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MILITARY LEADERS MUTINYING
Military Men Who Oppose Neo-Con Warmongering Under Attack
By Michael Piper
For generations, Republicans were strong supporters of the American
military. But now that top military men are in open rebellion against the
armchair civilian war hawks—the hard-line pro-Israel ideologues who directed President George Bush to order an invasion of Iraq and who now want war on Iran—the angriest voices condemning the military are from GOP circles.
Following the lead of the neo-conservatives, who are viewed as fanatics but still dominate the Bush administration and key GOP policy groups, many GOP loyalists are declaring war on the battle-tested generals, admirals and other military heroes who are saying, “Enough is enough.”
Although none of the military men have yet said “No more wars for Israel,” their rhetoric in writings and public utterances says essentially that.
Conservatives roundly denounced former Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni as an “anti-Semite” for noting that pro-Israel neo-conservatives were the driving force behind the Iraq war and that everybody in Washington knew it. Zinni knew what he was talking about: he formerly commanded all U.S. forces protecting Israel in the Middle East.
More recently, another retired Marine, Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in Time that the Iraq war was “unnecessary” and that the rationale for war by those whom he called “the zealots” made no sense. Newbold’s choice of the word “zealots” was loaded. The term arises from the legend of the Zealots—an ancient sect of Jewish fanatics.
Newbold quit the service four months before the Iraq invasion, in part, he said, because he opposed those who exploited the 9-11 tragedy “to hijack our security policy”—referring to the zealous neo-con fanatics. He added:
“Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public.” But, he said, “I’ve been silent long enough.”
What particularly disturbed Newbold’s critics was that he said he was speaking out “with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership.”
He also struck out at what he called “the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war”—a slam at the neo-conservatives and their Israeli allies who shoveled up garbage, disguised as “intelligence,” and used it to justify the war.
Newbold brandished his anger at the armchair war hawks, most of whom never served in the military, saying, “the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.”
Newbold’s statements received much media attention, so the neo-cons fired back.
Perhaps the most telling attack on the generals came from Stephen Herbits, a former top executive of the Seagram liquor empire, the fiefdom of 
This longtime Bronfman henchman was appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make “heads roll” in the military, screening all Pentagon promotions and appointments, implementing the agenda of enforcing lockstep Zionist control of the American war machine.
EXAMINE THE GENERALS
Writing in the April 20 edition of the egregiously pro-Israel Washington Times, Herbits urged the media to start to investigate military leaders who dared to take on the administration.
Herbits said it would be “a service to this country when the media digs a bit below these attacks to examine the generals.”
Herbits is obviously calling on spy agencies such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a conduit for Israel’s Mossad, to come up with “data” on the military men and provide it to the media to bring the dissidents into line.
But cracking the whip over the entire military will be tough. On April 18, David Broder, senior Washington Post commentator, revealed that some months ago after he wrote of how Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.)—a former Marine colonel who served in Vietnam—had called for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Broder was contacted by a Pentagon officer who gave his name and rank and then said:
“This is a private call. I am not speaking officially. But I read your column, and I think it is important for you to know that Jack Murtha knows us very well and speaks for many of us.”
This is no secret to those who know official Washington since Murtha has been a leading Capitol Hill voice for the military for years. And this is what makes pro-Israel Republican attacks on Murtha so disingenuous: they paint
Murtha as a “pacifist,” “defeatist,” “liberal” ideologue. He is anything but that.
For its own part, in an April 18 editorial, titled “The Generals’ Revolt,” The Washington Post said “the rebellion is problematic” and “threatens the essential democratic principle of military subordination to civilian control—the more so because a couple of the officers claim they are speaking for some still on active duty.”
That same day, a lead editor of The Washington Times Tony Blankley—an advocate of all-out war against the Muslim world—declared that generals still in service who may be planning to quit together in protest against Bush policies may be “illegally conspiring.”
Not content with accusing American military leaders of being seditious, Blankley followed up the next day with a repetition of his smears, calling for a court of inquiry to determine whether the military leaders are guilty of insubordination.
Echoing Blankley, shrill pro-Israel agitator Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist by profession, not a soldier, blustered on April 21 with a column in The Washington Post crying of “The General’s Dangerous Whispers.”
In the end, though, what’s most interesting is that prior to the explosion of reports in the mainstream media about the dissatisfied generals—four years after American Free Press first broke the story at a national level, even before the invasion of Iraq—the April issue of America’s oldest and most respected magazine, Harper’s, featured a provocative cover story:
“American Coup d’Etat: Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable.”
This was one month after Harper’s—in another cover story—called for the impeachment of President Bush.
Clearly, some people in high places are not happy with the pro-Israel internationalism of the Bush regime.
(Issue #18 & 19, May 1 & 8, 2006)
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