BUSHCO BREAKING DOWN--coerced loyalty coming undone---Suskind NYT

[indigobusiness]

Discipline Takes a Break at the White House

--snip--

For months now, the same administration whose members once prided themselves on never contradicting one another in public has been riven by conflicting pronouncements. Senior officials keep missing opportunities to keep their signals straight, prompting cases of vicious backbiting that one senior member of Mr. Bush's national security staff said with disgust the other day "make us sound like Democrats.''

Reporters who spent the first two-thirds of Mr. Bush's term looking for any crack between the tight-lipped members of the administration suddenly feel as if they have stepped into an amusement park, with different hawkers openly selling disparate policies, explanations and critiques.

--snip--

"What you find is that coerced discipline often erodes,'' Mr. Suskind said. "And when it goes, it really goes. Some of that rigor of message was suddenly the stuff of coercion, born of fear rather than real loyalty.'' His book was followed by Richard A. Clarke's unflattering inside account of the counterterrorism operation and Bob Woodward's account of the White House's march to war.

Another theory is that while the president is thinking about his second term, many of those in his cabinet are thinking about getting out - Mr. Powell first among them. That changes every political calculation; many suspect that the secretary of state, among others, is thinking about his legacy, and wants to clear the ledgers before he leaves.

--snip--

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/30sang.html?pagewanted=...

[Mikimouse]

1. Too late for Powell, he already destroyed any credibility he had...

He deserves any animosity to which he is subjected. I was horrified when he joined the ranks of * supporters, but thought that he might be a stabilizing influence. Boy, was I naive! He is nothing more than another whore.

[indepat]

8. Wholly concur: he IMNSHO sold his soul and honor when he lied big-time

at the UN and otherwise supported and shilled for an aggressive war seen by most of the world as illegal from day-one.

[JohnyCanuck]

15. He sold his soul and honor long before that.

When he was a Major in Vietnam, he was responsible for following up on a letter from a US GI, Tom Glen, in which Glen charged that US forces were responsible for atrocities against Vietnamese civilians and POWs. It was written not long after the May Lai incident, and although Glen didn't specifically bring up Mai Lai in his letter (he only mentioned incidents he had witnessed personally), Glen later said that rumors of the Mai Lai atrocity were circulating on the grapevine. Powell did a whitewash investigation of Glen's charges and anounced things were all hunky dory between the US Army and the civilian Vietnamese population. If he had done any meaningful investigation at all, charges are that he would have uncovered the Mai Lai story as well.

But a test soon confronted Maj. Powell. A letter had been written by a young specialist fourth class named Tom Glen, who had served in an Americal mortar platoon and was nearing the end of his Army tour. In a letter to Gen. Creighton Abrams, the commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, Glen accused the Americal division of routine brutality against civilians. Glen's letter was forwarded to the Americal headquarters at Chu Lai where it landed on Maj. Powell's desk.

"The average GI's attitude toward and treatment of the Vietnamese people all too often is a complete denial of all our country is attempting to accomplish in the realm of human relations," Glen wrote. "Far beyond merely dismissing the Vietnamese as 'slopes' or 'gooks,' in both deed and thought, too many American soldiers seem to discount their very humanity; and with this attitude inflict upon the Vietnamese citizenry humiliations, both psychological and physical, that can have only a debilitating effect upon efforts to unify the people in loyalty to the Saigon government, particularly when such acts are carried out at unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy."

Glen's letter contended that many Vietnamese were fleeing from Americans who "for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves." Gratuitous cruelty was also being inflicted on Viet Cong suspects, Glen reported.

<snip>

After that cursory investigation, Powell drafted a response on Dec. 13, 1968. He admitted to no pattern of wrongdoing. Powell claimed that U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were taught to treat Vietnamese courteously and respectfully. The Americal troops also had gone through an hour-long course on how to treat prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, Powell noted.


http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. The day Powell sold his soul to the devil is when he appeared before the

U.N. pimping the WMD line. Those deals are final. I STILL remember as if it were yesterday, talking to a friend on the phone who was "totally convinced" by Powell's arguments and the arguments that the Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war. I couldn't even complete the conversation and rarely speak to that person to this day.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. The disparity in the leaking is probably because these people were

following orders that they never understood. That's the problem when you lead by ideology. You have people shutting off their brains because logic isn't required. The most loyal servants are those who follow blindly, but they don't exactly make the best watchdogs for the public interest.

[indigobusiness]

3. Well said...They also make the best Nazis.

But isn't it interesting the dynamic of forced loyalty unravelling?

[joanne]

4. Sounds like Powell is still lying all the time

Claiming Dumbya welcomes differences of opinion.

Yeah right. :evilgrin:

[indigobusiness]

9. Good point, Joanne...and welcome to DU

For me, it finally sank in that lying has become not second nature, but first nature amongst this crowd. Time and again there is evidence showing they have lied when it didn't make any sense to...machiavellian, or otherwise...when it not only didn't help anyone, but couldn't possibly have helped.

[Eric J in MN]

5. If Colin Powell resigns before the election, and says that it's

If Colin Powell resigns before the election, and says that it's an act of protest, and apologizes for going along with Bush, then he can regain a bit of his credibility.

Anything less, no.

[indigobusiness]

10. So, you can dance with the devil just a little bit

as long as you go to church afterwards?

Forgiving him is a possibility, restoring his credibility after so many lives have been lost or ruined, is asking too much.

[Domitan]

6. What I find interesting

is the wisecrack about sounding like Democrats. Some people need to learn that difference of opinions/views can be a sign of a healthy dynamic group that can evolve. Being stagnant static clones who dare not break from the groupthink mode only serves to corrupt the human spirit.

[myopic4141]

7. A wisecrack it may be;

but, the Republicans would be better off if they were like the Democrats for healthy debates are always better than righteous narrow mindedness.

[indigobusiness]

11. Terrific point, Domitan!

Lockstep strikes deep.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. The "spell" of coercive fear is being broken. Once the invincibility of

the empire is in doubt, the "discipline" breaks down like a dam bursting. Since the issue of shrub's re"election" is in serious doubt, and fear of coercion tactics boils down to survival and self interest, survival and self interest behaviors may begin to take other forms as it becomes increasingly clear that blind fealty to shrubco may have an adverse effect on one's survival.

I'm sure the "discipline" among the Nazis wasn't so hot as the bombs were falling around Hitler's bunker.


Bush Administration Transition Team

[PATRICK]

14. Wish we had better reporters

to take advantage of the opportunity.

[indigobusiness]

16. Wish we had

better things to report.