[lit-ideas] Re: The US Army in mutiny?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:04:51 -0700
I didn't think my words would permit the construction you place upon them,
Irene, but then (I suppose) I often think that. In May 2003 I read The
Mission, Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military, Dana Priest,
2003. She was a great fan of Zinni and seems to admire him more than any of
the other CinCs. Her chapter three is entitled "The CinCs: Proconsuls to
the Empire." The CinCs had enormous power and influence in their regions,
and Zinni's included the Middle East before he retired and was replaced by
Tommy Franks. Zinni was a bit of an Arabist in that he loved to work with
the various leaders. They respected him and he respected them. He made up
his own mind about things. On page 110, for example, Priest writes "But
Zinni saw Pakistan's leader, Gen. Musharraf, as a force pressuring the
Taliban toward moderation. Acting on that opinion, the Pentagon, led by
Zinni and the Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Raltson, had
single-handedly kept the door open to Pakistan." I don't question that it
was good that we kept the door open to Pakistan, but "as a force pressuring
the Taliban toward moderation"? One needs to be ignorant about Islamism or
to have moved fairly far along the Arabist trail to imagine that.
In regard to the recent in history of the Military vs Government, "Clinton
and the military never got along. For such a smart politician, Clinton had
been so dumb in the beginning regarding his relations with people in
uniform. But at the same time, on Clinton's watch the military slowly,
without public scrutiny or debate, came to surpass its civilian leaders in
resources and influence around the world." [p. 42]
[p. 47] "predictably, the military learned to operate in civilian realms,
while their civilian counterparts in every agency were more isolated, less
knowledgeable, and less comfortable with the military world."
I shouldn't need to explain that when Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense,
the military was no longer going to be permitted to run things to the extent
they did under Clinton, and many resented Rumsfeld for this change. I can
sympathize with the Generals having been in Aerospace long enough to see
generations of bright but inexperienced young managers brought in to sweep
our endeavors with new brooms. None of them had the experience I had nor
were they (in my humble opinion) as bright; so our relationships were
invariably stormy. Zinni had been running things in the Middle East for
years and had kept them running fairly smoothly. He was probably viewing
Rumsfeld about the way I viewed my young managers.
Did I ever bad-mouth any of my young and inexperienced managers the way
Zinni et al bad-mouthed Rumsfeld. Alas, I confess that I did, but only to
friends who pretty much knew my opinion anyway. I never bad-mouthed any of
them if anything important (like an Air Force contract) was on the line. So
I'd like to think that if I were Zinni I wouldn't risk giving succor to the
Islamists by bad-mouthing Rumsfeld in public. Some (besides Andreas) have
suggested that Zinni and the others may fear that that Rumsfeld intends to
bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Now anyone who feels that the Taliban can
be induced to be moderate may well feel that the same thing is true of the
Iranian leadership, but many (including the administration) think such a
view faulty.
No one can be an Arabist that hasn't lived with them for years. [see Robert
D. Kaplan's The Arabists, the Romance of an American Elite, 1993.] A great
number of such people function as though they have gone over to the enemy.
They take on the cause of the nation in which they are living. This problem
has been endemic with our ambassadorial staff. I doubt that is true of
Zinni, but he seems to think the Islamists are far more malleable than I
think they are. In regard to recent discussions he is perhaps more in
sympathy with Fukuyama, Roy, & Kepel than with authors I find more credible.
But a great number of other very knowledgeable people such as Amir Taheri,
Kenneth Timmerman, Jonathan Fenby, Bruce Bawer, Mohammad Mohaddessin, Ilan
Berman, Claire Berlinski, Jean Bethke Elshtain, David Horowitz, Daniel
Pipes, Bernard Lewis, Samuel P. Huntington, Thomas P. M. Barnett, Henry
Munson, Jr., Victor Davis Hanson, Robert Kagan, Richard Miniter, George
Friedman, Paul Berman, Bevin Alexander, and David Selbourne believe the
administration is (more or less) on the right track.
On page 248 of How America Got it Right, Alexander writes "Skeptics of the
U.S. efforts in the Middle East say that the difficulties encountered in
trying to set up democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq - along with Somalia's
inability to create even a functioning government, much less a democracy -
show that equitable societies cannot exist in Muslim lands. George W. Bush
believes just the opposite, that democracy is possible throughout the Middle
East. But even if true democracy fails, we will still be partially
successful if we create governments that are merely less oppressive. Such
governments are unlikely to harbor terrorists. And eliminating terrorism is
our principle goal."
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 3:37 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The US Army in mutiny?
Yeah, that old Soviet-loving, card carrying Communist former head of Centcom
Zinni. Who could ever believe a word he'd say. From the 60 Minutes
interview, a short bio:
"From 1997 to 2000, he was commander-in-chief of the United States Central
Command, in charge of all American troops in the Middle East. That was the
same job held by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf before him, and Gen. Tommy Franks
after.
Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, the Bush administration
thought so highly of Zinni that it appointed him to one of its highest
diplomatic posts -- special envoy to the Middle East."
Other Commie loving generals that think like he does: Former General and
National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Centcom Commander Norman
Schwarzkopf, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, and former Army Chief of
Staff Eric Shinseki all voiced their reservations.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 4/15/2006 1:55:54 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The US Army in mutiny?
I wondered if anyone was going to take any of this seriously and thought to
myself, surely not. Surely everyone will remember that Rumsfeld was given
the task of revamping the military, ending the pork-barrel-like weapon
systems that we would never need unless we were going to fight another
Soviet Russia, learning the lessons from Vietnam, namely that we had to use
small, fast units rather than slow-moving tank-like units that guerillas
could easily avoid. And from the earliest days of Rumsfeld's Secretariat,
we heard that the old timers hated him, wanted to continue doing things the
way they had always done them, and hated his changes. Now some of these
that have all along hated him, such as Zinni, are making their hatred more
public. I say more public because anyone interested was aware of this
hatred. So imagine the curl of my lip when some Liberal Journalists decide
this is something new, a brand new revelation, something the result of long
years of Rumsfeld mismanagement. Surely no one was going to fall for that.
. . I thought naively.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 10:09 AM
To: Lit-Ideas
Subject: [lit-ideas] The US Army in mutiny?
The US military is beginning to rebel against Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.
Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the UN, writes:
"First, it is clear that the retired generals -- six so far, with more sure
to come -- are
speaking for their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still
inside."
"These are career men, each with more than 30 years in service, who swore
after Vietnam
that, as Colin Powell wrote in his memoirs, "when our turn came to call the
shots, we would
not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons." Yet,
as Newbold
admits, it did happen again. In the public comments of the retired generals
one can hear a
faint sense of guilt that, having been taught as young officers that the
Vietnam-era
generals failed to stand up to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and
President Lyndon
Johnson, they did the same thing."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401
451.html
This is extremely dangerous. Bush about to start a nuclear war. The military
will not
participate. What will happen when he gives orders to attack? Will they
refuse? Or will they
arrest him?
Bush, who talks about creating democracies in the Arab world, is about to
destroy democracy
in America.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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