Posted on 04/21/2006 2:14:07 AM PDT by ricks_place
Last time around, the antiwar left did not have a very high opinion of generals. A popular slogan in the 1960s was "war is too important to be left to the generals." It was the generals who had advocated attacking Cuba during the missile crisis of October 1962, while the civilians preferred -- and got -- a diplomatic solution. In popular culture, "Dr. Strangelove" made indelible the caricature of the war-crazed general. And it was I-know-better generals who took over the U.S. government in a coup in the 1960s bestseller and movie "Seven Days in May."
Another war, another take. I-know-better generals are back. Six of them, retired, are denouncing the Bush administration and calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as secretary of defense. The antiwar types think this is just swell.
I don't. There are three possible complaints that the military brass could have against a secretary of defense. The first is that he doesn't listen to or consult military advisers. The six generals make that charge, but it is thoroughly disproved ...
A second complaint is that the defense secretary disregards settled, consensual military advice. The military brass recommends X and SecDef willfully chooses Y. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. ...
What's left of the generals' revolt? A third complaint: He didn't listen to me . So what? Lincoln didn't listen to McClellan, and fired him. ... In our system of government, civilians fire generals, not the other way around...
We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Excellent post. And it's dead on.
it raises the issue of the political persuasions of the active members of the officers' corps."Apolitical officer corps? Prominent Soldiers Who became presidents: 1. George Washington 2. Chester A. Arthur 3. Ulysses Grant 4. D.W. Eisenhower 5. Zach Taylor 6. John F. Kennedy Ill bet theres so many more... no offense to any that Ive forgotten.
Yeah, you skipped Andrew Jackson, maybe more. But then, John Kennedy was no more a flag officer than John Kerry was. Or, for that matter, Richard Nixon.That aside, the real issue is your questioning the existence of any tradition of the military being apolitical. But first you have to admit that example #1, George Washington, not only wasn't a Democrat or a Republican, he did not consider himself to be the member of a political party and he hoped that political parties ("factions") could be avoided in America.
And then you have to look up a little more history, and learn that Eisenhower was courted by both Democrats and Republicans to be their presidential candidate. Why would that be? Because nobody knew whether he was a Democrat of a Republican! And that was no aberration; being publically apolitical was de rigeur.
Of course there has been a tremendous strain on the apolitical nature of the military since Vietnam; the Democrats became hostile to the military and actually elected a president who as a young man famously "loathed the military." In fact, even enlisted men are under orders to avoid associating their uniform with any partisanship.
The Defense Department waves away the protesting generals as just a handful out of more than 8,000 now serving or retired. That seems to me too dismissive. These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.
But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.
We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.
That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?
It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent.
Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.
These hand puppets of the Islamofascists and the DNC are true scumbags, and anyone who defends them is even worse.
Which just goes to show that a truly obsessive, mindless personality is not an exclusively Left-wing trait.
Because they are leftist who want to divide and conquer, just as they do when they create rifts between black and white, male and female, labor and management, rich and poor, etc.
That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?
It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.
Much of what the left does to gain power it will one day be faced with undoing if it is to have anything over which to rule.
Very true.
Democrats want to pretend that they are for a strong defense and use ex-Generals to do so.
How is the issue different?
The Truman administration set policy, not McCarthur.
Besides, it was McCarthur's hubris that allowed him to get caught by suprise by the Chinese entrance into the war.
He ignored intelligence that showed a huge Chinese presence on the border.
Very astute observation. Krauthammer usually hits the nail on the head. I'm surprised that the Post gives him the space. Maybe they are getting scared due to the Mary McCarthy defense team on their butt.
Well let's not put ALL the blame on Mac:
Oct 12 1950 - CIA intelligence analysis asserts that Communist Chinese intervention in the Korean War is "not probable".
Oct 27 1950 - 300,000 Communist Chinese troops invade Korea.
NICE work.
During the Korean War the left backed the POTUS over the General. Today the left backs the Generals over the POTUS. In each case they backed the weaker less assertive American policy. Truman's reluctance to take on the Chinese (weak) they backed. Opposing Bush on IRAQ invasion (strong).
That has nothing to do with the issue of civilian control of the military.
In the first case they were right, in the second wrong, as regarding civilian control of policy.
As usual, Krauthammer is right on the mark!
McCarthur did get conflicting intelligence reports.
But having won his most brilliant victory of Inchon, he got overconfident and began to see what he wanted to see, a fatal flaw in any general.
A ROK unit had been decimated by Chinese troops and Marines had fought a large number of them as they got close to the Chinese border.
McCarthur was urging the 1st Marine divison to move faster, but the Marine commander smelt an ambush and held back, saving the division from annihilation.
Politicizing the military moves us ever closer to a military coup and dictatorship.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.