Thank you for this post. Thank you so very much. Bravo!

Alexander sounds a lot like Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings. Daniel Inouye, a recipient of the Medal of Honor, had a few choice words for him that might be worth directing toward Alexander as well:

In 1964, when Colonel North was a cadet, he took an oath of office like all hundreds throughout the service academies. And he also said that he will abide with the regulations which set forth the cadet honor concept. The first honor concept, first because it is so important, over and above all others, is a very simple one: A member of the brigade does not lie, cheat, or steal. And in this regulation of 1964, the word “lie” was defined as follows: “A deliberate oral or written untruth; it may be an oral or written statement which is known to be false or simple response to a question in which the answer is known to be false.’ The words “mislead” or “deceive” were defined as follows: “A deliberate misrepresentation of a true situation by being untruthful or withholding or omitting or subtly wording information in such a way as to leave an erroneous or false impression of the known true situation.”

And when the Colonel put on his uniform and the bars of a Second Lieutenant, he was well aware that he was subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is a special code of laws that apply to our men and women in uniform. It is a code that has been applicable to the conduct and activities of Colonel North throughout his military career, and even at this moment. And that code makes it abundantly clear that orders of a superior officer must be obeyed by subordinate members. But it is lawful orders.

The uniform code makes it abundantly clear that it must be the lawful orders of a superior officer.

In fact, it says, “Members of the military have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders.” . . .

Colonel North, I am certain it must have been painful for you as you stated to testify that you lied to senior officials of our government, that you lied and misled our Congress and believe me it was painful for all of us to sit here and listen to that testimony. It was painful.

It was equally painful to learn from your testimony that you lied and misled because of what you believed to be a just cause, supporters of Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters, the Contras. You have eloquently articulated your opposition to Marxism and communism. And I believe that all of us, I am certain all of us on this panel, are equally opposed to Marxism and communism. But should we in the defense of democracy adopt and embrace one of the most important tenets of communism and Marxism: the ends justify the means?

This is not one of the commandments of democracy. Our government is not a government of men, it is still a government of laws.

All in all, I’ll take Inouye’s version of Duty, Honor, Country over MacArthur’s.

General Alexander is lying for a higher moral value, creating another world war. Then there will be no dissent or protests, because these domestic terrorists will be imprisoned in the Gulag.

With all the paranoia about civilian spying, 16 or so agencies, we neglect military spying on citizens. The military was used for the 60’s COINTELPRO because of large numbers of personnel needed to spy and target hippies with dirty tricks.

Today’s military also supplies much of the personnel to neutralize the domestic terrorists who oppose the wars. That is the majority of the American people. So frequent false flag ops are necessary such as Boston Marathon Bombings. The “civilian” spy agencies are led by Generals such as Petraeus at CIA, General Clapper at DNI, and General Alexander at NSA.

This should be considered a military dictatorship. Part of the dictatorship requires a false history. These Generals have supplied that false history with lie after lie. Also, recall, that Bradley Manning worked at a military Fusion Center. That is our future, military controlled fusion centers to neutralize any anti-corporate protests.

@Marcy:

For a little perspective, we had to sit through a class in the military 50 years ago in which a recording of that MacArthur speech was played for our edification. Don’t recall if it was reel-to-reel or on vinyl, but that shiny new cassette technology wasn’t yet available.

You have to hear the thing. The delivery is reminiscent of Christopher Lloyd’s character Jim Ignatowski taking his driver’s license exam. “What does a yellow light mean?” “Slow down.” “Okay, w-h-a-t d-o-e-s a y-e-l-l-o-w l-i-g-h-t m-e-a-n?”, etc.

“D-u-t-y (pause) h-o-n-o-r (pause) c-o-u-n-t-r-y.”

Maybe Alexander sat through a similar class a few decades later.

Audio here (and don’t think of Jim Ignatowski):

http://www.west-point.org/real/macarthur_address.html

Nowadays it’s mildly reassuring that he didn’t quote a speech by Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.

ah, an orator-general.

properly parsed: “we must win (or my ass is grass)”.

may we expect quotes from alexander the great next speech?

I was just reading some things on Twitter by that 20committee guy, and various friends or colleagues or maybe random responders, I don’t know but it’s pretty alarming. They chat as if they are all part of the intel community, referring to it as the “IC”. He linked to an article on a publication I’ve never seen before, The Washington Beacon, and a writer there has what looks like totally crazy Cold War spin with these apocalyptic scenarios about the damage Snowden has done, what he “may” have divulged to the Chinese and Russians (including nuke plans that weren’t even available until a month after he had left govt employ). There are some quotes from John Bolton that are just totally out there, and they use broad quotes from Alexander and try to weave them into the rest of the crazy talk. And how does John Bolton have all of this specific information anyway? Would this not be highly secret govt. information?

Between the tweets and the article they talk about how this could cause the US to lose military dominance and they suggest that journalists/media might have been helping him set this all up beforehand, or that maybe there were other co-conspirators in on it, and all this speculative crap that looks a whole lot like psyops to me, as if we were in the middle of a hot war with these countries, or in the most intense periods of Soviet cold war, and all kinds of stuff. I guess this is just anything to divert attention away from the things they were engaged in, and the whole shoot the messenger thing but it’s shoot the messenger on steroids. The same guy also says on Twitter that anyone who calls Snowden a hero is suspect, IOW might also be treasonous. Are they trying to make a case for a drone strike on this guy or a some special operation to go in and get him or something? That would be nuts, but what the heck are they doing? Is this just normal chatter in the “IC” community? I’m not otherwise familiar with the musings of the “IC” community.

Sadly, I’m seeing a lot of the vehement talk about being a traitor, calling for execution, on Left blogs too, mostly on dkos. Not the majority, by far, but more than I ever expected in a place where most oppose the death penalty, for instance.

kinda sorta related: I attended a “Terrorism Awareness Symposium” last night at Paramount Studios put on by the LAPD H’wood Division. I went in thinking it was gonna be all “if you see something say something fear fear fear”, but came away a bit heartened.

There were 3 panelists, one former Green Beret now Security Consultant, one ex-CIA and an LAPD Deputy Chief w/the H’wood Chief moderating. The Questions included thoughts on current status of information sharing bet. CIA/FBI, whether post-911 legislation has eroded civil liberties, and consequences of leaking classified info.

The Ex-Military gave a great response to the civil liberties q, that the open-ended “war on terror” doesn’t give the nation the traditional time take a breath for self-examination and we’re “dancing on the edge of tyranny”. he got big applause.

I especially appreciated the Dep Chief’s closing thoughts that in a free society bad things are gonna happen, and the critical thing is “how we come back”, to not give in to fear. And while he was very diplomatic, definitely didn’t show a lotta love for the giant National Security State apparatus being erected.

I still have deep concerns over the militarization of the Police, and how the fusion centers springing up are being used against we citizens, but a lot of the discussion last night pleasantly surprised me.

general keith b. alexander –

this boy ain’t no warrior. he’s just another washington-based military bureaucrat, cf,

“… Career

Alexander’s assignments include the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCS, G-2), Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. from 2003 to 2005; Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia from 2001 to 2003; Director of Intelligence (J-2), United States Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida from 1998 to 2001; and Deputy Director for Intelligence (J-2) for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 1998. Alexander served in a variety of command assignments in Germany and the United States. These include tours as Commander of Border Field Office, 511th MI Battalion, 66th MI Group; 336th Army Security Agency Company, 525th MI Group; 204th MI Battalion; and 525th Military Intelligence Brigade.

Additionally, Alexander held key staff assignments as Deputy Director and Operations Officer, Army Intelligence Master Plan, for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence; S-3 and Executive Officer, 522nd MI Battalion, 2nd Armored Division; G-2 for the 1st Armored Division both in Germany and during the Persian Gulf War, in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, in Saudi Arabia.

As a one-star general, Alexander headed the Army Intelligence and Security Command, where in 2001 he was in charge of 10,700 spies and eavesdroppers worldwide. In the words of James Bamford who wrote his biography for Wired, “Alexander and the rest of the American intelligence community suffered a devastating defeat when they were surprised by the attacks on 9/11.” Alexander’s reaction was to order his intercept operators to begin to monitor the email and phone calls of American citizens who were unrelated to terrorist threats, including the personal calls of journalists.[1]

In 2003, he was named deputy chief of staff for intelligence for the U.S. Army. Under his command were the units responsible for Abu Ghraib torture and.prisoner abuse in Baghdad, Iraq. Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Alexander called the abuse “totally reprehensible” and described the perpetrators as a “group of undisciplined MP soldiers”.[8] Mary Louise Kelly, who interviewed him later for NPR, said that because he was “outside the chain of command that oversaw interrogations in Iraq”, Alexander was able to survive with his “reputation intact”.[5]

two subquotes struck me:

1. “…In the words of James Bamford who wrote his biography for Wired, “Alexander and the rest of the American intelligence community suffered a devastating defeat when they were surprised by the attacks on 9/11.” Alexander’s reaction was to order his intercept operators to begin to monitor the email and phone calls of American citizens who were unrelated to terrorist threats, including the personal calls of journalists.[1]1…”

and

2. “…In 2003, he was named deputy chief of staff for intelligence for the U.S. Army. Under his command were the units responsible for Abu Ghraib torture and.prisoner abuse in Baghdad, Iraq. Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Alexander called the abuse “totally reprehensible” and described the perpetrators as a “group of undisciplined MP soldiers”.[8] Mary Louise Kelly, who interviewed him later for NPR, said that because he was “outside the chain of command that oversaw interrogations in Iraq”, Alexander was able to survive with his “reputation intact”.[5]…”

There’s a rumor that Alexander’s audience, promptly on conclusion of his speech, proceeded directly to the showers to scrub themselves of the cliches with which he drenched them. The combination of pathos and presumptuousness is striking.

Doug MacArthur in 1962 was 82 and well past his conservative, controversial prime. Fifty years earlier, in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, he used tanks to throw the WWI Bonus Marchers out of DC for having the temerity to demand that Congress pay their promised military bonuses now, rather than years later. MacArthur had an ego the size of the Pacific, and a theatricality that would have made Bob Fosse blush.

It’s funny that Alexander cites the general Truman fired for his sensibilities on the military’s (and militarily run intel agencies’) obligation to respect citizens and their rights. After all, that’s what they’re defending.

My dad called General MacArthur, “Dugout Doug”.

@orionATL:

the matter of general keith alexander and abu graib, if accurate, demands more scrutiny:

1. alexander’s comment that abu graib was “undisiplined mp’s” is nonsense and he knew that when he said it.

2. abu graib was a major public relations disaster for the u.s. (not to mention inhumane, unnecessary, and illegal).

3. there was no reason to believe that the abu graib torturers were not sanctioned from the highest levels (office of the vice-president, anyone?) in washington. officers involved from the lower levels were either never charged or given very light punishment, i.e., “keep your mouth shut”.

4. the general in charge of guantanamo (torture) visited the abu graib command.

5. a member of provost condolezza rice’s national security council staff visted abu graib staff.

6. both of these visits were almost certainly at the behest of the white house/ovp. it is inconceivable that general alexander, if he was indeed at the top of the chain of command, would not have known how important to the whitehouse torture at abu graib was.

7. the torture by american soldiers was designed by higher officials to promote success in discovering where saddam hussein was hiding.

8. just as general alexander’s command failed to detect and stop the sept 2001 airplane bombing, just so did his command torture prisoners at abu graib, yet fail to disclose hussein’s location,

even though an older female prisoner had told the interrogators hussein now had a beard and was driving around in a taxi, which he was.

9. general taguba was assigned to investigate and issue a report on the abu graib torture regimen. he issued a notably candid and critical report. within a short time his career was over. general alexander , however, was promoted a couple of years later to generalissimo of nsa.

opinion:

spooks almost never get things right, in part because they are never subject to public scrutiny or public evaluation of their methods.

nonetheless we as a society continue to believe in the magic of the secret paramilitary – including now an electronic spying paramilitary.

When I served in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72) some of us cynical types had a saying: “We lost the day we started and we win the day we stop.”

The U.S. military has done very little but lose one “war” after another for damn near sixty years, precisely by starting and not stopping them — and our vaunted Visigoths usually lose to a gaggle of barely armed Asian peasants or impovershed poppy farmers in the Hindu Kush. “Dead-enders,” SecWar Donald Rumsfeld called them. “In their last throes,” Five Deferment Dick Cheney assured us only a few years into a decade of debacle.

I wholeheartedly agree with our Founding Fathers that a standing army will eventually prove the ruination of the nation. General Keith Alexander only personifies the incompetence, ticket-punching careerism, and moral rot that characterizes the U.S. Army command today. And that goes double for the corporate camp followers and dogs-of-war mercenaries without whose war-profiteering, the U.S. military apparently cannot function at all. Time to disband the whole bloody mess. Our fifty state militias can probably handle any Al Qaueda or Taliban who come wading ashore near Los Angeles, Galveston, or Coney Island, New Jersey.

Douglas MacArthur, ‘American Ceasar’ to cite the title of the most famous biography.

Certainly the most important example of Ceasarism in US history, though the point of the happy biography is that he is a failed example thereof. Petraeus is the most dangerous example of potential Ceasarism in recent history until he behaved with unbelievable absence of prudence killing his rise as a right-wing statesman.

But I think it is quite unusual for a leader of the security-intelligence state to invoke dugout Doug. Historically their province is doing stuff like forging the Protocolls and other deviousness that produces a legacy of ashes. Alexander bears watching. If the end of the cold war can produce tele-bonapartism in Italy (Berlusconi), the internet age may equally be capable of producing ideological statesman who emerge out of the secret police in liberal democracies just as in Russian despotic and Stalinist contexts….

and here is ray mcgovern on general alexander lying to congress:

http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/89069:lie-to-congress-get-fourth-star