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January 28, 2005

SECRET SECRETS

Still rolling along as it has been all week, yesterday's Democracy Now! broadcast was another stunner, this time featuring an interview with William Arkin, whose new book, "Code Names," exposes the obsessive secrecy of the U.S. government and its apotheosis under the current regime.

Arkin, at right, a longtime investigative journalist and military-affairs analyst, has delved more deeply than anyone, including Sy Hersh, into the hidden corners of the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies, according to observers like Steven Aftergood, who writes Secrecy News, the newsletter of the Federation of American Scientists, and Charles Horner, former commander of the U.S. Space Command and the former Air Force general who led the coalition air forces in Operation Desert Storm.

Hersh himself says in a blurb for the book that Arkin "makes amateurs of all of us who think we know something about America's constantly expanding hidden world." But you know what? Arkin offers a ray of hope in spite of his well-earned skepticism about the covert practices vs. the public declarations of the U.S. government -- indeed, of all governments. When asked to assess the war in Iraq right now, he replied:

Though the U.S. military is sort of marching in lockstep (at least the leadership) saying, "We're going to be there for another one or two years" (and they're probably holding their breath hoping that it ain't any longer than that), the truth of the matter is that I think there's been a sea change inside the American military in the last year where their enthusiasm for the process of democratization and the mission in Iraq has really evaporated. And since I'm close to the military and follow the military, when I see something like that happen I really recognize that the Bush administration is operating on an ideological platform only [with just] tentative support from its own military leadership. ...

It's a sad day for America when, in October and November before an election, you have more retired generals and admirals calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq than you have Democratic candidates. ...[T]he truth of the matter is that [in the military] there's a tremendous amount of discomfort as there has been from day one with the ideology of the Bush administration. The professional military has been shunted aside and has been ignored and their advice has been not taken seriously.

Arkin continued:

Americans should pay much more attention to the fact that there are high-ranking officials, knowledgeable people, who formerly were high-level commanders in the military who are deeply concerned about, not just Iraq, but the way in which we are pursuing the war on terrorism and this notion that we're going to win the war on terrorism by killing terrorists one at a time Wild West-style. ...

[W]hen you have so many retired ambassadors, retired generals and admirals and others who are themselves speaking out in an environment right now in which people are fearful of speaking out, that's really a significant sea change. And though those people were not willing to speak out before the Iraq war, unfortunately, I really think we've seen a significant change in the past year since Fallujah, April, '04 where they have said, "This is going nowhere."

That's not what Georgie Boy or Condi Baby want to hear, of course. And certainly not what they want us to hear. Especially not with the Iraq national election just two days away. Let's see what the American regime's grandiose freedom hype brings on Sunday. Yesterday, speaking of the upcoming election, Georgie Boy told The New York Times, "We're watching history being made, history that will change the world." Apparently he thinks he's starring in a movie. Get a load of his John Wayne pose in the Oval Office. (Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Posted by at January 28, 2005 09:25 AM

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