Retired Generals finally calling for Rumsfeld resignation

if we do it right we can get 3 different retirement checks.
one from the military
one from a civilian job
and social security

Very nice.

I still got the Lotto. It's over $20,000,000 Friday ;-)

You got the lotto what?

I got a ticket, but my winning numbers don't come out until Friday

Friday is going to be a good day :-D

Okay, it wasn't that witty a play on words, after all...

Ok, now I'm confused.

The military industrial complex may get more from the Republicans, but not the troops. During the 20 years that I served, it was the Republican presidents that held back military pay.

I have commented before concerning the military and Republicans. Here

Reviewing all facets and sides of the debates are two articles today. The first:


This article includes fairly extensive quotes on the subject from both "The Wall Street Journal" and "The National Review".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/04/18/BL2006041800512.html

"Four-Star Story

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; 8:15 AM

From the amount of media coverage the ex-generals' revolt is generating, you would think they had donned khaki uniforms and stormed the Pentagon in an attempted coup.

And yet all the retired brass have done is to speak out, generally from the safety of climate-controlled television studios.

Ever since one general spoke to Time last week and The Washington Post fronted the story of others who were coming out from under the cone of silence, the controversy has been huge. Liberals rejoiced, conservatives counterattacked, and thumbsuckers pondered What It All Means."

And the second:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/18/AR2006041801172.html?nav=hcmodule

"Why Are They Speaking Up Now?

By Melvin R. Laird and Robert E. Pursley
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; Page A17

The retired general officers who have recently called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld want to convince the public that civilian control has silenced military wisdom regarding the war in Iraq. They have chafed at Rumsfeld's authoritarian style and they may even have legitimate differences of opinion with his decisions. But, while their advice and the weight of their experience should be taken into account, the important time for them to weigh in was while they were on active duty.....

.....The retired officers who have criticized Rumsfeld have served their country with distinction. The military -- active duty and retired -- has a wealth of intelligent, articulate and motivated people. Their sense of duty, integrity and patriotism are of the highest order. But each of them speaks from his own copse of trees and may not have a view of the larger forest. In criticizing those with the broader view, they should be mindful of the risks and responsibilities inherent in their acts. The average U.S. citizen has high respect for the U.S. military. That respect is a valuable national security asset. Criticism, when carried too far, risks eroding it.

We do not advocate a silencing of debate on the war in Iraq. But care must be taken by those experienced officers who had their chance to speak up while on active duty. In speaking out now, they may think they are doing a service by adding to the reasoned debate. But the enemy does not understand or appreciate reasoned public debate. It is perceived as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve."

"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

PRESIDENT BUSH, yesterday

I think this is an interesting essay by one of our local columnists:


GENERAL DISCONTENT
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
David Sarasohn
R etired Gen. Merrill McPeak, Air Force chief of staff during the first Gulf War, understands some of the objections to retired generals criticizing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He hears complaints about "what I might call his unattractive personality. I think that's wrong. I don't understand why people criticize him for that. The boss is the boss."

The only problem is that the boss's work product has been a disaster.

"That's why you need a new secretary of defense," McPeak says.

"I'm here judging the results. The results are bad. Whether that's because Rumsfeld didn't listen to others, or did listen to others, I don't care. It's an outcome-based judgment."

Which is just the kind the Bush administration doesn't want people making.

As McPeak suggests, some of the criticism of Rumsfeld might indeed be of the middle school, he-thinks-he's-all-that variety. But the defenses of the secretary talk about every aspect of Donald Rumsfeld except the war he's managed.

So Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, declares of Rumsfeld, "Nobody, nobody works harder than he does. . . ." Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, praises Rumsfeld as "determined."

Tuesday, Rumsfeld praised himself for his "sense of urgency. I get up every morning and worry about protecting the American people and seeing if we are doing everything humanly possible to see that we do the things that will make them safe."

The problem, he said, was the boldness of his changes in the Pentagon: "One ought not to be surprised that there are people who are uncomfortable about it and complaining about it."

Besides, Rumsfeld points out, people complained during the Revolution and the world wars, too.

In other words, let's not talk about Iraq.

But the real complaints about the secretary are all about Iraq, and the war he has fought there.

"What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures," wrote retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs at the start of the war, in the current issue of Time magazine.

"Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq . . ."

All of which seem like the kind of failed policy decisions that a secretary of defense might be held responsible for, even if he is determined and patriotic and really, really hard-working.

But in the Bush administration, accountability and responsibility are concepts for unemployed workers, not for people who run the Pentagon.

In one example cited by Newbold, and by several other retired generals, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, answering a question in an early congressional hearing, suggested it would take several hundred thousand troops to pacify a postwar Iraq. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz denounced the number as "wildly off the mark," far above the number he and Rumsfeld thought would be needed.

Afterward, Shinseki was kept largely out of the loop at the Pentagon, and had his successor announced a year before his retirement.

Wolfowitz is now president of the World Bank.

And Iraq is a bleeding chaos, although apparently nobody is responsible.

"It's easy to exaggerate the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam," McPeak says. "But one parallel is the political foundations are rotten, and you can't build a military success over rotten political foundations. At least, we haven't figured out how."

So the point isn't that Donald Rumsfeld is hard-working and determined and means really well.

Maybe he is a good man.

But he's managed a war badly.

And failure is supposed to have consequences.

Excellent analysis, IMO.

Most of the failing war effort the US has been involved in has had similar complaints from various anti-war groups/people. It happened during the civil war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war. Funny how these things never happen during the successful wars.

With the relatively low American mortality rate (compared to other wars of length) the war in Iraq hasn't really been that much of a failure. Mistakes have been made, sure, but war is never easy and I don't recall anyone having a crystal ball (well, maybe Craven, but no one in the administration).

Gee, why don't you just regurgitate Rush's entire suckass show? Or you could try an original thought now and again.

As for the "low" mortality rate, it's still 100% for whatever poor dogface is on the receiving end of the bomb or bullet. And US involvement in Vietnam started out with a "low" casualty count too, by the way. If you want to truly support the troops, and I presume you do, then how about saving them from a needless death in a useless war of choice.

"Most of the failing war effort the US has been involved in has had similar complaints from various anti-war groups/people. It happened during the civil war..."



BOTH sides lost the Civil War?

Pretty much, yes.

But the subordinates predicted an insurgency... that's one of the complaints. The administration didn't listen to warnings, and did not make provisions for worse- and worst-case scenarios.

Funny that your knowledge of history is so skewed. You are not aware of the very strong oppostion and questioning of our involvement in WWII? What is really laughable is your absurd characterization of retired generals as anti-war people.

Again, I am convinced that the apologists for madman Bush are as crazy as he is.