STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

White House Political Expedience Will Always Sacrifice Brave U.S. Military Soldiers for Civilian Self-Aggrandizement!

America Has Sent Brave Soldiers to Fight Unnecessary Wars for the Past 30 Years—Iraq and Afghanistan!

Fallujah,  Iraq Won by U.S Marines in November,  2002 at the Cost of 100 lives.   Now Fallujah Falls!

For over three or more decades,  probably back to the Vietnam days,   I have  cautioned my colleagues in the military that we are being used for Political Cannon Fodder in order to advance the political careers of POTUS’s: Clinton; Bush Jr; and now, Obama.    The recent revelation by the honorable,  non-partisan Ex Sec Def Robert Gates in his recent memoir entitled Duty,   Gates makes the same acerbic point of how politically callous Obama and Ex-SecState Hillary Clinton were in their need to ‘lie’ about the ‘utility’ of the ‘military surge’ with regards to their respective political careers.    However,   Gates has only touched the surface of an issue that has obsessed me both professionally and personally for most of my adult years.

  In a recent article by Richard A. Oppel Jr. entitled “Fallujah’s Fall Stuns Marines Who Fought There” ,  NY Times,  January 10, 2014 (posted earlier) are some revealing,  if not painful comments by the brave Marines who fought the Iraqi Jihadists in 2002 to  ‘liberate’  Fallujah,   an iconic Marine Victory.

“It made me sick to my stomach to have that [defeat of Fallujah] thrown in our face, everything we fought for so blatantly taken away.” 

“Some blame Obama for not pushing harder to keep some troops in Iraq….. Others EXPRESS ANGER AT GEORGE W. BUSH JR. FOR GETTING THEM INTO A WAR THAT THEY NOW VIEW AS DUBIOUS IN PURPOSE AND EVEN MORE DOUBTFUL IN ITS ACCOMPLISHMENTS”. [My emphasis]

“This is just the beginning of the reckoning and accounting”.

“This has been a GUT PUNCH to the MORALE OF THE MARINE CORPS AND PAINFUL FOR A LOT OF FAMILIES WHO ARE SAYING,”I THOUGHT MY SON DIED  FOR A REASON.” [my emphasis]. 

Why is this particular war so important to me ?   Clearly,  I was too old to be in that war as a combatant.
But I had several minor contributions in both protesting the war and advancing the ‘knowledge’ about Fallujah at the time prior to and after the Marines took over the city.

  What do I mean? 

  As most of you know by now,   I was completely against this ersatz Iraq war contrived by the misbegotten,  Machiavellian chicken hawks— Dick Cheney; Donald Rumsfeld;  Stephen Hadley;  Paul Wolfowitz;  Elliot Abrams;  Condi Rice;  Colin Powell;  Zalmay Khalizad;  Scooter Libby;  Frank Fukuyama;  Robert Kaplan; Thomas Friedman;  George Tenet;  Ambassador Jerry Brenner;  Charles Krauthammer;  Steve Cambone; Senator Hillary Clinton; Senator Diane Feinstein; Senator John McCain [phony ‘war hero’-hostage] and those in the military that should have known better: General Michael Hayden,  General Tommy Franks and Senator John Kerry.

I am sure that readers can add names to this list of villains that should be held accountable for their part in the big criminal lie that is Iraq and Afghanistan.

It’s up to you,  America to find out who voted to send our brave men and women into a self-defeating war that was never intended to be won.   These are only a few of the culprits who,  other than actual military personnel,  lied,  deceived and cheated the American public by insisting on engaging a major troop incursion into Iraq to benefit the Neo-Conservative Agenda of Israel and the USA becoming the dominant power in the Middle East. 

As nonsensical and dangerous as these ideological assessments of the Neo-con agenda were,  theses neo-fascists were defied by me and others.   We argued on print,  radio and in speeches that these neo-con civilians,  who were mainly Jewish,  had been in a previous incarnation Trotskyites espousing Left-Wing Revolutions.    They had found succor and nurture in such esteemed academic institutions as the University of Chicago (Obama taught there) and Cornell University [my disgraced alma mater.]    Also they found miscreant,   bravado leadership from former well-known Trotskyite phony intellectuals like their pater familia—John Podhoretz and his miscreant wife,  Midge Decter [both founders of Commentary Magazine and Elliot Abrams in-laws].     The most cynical and disgraceful part of these cowards was the fact that they had conscientiously avoided serving or fighting in our military.  

What is sad and tragic,   if NOT CRIMINAL part of the narrative,  all of these “CHICKEN HAWKS” had no qualms about sending innocent men and women to fight in an unnecessary,  unprepared for war in both Iraq and Afghanistan.    They created a phony Stand-Down Called 9/11 and assured the nation that we were attacked by the non-existent Osama Bin Laden [thanks CIA, Military Intelligence].     Next these American War Criminals sent our nation into a cauldron of insurgencies that we could never really contain or extinguish.

Very few stood up to protest.

I did and I paid a very heavy price for it.

  The “American Intelligence” Magazine declared that "I did not know what I was talking about when I said 9/11 was nothing more than collusion and incompetency of the combined WH and the military/intelligence complex."

Shame on AFIO , CIA,  MI. 
  From my point of view,  and those who have served repeatedly in our military—These men were the equivalent of American War Criminals who knowingly sent our brave men to die needlessly.

This blog is not about me but I would like to show how I tried to stop this inevitable ‘slaughter’ of our Marines,  only to illustrated how someone who cares about our military and is repelled by our White House,  POTUS, and legislators worked sub rosa.

  For over twenty years,   I had the privilege of giving one lecture a year to men and women from the military,  CIA, and military intelligence at the FT McNair,  Washington DC.    Only the military could accommodate my constant arguments to 9/11 and the impending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I was allowed to express my complete dissent against the impending invasion into Iraq at FT McNair. 

Ironical?
  Not really.

  One of the advantages of having served one’s country is that no matter what one’s views are,  our senior military officers and intelligence officers were afforded the opportunity to hear all sides of an argument.   Whatever that issue might be.

  In this case,   the question at hand was the impending invasion of Iraq.    I warned those officers in the room that it would fail.   That the invasion was completely contrived by the manufacture of false intelligence ordered by Bush /Cheney/Rumsfeld/Powell/Condi. 

  I had known a lot about them professionally and personally,  as a matter of fact,  Condi had taught one of my relatives at Stanford and was a very good teacher…but a lousy National Security Advisor and … like the rest of the civilians in the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld---complete pathological liars.    I had known about their collective nefarious deeds all the way from the Nixon/Kissinger days up until RAND and then beyond that point.    Their agenda was clearly spelled out in their written diatribes for PAX AMERICA in the MIDDLE EAST WITH ISRAEL as a joint partner.

  Clearly,   my warnings about the inevitable failure of the Iraq War was not heeded.    I did not expect that I was sufficiently important to turn the tide of war.   However, I did not stop there.    Let us just say that if I could not stop the war and it’s inevitable denouement of mass slaughter and defeat,  I did offer my services, such as they were,  to some military officials.

  What I did or said is not as relevant as the following episode:

  On my own and for personal reasons,   I undertook a trip to Jordan,  Syria,  Iran and other points just to find out for myself how bad the situation was for our brave military personnel.   It was worse than I had even envisioned.    On one occasion,   I purposefully walked straight into the Hornet’s Nest--- Syria.    There I was interrogated for hours, having been accused of being a spy for the USA.

  I assured them that a man in the better part of the fifty years old,  dressed in cut-off shorts and had reddish hair from from a bottle could not by logic or any form of rational reason… be a spy of any type… in reality I was being an ‘old fool’ who just wanted to visit Palmyra,  Lattakia,  Aleppo,  Damascus,  Homs,  Hama as part of my research for a non-existent book in the Op Center series.    The Bashar Administration was smart enough and gracious enough to release me and allow me to tour the country.

  What I learned was quite simple.

  The Syrians admitted to me that they were in the process of arming the insurgents in Fallujah with major artillery intended to ambush and decimate our Marines there.   By whatever means,  I was able to pass that information onto the proper US Military authorities.    What occurred subsequently is not anything that I can or will attribute to my interrogations.

  All I knew is that when I returned back to the USA,   I felt a sense of comfort that in a very small way I might have helped our Marines, warning them as the Syrians had warned me about an impending ambush in Fallujah.

  Today,  I became disheartened. 

  I read of the defeat of Fallujah and I became angry once again.

  Our Presidents,  Clinton [prepared the way for Rendition and 9/11 with Sandy Berger, NSA];  Bush jr/Cheney; Rumsfeld; Condi; Obama; and all the other civilians who were too cowardly to serve our country and who were completely incompetent in managing a war that they created.

  As one Marine veteran of Fallujah said in the article:
“it was irresponsible to send US OVER THERE with no plan AND NOW TO JUST GIVE IT ALL AWAY!!”

 

No,  my brave Marine,  it was not just ‘irresponsible’—IT WAS CRIMINAL!!
  And now America,  it’s your turn to decide what you want to do with OUR WELL-DOCUMENTED AMERICAN WAR CRIMINALS!!!
  Indict them? 

Create An American Nuremberg War Crimes Trial? 

  Now is the time to stop these cowardly civilian politicians and their military henchman from sending any more of our sons and daughters into a needless war!  Stand up!
  Semper Fei!!!!