One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex - Series - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...30general.html
American policy agenda military-industrial complex ethics versus morality
shared by P. Gillespie on 01 Dec 08
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One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex
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The president of NBC News, Steve Capus, said in an interview that General McCaffrey was a man of honor and achievement who would never let business obligations color his analysis for NBC
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This comment reminds me of how difficult it is to influence America's "policy agenda". So long as people like McCaffrey are held up as exemplars of America's moral self we will never get away from the "colonialising" militarism that characterizes America's current policy agenda. Indeed, one might wonder whether there is any wisdom in opposing such malarky, given that in one way or another we all live in Mother Earth's "living arrangement". Some are stronger, some less strong, and what counts, in the end, is that our lives should be lived in harmony with Mother Earth's living arrangement. See TAO Walker.
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General McCaffrey did in fact emerge as a tough critic of Mr. Rumsfeld, describing him as reckless and incompetent
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He faulted Rumsfeld the manager without questioning the opportunity for war. War is what he trained for, who he is. Far be it for him to doubt the wisdom of his "commander in chief".
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The country knows me as a nonpartisan and objective national security expert with solid integrity
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Withdrawal and disengagement are not options. The moral imperitive is to "remain engaged", to "survive to fight again". As an intelligent public servant McCaffrey spoke out in opposition to a leadership that was ill-informed, naive and unprepared. As a member of the "establishment" his only option is to work for the best possible outcome. He would not necessarily oppose a policy based on pacifist or ethical grounds. Such is human nature.
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After each trip General McCaffrey embarked on a news media campaign, writing opinion articles, granting interviews, publishing “after action” reports on his firm’s Web site. Each time he extolled Central Command’s generals and called for a renewed national commitment of money and support.
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Iraqi commandos even staged a live-fire demonstration for him. But General McCaffrey also was given access to officials whose decisions were important to his business interests, including DynCorp, which was planning an I.P.O.
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This article might well be sub-titled "the instrumentalization of an American hero". General Barry McCaffrey a career military officer who built a distinguished career by "playing according to the rules" was coerced by his political hierarchy (aka Donald Rumsfeld and the "Office of Special Operations" set up in the Pentagon to manage information on the build-up to the Iraq war) to become a mouth-piece for the Bush "policy agenda". As such, McCaffrey's experience either points to how weak a good man is when stripped of his group status, or how a weak man General McCaffrey is.
