Contrary to its billing, this was no mere attack on the administration. Sanchez's speech is perfectly positioned to accelerate the stabbed-in-the-back myth of explaining the war now emerging on the right. That corrosive idea, revived most recently by revisionist Vietnam historian Mark Moyar, holds that sybaritic [lazy, selfish, hedonistic] and feckless civilians recklessly squander the hard-won gains of the military.Ackerman's article mentions Sanchez' disgraceful role in the torture program and the Abu Ghuraib scandal in the first paragraph and elaborates on it later. And, sensibly ignoring the ludicrous taboo on criticizing our holy generals, he also reminds us that torture may not be the only thing for which Sanchez' has to answer in his professional role:
... Sanchez's speech reads like a foundational text for an aggrieved conservative worldview that the war was too virtuous for the country that fought it. And it makes a lot of sense that it's Sanchez, the most disgraced general of the entire war, who issued this j'accuse.
Consider the following line, one which didn't make it into most media accounts of the speech. "While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power -- our soldiers die!" Sanchez is interested in attacking -- repeatedly -- unnamed "political leaders" whose partisan squabbling has "endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield." (my emphasis)
Abu Ghraib was only one element in Sanchez's manifold failures as a general in Iraq. Lacking clear leadership or central coordination, his division commanders essentially ran their own occupations, resulting in drastically varying results -- from the heavy-handed tactics of Major General Ray Odierno in Anbar to the population-centric approach of Major General David Petraeus. In account after account from Iraq veterans in Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks's definitive book Fiasco, Sanchez is described as a tactician unable to see the bigger picture of the war.I would add to Ackerman's perceptive comments that the stab-in-the-back excuse has been on the horizon since 2003, because the stab-in-the-back nonsense was already embedded in the political right and much of the officer course as an alibi for the loss of the Vietnam War. It seemed to me that around the beginning of 2005, the stab-in-the-back take on the Iraq War started to get a lot more visibility.
Defying common sense among both liberals and conservatives, he told Tim Russert in April 2004, "the forces that we have on the ground are adequate," -- even as both the Sunni and the Shiite insurgencies inflamed the country. Whatever divides civilians and soldiers, it's not respect for Sanchez. One active-duty officer summed up the catastrophe in Iraq by telling Ricks, "In Vietnam we left Westy [Commanding General William Westmoreland] in. In Iraq we left Sanchez in."
Ackerman also sights some of the major themes in the stab-in-the-back motif in Sanchez' whiny criticism of recent days:
And Sanchez has no shortage of culprits. In fact, it's Bush who gets off easiest here. Nearly everyone not in uniform is responsible for the horror. The press has strayed from ethical standards - so far, he says, that a reversal of course is needed so "our democracy does not continue to be threatened." Civilians within the Bush administration, and particularly on the National Security Council, failed U.S. troops by not devising and implementing a strategy for Iraq that involved more than military power. Congress is a particular enemy: it abdicated "focused oversight" in favor of "exhortations, encouragements, investigations, studies and discussions." America itself does not escape blame. The "greatest failures" in Iraq are linked to the country's "lack of commitment, priority and moral courage in this war effort." Sanchez's comments might benefit war opponents in the short term, since the press hasn't emphasized this vitriol, but embittered conservatives looking to place blame practically have a catechism to read from. (my emphasis)This is all stock authoritarian boilerplate, adapted to the particular conditions of the Iraq War. But you can find the same nonsense in an endless number of rightwing books, articles and blog posts about the Vietnam War.
Ackerman may not fully realize what stock authoritarian thinking this is. But he's right in noting that Sanchez' has a particular stake in promoting this worldview on the Iraq War:
Sanchez's hysteria is not easily explained. That is, unless you take into account Sanchez's guilty conscience and his anger over his disgrace.Sanchez is producing the kind of whining that the Republican Party's hardcore base just loves.
That conscience is made guilty, of course, by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal specifically, and the explosion of the insurgency during his year in command more generally.
Tags: authoritarianism, iraq war, ricardo sanchez, spencer ackerman, stab-in-the-back
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