The Exodus of Generals
For the beginning of the war in Iraq, I have held the opinion that the war was mismanaged. If the war had followed traditional military doctrine, we wouldn't be having the troubles we are now. Instead, the war was used as a prototype for the "Rumsfeld Doctrine", which believes that the traditional overwhelming force should be replaced solely with small, agile, precision strike teams. As a result, we didn't have the troop strength necessary to maintain order in the Iraqi cities. The resulting power vacuum led to the insurgency we see today. Many senior generals in the services have the same opinion that I do, as this Washington Post article explains.
I strongly believe that the military leadership needs to be subordinate to the civilian leadership. But I also think that there needs to be a good way for the military leadership to approach the President and inform him that SECDEF is incompetent. It's a pity that the only avenue available today is for generals to resign and express their concerns after the fact.
I strongly believe that the military leadership needs to be subordinate to the civilian leadership. But I also think that there needs to be a good way for the military leadership to approach the President and inform him that SECDEF is incompetent. It's a pity that the only avenue available today is for generals to resign and express their concerns after the fact.
posted by David at 4/13/2006 08:53:00 AM
3 Comments:
Unfortunately, this kind of problem isn't occurring just across party lines, but within party lines as well. The conservative movement has been divided into the traditional conservatives, the libertarian conservatives, and the neo-conservatives. Given that the current administration is full of neo-conservatives, anybody falling into the other two camps is either considered "liberal" or out of touch. For example, it used to be that conservatives would fight against deficit spending. Now the neo-conservatives are spending like mad, and they blame it on the Democrats. Take the Medicare Prescription program, which is a classic case of expanding government. The argument is that if the Republicans didn't do it, the Democrats would have forced something worse. If you argue that we need to have a balanced budget, and either cut spending or raise taxes, you get accused of helping the Democrats. But of course, everyone seems to forget that the Republicans control the House, Senate, and the Presidency.
Or take the issue of strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. The current administration would have you believe that being Commander-in-Chief gives him the ability to break and law (such as the FISA statute) with impunity. When traditional conservatives argue that the Constitution should be strictly applied, and that the President is subject to the law (and is in violation of the law), neo-conservatives argue that would just be helping terrorists. And nobody wants to be considered as helping terrorists.
I miss the conservative movement of 1994, when Newt Gingrich presented the Contract with America. No matter how you felt about the CwA, you knew exactly where these conservatives stood on issues. Now it seems that the Republicans either stand for "whatever Bush wants", or whatever they are getting bribed to stand for (ie. Cunningham).
I think many mistakes have been made by multiple parties. You guys seemed to have ignored part of the article which stated the following:
On Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, who is the first Marine to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attempted to tamp down the revolt of the retired generals. No officers were muzzled during the planning of the invasion of Iraq, he said.
"We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "The articles that are out there about folks not speaking up are just flat wrong."
Also, the generals themselves may be partly to blame for the situation in Iraq, along with Rumsfeld and the White House, said Michael Vickers, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
"It's just absurd to lay the blame on Don Rumsfeld alone," he said.
Sounds more like sour grapes and saber rattling to me. Granted, Rumsfeld (as does any human being) made some mistakes, the whining Generals clearly also made some mistakes and wish to blame it all on Rumsfeld and the Bush administration. Nobody is entirely mistake-free so lets not pretend its all Rumsfeld and Bush's fault just because it is the politically correct thing to do.
There was an NBC news report out quite some time ago where the troops were actually interviewed in the red zone in Iraq. They were quite enthusiastic about the good they were accomplishing. We have democratic elections in Iraq for the first time. Iraqi troops are being trained to defend themselves. Looks to me like some good stuff is coming out of this.
I don't see any difficulty whatsoever with hearing a dissenting voice. Its all there is on the news. It has been years since I've seen one positive news coverage of the war despite the fact that the troops over there paint a much different picture of what's going on than the news. If anything, the opinion that "things are going well" is the unheard, unwanted dissenting voice that is being hushed wherever it appears.
The pool of shared knowledge is diminished when alternative viewpoints are suppressed, and all I see is the viewpoint that the war in Iraq is going well being suppressed.
There has always been bickering between and among political lines. What we are seeing is nothing new. The Federalists and Anti-Federalists fought and bickered and hyperbolized arguments. We've seen all brands of Whigs, Democrats, Republicans, etc. The Democratic party of today is nothing like the Democratic Party of the 40's - 60's. The Republican Party has changed since the 80's. Neo-Conservatives, Old Conservatives, Moderates, Liberals, Leftists, Libertarians, and Socialists all argue with each other and all argue amongst each other. And if you think the political bickering is more personal and harsh than it used to be, go back and look at some of the editorials and fabrications and accusations between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, Pro-slavery democrats and Abolitionist Republicans. Even before the Civil War the Republicans argued amongst themselves because there were pro-slavery Republicans who fought the Civil War, not to free slaves, but to maintain the Union. No, nothing has changed.
An article about former employees disagreeing with their former employers is nothing new either. MacArthur had some major disagreements with the administrations he served under. He wanted to go into China and even use the A-bomb on them.
The fact is, the framers of the Constitution wanted the military to be accountable to the civilians, not the other way around.
In the military, the ability to express disagreement with your superiors depends on the willingness of the superior to listen to your concerns. If a senior officer isn't very careful in how he expressed that Rumsfeld was doing something stupid, the officer could be subject to court martial under article 88 of the UCMJ.
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