An interestng comment on US Generals' criticism of Donald Rumsfeld (from Back to iraq 3.0 - http://www.back-to-iraq.com/)

Why didn't you say so?

TIME Magazine is running what it calls a “full-throated” critique of the Iraq war by Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold (Ret.) He’s one of two generals who opposed the plans before the war, calling the Iraq war “unnecessary” and a distraction from Afghanistan. As he says, “I would gladly have traded my general’s stars for a captain’s bars to lead our troops into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”

So opposed was he that he resigned his position as director of operations for the Join Chiefs four months before the war … and then kept his mouth shut until now.

I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.

Well, gee, forgive me if I don’t think he should be given a lot of credit. If he was so opposed to the war, why did he stay silent? Why did he sit by for three years while others “paid in blood” for what he feels is a flawed policy? It’s easy to be opposed to the war now. Why come out now? A clue is here:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent statement that “we” made the “right strategic decisions” but made thousands of “tactical errors” is an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.

It’s a valiant sentiment to support the men and women fighting the war, and his critiques of Condi’s statement and Rumsfeld’s micromanaging is dead on. But we’ve heard all this before. Anyone following the war can see it’s being run poorly from the big office at the Pentagon and that the civilian leadership has done everything to push blame elsewhere. Again, why now? Why didn’t you say something earlier, Lt. Gen. Newbold, once you were retired and could without fear of retaliation? You blame others for timidity or thick-headedness. “A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply intimidated, while still others must have believed that the principle of obedience does not allow for respectful dissent.”

And, incredibly, you go on to blame Congress and the the media.

Members of Congress — from both parties — defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility for oversight. Many in the media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before the invasion from wise observers like former Central Command chiefs Joe Hoar and Tony Zinni but gave insufficient weight to their views. These are the same news organizations that now downplay both the heroic and the constructive in Iraq.

Nice, cheap shots. Republicans controlled Congress and were in lockstep with the Bushies. The Dems, as minorities, have almost no power to exercise oversight. A high-profile resignation of — oh, I don’t know — maybe the Joint Chiefs’ director of operations might have provided them some political cover to get something done. And, gee, maybe it might have gotten some attention from the media, who then might have given Zinni and others’ more weight. And now you say we downplay the heroic and the constructive. Is this the kind of heroism you mean?

Don’t lecture us about heroism and constructive roles to play, Lt. Gen. Newbold (Ret.) You could have done something then, and you didn’t. You could have been a powerful symbol, even if you would have taken a lot of flak from your old bosses. You say officers swore an oath to the Constitution, not the men appointed above them, yet you betrayed it with your three-year silence. It’s been said that for evil to triumph, all it takes is for good men to do nothing. Well, you did nothing. You don’t get to be considered good now.

If Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold (Ret.) was so opposed to the war, why did he stay silent?

Perhaps, because as COO of the Potomac Istitute for Policy Studies which makes its money servicing government contracts, he was afraid that if he opened his yap, the government would cut off the Institute's access to the trough?

Counterpunch has a timely article on the issue of why senior military officers don't speak out, written by a former Colonel.

Worth a read.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

Whoops, wrong thread. Sorry about my previous post.

That's the most idiotic piece of false equivalency arguing I've seen in quite some time. Congratulations, you're a complete moron.

RogerGathman
I'm glad to see some discussion -- any really -- about the military follow up of the quietly disastrous Tora Bora "incident." If Osama's merry men one day succeed in disrupting Saudi's petro ports, we will have just another in the thousand and one reasons that this administration has the worst national defense record in the long history of the U.S.A.

Tommy Franks shouldn't be on Hardball, he should be in the military court dock, with Rummy, for gross incompetence.

I agree. If Bernard Trainor's assessment is correct -- that the public dissent of a few influential generals could have staved off the war -- that is a bad thing, not a good one.

Correction of myself

seeing the forest through the trees

Should have been

However, in the world of not seeing the forest through the trees, the military issues are the trees.

love covers a multitude of sin but a multitude of sin is done for money.

Yeah?

Maybe Gen. Newbold stayed silent because it is the essence of the American military tradition to let the civilians determine what wars to fight. The Generals present their arguments ~in private~ and then accept the decision from the civilians.

The American officer corps ~does not involve itself in politics!~ Doug MacArthur was an aberation, and was fired for it. Properly so.

Another of the many failures of the Bush administration is to weaken this excellent tradition. It is obvious that the Generals are speaking out with great reluctance because the military has been politically used and misused by the Bush administration. That it is only retired Generals speaking out is a compromise which ~may~ not be a serious violation of the tradition of the military staying out of politics.

Anyone who seriously thinks the Generals should have spoken out earlier better consider what they are asking for. How many countries have democracy only as long as their military forces allow it?

If you really think military interference in politics can't happen here, consider how many other things Bush et. al. have given us that no one thought could happen here. America under Bush is already following Argentina into financial ruin. Do we want the Generals to take over here too? Generals in politics is a step closer to that.

Richard Hack's referral in his post is well worth a read. However, and I may have missed it, it doesn't mention that, aside from an oath to the Constitution, the military is a brotherhood which protects its own, on and off the battlefield. That may be another reason a military man only speaks out when he is out of the military. Even though they are only speaking out for Rumsfeld's resignation, they are also in a way critizing their fellow officers, which I doubt they would do publicly while still in the service.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Richard Holbrooke looks behind the military revolt in this Washington Post Op-Ed.

These generals are not newly minted doves or covert Democrats. (In fact, one of the main reasons this public explosion did not happen earlier was probably concern by the generals that they would seem to be taking sides in domestic politics.) These are career men, each with more than 30 years in service, who swore after Vietnam that, as Colin Powell wrote in his memoirs, "when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons." Yet, as Newbold admits, it did happen again. In the public comments of the retired generals one can hear a faint sense of guilt that, having been taught as young officers that the Vietnam-era generals failed to stand up to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson, they did the same thing.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Eat my tea leaves Hundt. I called this one last summer!

I agree that Generals have no place in American politics. That said, had the leadership opposed Bush's policies, they had the duty to resign and then offer their public criticism. That Gen. Newbold resigned is only half of his duty. The second half would have been to go public at that time with his criticism.

"I agree that Generals have no place in American politics."

The Iraq War is not American politics; it is war. Generals do have a place in war and to warn against unnecessary, foolish, ill-conceived wars.

SherryB

According to this:

U.S. Building Massive Embassy in Baghdad By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Fri Apr 14, 4:58 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq's turbulent future.

The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.

"We can't talk about it. Security reasons," Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.

A British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer explode there these days.

The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

The Republican Palace, where U.S. Embassy functions are temporarily housed in cubicles among the chandelier-hung rooms, is less than a mile away in the 4-square-mile zone, an enclave of American and Iraqi government offices and lodgings ringed by miles of concrete barriers.

The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide. They rarely venture out into the "Red Zone," that is, violence-torn Iraq.

This huge American contingent at the center of power has drawn criticism.

"The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country," the International Crisis Group, a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic reports on Iraq.

State Department spokesman Justin Higgins defended the size of the embassy, old and new, saying it's indicative of the work facing the United States here.

"It's somewhat self-evident that there's going to be a fairly sizable commitment to Iraq by the U.S. government in all forms for several years," he said in Washington.

Higgins noted that large numbers of non-diplomats work at the mission — hundreds of military personnel and dozens of FBI agents, for example, along with representatives of the Agriculture, Commerce and other U.S. federal departments.

They sleep in hundreds of trailers or "containerized" quarters scattered around the Green Zone. But next year embassy staff will move into six apartment buildings in the new complex, which has been under construction since mid-2005 with a target completion date of June 2007.

Iraq's interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed.

"Embassy Baghdad" will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy's 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington's National Mall.

Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the project's "classified" portion — the actual embassy offices.

Higgins declined to identify those builders, citing security reasons, but said five were American companies.

The designs aren't publicly available, but the Senate report makes clear it will be a self-sufficient and "hardened" domain, to function in the midst of Baghdad power outages, water shortages and continuing turmoil.

It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment facility, "systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities," says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans.

Besides two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, and the apartment buildings for staff, the compound will offer a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club, all housed in a recreation building.

Security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary: setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep, structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit, the Senate report says.

Higgins said the work, under way on all parts of the project, is more than one-third complete."

___

Associated Press news researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.

We're moving in for the long haul. Who is going to pay for the luxury suites? You and me.

Why do we need to mobilize against anyone who is not an actual threat? N. Korea has no intention of bombing the U.S. and since Israel ALREADY has nukes, who wouldn't want to have them as a deterrent against attack? America has ALWAYS been the greatest nuclear threat in the world. It was NOT the Soviet Union after Stalin died.

And before anyone says anything about the Cuban Missile Crisis, they were put there in response to OUR installation of nukes in Turkey.

NeoLotus

********

- Making judgements without intellectual justification is prejudice.
- We do not act rightly because we have virture, we have virtue because we act rightly.
- To know a truth well, one must have fought it out.

Well, no, Iran is no where near able to deal with the US military in a conventional warfare sense.

However, they WILL be able to cause serious damage to US forces in Iraq IF they decide to throw their whole force there - that would include the half million regular military and Revolutionary Guards, and possibly some of their one million militia. They will take devastating casualties, however, if they follow that policy and will ultimately lose. US forces, however, may sustain several thousand deaths (if not ten or twenty thousand deaths) and tens of thousands of casualties in the process - to add to the current total of 2300 deaths and probably 20-30,000 casualties.

More likely, they can also institute a guerrilla war if the US is so stupid as to actually invade Iran, and there they have the forces to run an insurgency ten to one hundred times bigger than the one we face in Iraq. First, their population is bigger by a factor of 2-3. Second, they have a militia of up to one million, if not six or seven million. If any significant fraction of that, along with the over one hundred thousand Revolutionary Guards, are involved in an insurgency against the US, either in Iran or Iraq - and possibly in conjunction with Shia militia in Iraq which number in the scores of thosuands - the US military is in very deep shit. It will take a million US troops in Iraq and Iran to control that - at least.

North Korea, on the other hand, has a one million man military, and has spent the last fifty years building its military force to confront the US and South Korea on the battlefield. They have a REALLY large amount of artillery that has been estimated to be able to deliver half a million shells on the DMZ every 24 hours. They would be able to wipe out our 35,000 troops in South Korea within 72 hours once they got rolling - which is why the US troops are being moved out of the DMZ to positions south of Seoul.

North Korea also has over 100,000 Special Forces troops trained in infiltration through tunnels and via their small submersible and submarine fleet.

To show you how tough those guys are, one infiltration was detected by South Korea when the submersible ran aground. In the attempt to capture the North Korean infiltrators, two escaped and remained at large for 53 days, killing 11 of their pursuers.

These guys are no joke.

Finally, of course, North Korea actually HAS nukes - it's not just speculation. The only speculation is in how many they have - one, two, six, ten, twenty? If Kim is about to lose the war - and the US WOULD win eventually (assuming China did not enter on the North's side, and that is very unlikely) - there is little doubt he would use those weapons. He could even put them on the North's submarines and deliver them to the US West Coast ports and cost the US several hundred billion dollars in port damage and economic impact.

So now you know why we're not attacking North Korea with anything but threats. Besides which, they have no oil.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

To be fair, most of them probably dismissed it as another exercise and another attempt to get good reviews of their performance. The article is correct that this sort of thing is done all the time, using fictionalized versions of real countries. It was done for Iraq years ago, IIRC.

However, coming as it did immediately after the invasion of Iraq, I'm sure some of them suspected what the next step would be.

At that point, however, what could any of them really say? Without the current run up politically, or the evidence that Bush intends to use nukes, it would be career suicide for them to start bitching about invading Iran when there was no clear operational planning yet done.

Today is a different story. Now somebody needs to blow the whistle before Bush kills a half million or more Muslims with nukes.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

Wouldn't any serving officers who speak out be subject to courts martial? I suspect that would always keep them in line, and rightfully so.

Hoppy in Sacramento

I pray for the day when a great purge descends on the Pentagon. If one wants to preach and look for converts to Christianity, or any religion, then get out or be forced out of the military. If one wants to politicize or politic any view then get out or be forced out of the military. Finally fund the military and vets then smash the "guns for hire" mercenary companies like Blackwater, DynCorp, etc. like the disease they really are.

Franks is a discredited old fool. Does anyone really take him seriously? I do resent that he gets a nice retirement with benefits while many who are forced to subsidize his life suffer.

Happy tax day America!

Why is it so important for the military to be under the control of the civilian government?

Does the military have a duty to obey this civilian government when that government is not sane or is engaged in immoral acts or is an enemy of the Constitution, the country, and its own citizens?

Do you think nuking people is an appropriate use of the military?

Did you know that soldiers are obligated not to follow illegal or immoral orders?

At what point does one's own humanity and moral character trump blind obedience?

Does anyone here remember Kent State?
4 Dead in Ohio (CSNY)

NeoLotus

********

- Making judgements without intellectual justification is prejudice.
- We do not act rightly because we have virture, we have virtue because we act rightly.
- To know a truth well, one must have fought it out.

I can't say whether Feith is the stupidest person on the planet, but when talking about this guy keep in mind that his security clearance was revoked when he worked for Reagan. He is a darling of the Aipac crowd. Larry Franklin (who plotted w. Aipac staff to leak Iran intelligence info to Israel) worked for him.

I have an inside source who has worked for pro-Israel organizations in DC who states w/o a scintilla of doubt that Feith is himself in cahoots w. Israel & would spy for it if he could (& perhaps has).

This is not an anti-Israel rant because I am a progressive Zionist. But Feith is no good & the same holds true for Aipac.

Richard Silverstein Tikun Olam

Vic, is this (from Back to iraq 3.0 - http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2006/04/why_didnt_you_say_so.php) your sentiment or are you just sharing it here because it interests you?

In any case, it begs a serious reply...

Under normal circumstances supporting your civilian leadership means supporting their right to make mistakes, even horrible bonehead mistakes, and not to use the authority that comes with your service to call them out on it.

The respect that many of us, even those who oppose the war, hold for the military 'on the ground' evaporates whenever they are used for obvious political gain. From time to time, politicans will try to do that, that's not new. But these are unusual times.

• Bush appears set on doing it all again in Iran. This time, with nuclear weapons.
  
• Word is that active military people are reaching out to their retired leaders to ask for relief. Commanders who care about the troops in their command are appalled to see Bush's lies about factual issues like Dragonksin body armor (used by the Secret Service) not being the best you can get. The so-called Iraqi army is allowed to come, get trained and paid, and then leave to come back to fight Americans. The war is being mismanaged, and our kids are dying each day because of it.
  
• Bush has been using military bases as a backdrop for political speeches. Politicians of all stripes have been actively recruiting military people to appear with them and support their efforts in the next campaign. (One Repubican political event even featured two in uniform.) There have been staged media events to make it look like the war in Iraq is going well.
  

There is pressure to weigh in now that did not exist before.

People are not robots. They will come to the same conclusions at their own pace and time. Reasonable people may differ.

I hope those on the left do not intend to call the millions of people who supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 hypocrites if they don't intend to vote Republican again. That's a misguided(!) strategy.

I never actively supported the war, but Katrina galvinized me to be more active in the effort to expose Bush. I blog a little, I write letters to the editor. Still, I don't go as far as others.

Exactly what date and time should I have joined the effort? Exactly what was the deadline for going public, and putting my reputation on the line? Do those who blog anonymously count according to your strict criteria?

Who are YOU to attempt to draw a bright line for who 'get to be considered good'?

That's just un-American.

[This will be cross-posted to my blog TimeTogether.org (eventually).]

"I think it would be very patriotic if Secretary Rumsfeld resigned." -- Gen. Clark on May 9, 2004 on NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS.

Like on many issues, Gen. Clark was out in front on this one. 

Or Bush might read the writings of "War is a racket" Smedey Butler, "War is Hell" Sherman, or Ike, or even MacArthur, all of whom spoke of the cost of war and disparaged its glory.

SherryB, I think it's both inappropriate and a violation of US copyright law to cut and paste an entire article into a blog.  This is the web, use a link, summarize, paraphrase, etc.

Well, no, Iran is no where near able to deal with the US military in a conventional warfare sense.

Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that. It takes a lot more troops to occupy a country than to defend it and we don't have them. Now, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "deal with" and "conventional" but if it means "prevent the U.S. military from achieving its objectives," by such time-tested methods as guerrilla war, my money is on the Iranians.

"Amerika" fails to meet the test of reasonable presentation of ideas. If you do want to make Nazi references, then do be clear it wasn't the Junkers alone that gave personal oath to their Fuehrer. Quite a few Bavarians and all that...

Defenestration, even for an inaccurate description of treason such as you give, is, in all probability, a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Butler, perhaps. I doubt Shoup.

Oh, I agree with that - "conventional" means just that. Guerrilla war is defined as "unconventional".

In fact, the smartest thing Iran could do would be to not try to invade Iraq and roll up the US's 130,000 troops right away. The smart thing would be to wait, do some limited retaliation, using the Iraqi Shia and infiltrated Revolutionary Guards as harassment, entice the US to invade the Khuzestan province - then direct the entire might of their military in a protracted guerrilla war for the next ten years. It would bleed the US military dry, costing us ten thousand dead and scores of casualties a year for the next ten years.

They would "lose" the war in a practical sense - their energy ambitions would be crushed and their economy destroyed by brutal carpet-bombing by the US, but it would damage the US military and the US economy even more than Vietnam did. Which in the end would mean the US lost.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

Yes, there was just an article about that somewhere.

The 40,000 figure is heavily exaggerated, but definitely Iran can come up several hundred or even more suicide bombers - and I'm sure they will be able to recruit hundreds more in the actual event of an attack - both from their own forces and from the groups they support such as HizbAllah and the Iraqi insurgency.

The "Car Bombs With Wings" article over at antiwar.com has this interesting quote:

"Car bombs – some 1,293 between 2004 and 2005, according to researchers at the Brookings Institution – have devastated Iraq like no other land in history...

Some of the devices have been gigantic, like the stolen fuel-truck bomb that devastated Mussayib, but what is most extraordinary has been their sheer frequency – in one 48-hour-period in July 2005 at least 15 suicide car bombs exploded in or around Baghdad...

Toward this end, he [Zarqawi] – or those invoking his name – seems to have access to an almost limitless supply of bomb vehicles (some of them apparently stolen in California and Texas, then shipped to the Middle East) as well as Saudi and other volunteers eager to martyr themselves in flame and molten metal for the sake of taking a few Shi'ite school kids, market venders, or foreign "crusaders" with them. Indeed the supply of suicidal madrassa graduates seems to far exceed what the logic of suicide bombing (as perfected by Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers) actually demands: Many of the explosions in Iraq could just as easily be detonated by remote control. But the car bomb – at least in Al-Zarqawi's relentless vision – is evidently a stairway to heaven as well as the chosen weapon of genocide.

But Zarqawi did not originate car bomb terrorism along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates; that dark honor belongs to the CIA and its favorite son, Iyad Allawi. As the New York Times revealed in June 2004:

"Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990s's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the CIA, several former intelligence officials say. Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosives devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq… One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period 'blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed.'"

According to one of the Times' informants, the bombing campaign, dead school kids and all, "was a test more than anything else, to demonstrate capability." It allowed the CIA to portray the then-exiled Allawi and his suspect group of ex-Baathists as a serious opposition to Saddam Hussein and an alternative to the coterie (so favored by Washington neoconservatives) around Ahmed Chalabi. "No one had any problem with sabotage in Baghdad back then," another CIA veteran reflected. "I don't think anyone could have known how things would turn out today."

Today, of course, car bombs rule Iraq. In a June 2005 article entitled, "Why the car bomb is king in Iraq," James Dunnigan warned that it was supplanting the roadside bomb (which "are more frequently discovered, or defeated with electronic devices") as the "most effective weapon" of Sunni insurgents as well as of Zarqawi, and thus "the terrorists are building as many as they can." The recent "explosive growth" in car ownership in Iraq, he added, had made it "easier for the car bombs to just get lost in traffic." '

This is a great article, pointing out as it does that car bombing can get very extensive - the Sendero for instance used 16 cars in one attack, and then:

"The climax (and Sendero's chief contribution to the genre) was an attempt to blow up an entire neighborhood of "class enemies": a huge ANFO explosion in the elite Miraflores district on the evening of July 16 that killed 22, wounded 120, and destroyed or damaged 183 homes, 400 businesses and 63 parked cars. The local press described Miraflores as looking "as if an aerial bombardment had flattened the area.""

Now imagine all this going on in NEW YORK, CHICAGO, LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO (where I live)!

Could happen if Bush attacks Iran...

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

Many of the Generals looking at the situation in Iraq, knowing what they knew about the culture of the Middle East, military history of conflicts in the Middle East going back to the time of the Crusades, knowing the size and the population of Iraq, knowing how supplied they were with conventional weapons and explosives, knowing that the population was armed, counceled either not going into Iraq at all or only going with many times more troops than the civilian brains in the Bush Administration, making miliitary decisions, thought was necessary. They were not listed to; some were fired. Some no doubt decided to try to make the best of a bad situation. They were saying, "This thing looks very bad militarily from the start." They had no one interested in listening to them in the Bush Administration. They were acting militarily and they were ignored.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Woolfowitz and others were expecting a cake walk with flowers strewn at their feet. Bush had decided he wanted to invade Iraq even before he became president. We are looking at the results of a catastrophic decision on the part of the Commander in Chief. And now he is contemplating something many times worse in Iran. Fault the Administration, not the Generals.

The scenario that worries me is someone emulating, professionally, the sniper attacks in DC. If, instead of a loose-screw disgruntled vet, a team of dedicated terrorists simply shoots people randomly, and avoids capture, it seems unstoppable.
Serial killers are very difficult to catch, since their victims are not connected socially, and no leads arise. If the goal was not to satisfy a personal psychosis but a political end, reasonable efforts at tradecraft would prevent any tracking or predicting.
Multiple teams could quickly achieve a death toll equivalent to 9/11. Al Qaeda likes spectacle, but Iran might prefer simple effectiveness.

The point about precedent is being raised here and elsewhere and it is not trivial. But consider what the current flap says about confidence in Rummy and the WH. This was not a conspiracy to subvert civilian control, but individual acts of desperation
Since it is reasonable to assume that a high-level officer is the opposite of an accomodationist peacenik this is the opening shot in an extra-constitutional "job action". The WH has been asking for it.

This thread was about Tommy Franks. Tommy Franks is not just any old general. He is the sweetheart of the ultra-rightists, who don't trust George Bush anymore.

Jan, like I said, I'd love to see some active duty generals quit in protest, then speak out. I hope that there are generals speaking out to their superiors now, but wouldn't want to see active duty generals trying to stay active and speak publicly -- that's a line that shouldn't be crossed unless it's a matter of using nukes in which case the line be damned.

I gave a zero rating to a post in this thread by GDoole01, a poster who has been a member for little over an hour. It is a mercifully short burst of hatred and stereotyping of all military officers, closing with "So who cares what ANY US General alive thinks now. The only good general is a dead one."

This is not an inflammatory post from a long-term participant frustrated over a trend in a discussion. GDoole01 also placed a similar outburst in a blog thread, where I rated it the same way.

If you read this, GDoole01, I suggest you read the FAQ about the purpose of rating: that posts, regardless of position on an issue, contribute to civil debate rather than attempting to stifle it. I suggest you look through some of the posts at the Cafe Management table that suggest there is value in learning a posting culture before attacking it. I will find it utterly fascinating if you embark on a campaign of retaliatory rating.

That's just un-American.

Now you are sounding like a 'Publican.

All this talk of Generals not disagreeing with their civilian leadership is making me sick. This is NOT a constitutional issue. This is the made up way the government is supposed to work from the Progressive era. Read Woodrow Wilson on "The Study of Administration" to find out where this crap comes from.

These Generals could have disagreed while IN SERVICE at any time. They could have been smacked down or forced to resign, but that's what happens when you get close to the center of politics. The F***ers are cowards, which is why they resigned first then held their tongue for so long.

I appreciate that these cowards have finally come out to speak up in the face of the greater fear of dropping the BIG ONE. I expect they are thinking that if you drop one BIG ONE, that isn't gonna be the end of it. Even cowards might speak up when faced with this scenario.

So, lets give 'em a little credit. But not too much.

Berkowitz,

You are always certain that you are right. You will notice that I am not the only one on these pages who exhibit some anger over these individuals. Exhibiting anger is a perfectly legitimate form of political expression. Assuming that everyone is extraordinarily rational, as in your own case, is not very helpful.

The general rule I have come to believe is if you find the thing worth responding to, it is a sound contributory post. You, on the other hand, believe in a "win-lose" philosophy of driving those you disagree with off the site.

As to the relevance of Wilson, which you seem to have missed, I am pointing out the source of the misconception much broader than the military that those who work for government have no role in deciding what the government does. I am knowledgeable about this, I assure you. I prefer to retain my anonymity, but I have seen you blather on about enough things to realize you are an armchair expert in a dozen things. I am NOT merely an armchair expert in this matter.

Berkowitz,

I do not assume my anonymity makes me credible, I realize the opposite.  But I do not care to be the subject of rightwing newspaper attacks in my community, a realistic possiblity.

The idea that the military is somehow distinct form the rest of public administration is yet another convenient myth that you rightly trace to the civil war.  These are not constitutional issues, as I raised in my post that you dissed.

Should I rate you 1 for your use of snide mocking in your last paragraph?  Or are you the only adjudicator or civility on this site?  Perhaps your judgement on civility is confused? 

Why do I bother...

1. History is not normative.  Perhaps you mean to say some particular historical document contains a normative argument...

2. My suggestion that you were confused sense of civility reflected fear of a few hot button words than concern for actual civil interaction with other people on this list.  Snide comments are uncivil to the specific recipient, not an odd fear of 0.1% of the language.

That would only be true if you consider venting to be a primary purpose of TPMCafe. Whether or not you personally feel invective is appropriate is a factor of the culture that formed your personality.

However, if you are engaging in interaction, in debate, the culture that applies is the communities, not your personal one, and it is clearly stated that invective is not appropriate.

We are all guests here, and we should obey house rules.

You said, "Sometimes his posts seem reasonable, although he does resemble the Star Trek logic monsters (Mr. Spock and Data).. Why, thank you!

I'd prefer, however, to focus on other forms of self-discipline, be they Stoic or Zen. You have stated venting as a goal; I tend to consider venting, other than privately to close friends, rather like public flatulence, or George W. Bush's ostentatious piety.

You also theorized, "I assume his goal is to shine his own star, not necessarily to communicate." Personally, I prefer to ask about motivations rather than assume. Overapplying assumption tends to categorize one as its first three letters.

 Perhaps Vivanes speaks for less of the community than asserted.