A Fallen Legion in Washington

By October 2005, when American casualties in Iraq had not yet reached 2,000 dead or 15,000 wounded, and our casualties in Afghanistan were still modest indeed, informal "walls" had already begun springing up online to honor the fallen. At that time, I suggested that "the particular dishonor this administration has brought down on our country calls out for other 'walls' as well." I imagined, then, walls of shame for Bush administration figures and their cronies -- and even produced one (in words) that November. By now, of course, any such wall would be full to bursting with names that will live in infamy.

That October, at the website I run, TomDispatch.com, we launched quite a different project, another kind of "wall," this time in tribute to the striking number of "governmental casualties of Bush administration follies, those men and women who were honorable or steadfast enough in their government duties," and so often found themselves smeared and with little alternative but to resign in protest, quit, or simply be pushed off the cliff by cronies of the administration.

Nick Turse led off what we came to call our "fallen legion" project with a list of 42 such names, ranging from the well-known Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki (who retired after suggesting to Congress that it would take "several hundred thousand troops" to occupy Iraq) and Richard Clarke (who quit, appalled by how the administration was dealing with terror and terrorism) to the moderately well known Ann Wright, John Brown, and John Brady Kiesling (three diplomats who resigned to protest the coming invasion of Iraq) to the little known Archivist of the United States John W. Carlin (who resigned under pressure, possibly so that various Bush papers could be kept under wraps). By the time Turse had written his second fallen legion piece that November, and then the third and last in February 2006, that list of names had topped 200 with no end in sight.

Today, to its eternal shame, the Bush administration has left not just its own projects, but the nation it ruled, in ruins. No wall could fit its particular "accomplishments." Turse, who recently wrote for the Nation magazine "A My Lai a Month," a striking exposé of a U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Vietnam that slaughtered thousands of civilians, returns in the last moments of this dishonored administration with a fitting capstone piece for the honorably fallen in Washington, "A Truth-teller for Our Time," on former insider Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He was the man who, in 2005, spoke of a "cabal" within the White House making key national security decisions, and more recently, of his own grim experiences in Vietnam, including the killing of a young girl in a free fire zone, as a warning to American soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of it as the last of the "fallen legion" series, a memory piece -- lest we forget.

Comments (9)

1. i imagine the first few frenetic days after the 9/11 attacks.

   george b. to tenet...

   "find me evidence of wmd in iraq AND links between hussein and bin laden!"

   "sir, you mean, 'ARE there WMD and links?'"

   "no, i mean 'find me evidence'"

   lol - talk about cognitive dissonance. how different was it, i wonder? a lot more drawn aut with a lot more subtleties and twists, but...

   how many government employees DID get remoted or pressured to go for trying to do their jobs, jobs which require honesty to do right...

   stupid, arrogant, wicked, AND incompetant in carrying out stupidity...

   nice.

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 11/24/2008 @ 10:18am

2. Given, AT THE LEAST, Bush installed a MORE friendly-to-Iran goverment in Baghdad....

   even from a right-wing perspective, I don't see how Dubya gets "redeemed by history" in years to come, even years after his death.

   I KNOW the Right (esp. neo-con Right) will try, if for their own egos and not wanting to go down in history as the last "Chauvin", with less than a quarter of the country supporting him or his Presidency.

   But I just don't see how it can happen. Look at Johnson (Lyndon)...he has his fans on the Left (for civil rights, Great Society, etc.) like Doris Kearns Goodwin, but who can possibly be Bush's "Doris"?

   And like LBJ and Vietnam, Bush will be linked to the escalation and most casualties lost...not the inevitable pull-out that occurs under his successor.

   Unlike Johnson, Dubya has some years to attempt it. He's relatively young and can live out another 20 years, giving speeches and promoting the "I'll be vindicated someday...just wait" idiocy.

   But I just don't see it working. Atleast Johnson had a decent economy!

   Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 10:29am

3. Bush didn't need to install any new government in Iraq...he had no business going there in the first place!!! The whole thing was "trumped up" to suit Bush's agenda and he was going to Iraq come hell or high water...to hell with what we thought or the rest of the world thought!!! I think he is the worst President I can remember and I also think he needs to be prosecuted for war crimes, alongside Cheney and Rumsfeld. This has been the most incompetent administration ever...totally shameful the lot of them.

   Posted by Caj at 11/24/2008 @ 10:37am

4. Unlike Johnson, Dubya has some years to attempt it. He's relatively young and can live out another 20 years, giving speeches and promoting the "I'll be vindicated someday...just wait" idiocy.

   Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 10:29am

   You mean like Jimminy Peanut and Slick Willie Clinton?

   Posted by ACook at 11/24/2008 @ 12:34pm

5. Posted by ACook at 11/24/2008 @ 12:34pm

   Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/24/2008 @ 1:01pm

   How many GIs did Jimmy Carter kill (Yes, please mention the rescue operation) and how many hundreds of billions in debt did he incur to establisha an Iranian-friendly country?

   What was the US budget deficit?

   How many hundreds of billions were needed to bail out the banks, financial centers, Big Auto?

   As for Clinton....peace.....prosperity....budget SURPLUSES....US admiration abroad...and throw in for your pleasure and min, abortion rates DOWN (where as they're up now)...

   you REALLY want to compare Dubya to that????

   Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 1:14pm

6. Be honest Mr liberty,

   We had the 55mph limit under Ford, I remember being on the 5 in California with highway patrol two abreast rolling at 55mph in 1975. And we had double digit inflation coming out of the Vietnam war as military spending dropped and as the fallout of the Arab-Israeli war put oil prices through the roof, remember Ford's WIN program?

   It is fashionable on the right to decry the Carter Administration, but the problems he faced were not created on his watch (save the Iranian crisis which had its origins in 1954). He was also saddled with a Senate dominated by DINO's from the South and a moribund world economy. Reagan "fixed" the economy with a huge peacetime military spending orgy creating massive public debt.

   Obama faces huge problems not of his causing, we shall see how he does, but we are better off with him than McCain and Palin.

   I guess you'll have to wait at least four years for the economically libertarian Theocracy you seem to crave.

   Posted by ohsotired at 11/24/2008 @ 2:11pm

7. lvliberty wrote: Did Bush make the business model decisions for the Automakers?

   No but he didn't prod them in the right direction. In fact I remember him upping the tax allowance on high end SUVs.

   Your point about the complexity of the international markets is correct. But having a president who thinks things are fine as long as the DOW is up, without regard to other factors is negligent. As he said, "Wall street got drunk", but the administration was the bartender at the "No Regulation Saloon".

   Presidents bear responsibility for the troops they send into harms way and it behooves them to have very clear ideas about mission and necessity before they take that step. Johnson (with a largely drafted army) was misled by his advisers, arguably Bush was too--although the public record indicates he was intent on invading Iraq from day 1. In that sense the deaths are his responsibility.

   Posted by ohsotired at 11/24/2008 @ 6:22pm

8. "No but he didn't prod them in the right direction."

   Posted by ohsotired at 11/24/2008 @ 6:22pm

   That's not a President's job either. No where does it say he bears the responsibility to make sure every publicly traded or private business be prodded by him to make the right business decisions.

   Posted by ACook at 11/24/2008 @ 9:27pm

9. The Bush-Cheyney Junta lied to justify invading Iraq and the Downing Street Memo proves it.

   Posted by koroviev at 11/25/2008 @ 12:52am