New York Times

April 19, 2006
MOVIE REVIEW
‘Sir! No Sir!’ Salutes Vietnam’s Dissenters in Uniform

By MANOHLA DARGIS
In March 1964 Robert S. McNamara opened a speech about South Vietnam with the statement that “the independence of a nation and the freedom of its people are being threatened by Communist aggression and terrorism.” Many words later, Mr. McNamara, the secretary of defense, concluded, in rosy terms that sound eerily similar to contemporary dispatches, that “when the day comes that we can safely withdraw, we expect to leave an independent and stable South Vietnam, rich with resources and bright with prospects for contributing to the peace and prosperity of Southeast Asia and of the world.”

Much happened in the bloody decade that followed, but one of the most memorable chapters of the Vietnam War has also long been one of the least revisited: the antiwar movement inside the military. Called the G.I. Movement, this resistance manifested itself in countless ways: in organized protests, in desertions and in the coffeehouses that sprang up across the country near military bases. In the early 1970’s the documentary filmmaker David Zeiger worked in one such coffeehouse, the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Tex., not far from Fort Hood. Named for a helicopter shock absorber, the Oleo Strut was where off-duty soldiers went to decompress and to check out the latest issue of one of the many underground military publications, like The Fatigue Press, that gave powerful voice to their dissent.

In his smart, timely documentary about the G.I. Movement, “Sir! No Sir!,” Mr. Zeiger takes a look at how the movement changed and occasionally even rocked the military from the ground troops on up. On one level the film serves as a corrective to the rah-rah rhetoric about Vietnam in such schlock entertainments as the 1980’s “Rambo” franchise, in which Sylvester Stallone’s veteran turned mercenary ritualistically wipes away the spit lobbed at him by a phantom antiwar protester. The image of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran, explains Jerry Lembcke, himself a Vietnam veteran and one of the persuasive talking heads who appears in the new film, helped maintain the important fiction that opposition to the war came strictly from outside the military.

During the 1960’s and 70’s American newspapers routinely reported a significantly different story than the one later cooked up by Hollywood and other revisionists. This film shows that as antiwar sentiment gathered strength in American streets, a parallel movement seized the armed forces. By September 1971 dissent among the ranks had become a front-page subject in this newspaper, with a headline that read “Army Is Shaken by Crisis in Morale and Discipline.” Soldiers were fed up and up in arms, and not always against the Vietcong. Desertions were on the rise, as were fraggings, named for the fragmentation grenades lobbed at superiors by their own men. By 1974 the Defense Department would record more than half a million incidents of desertion since the mid-60’s.

Mr. Zeiger fits so much into his 84-minute film that it’s hard not to wish he had spent more time on what happens when American soldiers break ranks with their leaders. John Kerry’s bid for president proved that long after fighting in Vietnam came to an end, a war of words continues to rage. It’s a war of words that finds Jane Fonda ó who performed for tens of thousands of troops in an antiwar revue, “Free the Army,” and makes a passionate appearance in the film ó still labeled Hanoi Jane. “Remembered as a war that was lost because of betrayal at home,” Mr. Lembcke has written, “Vietnam becomes a modern-day Alamo that must be avenged, a pretext for more war and generations of more veterans.” In “Sir! No Sir!,” Mr. Zeiger remembers that war and the veterans whose struggles against it are too often forgotten.

Sir! No Sir!

Opens today in Manhattan.

Written and directed by David Zeiger; directors of photography, May Rigler and Mr. Zeiger; edited by Ms. Rigler and Lindsay Mofford; music by Buddy Judge; produced by Mr. Zeiger, Evangeline Griego and Aaron Zarrow; narrated by Troy Garity; released by Balcony Releasing. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 84 minutes. This film is not rated.

General Defends Army Chief Who Spoke Out – New York Times

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: April 16, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 16 ó Gen. Richard B. Myers, who retired six months ago as the nation’s top military officer, said today that senior administration officials had been wrong to publicly criticize the former Army chief just before the invasion of Iraq for saying the mission could require a much larger force than was ultimately committed.

“He was inappropriately criticized, I believe, for speaking out,” General Myers said during an interview on the ABC News program “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

…

General Myers, who has emerged as one of Mr. Rumsfeld’s chief defenders, repeated his comments from late last week that generals speaking out against the defense secretary are inappropriately breaching military etiquette that dictates officers only air complaints with the civilian leadership privately.

But his comments also marked the first time since his retirement that General Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has weighed in on the administration’s handling of the 2003 troop estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who was then the Army chief of staff. General Myers’s remarks today were focused on the criticism of General Shinseki, and not on the substance of his comments about troop levels in Iraq.

The clash three years ago between General Shinseki and the civilian Pentagon leadership still rankles some of his former military colleagues and goes to the heart of the complaints that Mr. Rumsfeld and his top aides ó who are philosophically in favor of a smaller, faster military disregarded calls for more troops to secure Iraq that came even before the invasion began.

In February 2003 General Shinseki, who had commanded the NATO peacekeeping force in Iraq, testified in Congress that peacekeeping operations in Iraq could require several hundred thousand troops, in part because it was a country with “the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.”

Mr. Wolfowitz told Congress then that the American force could be sufficiently smaller than Mr. Shinseki had estimated because the Iraqis would welcome the Americans and because the country had no history of ethnic strife and was unlike Bosnia. Just this week, commanders on the ground in Iraq have said the current sectarian strife there reminded them of the situation in the former Yugoslavia.

… He added, “Now, there were some mistakes made by, I think, some of the senior civilian leadership in taking General Shinseki on about that comment. I think that was wrong, and I’ve expressed those views, as a matter of fact.”

Group show opening this weekend.
It’s curated by Nathaniel Russell and will be groovy.

featuring work from Erik Bluhm, Kyle Field, Sam Keefner, Devendra Banhart, Lisa Choinacky, Jason Pierce, and John Minardi.

Opening Saturday April 15th 8pm
Lobot Gallery 1800 Campbell St.
Oakland, Calif. 94608

DIRELAND: VILLAGE VOICE FIRES JAMES RIDGEWAY; SYDNEY SCHANBERG QUITS
April 13, 2006

VILLAGE VOICE FIRES JAMES RIDGEWAY; SYDNEY SCHANBERG QUITS

The firing of Washington columnist James Ridgeway by the new management of the Village Voice, and the resignation of the distinguished Pulitizer Prize winner Sydney Schanberg from the paper, represent a sad moment in the history of the New York weekly. I was a columnist for the Voice for some seven years. Jim Ridgeway was not only a colleague but someone I had considered a comrade in the pursuit of truth for many years. Syd Schanberg (right), whom I also have known for years and whose work I have long admired, is the former New York Times reporter and Newsday columnist who is known to the larger public through the movie “The Killing Fields,” describing his intrepid reportorial work for the Times in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge takeover and his indefatigable and devoted search for his Cambodian colleague Dith Pran. Syd is one of the most distinguished names in Americn journalism. That these two superb journalists — Schanberg and Ridgeway — have now vanished from the Voice is a symbol of what is happening to that paper, and of what will most likely happen to all the other alternative weekly papers in the Voice chain (including the L.A. Weekly, for which I have also long written) under the new ownership and management of Michael Lacey’s New Times corporation.

“Democracy Now” this morning had an informative discussion with Ridgeway, Schanberg, and other Voice writers that I urge you to listen to or read. Among other things, Schanberg — explaining why he left the Voice — quotes a definition of the new editorial line given by the new owner, Mike Lacey, to an editorial staff meeting: “He said, ‘If I want to read regular criticism or bashing of the Bush administration, I’ll read the New York Times. I don’t want it in this paper.’î You can both read a transcript of, and listen to, the archived “Democracy Now” broadcast on what’s happening to the Voice, by clicking here.

The letter of protest below is signed by Village Voice writers and staffers, including some of the most able and valuable people still at the weekly, many of whom I’m proud to call friends. I associate myself entirely with their sentiments:

Ridgeway’s track record

For 30 years, James Ridgeway has, in his person, his politics, and his writing, defined what makes the Voice a special publication. From Three Mile Island to 9-11, Ridgeway has provided some of the nation’s most incisive and insightful coverage of government misfeasance and malfeasance. He was one of the first journalists in America to spotlight the threat posed by a resurgent racist and neo-Nazi movement, an issue he hammered away at in the pages of the Voice years before anyone ever heard of Ruby Ridge or Timothy McVeigh. His reports on escalating environmental abuses exposed corporate lawbreakers and bureaucratic indifference. Ridgeway’s writings on conflicts from Bosnia to Baghdad to Haiti have always provided the otherwise unreported flip side of the world according to the mainstream media, in short reporting that jibes precisely with the exact mission of the Voice. Over the past few years, Ridgeway expanded onto the Web, filing regular nuggets of breaking news and even posting video reports on the 2004 elections. In light of this distinguished track record, the decision last week by the Voice’s new ownership to terminate Ridgeway is shameful. It also sends a terrible message as to the sort of coverage that the new ownership portends. We call on Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey and chairman and CEO Jim Larkin to reverse his discharge.

Tom Robbins
J. Hoberman
Lynn Yaeger
Nat Hentoff
Jarrett Murphy
Kristen Lombardi
Ed Park
Chuck Eddy
Robert Christgau
Nina Lalli
Elizabeth Zimmer
Dennis Lim
Tricia Romano
Aina Hunter
Corina Zappia
Jorge Morales
Wayne Barrett
Michael Musto
Jennifer Gonnerman
Darren Reidy

Then take a picture of it. Send it to us at 300dpi, 100%. (If you don’t know what that means, ask somebody who does.) Include the time/place of the photo.

If your photo is chosen as Arthur’s “Billboard of the Month” you’ll get a complimentary one-year subscription to Arthur.

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From the April 13, 2006 Los Angeles Times

Anti-Rumsfeld Chorus Grows

Some military leaders question the public criticism as another retired general urges Defense chief to resign.

By Peter Spiegel and Paul Richter
Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON ó A recent surge in public criticism of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by retired military leaders is the culmination of months of intense but largely private debate among active duty officers about how best to voice dissent over Bush administration policies, according to officers involved in the discussions.

A number of officers have been critical of Iraq policy ó mostly anonymously ó since the administration’s early days. But the calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation are an unusual step for members of the military, who are acutely sensitive to the appearance of challenging civilian leadership of the armed forces.

Displays of public dissension are especially controversial while troops are at war and morale is a concern. In recent months, however, a growing concern that the war’s setbacks may have been predictable as well as avoidable has spilled into public view.

The officers said that challenges to civilian policy were not new ó similar opposition flared during the Clinton administration, particularly around the issue of gays in the military. But many of the latest condemnations come from officers who served in the Iraq war, and the controversy has split the ranks over whether attacks by those officers so soon after retiring are appropriate.

One current general who has debated the issue with high-ranking colleagues spoke, like others, on condition of anonymity when discussing actions of other officers.

“If every guy that retires starts sniping at their old bosses and acts like a political appointee, how do you think senior civilians start choosing their military leaders?” the general said. “Competence goes out the window. It’s all about loyalty and pliability.”

The ranks of Rumsfeld’s critics were joined Wednesday by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who served as a division commander in Iraq and was a military aide to former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a primary architect of the Iraq invasion.

Batiste said he believed Rumsfeld should resign, arguing that the Pentagon needed a new leader who could work with top officers “without intimidation.”

In an interview, Batiste said negative feelings about Rumsfeld were widespread among generals he served with. He added that there was an almost universal belief that the secretary did not treat military leaders and their opinions with respect.

“It speaks volumes about the leadership climate within the Pentagon,” Batiste said. “Civilian control is absolutely paramount, but in order for it to work, there is a two-way street of respect and dialogue that has to exist.”

Batiste’s criticism follows similar attacks by three other retired generals who were involved in the Iraq war or served in top positions in the Middle East: Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, head of training Iraqi forces in 2003; and Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, the former head of U.S. Central Command.

Former Defense officials said Batiste’s criticisms were particularly surprising because of his direct role in planning and fighting the war, first as Wolfowitz’s military aide and then as commander of the 1st Infantry Division when it was deployed to oversee central Iraq in 2004.

“Batiste is really the younger generation who has seen this war firsthand,” said Thomas E. White, the Bush administration’s first secretary of the Army and a frequent Rumsfeld critic. “When a guy like that steps up, it takes it to an entirely different level.”

Batiste said his comments were not part of any organized campaign by retired officers.

Although he has worked with Eaton and Newbold, Batiste said he had not talked to either about his decision to go public.

The officers’ falling out with Rumsfeld began over the Defense Department’s treatment of retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who said at a congressional hearing that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, only to be chastised later by Wolfowitz.

The shunting aside of Shineski appears to be something of a touchstone for military critics of Rumsfeld, particularly in the Army, where Shinseki is still well regarded.

One current general said that while the recent criticisms may have brought the uniformed military’s strained relationship with Rumsfeld into the open, debate over whether they should be more forceful about voicing disagreements had raged for months.

“The Newbolds and Eatons and the public discussion is spilling over from the internal discussion,” said the currently serving general. “This has been a rising issue within the military.”

Criticism of political leaders by retired generals is nothing new. Historians note that former military leaders dating back to the American Revolution have written criticisms of the conduct of wars, and Rumsfeld dismissed many of the criticisms this week as just the latest in that tradition.

“It’s historic, it’s always been the case, and I see nothing really very new or surprising about it,” he said at a Pentagon news conference.

But Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a Vietnam veteran, said he believed it was unprecedented for retired senior officers who had so recently served during a war to criticize civilian leaders while troops were still in the field.

“I would take this as evidence that the search for scapegoats with regard to the Iraq war has now been fully engaged by the military,” Bacevich said.

“The officer corps doesn’t want to get stuck with responsibility for a war that has already proven to be a disappointment and could result in failure. This is an indication that Rumsfeld has been selected as the military’s preferred scapegoat,” he said.

The debate within the Pentagon has been influenced by the lessons of the Vietnam War, a conflict many current military leaders believe was lost because military chiefs did not stand up to civilian war plans.

A 1997 book on the subject, “Dereliction of Duty,” by H.R. McMaster, now an Army colonel serving in Iraq, has been required reading for many Pentagon officers.

“There was a deep bitterness over Vietnam and the way the [service] chiefs had been co-opted,” said Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina who oversaw McMaster’s work on the book.

Kohn said it was a lesson sent repeatedly to all Army officers: “They said: ‘We’re never going to put up with this again, we’re not going to be put in that position again by the civilians.’ ”

Nevertheless, Kohn, who has discussed relations with civilian leaders with several top officers, said he believed it might be dangerous for such recently retired generals to go public with such criticism.

“If they go out and attack the policy after leaving and they get personal about it, they’re undermining civilian control,” Kohn said.