Retired General: Iraq was a mistake
Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold retired in late 2002 as the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the most recent issue of TIME he has some scathing words for our country’s leaders relating to the Iraq-war decision.
I'd bet anyone with an opinion on the issue will find his words interesting. Read it here.
I'd bet anyone with an opinion on the issue will find his words interesting. Read it here.
posted by DeJon Redd | 1:32 PM
19 Comments:
I haven't read the article, yet, but DeJon's question reminds me of a related one: has anybody read Cobra II and have an opinion on it?
From what I've heard, it's pretty critical of the decisionmaking, too, though maybe less on the decision to invade and more on the decisions about how to handle the post-war realities.
Now I've read the article. Yikes. That's one unhappy Marine. I'll be curious to hear what the folks here with ties to the military think of it.
For my part, I found myself nodding a lot. Especially at the parts where he was chastising the military leadership for not being willing to speak up when speaking up was called for. There has to be a recognition in the upper echelons of the military that telling their civilian commanders they're about to make a huge mistake, and arguing that point strongly, is not wrong.
And if they see their civilian commanders misrepresenting the military situation in statements made to Congress or the people, they should feel a twinge from that oath they take to defend the Constitution, because the Constitution is being violated. They have to say something -- to Congress, if necessary; publicly, if necessary.
Disclaimer: I say all that as a citizen/voter with no military experience, so no firsthand feel for how difficult that must be.
For the record, I also agree with Gen. Newbold that the civilian leadership in both the executive branch and the Congress lost sight of their responsibilities, and any fault in the handling of Iraq is ultimately theirs, not the military's.
As a G.I., I'm no more informed on this Newbold issue than most others. But I have to wonder if it is axe-grinding that gives the retired general his "new-found" courage to speak out.
I've heard Rummy was never popular among the DoD's senior leaders. It seems much easier to attack the boss' agenda when you don't work for him any more. And that sounds more like a cheap-shot than courage.
Is this the retired Gen. who wrote a book recently? There was a retired Gen. on Jon Stewart the other night who said pretty much the same thing, but it doesn't look like the same person. (I admit to only skimming the article, so I may have missed something.) The Gen. on Stewart's show accused the administration specifically for not understanding the Mid-East at all -- that they were stuck in Cold War mentality. Which isn't a unique claim, but it is unique coming from a military "insider".
But, I'm not sure what to do with this. How does this perspective change or shape future policy? And how can it help us figure out what to do in Iraq now?
Different general, Mikey.
Just out of curiosity about the axe-grinding, how is Rummy viewed within the military? Just another civilian SecDef? Better than average? Worse?
Well, Cap'n and I were simul-posting, I guess.
Interesting thoughts, Cap'n. Thanks for sharing. Your experiences span an interesting (and enlightening) chunk of American history.
I don't know the answer to your question about Gen. Pace, of course. I do know, however, that if Pace was going to say anything at all on the subject, it's certain he wouldn't side with the generals against the boss. If I had to guess, though, I'd guess he really does support Rummy, else Rummy, et al., wouldn't have chosen him for his current job.
I don't know diddly-poo about military strategy, Cap'n, but considering how many troops are tied up there, I can't see how our involvement in Iraq could not affect our capacity to act elsewhere. Do you?
I know if I were the Iranians, I wouldn't take the administration's sabre rattling overly seriously. We just don't have the troops to go invading a country 3x the size of Iraq.
Without instituting a draft, that is, which our leadership lacks the will to do.
An interesting perspective. There are some pretty important differences between Lincoln and Bush, too, though.
We could all use some good news.
I'd add to the list: very different reasons for going to war.
Now that you mention it, I'd say Southern culture is extremely similar to Muslim culture, when you boil them down. Both are very traditional (vs. modern), with all that that entails. There's not a nickel's worth of difference between an American Christian fundamentalist's mindset and an Arab Muslim fundamentalist's mindset. A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist.
And -- both were very anti-American.
You lost me. Both what were very anti-American?
Sorry, Juvenal, I was half-asleep when I posted that and am not really sure what I meant (yes, I was asleep at 1:05 EST, deal with it). Piecing things together, I think I was referring to the unreconstructed Southerners and Muslims, not Christian fundamentalists you were referring to (which, then, makes my comment non-sensical, but when I first woke up, it sounded good). I wasn't really making a point, I don't think. Which you are used to, I'm sure, as I very rarely have points to be made, unless I'm feeling especially preachy.
A “fundamentalist” Christian may strike you as a narrow minded redneck and cause you to throw things at the TV, but he’s not likely to stand you up in front of a home video camera and cut your head off with a sword to show how orthodox he is.
Only because he has other ways of exercising control over those in his society whom he anathematizes. When his means of control are restricted, the violence begins. That has been the pattern throughout Christian history. In our own day and society, physicians who perform legally protected abortions have learned this the hard way.
Your description of Christian fundamentalists glosses over the deeper similarities between them and Muslim (or any other) fundamentalists. They are the same.
Both insist on highly patriarchal societies.
Both insist on authoritarian social structures.
Both fear and reject modern science.
Both believe everything truly worth knowing is knowable only through the direct revelation entrusted to their group.
Neither admits the possibility of being wrong about who God is or what he might want.
Neither admits the possibility of others being right about who God is or what he might want.
Both reject the secular state, insisting instead on a state that enforces their own religious vision of how life should be lived. (Note that "enforce" requires the notion of "force"; in this case, state-controlled violence. If the fundamentalist can't get his way through state-controlled violence, he will eventually resort to other kinds.)
Both locate the ideal human life outside the course of human history, in some pre-historic paradise and/or post-historic afterlife.
Both fundamentally loathe what Paul called "the world" and "the flesh" and everything that comes along with them.
Those last two points add up to the fact that both basically dislike life in this world, want to be somewhere else, and if they find themselves in a completely untenable situation here, have strong motivation to act violently without regard for their own mortality. Everything in this world is ultimately disposable, anyway, including themselves.
The Arab Muslim fundamentalist hates America reflexively, as the Great Satan. The American Christian fundamentalist loves (one might even say worships) America reflexively, as God's Chosen Nation.
Both hate the notion of equal, extensive individual rights and freedoms.
As far as I can see, there's not a nickel's worth of difference between Jerry Falwell or Tim LaHaye and Muqtada al-Sadr or Mullah Omar, except the accidents of birth. Falwell and LaHaye haven't done what al-Sadr and Omar have done only because they exist in a system where they haven't had to. Either, given a chance at the power the Taliban wielded in Afghanistan, would gladly grab it and do exactly the same thing with it: remake their society in their image of God's image, absolutely rock-solid certain of their rightness, without regard to empirical evidence.
They are all the same person, and they all want the same things. That's the ultimate irony of our current administration. Their left hand -- fighting Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attacks on America -- doesn't know what their right hand -- making America more like what Islamic fundamentalists would like it to be by kowtowing to Christian fundamentalists -- is doing.
I would submit, though, that the folks who fit your fundamentalist definition (on the Christian side, at least) are misrepresenting the basic tenants of the system they claim to follow.
A couple of thoughts. One, the same is true of Islamic fundamentalists. Two, Christians do lay claim to the Old Testament as authoritative, and the basic plot of the OT is God's Chosen Nation's use of genocidal violence to remake Palestine into what God wanted.
Your question about snipping from previous posts -- I just copy the text, paste it in, and put tags around it to italicize it.
Joe -- you could well be right. Can you think of an example or two that struck you as misuse of the label?
I heard on the radio on the way home from work that yet another retired general, this one from the Army, has blasted Rumsfeld and called for his resignation.
The trend continues
I don't remember saying all abortion protesters were fundamentalists, but maybe I did. I mentioned the people who kill doctors who peform abortions, who I think definitely qualify. Regardless, I do think it's true that most of the people who picket and block access to abortion clinics are fundamentalists.
Christian fundamentalists had every advantage and every opportunity to do this in America during the 1600-1700s. Why didn't it happen?
Well, I think it's pretty debatable whether the early Christians in the American colonies really qualify as fundamentalists in the current sense. Part of the definition of fundamentalism is it's reaction against modernism, which didn't really exist in the 17th-18th centuries, although there are tremors of it very late in the 18th, in the French Revolution.
That aside, what you describe pretty much DID happen in America. It happened in all the New England colonies, where the dominant Christian group, the Puritans, most resembled modern fundamentalists. Those colonies had very authoritarian (and completely patriarchal) governments.
It happened to much lesser degrees in the other colonies, largely because the dominant groups there (Anglicans, for the most part) were not particularly fundamentalist. (The people who had been Anglican "fundamentalists" had separated themselves from Anglicanism prior to the establishment of the colonies. That's who the Puritans were.) Even in those colonies, however, they did establish official churches (the Anglican Church) and persecute Christians of other varieties -- including throwing them in jail.
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