Rumblings in the Ranks Rattle the State Machinery

For months I have run a virtual category called "rumblings in the ranks." It's included comments and bitches by those in the lower ranks, as well as some from the higher pay grades. I ran this because I believe that if this war is going to end, it's going to do so because the soldiers in the field and their commanders are so pissed off that they'll basically "mutiny."...

Something of this angle seems to have gotten to the Insider Watchers at the Washington Post. They're finally realizing that when John Murtha threw down the iron glove on G Bush's table, it wasn't just him talking but the commanders and soldiers in the field who are fed up with a war going nowhere fast.

Now it seems that the disaffection with the wayward Bush policies has also made its way to the intelligence services. Granted, the entire Plame affair was about lower-echelon agents in the CIA rebelling against the ham-handed bullying of Cheney/Rumsfeld. But now it appears that the entire intelligence apparatus is starting to creak. According to David Ignatius at the Washington Post:

One little-noted factor in this re-balancing is what I would call "the officers' revolt" -- and by that I mean both military generals in uniform and intelligence officers at the CIA, the NSA and other agencies. There has been growing uneasiness among these national security professionals at some of what they have been asked to do, and at the seeming unconcern among civilian leaders at the Pentagon and the CIA for the consequences of administration decisions.

Stay tuned for this one folks. The old truism that nothing gets done unless the insiders say it can looks like it's about to break out into open warfare. The gloves are coming off.

To mix metaphors, the gears and belts of the state machinery are squeaking and we are going to have a chance to look inside at the gory details of what makes this machine tick.