Military Revolt?
Cynthia Tucker
Cynthia Tucker, an editorial writer at the The Atlanta Constitution (and apparent military expert), had this to say yesterday on NBC's Chris Matthews Show (video here):
Look for a revolt from active-duty generals if September rolls around and the president is sticking with the surge into ‘08. We've already heard from retired generals. But my Atlanta Journal-Constitution colleague Jay Bookman has lots of sources among currently serving military officers who don’t want to fall by the wayside like the generals in Vietnam did, kept pushing a war that they knew was lost.
Well, I'm glad someone with such vast military experience and intimate knowledge of the situation has warned us that the generals will "revolt" and that the "war is lost".
It is, of course nonsense, but the anti-war types at ThinkProgress are eating it up anyway. No one is going to revolt, either openly or otherwise. If the generals get really fed up, the most you will see them do is turn in their resignations.
Recently, retired General John Batiste criticized the war, joined the ranks of other anti-war vets such as ret. Gen. Wesley Clark with VoteVets.org, which announces itself as a "veteran's organization", but in reality is a leftist, anti-war front, with a few veteran's faces to give it legitimacy.
These guys are Americans, and they can, and should, say what they think. However, if someone actually polled all officers, both retired and current, I believe that VoteVets.org would probably not like the results. Few are satisfied with the way the war has been handled (although here's the problem: if you ask 100 soldiers what we should be doing differently, you will get 100 different answers), but darn near all would like the mission to succeed.
Now don't get me wrong. Morale is lower than it was in 2003, that much is certain. Its definitely different from the time OIF started in March 2003. But I never saw anyone even contemplating anything like revolt. The attitude has changed, but it has changed from: "Yeah, I can't wait to kick their asses" in early 2003, to: "crap, when is this thing going to end" in 2007. It would be a long, long time (if ever) before we saw any senior leader or unit say: "lets refuse to go to war". Why should they revolt? US soldiers are the best treated and best paid in the world. Even now, our morale is light years ahead of the Iraqi army, which has desertions left and right. In my experience, our morale is even higher than the German Army here, which doesn't have to worry about Iraq (although they do send soldiers to Afghanistan).
In any case, let's leave military analysis to military experts.
5 comments:
About six months ago, the Army Times did a poll of its subscribers, mostly officers and senior NCOs, and they found that only about half thought we are likely to succeed to Iraq, and only about a third approved of the way Pres Bush is handling the war. So really, VoteVets is not that far removed from how most of us feel.
http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006_main.php
Nor is VoteVets a "leftist anti-war front" group. That's straight from GOP propaganda and its a partisan lie. VoteVets isn't even partisan, and it especially isn't anti-war -- its mission is expressly to help end the Iraq war so that military resources can be available to fight our very real enemies around the world.
I also think you read too much into the term "revolt," altho I'll grant you that the editorialist you cite is probably not particularly well informed on military issues.
Still, the number of senior officers who are speaking out against the Iraq war, to include those on active duty who do so privately to people like Jack Murtha and to retired officers like Clark and Batiste, is unprecedented. It's something of a soft revolt. No one is going to fail to follow orders, but neither are they going to repeat the betrayal they endured as junior officers from their counterparts in the Vietnam era.
Thanks for the good info on that poll. I'm not sure if the wording on that question (35% approve/42% disapprove) about the way Pres Bush is handling the war is the best way to ask that. Like I said, most soldiers (including me) are not fully satistified with the way the war has been handled, but many do not put all the blame on Pres Bush.
From votevets.org:
"The goal of the VoteVets.org PAC is to put Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans in Congress who are critical of the execution of the war in Iraq and representative of the principles of VoteVets.org PAC"
So it's definitely anti-Iraq war, and its lined itself up with George Soros, Wesley Clark, and now John Batiste, who didn't just criticize the war in his ad, but also the President too. True, none of that proves it is "leftist", but it is certainly being used as a tool of the anti-war left.
Those of us who support VoteVets believe that Iraq is the wrong war. That we should be fighting the people who attacked us, not emeshed in a civil war that cannot be won militarily. So we are not anti-war at all, and that includes Wes Clark and George Soros.
I don't know how you can not blame for Iraq if not George W. Bush. Oh, there are others who contributed to the fiasco, but he's the HMFIC. Remember, a commander is ultimately responsible for EVERYthing, and that goes for a commander in chief.
Well I'm an Iraq vet, maybe I'm just an enlisted swine, and maybe I'm a REMF, but you don't represent ME sir.
No I don't really think Iraq was the best call. And yes it could have been handled better. But the man said go, and that's what I signed up to do.
But if you think George Soros wouldn't love to see our flag in retreat then you live in a fantasy world. Throwing in with the likes of that tells me all I need to know. If you want me to take you seriously, keep better company.
Without a Democratic party in thrall to mealy minded international socialists making real war winning tactics politically incorrect we would have won already. And these same people want us to telegraph our intent to the enemy by running the war by committee.
I can hear it now; 'what does an enlisted REMF know about war' and 'no army in history has defeated asymmetric warfare'
Bullshit.
Tell it the Romans. Tell it to the British. Tell it to the Germans. Hell tell it to the Filipinos!
History in fact tells us that non state actors can not win against state actors, unless the state gives up and goes home. If you commit yourself to the struggle, and make him pay a high enough price, you win. period.
So don't say we can't win, we can. Tell us what you really think; You don't really want to.
yeah, my country right or wrong, eh? half a million troops in vietnam by 1967 and still not enough. i suppose you're going to say with five million or fifty million you would have won the war in vietnam? how much more of a "surge" is going to be needed in iraq, especially now with every hothead hot to trot into iran.
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