American Defeat, in General

American Defeat, in General -->Written by Bob ParksWednesday, April 19, 2006
As many of you know, I was an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy. As many of you who have served know, there is a wall between enlisted men and the officer class. A wall designed out of a need to maintain troop discipline, and a wall built on one group being more “important” than the other.

As I’ve also written before, there are good officers and there are those who think anyone not an officer shouldn’t be in the same room with them. They believe they are better than everyone else. They believe they know more than everyone else. At the end of the day, it’s all about them. For some, this is one of those days.

“We all agree there were mistakes made. Things happened we didn’t anticipate.... We share in that responsibility.”
· Retired Gen. John Jumper, Air Force chief of staff during the Iraq war

We now have retired ex-generals going to the suddenly friendly media, bashing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraq war strategy. Now I don’t know if they are all soon to be shopping books and are testing the waters, or simply have a case of conscience, but if these generals were true to their oaths, there would be no way they’d be squawking publicly today. But again, as we’re talking about some in the officer class with egos as big as aircraft carriers, anything is possible.

The reason I question their motives is because I can’t see what good can come from this Monday-morning quarterbacking.

Love, Media Style

Of course, to bash President Bush makes one an instant star with the mainstream media. But I wonder what has made these generals come forward.

Many of these generals have been in combat strategy formulation situations before, and some were even involved in Iraq war strategy. For them to come out now criticizing Rumsfeld and the war planning is counterproductive at the least. Hypocritical at best. Opportunistic, to say the worst.

“Everyone is assuming and agreeing we botched this. We’re all agreeing this is not going to go down as one of the nation’s great accomplishments. It’s bad for (the Bush administration’s) place in history.”
· Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institution, critical of the retired generals’ speaking out against Rumsfeld

Forgive me, as a lowly former enlisted man, for telling a highly decorated general my opinion without permission, but what the hell do they think their public strategy outbursts could be doing for troop morale? It’s one thing for a war-strategy-ignorant Cindy Sheehan to make irresponsible, highly publicized statements during a time of war, but when former supposed-military-leaders are involved in hit pieces distributed by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, just what is the soldier on the ground supposed to think when seeing six retired generals pictured on the front page of last Friday’s New York Times? These generals publicly criticized the Secretary of Defense’s handling of the Iraq war and called for his resignation. If this isn’t a gift to the anti-war left, what is?

But when the media is given such raw meat, these generals have to know what this is going to do to the debate--a debate we have no business engaging in during a time of war, and they know it.

More @ http://tinyurl.com/mujbg chronwatch

See the last paragraph in the excerpt. That is the kind of thinking that formulated much of the trouble during V/Nam and post V/Nam. During V/Nam the military leadership all locked arms and spoke of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Troops in the field aren't stupid they know when mistakes are made and who made them. The only way troop morale can be affected is if the troops are told they aren't doing their jobs well. Troopers aren't so fragile that they need to be given the 'rah, rah, sis boom bah' treatment 24/7. Unlike V/Nam we now have professional military and they are aware of what's happening and who makes it happen. Saying that we have made mistakes in Iraq is a good thing because the troops know when and where these mistakes were made. As long as the troops themselves aren't criticized there is no harm and no foul.

The author of the article would have us believe that the generals and ourselves must never criticize Bush & Rummy as that will lower troop morale in time of war. Nothing could be further from the truth. IMO, the author of the article is another 'professional Republican' or just an apologist for the current administration. Criticizing American leadership is as American as apple pie and what this nation was founded on. Walking in lockstep is not the American way and criticism of government mistakes does not make our enemies stronger, it makes us stronger.

The insurgency in Iraq is a political thing and the current administration should have been prepared for it. Of course the current administration is no better prepared for anything than the previous administration was. Cronyism is as well entrenched in the Bush administration as it was the Clinton administration. It's not are you qualified to to do the job you were appointed to do, its paybacks for favors owed and money contributed to campaign chests.