Rumbles in Military Hint at Change
Time and again, President Bush has tried to hide his incompetence behind our men and women in uniform. Repeatedly, criticism of his policies has been distorted into an attack on the troops; too often, questions about his strategy have been brushed aside with claims that his policy had been dictated by his generals.
Even now, with the House and Senate trying to force a change of direction, the White House accuses Congress of trying to “micromanage our commanders and generals,” redefining the debate as a disagreement between Congress and the military, not with the president.
I think that game is about to end. I think President Bush is losing the American military, and that while he wrangles with Congress over deadlines, in the end it will be the military that forces dramatic changes in policy in Iraq.
Signs of that change abound. When the White House recently asked five retired four-star generals to serve as a so-called “war czar” overseeing our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, all five declined, a remarkable sign of disgust among those with a culture of service.
“The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,” retired Marine Gen. John Sheehan said in explaining his refusal to consider the post.
That sense of a military establishment finally losing patience is also reflected in the behavior of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Gates has refused to toe the party line, asserting an independence that the Bush White House must find maddening. While the president was in Washington condemning Democrats for undercutting the troops, Gates was in Iraq announcing that the debate in Congress “probably has had a positive impact — at least I hope it has in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment.”
Adm. William Fallon, the head of Central Command, signaled a similar change by banning use of the term “long war” to describe our struggle in the Middle East. “The idea that we are going to be involved in a ‘Long War’ at the current level of operations is not likely and unhelpful,” a spokesman explained.
Perhaps the most telling signal, however, came in a devastating critique published last week in Armed Forces Journal by an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel, Paul Yingling.
The piece, headlined “A Failure of Generalship,” is nominally an attack on today’s military leadership, which itself is extraordinary. The main thrust of Yingling’s argument is that too many generals have stood mute while civilian leaders misled the nation about what is really happening in Iraq, repeating a mistake that led to disaster in Vietnam.
“While the physical courage of America’s generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage,” Yingling writes. “In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters,” and even though that has begun to change, “they may have waited too long.”
Yingling has served two tours of duty in Iraq. As a graduate of the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, he had already been identified as one of the service’s best and brightest, and he has made clear his intent to stay in the Army. With this critique, he has placed that career and his chance at a general’s stars in severe jeopardy, but his willingness to take that risk will echo through the ranks as an example of the moral courage he finds absent in many of his superiors.
All these signs point to a storm gathering within the military, especially as the strains imposed on the Army by the surge become more apparent. In that regard, it is interesting to note that Army Gen. David Petraeus, commanding officer of U.S. forces in Iraq, has recently and repeatedly stressed his intention to provide the American public an honest assessment of progress or failure by September. By then, he suggests, the effects of the surge and the willingness of the Iraqi government to reform will be more apparent.
Last week, Petraeus was asked whether that assessment could conceivably include telling the president that things aren’t working and the troops should come home.
“I have an obligation to some wonderful young men and women in uniform … who are serving in Iraq, and who deserve a forthright assessment from the folks at the top … and that’s what I’m going to provide,” Petraeus said.
Gates and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, have joined Petraeus in setting September as an crucial time of reassessment. In other words, while Congress and the president wrangle about deadlines, a deadline of sorts may already have been set.
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.
© 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yeah . . . Right . . . We’ll wait until August.
Maybe by then we’ll have reached well over 4,000 of our troops dead.
As a vet myself I say, to all those politicians in Washington DC, “Stop sacrificing our troops to save your own face.” Stop it Now!”
America doesn’t need the oil, it needs leaders to make the change. The people will have to lead the leaders . . . We have the will, the ability, and the know how . . . All we need is to have someone to ask us to do it. I haven’t heard anyone ask . . . Have You??? Well I am asking you now . . . “Ask not what your troops can do for you.” “Ask what you can do for your troops.”
I wish I had the faith others have shown in Petraeus, a general who is media-savvy, but essentially a “miles gloriosus” in the mould of MacArthur, Patton and Montgomery. He loudly blames Al-Qaida for just about everything when he surely knows - or ought to - that they are a very minor player in Iraq.
So the only power greater than the President is the uniformed military? I am only slightly less appalled at the thought of the military undoing Bushco than letting him continue on till ‘08.
Their authoritarian and heirarchial mind-set is the antithesis of democratic self-determination. This sounds like the first stage of an immense power grab that could lead to a defacto ruling star-chamber junta without whose approval our leaders cannot be allowed to rule. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Poet: Look at the irony? Any thing headed right indefintely will come full circle (i.e. to the left), which is my abstruse analogy that perhaps only MARS can take down MARS, i.e. the military, realizing a leader is misusing ITS power decides to act on its own defense. You figure there is bonding among “brothers at arms” and surely some of the career officers take a paternalistic interest in the ultimate well being of their soldiers. To have to stand by and let your best fighters jump off the roof for NO viable cause, well, maybe those on the front lines are the only ones who CAN mutiny, when the democratic checks and balances are teetering on the edge of collapse.
Army lieutenant colonel, Paul Yingling did indeed write a scathing article but his main point, which he used the backdrop of Vietnam and Iraq as “exhibit A and B” was that the Generals that staff the U.S. military did not get there by merit, they are ass kissing fools who havn’t a clue. The current General culture in the U.S. Services make it to the top by being politicians, they are not bright and will NOT be the ground swell ending this war. After all hardly anyone gets promoted during peacetime. The General corps are so much a part of the box that they don’t have any concept of “looking outside the box”. Lieutenant Col. Yidling went on to say he had some hope for Army Gen. David Petraeus’s appearance on the Iraqui scene and said there is still hope for the General Corp should Congress do their appointed duty and not rubber stamp every idiot that is put in front of them for a star.
This is the video that MoveOn and VoteVets did not want you to see because it made them “uncomfortable”
This is the video that MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org did not want you to see.
The on-camera interviewee — the mother of a young recruit — mentions aggressive recruiting tactics used by the U.S. military in targeting underage kids.
MoveOn and VoteVets rejected this video because they “felt uncomfortable” with this mother’s comments about recruiting.
Petraeus is just the latest lackey of the Bush crime family. Why September? We already know the surge isn’t working. How many more will be dead by September?
“I think President Bush is losing the American military, and that while he wrangles with Congress over deadlines, in the end it will be the military that forces dramatic changes in policy in Iraq.”
And I think as long as Bush keeps the support of the American Enterprise Institute and its “scholars” and underwriters, he doesn’t care about the American military.
Yingling’s conclusions are pretty much the same as David Hackworth’s from the Vietnam era (see About Face). I’ll disagree with the physical courage comment, in that our troops are brave when forced to, but they rarely are forced to be, and via the rules of engagement, are far more often cowardly.
Petraeus refuses to follow his counterinsurgency manual, which would call for major changes in troop commitment, training, and assignments. Practically speaking, this could be done in 6 months to a year if the US military had the commitment, but they don’t and won’t.