He said: "We've also taken steps to improve the call-up process for our Guard and for our Reserves. We've provided them with earlier notifications. We've given them greater certainty about the length of their tours. We minimized the number of extensions and repeat mobilizations." Unfortunately, at just this moment, Joint Chiefs head Myers was speaking of the possibility of calling soldiers back for their third tours of duty in Iraq: "There's the possibility of people going back for a third term, sure. That's always out there. We are at war."

"Pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy," the President insisted as he turned to the matter of withdrawal in his news conference. He then dismissed drawdown maneuvers as "speculation and rumors"; and, on being confronted by a reporter with the statements of his own military men, added, "I suspect what you were hearing was speculation based upon progress that some are seeing in Iraq as to whether or not the Iraqis will be able to take the fight to the enemy."

While that may sound vague, it was, nonetheless, the sound of a President (who, along with his Secretary of Defense, has always promised to abide by whatever his generals in the field wanted) disputing those commanders in public. Gen. Casey was also reportedly "rebuked" in private for his withdrawal comments. Our commanders in Iraq are, of course, the official realists in this war, having long ago given up on the idea that the insurgency could ever be defeated by force of U.S. arms and worrying as they do about those "wheels coming off" the American military machine.

In fact, the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq -- as Howard Zinn put the matter recently, "[W]e liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us." -- is threatening to prove one of the great asymmetric catastrophes in recent military history. A rag-tag bunch of insurgents, now estimated in the tens of thousands, using garage-door openers and cell phones to set off roadside bombs and egg-timers to fire mortars at U.S. bases (lest they be around when the return fire comes in), have fought the U.S. military to at least a draw. We're talking about a military that, not so long ago, was being touted as the most powerful force not just on this planet at this moment but on any planet in all of galactic history.

Previously, such rumors of withdrawal followed by a quiet hike in troop strength in Iraq might have been simply another clever administration attempt to manipulate the public and have it both ways. At the moment, however, they seem to be a sign not of manipulation but of confusion, discord, and uncertainty about what to do next. If the public was left confused by such "conflicting signals" about an Iraqi withdrawal, wrote Peter Baker of the Washington Post, "it may be no more unsure than the administration itself, as some government officials involved in Iraq policy privately acknowledge." An unnamed "military officer in Washington" typically commented to Anne E. Kornblut of the New York Times, "We need to stick to one message. This vacillation creates confusion for the American public."

Even administration officials are now evidently "significantly lowering expectations" and thinking about how exactly to jump off the sinking Iraqi ship. The President, beseeching "the public to stick with his strategy despite continuing mayhem on the ground," is, Baker commented, "trying to buy time." But buy time for what? This is the question that has essentially paralyzed George Bush's top officials as they face a world suddenly not in their control.

Cindy and the Media

And then, if matters weren't bad enough, there was Cindy Sheehan. She drove to Crawford with a few supporters in a caravan of perhaps a dozen vehicles and an old red, white, and blue bus with the blunt phrase, "Impeachment Tour," written on it. She carried with her a tent, a sleeping bag, some clothes, and evidently not much else. She parked at the side of the road and camped out -- and the next thing anyone knew, she had forced the President to send out not the Secret Service or some minor bureaucrat, but two of his top men, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin. For forty-five minutes, they met and negotiated with her, the way you might with a recalcitrant foreign head of state. Rather than being flattered and giving ground, she just sent them back, insisting that she would wait where she was to get the President's explanation for her son's death. ("They said they'd pass on my concerns to George Bush. I said, 'Fine, but I'm not talking to anybody else but him.'")

So there she was, as people inspired by her began to gather -- the hardy women of Code Pink; other parents whose children had died in Iraq; a former State Department official who had resigned her post to protest the onrushing Iraq War; "a political consultant and a team of public relations professionals"; antiwar protestors of all sorts; and, of course, the media. Quite capable of reading administration weakness in the polls, trapped in no-news Crawford with a President always determined to offer them less than nothing, hardened by an administration whose objective for any media not its own was only "rollback," and sympathetic to a grieving mother from Bush's war, reporters found themselves with an irresistible story at a moment when they could actually run with it.

Literally hundreds of news articles -- almost every one a sympathetic profile of the distraught mother and her altar-boy, Eagle-Scout dead son -- poured out; while Sheehan was suddenly on the morning TV shows and the nightly news, where a stop-off at "Camp Casey" or the "Crawford Peace House" was suddenly de rigueur. And the next thing you knew, there was the President at his news conference forced to flinch a second time and, though Sheehan was clobbering him, offer "sympathy" to a grieving mother at the side of the road five miles away whom he wasn't about to invite in, even for a simple meeting, but who just wouldn't leave. ("And so, you know, listen, I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan. She feels strongly about her -- about her position. And I am -- she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America. She has a right to her position…")

Talk about asymmetric warfare. One woman against the massed and proven might of the Bush political machine and its major media allies (plus assorted bloggers) and though some of them started whacking away immediately, Cindy Sheehan remained unfazed. After all, she had been toiling in the wilderness and this was her moment. Whatever the right-wing press did, she could take it -- and, of course, the mainstream media had for the time being decided to fall in love with her. After all, she was perfect. American reporters love a one-on-one, "showdown" situation without much context, a face-to-face shoot-out at the OK Corral. (Remember those endless weeks on TV labeled "Showdown with Saddam"?) In addition, they were -- let's be honest -- undoubtedly angry after the five-year-long pacification campaign the administration had waged against them.

But they had their own ideas about who exactly Cindy Sheehan should be to win over America. They would paint a strikingly consistent, quite moving, but not completely accurate picture of her. They would attempt to tame her by shearing away her language, not just the profanity for which she was known, but the very fierceness of her words. She had no hesitation about calling the President "an evil maniac," "a lying bastard," or the administration "those lying bastards," "chickenhawks," "warmongers," "shameful cowards," and "war criminals." She called for the President's "impeachment," for the jailing of the whole top layer of the administration (no pardons). She called for American troops to be pul