Tomgram: Nick Turse, Success, Failure, and the "Finest Warriors Who Ever Went Into Combat"
If journalism was once considered
the first rough draft of history, now, when it comes to American
military policy at least, it’s often the first rough pass at writing a
script for "The Daily Show." Take, for example, a little inside-the-paper piece that Eric Schmitt of the New York Times penned recently with this headline: “New Role for General After Failure of Syria Rebel Plan.” And here’s the first paragraph:
“The Army general in charge of the Pentagon’s failed $500 million
program to train and equip Syrian rebels is leaving his job in the next
few weeks, but is likely to be promoted and assigned a senior
counterterrorism position here, American officials said on Monday.”
Yes, you read that right. Major General Michael Nagata is indeed
“likely to be promoted.” He remains, according to Schmitt, one of “the
Army’s rising stars” and is “in line to be awarded a third star, to
lieutenant general, and take a senior position at the National
Counterterrorism Center in Washington.” Oh, and one of the reasons for
his possible upcoming promotion, other than having overseen a program to
produce
15,000 American-backed “moderate” Syrian rebels ready to fight the
Islamic State that actually only produced a handful of them who fought
no one, is according to “colleagues” his “bureaucratic acumen in
counterterrorism jobs at the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.”
Bureaucratic acumen! What better skill could you ask for in the new American national security state built since 9/11 on failure?
No kidding, wouldn’t you give your right arm to be in an organization
that essentially called whatever you did success and promoted you
accordingly? As TomDispatch’s Nick Turse notes in his latest
stunning report on America’s Special Operations forces, the secret
military within our military that has in recent years grown to monstrous proportions
has also gone from “success” to “success”; that is, as an organization,
its expansion has been dependent upon Washington’s military failures
and disasters, especially in the Greater Middle East. One of Bob Dylan’s
famed cryptic lyrics
seems to cover the situation with a certain precision: “She knows
there's no success like failure. And that failure's no success at all.” Tom
