It's Time To Critcize the Military
One of the most frustrating aspects of the War on Terror is the refusal of Americans to criticize their military and hold its commanders accountable for their failures.
Our military has displayed all sorts of shortcomings in the present war, many of our commanders especially our top generals are too timid and lack imagination, our forces have done a terrible job of securing Iraq and Afghanistan, untold billions have been spent on high tech warships and planes that will never fire a shot in anger while our infantrymen lack basic equipment such as battle armor, and the Pentagon relies heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops for jobs that should be done by the regular military. Perhaps most damning of all is the fact is that our military had no plans for fighting a ground war against Islamic terrorists in the Middle East even though that was the war we were most likely to fight.
Despite the obvious deficiencies our military is displaying almost no American especially an American politician dares to criticize the Pentagon. No one is trying to hold the generals accountable for their failures and they have failed miserably in Iraq. Our generals should have foreseen the need for body armor and armored vehicles to protect the troops, not to mention new tactics to deal with the insurgents they didn’t. One would think that our massive regular army would be able to fight a second rate colonial war which is what the fight in Iraq is without calling up the reserves or the National Guard but it can’t. One would think our crack army could deal with the situation in Iraq without several hundred thousand soldiers but it can’t.
I haven’t heard a single politician raise these issues and demand the stars of the generals responsible. I haven’t seen a single major journalist or news outlet do an expose of the military’s shortcomings. Only a few professional soldiers and gadflies have pointed out the sorry situation and they have been ignored. The only politician who has even raised the possibility that our military needs serious reform is Donald Rumsfeld and he has been vilified and run out of office for it. Sadly enough, Rumsfeld was crucified for trying to fix the problem others created. The last politician I can remember publicly calling for military reform was Gary Hart and he hasn’t been a real force in twenty years.
It wasn’t always this way, once upon a time, Americans were capable of holding their military and its leaders accountable for their failures. On the eve of World War II, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt shook up the military, he passed over many experienced older generals and promoted capable aggressive younger leaders like George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead the military. FDR knew that the military needed new leadership in the new war it was facing and provided that leadership. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the two commanders on the scene, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, were fired and saw their careers ended, Kimmel was even put on trial for his actions. During the Korean War, one of America’s top generals, Douglas McArthur, behaved in an abominable fashion criticizing national policy and the president and deliberately tried to sabotage peace talks to end an senseless war. President Harry Truman disgusted by McArthur’s antics, relieved the old soldier of his command that is he fired him.
Could anybody imagine a president today cleaning house at the Pentagon in the way that FDR did back in 1939, fire commanders seen as incompetent as happened after Pearl Harbor or giving a troublesome general the boot the way Truman did to McArthur? The answer is no, no American President today could make such moves against the military unless we were facing imminent defeat and maybe not then. So what changed? Why are we Americans unable to exercise our right of free speech and criticize one of our society’s basic institutions?
Part of the answer is World War II which led to the “Greatest Generation” mythology and mindless glorification of the military and its members. Another part is the Vietnam War and the guilt it produced. America’s upper classes and a large portion of the middle class avoided service in that conflict and still feel guilty for it. To this we can add the nagging guilt of many peace activists and Vietnam War opponents, the aging leftists who now loose sleep because they spat on returning soldiers. The anti war activists who wonder if they were on the right side in their youth and so on. Since then the guilt has been compounded by nearly two generations of Americans for whom military service has been a choice. In particular on the part of the upper classes who have almost completely opted out of military service and the media types who spent thirty years filling books, television, movies and even comic books with ugly stereotypes of the military.
The military brass is able to use this guilt to deflect all criticism legitimate or not. Most reporters and politicians are afraid to criticize the military because they never wore the uniform. This means the military can do basically whatever it wants and on some level shirk it’s duty. Instead of preparing for the wars they might really fight, (i.e.. the dirty little battles in Third World countries against vicious thugs) the military armed and trained for a replay of World War II (something that is unthinkable in a world of nuclear weapons), the war they dreamed of. Nobody held the generals accountable and now our troops are suffering the consequences on the battlefield, they have lots of high tech weapons that are useless.
This state of affairs is ludicrous it’s comparable to the mayor of a modern city where the police and fire departments are plagued by corruption and incompetence who refuses to reform those organizations because he never served as a cop or a fire fighter. Such a man who undoubtedly loose the next election, but Presidents, Senators and Congressmen who do the same get reelected. In our modern world fighting wars like fighting crime and fires is best left to the professionals and the professionals should be held accountable for their failures. Remember FDR, he never served in the military and even avoided service in World War I, when many men of his class opted to serve in the trenches, yet he was able to fire generals.
So we have to ask ourselves when we will wake up and start holding our generals accountable for their failures? My guess is when we suffer a really humiliating defeat or see a terrorist outrage far greater than September 11. Then maybe we’ll start holding our generals accountable for their shortcomings.
Or maybe we’ll be like the French who put mindless faith in their military and its ability to defend them, until the day that the Nazis marched into Paris. The day after the French government and its incompetent generals had fled the city.
Our military has displayed all sorts of shortcomings in the present war, many of our commanders especially our top generals are too timid and lack imagination, our forces have done a terrible job of securing Iraq and Afghanistan, untold billions have been spent on high tech warships and planes that will never fire a shot in anger while our infantrymen lack basic equipment such as battle armor, and the Pentagon relies heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops for jobs that should be done by the regular military. Perhaps most damning of all is the fact is that our military had no plans for fighting a ground war against Islamic terrorists in the Middle East even though that was the war we were most likely to fight.
Despite the obvious deficiencies our military is displaying almost no American especially an American politician dares to criticize the Pentagon. No one is trying to hold the generals accountable for their failures and they have failed miserably in Iraq. Our generals should have foreseen the need for body armor and armored vehicles to protect the troops, not to mention new tactics to deal with the insurgents they didn’t. One would think that our massive regular army would be able to fight a second rate colonial war which is what the fight in Iraq is without calling up the reserves or the National Guard but it can’t. One would think our crack army could deal with the situation in Iraq without several hundred thousand soldiers but it can’t.
I haven’t heard a single politician raise these issues and demand the stars of the generals responsible. I haven’t seen a single major journalist or news outlet do an expose of the military’s shortcomings. Only a few professional soldiers and gadflies have pointed out the sorry situation and they have been ignored. The only politician who has even raised the possibility that our military needs serious reform is Donald Rumsfeld and he has been vilified and run out of office for it. Sadly enough, Rumsfeld was crucified for trying to fix the problem others created. The last politician I can remember publicly calling for military reform was Gary Hart and he hasn’t been a real force in twenty years.
It wasn’t always this way, once upon a time, Americans were capable of holding their military and its leaders accountable for their failures. On the eve of World War II, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt shook up the military, he passed over many experienced older generals and promoted capable aggressive younger leaders like George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead the military. FDR knew that the military needed new leadership in the new war it was facing and provided that leadership. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the two commanders on the scene, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, were fired and saw their careers ended, Kimmel was even put on trial for his actions. During the Korean War, one of America’s top generals, Douglas McArthur, behaved in an abominable fashion criticizing national policy and the president and deliberately tried to sabotage peace talks to end an senseless war. President Harry Truman disgusted by McArthur’s antics, relieved the old soldier of his command that is he fired him.
Could anybody imagine a president today cleaning house at the Pentagon in the way that FDR did back in 1939, fire commanders seen as incompetent as happened after Pearl Harbor or giving a troublesome general the boot the way Truman did to McArthur? The answer is no, no American President today could make such moves against the military unless we were facing imminent defeat and maybe not then. So what changed? Why are we Americans unable to exercise our right of free speech and criticize one of our society’s basic institutions?
Part of the answer is World War II which led to the “Greatest Generation” mythology and mindless glorification of the military and its members. Another part is the Vietnam War and the guilt it produced. America’s upper classes and a large portion of the middle class avoided service in that conflict and still feel guilty for it. To this we can add the nagging guilt of many peace activists and Vietnam War opponents, the aging leftists who now loose sleep because they spat on returning soldiers. The anti war activists who wonder if they were on the right side in their youth and so on. Since then the guilt has been compounded by nearly two generations of Americans for whom military service has been a choice. In particular on the part of the upper classes who have almost completely opted out of military service and the media types who spent thirty years filling books, television, movies and even comic books with ugly stereotypes of the military.
The military brass is able to use this guilt to deflect all criticism legitimate or not. Most reporters and politicians are afraid to criticize the military because they never wore the uniform. This means the military can do basically whatever it wants and on some level shirk it’s duty. Instead of preparing for the wars they might really fight, (i.e.. the dirty little battles in Third World countries against vicious thugs) the military armed and trained for a replay of World War II (something that is unthinkable in a world of nuclear weapons), the war they dreamed of. Nobody held the generals accountable and now our troops are suffering the consequences on the battlefield, they have lots of high tech weapons that are useless.
This state of affairs is ludicrous it’s comparable to the mayor of a modern city where the police and fire departments are plagued by corruption and incompetence who refuses to reform those organizations because he never served as a cop or a fire fighter. Such a man who undoubtedly loose the next election, but Presidents, Senators and Congressmen who do the same get reelected. In our modern world fighting wars like fighting crime and fires is best left to the professionals and the professionals should be held accountable for their failures. Remember FDR, he never served in the military and even avoided service in World War I, when many men of his class opted to serve in the trenches, yet he was able to fire generals.
So we have to ask ourselves when we will wake up and start holding our generals accountable for their failures? My guess is when we suffer a really humiliating defeat or see a terrorist outrage far greater than September 11. Then maybe we’ll start holding our generals accountable for their shortcomings.
Or maybe we’ll be like the French who put mindless faith in their military and its ability to defend them, until the day that the Nazis marched into Paris. The day after the French government and its incompetent generals had fled the city.
posted by great one at 6:33 PM
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