The Price of Loyalty
The consequences of a bias for loyalty over debate have been devastating. Issues don't get aired; downside risks remain unassessed.
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Nov. 7, 2005 issue - The posthumous Purple Heart rested near the folded American flag on the modest dining-room table of his parents' home in Cleveland. Edward (Augie) Schroeder, a Boy Scout turned Marine, was killed along with 13 other soldiers on their fifth trip into Al Hadithah, Iraq, to clean out insurgents. Their fifth trip. "When you do something over and over again expecting a different result," Augie's grieving father, Paul, told me, "that is the definition of insanity." As the death toll of American soldiers in Iraq reached 2,000 last week, Paul Schroeder concluded that the military had not sent enough troops to Iraq to do the job properly and that the president was incompetent: "My son's life was thrown away, his death was a waste." Then, noting that he shared a birthday with his boy, he broke down and said he would not be able to celebrate his own birthday anymore.
The Schroeders were on my mind as I watched Patrick Fitzgerald's skillful press conference. He laid out the seriousness of blowing the cover of CIA operatives. He explained clearly why Scooter Libby had been indicted. He even struck a blow against rogue prosecutors (like Kenneth Starr, though he didn't mention him) whose staffs routinely leak to the media in violation of the law. But Fitzgerald was wrong on one count, at least metaphorically. "This indictment is not about the war," he said. Oh, yes, it is.
According to Fitzgerald, Libby had conversations with at least seven other government officials about Joseph and Valerie Wilson that he did not disclose to the grand jury. Why were top White House officials and Vice President Cheney so concerned about an obscure former diplomat like Wilson?Because he had the temerity to offer public dissent. By showing how evidence of Saddam's WMDs had been cooked, Wilson undermined the very reason Augie Schroeder and the rest of the U.S. military went to war. He was more than "fair game," as Karl Rove called him. He was a mortal threat.
This has been the Bush pattern. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill presciently says a second tax cut is unaffordable if we want to fight in Iraq—he's fired. Bush's economic adviser Larry Lindsey presciently says the war will cost between $100 billion and $200 billion (an underestimate)—he's fired. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki presciently says that winning in Iraq will require several hundred thousand troops—he's sent into early retirement. By contrast, CIA Director George Tenet, who presided over two of the greatest intelligence lapses in American history (9/11 and WMD in Iraq) and apparently helped spread "oppo ammo" to discredit the husband of a woman who had devoted her life to his agency, receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The conventional Washington explanation is that this is just old-fashioned politics. As long as you don't lie to a grand jury, there's nothing illegal here. But the consequences of a bias for loyalty over debate—even internal debate—have been devastating. The same president who seeks democracy, transparency and dissent in Iraq is irritated by it at home. O'Neill tells his story in a book by Ron Suskind called "The Price of Loyalty," and that title is the missing link in explaining the failure of the Bush presidency. The price of loyalty is incompetence. Issues don't get aired; downside risks remain unassessed.
Instead of reaching out and encouraging disagreement, Bush let neocons like Libby and Paul Wolfowitz hijack his foreign policy. Amazingly, the pros and cons of invading Iraq were never even debated in the National Security Council. If you had doubts, like Colin Powell, you were marginalized. (Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, said last week that a "cabal" of isolated policymakers ran a government of dangerous "ineptitude." ) Consider the case of Brent Scowcroft. According to last week's New Yorker, former president Bush has tried to arrange a meeting between his old national-security adviser (and best friend) and his son. But after Scowcroft wrote a 2002 op-ed piece titled "Don't Attack Saddam," the president has consistently refused his own father's request. Now we know that Bush's lack of curiosity has proved fatal.
Paul Schroeder says that well-meaning people offer their condolences over Augie, "then they whisper to us, 'We oppose the war, too.' Why do they whisper?" Why? Because until now, the Bush White House has successfully peddled the idea that dissent is somehow unpatriotic. Paul and his wife, Rosemary, take a different view. "I think it's more patriotic to speak up," Rosemary says. "If the emperor has no clothes, or the president has no plan—then you have to speak out. Otherwise, you're putting all these lives in danger for no good cause."
The good news about the president's bad week is that even his conservative backers are no longer willing to keep quiet when they think he's wrong. And Fitzgerald was so impressive that the normal White House response—to savage the critic—was not an option this time. So Karl Rove survives, but the fear he stoked is easing. Four years after September 11, we're beginning to get our democracy back.
posted on October 30, 2005 02:55:42 PM new
An excellent post. Thanks for that!
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Habla siempre que debas y calla siempre que puedas....
posted on October 30, 2005 03:30:28 PM new"When you do something over and over again expecting a different result," ... "that is the definition of insanity."
In Bush speak that translates into "STAY THE COURSE"
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on October 30, 2005 06:04:05 PM new
Soldiers and the American media
October 30th, 2005
Having been on the other side of the world for the past year I must admit that I am not as up to date on current events as I’d like to be. However we do receive the news and are aware of the larger events happening around the world. For instance we were aware of the tidal wave that killed hundreds of thousands in southern Asia. We were aware of the numerous natural disasters that affected the United States.
We’ve also been aware of the vicious political fever and anti-war tone that is constantly streamed to us via television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and internet. Being in the minority of soldiers with formal education it is discouraging to see how the masses of naïve and even ignorant soldiers can be so easily persuaded into believing that we are fighting for a corrupt government and that America is a war-mongering nation
Being force fed AFN (Armed Forces Network) we get the best stories that the liberal media can conjure up. Unfortunately for us, this usually means smearing whatever we have accomplished or were planning to accomplish. Bringing the war to our nation’s living rooms and bringing the news to our nation’s war front were mistakes from the beginning. Citizens with no military experience cannot begin to empathize with the hardships that we endure, nor can they understand the split second life and death decisions we are forced to make. Instead we’ve created a nation of hind-sight soldier critics with force fed tunnel vision.
On the flip side we have an overly capable and very adequately equipped fighting force that begins to doubt its relevancy and its necessity to be here. With constant images of; Cindy Sheehan touting anti-war propaganda, constant accusations of the Bush administration being racist in the wake of natural disasters, soldiers’ actions being caught on film and then used against them in various investigations, and now more political indictments on issues that the majority of Americans have no idea about, our soldiers are beginning to believe all the rhetoric and embrace it themselves.
The military works on a simple principle: we fight wars. Without going too far into it, simply stated we kill our enemies before they kill us. Our nation has been diluted through the past few decades by believing that freedom is free. As long as you’re born an American you too can live the Paris Hilton lifestyle and be as carefree, and careless, as possible. Unfortunately the reality is that soldiers like myself and others have to suck it up and leave home to kill our enemies before they kill us. This principle as well has become skewed and distorted over time, leaving us with the daunting duty of fighting a war in which it is nearly illegal for us to kill our enemy.
Now I ask that you take what you’ve read so far and add to that a large population of ordinary soldiers. The majority of these soldiers are unaware of much outside of the military. Many of them lack extensive formal education and some even lack any semblance of an education at all. Many of these soldiers are also disgruntled at being asked to do their jobs. Now picture these soldiers receiving their news via television, newspapers, emails, phone calls, etc. and all they perceive is negative content about the war, about their government, about their country. Take this tremendous fighting force and preach to them that they have been misled; tell them that they have been lied to, show them that they are not supported, suggest their government is corrupt, label them murderers, and explain to them that in the end we were wrong and now expect them to continue to fight this war in which they have no option to fight.
In most debates both sides of an issue are represented. This however is not a debate, this is real life and unfortunately there is no strong representative to help stop the bleeding that is continuing to grow out of control. How do you reach an audience that is more concerned with aligning their beliefs with their favorite Hollywood star than hearing other sides of an issue and beginning to think beyond themselves and their immediate hedonistic drives. Unfortunately our nation’s defenders are swayable by the media they encounter.
As a soldier my concern is that while Americans enjoy their freedom of speech and freedom of the press they are inadvertently weakening our defenses, damaging our nation, and negatively influencing the frontline soldiers that continue to ensure their freedoms.
“Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.” – Voltaire
posted on October 30, 2005 06:22:11 PM new
WOW--this is a new spin...Limbaugh as a "liberal." Just last week it was announced that a liberal radio show wouldn't be carried though right wing ones are, but this article wants us to believe that Armed Forces "force feeds" troops liberal media...
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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
posted on October 30, 2005 06:41:23 PM new
Yes, thanks, Bunni, for posting that article. I loved this quote: "The same president who seeks democracy, transparency and dissent in Iraq is irritated by it at home."
So true! Or perhaps his form of democracy, even for Iraq, doesn't allow dissent????
Edited to add: Brent Scowcroft grew up in a house 1/2 block up the street from ours, in Ogden, Utah--of course much earlier than our time in Ogden. His family is a good one.
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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
[ edited by roadsmith on Oct 30, 2005 06:42 PM ]
