Still being a Gen Jim Jones ‘fan’, My question to HIM is WTF?
I thought someone of his character and caliber would serve us well DESPITE who the CIC is and my ‘heart of hearts’ is saying MAYBE, just MAYBE he is ‘warning’ the Commanders if you need 500,000 troops, tell us, don’t ask for 200,000 and come back in two weeks for 300,000 more..
Under a liar-in-chief (also childish-idiot-in-chief, and psychotically-detached-head-case-in-chief) a General must of necessity give a poorer grade of commands and guidance. Second guessing what a General means costs lives. But there is little to be done straight-forwardly and unambiguously until the time such a C-I-C is replaced.
Under an Obama or a Clinton — under all mendacious and/or emotionally unstable leaders every command is weakened and confusions develop. Why? Because the authority and integrity of all command is rooted in the highest commander. There is no getting around it.
The German General staff under Hitler’s emotional instability scrambled to work around him, as recently made public actually made secret overtures for a ceasefire to the Allies, and in one plot attempted to assassinate him. It wasn’t because they loved peace or hated the Holocaust — it was because every responsible rational leader comes to despise and hate being subordinate to the whims and manias of the morally insane or emotionally unstable.
In our more tolerant of variance and individually independent American military history we may deal with the issue differently, but the feelings are the same towards such a commander. But still, the MINIMUM reaction that will happen is what I said — a weakening of the force of command (for it relies on trust and integrity) and an increase in these kind of cloudy statements, which are not straightforward.
G-d help our troops.