Another general adds his voice to the chorus
A year ago, Maj. Gen. John Batiste was commanding a division in Iraq. Today he's hitting the road to call for Rummy's resignation.
posted by Chris Dykstra @ 11:16 PM |
| 
4/12/2006 |
THE NEW PATRIOTSPREVIOUS POSTS
MINNESOTA BLOGSTHE LEFT WINGRULES OF ENGAGEMENT
|
5 Comments:
Whew. The .Rumsfeld Revolt continues. Too bad our incompetent "leader" didn't fire his ass years ago. Maybe if really listened to the generals instead of his pencil-pushing neocon yes men:
Batiste said he believes that the administration's handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of command and unity of effort. In other interviews, Batiste has said he thinks the violation of another military principle -- ensuring there are enough forces -- helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.
His comments follow similar recent high-profile attacks on Rumsfeld by three other retired flag officers, amid indications that many of their peers feel the same way.
I voted for the guy who learned from Vietnam, instead of evading it.
Always fighting the last war.
Its not really surprising that in the military there's a strong culture of the "way we do it." Innovation is stiffled and because the stakes are often life and death, there's a tremendous pressure to stick with "proven" approaches.
Think Inchon landing. How can anyone rate amphibious assault acceptable after D-Day and the losses there? Yet, it was done again, and not so long after. There are still entire amphib assault groups and the Navy continues to fill amphib ships with marines. Why? Those are the things Rummy challenged. If you have trained your entire career to lead an amphibious task force, you're going to be understandably upset about that.
The generals in question were Big army fans. They like big divisions with massed force and lots of specialized troops. Rummy is moving to smaller units, where everyone fights and has extensive training in other areas. Greater reliance on special forces and so on.
There is a genuine disagreement here. Rummy is inovating at what's a blistering rate for an organization that isn't good at change. Its natural that he'll encounter resistance.
Let's not forget that Generals are political appointees as well. Most of these ones are from the Clinton era. Many, such as Wesley Clark has aspirations of running for office. If they want to do that, bush-bashing is de rigour.
You can stick with Vietnam if you want, but I want something better. The results are clear. Take an objective look, we're winning.
-Censored
They aren't criticising him for that, censored. They are hammering for his stupid plan to invade without political buyin and with no plan to occupy.
You can stick with Vietnam? Are you kidding? nobodywants to stick with Vietnam. Yet here we are, in a war based on lies and ineptly micromanaged by REMFs.
And another thing...They screw it up and blame the guys on the ground for the consequences of their shitty orders.
They want him gone because he's a really lousy, venal, shorsighted leader that is bad for the country.
No, they want him gone because he's not feeding the military-industrial machine. He doesn't buy weapons systems we don't need. He doesn't let the generals build their empires with ever more troops when its just not needed.
He's closing bases. He's reducing the force. He's told the Navy to stuff the 500 ship idea.
Do you know what Batiste means when he refers to "unity of command?" He's pissed because special forces were conducting operations in his area of operations without his direction. They're peeing in his wheaties. Its a turf battle, plain and simple.
What's "unity of force?" The best and brightest gravitate to special operations - they don't stick around to serve his generalness. All the best guys go do important stuff and he's left to babysit the morons and initial enlistment types. He wants everyone to work for him. All this when the vast majority of infantrymen Batiste did lead never even fired their weapons.
This conventional vs special forces stuff isn't new. And that's all this is.
Why is it in the news? Its just something else for the MSM to try to attack Bush with.
-Censored
Post a Comment
<< Home