The Next Open Thread : Military Edition

by DemFromCT

It's almost unheard of for active duty officers to criticize their superiors in print. But the Bush administration brings out the 'unheard of' in people, it seems.

An active-duty U.S. Army officer criticized U.S. generals in a journal article published on Friday for failing to prepare the military and the country for war in Iraq, and urged Congress to intervene.

In a rare public airing of a vigorous debate within the U.S. military, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling compared generals' management of Iraq to their conduct in Vietnam and warned of a crisis facing the armed forces due to the "intellectual and moral failures" of U.S. generals broadly.

Whether it's CDC or the military, there are always many people trying to do their job. And sometime there are people who have an idea how to do that job better.

Yingling did not single out any general for criticism.

The mid-ranking officer's cover article in the May issue of Armed Forces Journal reflects the debate among officers about the conduct of the Iraq war as well as the decisions and public statements made by commanders advising civilian policymakers.

Yingling repeated, for example, a widely voiced criticism that generals did not raise publicly the concerns held privately about the level of U.S. troops being committed by policymakers to secure Iraq in the early stages of the war.

Silence in the face of a bad idea does not become anyone. And an institutional look (not a witch hunt) at failure is a known successful business and academic practice. The military is overdue for exactly that.

Your turn.

Comments

[Jodi]

DemFromCT,

I have said it before here. The Generals are selected/promoted by the Administration, and Confirmed by the Senate. Each assignment is a similar process of recommendation and approval. The way to retire a General at a certain point is simply not to make the next assignment.

The General Staff may be capable, but must also be political.

The General who recommended more men in Iraq at the beginning was soon retired (after being ridiculed). This was not lost on the ranks.

[freepatriot]

sounds like a "Rope A Dope" to me

there WERE Generals who told george bush the truth

and george bush FIRED those Generals

this PUTZ is blaming george's yes-men for the disaster

who hired the "Yes-Men", and whyu ain't HE to blame ???

this is just another piece of repuglican dis-information

lets all blame the Generals, so nobdy will notice george is an idiot and a loser

failure starts at the top, and there ain't no uniforms at the top of the Defense Department

[DemFromCT]

That is how it works, Jodi, but the process is not immune to reform. Remember, that the author is not blaming the generals, he's suggesting the system is broken.