[meandog]

He is. So do you really think that means he spends all his time running the military? I guess we should just get rid of all the leadership in the military because the Commander in Chief does it all. No point in having decision makers in the military. The man in the Whitehouse can replace the thousands of people at the Pentagon. No point in having command staffs operating all over the world handling the wide variety of crisis zones we are currently operating in. We'll just have the Commander in Chief do all the work. I'm sure all the people we elect to run this country are absolute experts in the UCMJ, international law, military rules of engagement and the constantly changing environment in areas like Southwest Asia. Heck, next time I have a question regarding anything in my military job, I'll just call the Whitehouse. Did you even think about what you typed before you hit the post button, or did you actually think you were making a useful point?

In the Navy I retired from, there is a principle called "ultimate accountability"! Whether he was ashore on liberty or at sea but asleep in his rack, many a skipper has been drummed out of the service when his ship suffered a major incident. If Bush did not carefully read the rules of engagement in the war or at least direct Rumsfeld to do so and advise him on the rules, then he's a fool!

[Rokke]

"In the Navy I retired from, there is a principle called "ultimate accountability"! "

It's still there. Are you really comparing the Commander and Chief of the US military to the Captain of a ship?! Are you suggesting the President of the United States should be fired every time a ship runs aground? Should we hold Bush accountable for every tactical decision made everywhere our military serves? If so, then I suppose you are a raging advocate of Whitehouse direction of every decision made on the battlefield. Sorry, but the Navy you retired from paid a price for that kind of idiocy several decades ago, and that's why we don't do it now.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about when you talk about "rules of engagement". Do you realize, for example, that every theater we operate in has its own rules of engagement, and within each theater, there are different rules for different zones within that theater. And the rules for one service are not the same as the rules for another. The Army has different rules than the Marine Corps who has different rules than the Air Force. And those rules are hundreds of pages thick and change depending on the threat level and battlefield environment. Rumsfeld could brief the President 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and still not keep him current on all the ROE in all the areas we are currently operating in. In your time in the Navy did you even once operate in a combat environment? Do you know that in the course of a single mission, a Naval Aviator will probably have to operate under several different sets of ROE depending on where his aircraft is at that particular minute? Do you have any idea what you are talking about? You certainly aren't giving any indication you do on this thread.

And you call the President a "fool". It's almost amusing.