A
truth-telling general admits that Washington got it wrong in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Reflecting on World War I, California Senator Hiram Johnson
famously said: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.”
Actually, in America’s recent wars, officials have slaughtered
the truth even before the fighting. The Bush-Cheney regime hustled America into
its Iraq escapade, for example, by snuffing out the truth about that country’s
weapons of mass destruction.
Just as immoral are the dishonest post-war claims of success.
Officials always insist that their military adventure was worth all the lost
lives and treasure, thus validating themselves and legitimizing the idea of
going to war again and again.
Officialdom’s routine mugging of the truth makes a recent bit of
honesty from a three-star general seem all the more astonishing — and gutsy.
Recently retired, Bolger certainly isn’t criticizing the troops.
Instead, he’s taking aim at the political leaders and the brass — including
himself — who deploy them.
“I got it wrong,” he writes. “Like my peers, I argued to stay
the course.” As a result, “we backed ourselves into a long-term
counterinsurgency.”
Bolger is especially furious about the spurious claim that
Bush’s 2007 troop surge “won the war” in Iraq.
“The surge in Iraq didn’t ‘win’ anything,” he says, pointing out
that the terrorists who were supposedly defeated are the very ones we’re now at
war with again — only they’re savvier, better armed, and more vicious.
Yet, insanely, some officials are pushing for another surge of
ground troops. Do they really believe that repeating the same mistake will
produce a different result?
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer,
and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org