Six soldiers from a National Guard unit from West Virginia, who allegedly treated Abu Ghraib as a playpen of pornographic torture, have been designated as scapegoats. Will the show trials of these working-class antiheroes end inquiries about the chain of command? An extraordinary editorial published by the Army Times, which hasn't previously ventured into such controversy, said, "The folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons ... This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential -- even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war."

Retired Gen. William E. Odom, a former staff member of the National Security Council and now at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, reflects the depth of dismay in the upper ranks of the military. "It was never in our interest to go into Iraq," he told me. He calls that war a "diversion" from the war on terrorism; the rationale for the war, finding WMD, "phony"; the U.S. Army overstretched, being driven "into the ground"; and the prospect of building a democracy in Iraq "zero." In Iraqi politics, he says, "legitimacy is going to be tied to expelling us. Wisdom in military affairs dictates withdrawal in this situation. 'We can't afford to fail' -- that's mindless. But the damage has been done. The issue is how we stop failing more. I'm arguing [for] a strategic decision."

One high-level military strategist told me that Rumseld is "detested" and that "if there's a sentiment in the Army, it is 'Support Our Troops, Impeach Rumsfeld.'"

The Council on Foreign Relations has been showing old movies with renewed relevance to its members. "The Battle of Algiers," which depicts the nature and costs of a struggle with terrorism, is the latest feature. The seething in the military against Bush and Rumsfeld might prompt a showing of "Seven Days in May," about a coup staged by a right-wing general against a weak liberal president, an artifact of the conservative hatred of President Kennedy in the early 1960s.

In 1992, Gen. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, awarded the prize for his Strategy Essay Competition at the National Defense University to Lt. Col. Charles J. Dunlap for "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." His cautionary tale imagined an incapable civilian government creating a vacuum that draws a competent military into a coup disastrous for democracy. The military, of course, is bound to uphold the Constitution. But Dunlap wrote: "The catastrophe that occurred on our watch took place because we failed to speak out against policies we knew were wrong. It's too late for me to do any more. But it's not for you." "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012" is being circulated today among top U.S. military strategists.

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