Oh c'mon, now, it's only been 5 years, countless billions flushed down the toilet, chaos and strife, a mistake even by prewar Cheney's estimates, what could possibly go wrong? Runaway spending, policy spinning in little circles, no end in sight, and the finger-pointing begins...

I think we all take oaths of various kinds all the time in our lives. We take marriage vows, tacit vows to raise and care for our children. Taking on any job carries with it an implicit arrangement in which one is bound to one's commitment. But in any case when one sees wrong being committed, the time comes when one must break one's silence. When this comes at personal risk, it's called a profile in courage. And courage should not be expected less of a soldier than the rest of us!!! Yes, courage, by all means. For God's sake, when lives of US servicemen, and innocent civilians (including babies and old folks) are at risk and being thrown away like toilet paper, break your damned oath. Your first oath is to the truth and your humanity. I hope there are no more generals like Sanchez or like you Pete. Keep your morally bankrupt codes of silence. Let us have the person who has the guts to speak the truth when his army depends on it. That person will be the a real hero.

While Sanchez believes it to be necessary that the military and the press corps maintain a mutually enabling relationship, in his observation this continues to be problematic. In his assessment, the profession of war reporting, “has strayed from these ethical standards and allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American public sees on TV, what they read in our newspapers and what they see on the web. For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases and agendas. Sanchez asked point blank: “Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management of this war?” What remains worrisome is that the US mainstream media has not risen up to secure straight, clear-cut answers. Media outlets ought to answer why it hasn’t sufficiently probed the cakewalk crowd who promised a casual march to victory in Iraq. How many media activists pressed for accountability of the likes of Ken Adelmen who misled the American media by claiming “measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.” Had American tax payers an easy access to alternate information sources it wouldn’t have taken them four years to question the wisdom of the “cakewalk” bunch. Thus encouraging and embracing alternate sources of media has become increasingly important at a time when many US media organs tiptoe around issues in fear of overstepping their boundaries. An Italian scholar of the Arab media, Donatella della Ratta rightly suggests that the West should seriously consider before blaming or blocking channels like Aljazeera that are in fact educating tools to inform rather than a medium providing an embedded version from a warring side. If the likes of Aljazeera English had wider access in to American homes it would not have taken this long to see the contradictions between the lofty claims made at the Capitol and actual realities faced on ground. At a conference, "Creating Connections: New Partnerships for Understanding in the Middle East," sponsored by the Vermont Peace Academy, Vermont Council on World Affairs and Norwich University. A participant said: "It's an intellectual tragedy that the United States has cut itself out of Al Jazeera English's contribution to [informative] conversation. Everything that's happened to us in Iraq shows that's very dangerous. The lesson of Iraq is: Ignorance kills." See: http://tinyurl.com/2gwad8 Instead of making wrong choices and pursuing wrong approaches that are just goose-chasing and witch-hunting exercises US needs to befriend with the ones that capture and portray the facts professionally and far effectively. Now more than ever the USA public and its opinions makers need tools that can help them separate the wheat from the chaff not occasionally but on an on-going, round the clock basis.