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| Home Front: Politix |
| The Generals' Dangerous Whispers |
| 2006-04-21 |
| 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. Some of the complainers were on active duty when these decisions were made. If they felt so strongly about Rumsfeld's disregard of their advice, why didn't they resign at the time? Why did they wait to do so from the safety of retirement, with their pensions secured? 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. 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. |
| Posted by:Unuting Grereque6424 |
| #4 All hail the future OWG Amerikan SSR's/USR's Communist Party of Amerika's [CPUS] future People's Military Commission [PMC], of Billary's Commmonwealth Soviet Republic Dominion Empire of the Union of the Confederacy. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-04-21 20:44 |
| #3 James, you really should not have leaked this even on the Rant. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-21 16:14 |
| #2 Actually, these generals are republican plants to penetrate the democrat party and the MSM and report back their weaknesses. They will regret these generals. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-04-21 16:09 |
| #1 The "General's revolt" is a bunch of horse hockey. These guys are just speaking their collective minds. Re-call them to active duty, put them in charge of a unit and mission and see how "revolting" they are. More Washington Post drivel. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-21 09:15 |