Heh. I was going to call my post this morning "Night of the Generals" as well. Fortunately, I changed my mind and named it "Some Number of Days in March and April".

My grandfather resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force over Robert McNamara's plans to change the armed forces. Now, I'm glad he did. At the time, it must've been tough. I feel for these guys, they won't get a fair hearing on their opinions. They're being disloyal to the machine.

Rummy, like Bobby before him, wants a leaner, more agile organization that responds better to modern realities. They both wanted an Enron Army, but the rules and culture they're breaking were put there to protect the Army and screwing with it puts the Army at risk. If you can't tolerate the risk of an Enron-like collapse, you can't take the risks of Enron-like lies^h^h^h^h^h culture.

The thing is, Rummy is a symptom, he isn't the problem itself. That is W and his entire coterie of neo-con men and women. Getting rid of Rummy doesn't get rid of Condi, nor of the 'war president'. Nor does it undo the mess that we're in.

I'll keep saying it: if the ungodly mess we're in could be fixed in a flash by giving someone a blowjob in the Oval Office, what patriotic American would hesitate to volunteer?

General Pace's comments about Rumsfeld's dedication reminds me of something my partner says. I was telling him my frustration with a coworker who tries hard but is not suited to the job. My boss is one of those types who thinks if you stay late, parrot the party line and blame other departments, you're doing a good job. And my partner says "Never confuse effort with results."

General defends secretary

However, a former top aide to Gen. Tommy Franks stepped forward Thursday to defend Rumsfeld.

"Dealing with Secretary Rumsfeld is like dealing with a CEO," retired Marine Gen. Mike DeLong told CNN's "American Morning" on Thursday.

"When you walk into him, you've got to be prepared, you've got to know what you're talking about. If you don't, you're summarily dismissed. But that's the way it is, and he's effective."

Sort of like General Eric Shinseki, Army chief of staff, who knew what he was talking about (as subsequent events have proven), but was summarily dismissed. General Shinseki told Rumsfeld that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure post-war Iraq. As a result, General Shinseki was marginalized and forced out.

"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark," Mr. Rumsfeld said. General Shinseki gave his estimate in response to a question at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday: "I would say that what's been mobilized to this point — something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers — are probably, you know, a figure that would be required." He also said that the regional commander, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, would determine the precise figure.

A spokesman for General Shinseki, Col. Joe Curtin, said today that the general stood by his estimate. "He was asked a question and he responded with his best military judgment," Colonel Curtin said. General Shinseki is a former commander of the peacekeeping operation in Bosnia.

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. "I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction," Mr. Wolfowitz said. He added that many Iraqi expatriates would likely return home to help.

Update: More from Major General Batiste :

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, one of several retired generals who has recently called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said Friday there is no coordinated anti-Rumsfeld effort among the generals, and that he hasn't talked to the others.

On NBC's "Today" show, Batiste called the timing "absolutely coincidental," and added, "I think there's a lot of people now starting to ask questions, and I think that's healthy in a democracy."

Batiste was asked why he had waited until now to go public with his criticism of Rumsfeld.

He answered, "I have nothing to gain in doing this. There is no political agenda at all. For 31 years I was a loyal subordinate and did not tolerate dissension in the ranks. My sole motivation, pure and simple, are the service men and women and their incredible families."

Batiste was also interviewed on CBS's "Early Show" on Friday, and had harsh words for Rumsfeld.

He said, "We went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the hard work to build the peace after we took down the regime. We also served under a secretary of defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team."

Emphasis mine.

Sort of related: I was dealing with a proxy for a BofA election, and one of the proposed directors was Tommy Franks. I voted against. I don't want yes-men (or not-saying-no-men) running things, even at a bank I avoid doing business with.

Teresa, you wicked woman.

[Smiles with lots and lots of sharp teeth]

Anyone for Rocky Mountain Oysters and sausage?

Did any of you hear the commentary on this and the commentator rushing to Rummy's defense on NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday? It was so full to brimming with tough guy sound bites the guy might have well said, "He's hung like a horse and can bench press 250 lbs."

I distinctly remember the phrase "not in touch with his feminine side". Well thank God for that! I'd tremble to think that all that was between me and Osama Bin Laden was those romance reading, shoe shopping, chamomile tea drinking men of the 82nd airborne.

Avery: I did hear that. He was sure painting Rumsfeld to be a real man's man, has to be or the enemy will win. I think what upset me the most was that he said Rumsfeld wasn't the type to dwell on his mistakes. He just learned from them and moved on.

Exactly what has Rumsfeld done that shows he's learned anything or changed anything since the start of the war?

Check out the link titled, Rumsfeld Should Stay as Head of Defense.

(Posted but not listened to a second time as I am at work right now.)

It concerns me that so many experienced generals who knew what they were doing have left the military recently. I used to have a certain amount of faith that however incompetent the administration might be, most of the people running the army knew the score. But who's left to run the store?

And have these men all been pushed out for something they couldn't bring themselves to do?

You’d have to go back to Robert McNamara to find another Secretary of Defense who was so incompetent.

Was McNamara really as incompetent as Rumsfeld? I don't mean that rhetorically; I'm genuinely not sure. I understand that the Vietnam War was more costly and destructive than the Iraq war has been, but that's not the same thing.

McNamara was the guy who gave us single-engine, single screw ships, since a ship only needs one propeller to go forward, and the pricetag is much lower if you cut corners. Unfortunately, he didn't think to ask what would happen if that single engine stopped working for some reason.

(He's also the guy who came up with the concept of the "mission kill," that is, if we destroy the enemy's radar they can no longer fight against us, so we should put our efforts into anti-radar weapons.)

Rumsfeld is definitely on that level. The future will tell if he's surpassed McNamara, the "upward failure," in over-all harm done to the US military.

One piece of the larger problem is that we've got an attention-deficit president who doesn't like to finish what he starts -- including wars.

Now that Junior is bored with both Afghanistan and Iraq, he's ready to move on to Iran. Never mind that there are those in Iraq with a strong pro-America view. Never mind that there are Iraqis who couldn't be more pleased that we removed Hussein and his secular government. Never mind that Iran could actually be an ally.

Nope. They're just more "A-rabs" in his cowboys-and-indians mentality. And they've got oil.

And in ten years, after the U.S. has been soundly thrashed in a poorly planned and catastrophically badly executed invasion of Iran, will we be treated to yet another parade of retired generals finally telling us publically what they've known privately all along?

I'm not sure which I find more annoying, the "I told you so" crowd, or the "I wish I had told you so" crowd.

James,

" And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. 'I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction,' Mr. Wolfowitz said. "

Which is interesting because, lo and behold, when the time came Colin Powell was saying "ehhh, not so much". I guess there was just too much potential profit to share.

I get the feeling this administration counts on, indeed thrives on, a sort of national ADD.

Add another general to the mix: Major General John M. Riggs:

Retired Major Gen. John Riggs told National Public Radio that Rumsfeld had helped create an atmosphere of "arrogance" among the Pentagon's top civilian leadership.

"They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda. I think that's a mistake, and that's why I think he should resign," Riggs said.

And:

Another retired officer, Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs, said he believes that his peer group is "a pretty closemouthed bunch" but that, even so, his sense is "everyone pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out."

He emphatically agrees, Riggs said, explaining that he believes Rumsfeld and his advisers have "made fools of themselves, and totally underestimated what would be needed for a sustained conflict."

Now, what about John Riggs? Rose through the ranks from being an enlisted man to being the commanding officer of the First US Army.

He's a guy who did state his objections to the Iraq fiasco while he was still on active duty. The result: he was forced to retire at a reduced rank.

Sunday 29 May 2005

Outspoken general fights demotion.

Washington - John Riggs spent 39 years in the Army, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery during the Vietnam War and working his way up to become a three-star general entrusted with creating a high-tech Army for the 21st century.

But on a spring day last year, Riggs was told by senior Army officials that he would be retired at a reduced rank, losing one of his stars because of infractions considered so minor that they were not placed in his official record.

He was given 24 hours to leave the Army. He had no parade in review, no rousing martial music, no speeches or official proclamations praising his decades in uniform, the trappings that normally herald a high-level military retirement.

Instead, Riggs went to a basement room at Fort Myer, Va., and signed some mandatory forms. Then a young sergeant mechanically presented him with a flag and a form letter of thanks from President Bush.

"That's the coldest way in the world to leave," Riggs, 58, said in a drawl that betrays his rural roots in southeast Missouri. "It's like being buried and no one attends your funeral."

So what cost Riggs his star?

His Pentagon superiors said he allowed outside contractors to perform work they were not supposed to do, creating "an adverse command climate."

But some of the general's supporters believe the motivation behind his demotion was politics. Riggs was blunt and outspoken on a number of issues and publicly contradicted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and needed more troops.

"They all went bat s- - when that happened," recalled retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, a one-time Pentagon adviser who ran reconstruction efforts in Iraq in the spring of 2003. "The military part of [the defense secretary's office] has been politicized. If [officers] disagree, they are ostracized and their reputations are ruined."

[more...]

So that's the atmosphere. Given the examples of General Riggs and General Shinseki, is there any wonder the brass is waiting until after they retire to talk?

Well Powerline has explained it all for me. See these generals, with their entire careers behind them, they weren't shaped by that, no, what really motivates them isn't love for the Army, the Republic or the troops, nope.

They were... Clinton appointees.

Now it's all clear.

For the people playing along at home who might not know this:

Paygrade O7, Brigadier General, one star.
Paygrade O8, Major General, two stars
Paygrade O9, Lieutenant General, three stars
Paygrade O10, General, four stars

General of the Army (wartime only), five stars.

Teresa...well, I'd do BILL CLINTON in the Oval Office, that's for sure. But he's a sexay man, unlike the current toad.

"So that's the atmosphere. Given the examples of General Riggs and General Shinseki, is there any wonder the brass is waiting until after they retire to talk?"

Yeah. Why risk being demoted and processed out with no parade and no ceremony and only a form letter? It's not like there was anything worth resisting. (Pay no attention to the man in the corner with the jumper cables clamped to his testicles.)

A blow job in the oval office would be high comedy. The President is doubtlessly on stupendous dosages of antidepressants. He's probably lucky he can still find his short arm, much less put it to practical use.

It looks as if W is standing by his man.

We're not going to go to war with Iran. They're doing everything they can to give us the impression that they really do have WMDs.

Bush doesn't want to fight a nation that has WMDs. He wants to fight one that used to have WMDs but doesn't have them now, so he can claim they're a still a danger and therefore have to be attacked.

We're doing a great job of teaching the less powerful nations that the last thing they ever want to do is disarm.

TNH: Remember, 'everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran'. That's still not beyond the bounds of possibility. As Juan Cole points out, right now Iran has the capability to make glowing Mickey Mouse watches.

Teresa said: We're doing a great job of teaching the less powerful nations that the last thing they ever want to do is disarm.

There are few here who agree with the views of noted conservative Jerry Pournelle, but he did make a remarkably similar observation:

First, anyone not blind will see that the West has been teaching powerful lessons over the years:

The first lesson is: if you are a dictator, or part of an unpopular government structure, get nukes, get them quick, get them in any way you have to. Get nukes and get them now.

The second lesson is, don't let go. Even if you are a reluctant dictator, even if you hate dictatorship and wish peace and democracy to your country, do not relax your grip, and do not contemplate retirement. That way lies persecution of yourself and your family, and you will probably die in a foreign jail. If you are lucky you may be put under house arrest or seek asylum in a foreign embassy.

If you are a dictator, your only chance of survival is to hang on and get nukes. Nothing else works.

Those are the lessons we teach, and anyone with sense has learned them well.

There's a point about Generals-dumping-on-Rumsfeld that I think people are missing. Military people have the chain of command imprinted on their brains-- it's a fundamental life-or-death aspect of being a soldier. So,... I'm morally certain that every General who says bad things about Rummy has the reservation in the back of his mind that Bush is the one who's really responsible.

T -

I wish I could manage to feel that reassured.

At least one substantial administration faction wants to nuke Iran, presumably pour encoragé les autres -- though what in the seven names of pain tney think it's going to encourage les autres to do I should not care to speculate -- and I see no reason to believe that they regard the Iranians as posessing a credible deterent.

North Korea can do an immense amount of economic damage by taking out most of the electronics manufacturing house of cards with one or two bombs. (Seoul and effectively anywhere in Japan; they could hit Taipei, too, though I suspect that even in an 'everybody dies' scenario they won't, given how the Chinese could chose to react to that.) This gives them an assymetrically effective deterent, even if they can't hit CONUS. (Which they very probably cannot.)

Iran doesn't have that option, it's far from clear that they've got a bomb, and the folks in that faction are likely to believe that the best way to make sure that they don't hit CONUS is to blow up their stockpiles. (Since North Korea doesn't engage in high volume trade with anybody, it's nothing like the same smuggled-bomb risk that Iran is, either.)

So if Rummy figures the USAF is about a year away from a credible missile defense, maintains the bizarre mental block about nukes in containers labelled 'pistachios', and believes -- as all available evidence indicates that he believes -- "let them hate me so long as they fear me" is a good approach to dealing with others, and yeah, he might well decide that what Iraq means is that he's right and that wars with ground troops involved are a mistake, and that having anybody think that hardening sites to the point where it requires nuclear weapons to destroy them will act as a deterent is a mistake, too.

There's a kind of hideous stupidity of power that mistakes cringing for deference and deference for respect. It can't cope with what it percieves as disdain -- which is pretty much everything except cringing and deference -- and the public calls for resignation aren't going to encouage whatever vestigal temptation toward being sane and calm may have existed in Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld.

Re NK Graydon sez: "even if they can't hit CONUS."

There are some 35,000 American soldiers in/around the DMZ in Korea, who knows how many in Japan, and, not to be parochial, an entire state in the mid-Pacific and another in the Northwest (Alaska) which they have claimed in the past that they could reach with missiles. Don't forget us.

Iran can make a dirty bomb, yes?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden: Iran can make a dirty bomb, yes?

Well, yeah, but how big it would be depends on their stockpile of Mickey Mouse watches. If only Presidential Medal of Freedom winner George Tenet were still on duty. He would know.

More on MG Riggs:

http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/05/partisan_promot.html

TNH: Well, yes, and so can Jamaica. If all we mean by a dirty bomb is one that spews radiation. There's lots of radioactive waste (mostly medical) around. If you mean, can it make an effective dirty bomb, one that spews a lot of radiation and kills lots of people, that depends, as Michael Weholt says, on how many Mickey Mouse watches it has.

My suspicion is that it's not so much the WMDs as the fight. The people Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc allowed themselves to listen to in 2002 told them that Iraq would be a pushover, that we'd have a brief bout of fighting, the evil regime would collapse, and they'd get to pose for front-page photos with a telegenic grateful populace. Now they know better, but can't allow themselves to back down, because that would be an admission of error.

No way they want to go through that with Iran. But the thing I something worry about is that there's evidence that it was Iran that fed us the false info about Iraq. In other words, that they set the administration up for their current mess. Bush is just the kind of petty bully who'd love a chance at revenge.

You see, I take the public affirmation of support from W as the kiss of death. Time to start the countdown to resignation of Rummy.

Melissa: I suspect you're right.

melissa: You see, I take the public affirmation of support from W as the kiss of death. Time to start the countdown to resignation of Rummy.

Ah, yes. The Harriet Myers Effect. Quite possibly. Quite possibly.

I don't disagree at all that Rumsfeld's management of the wars has been disgraceful, and that he ought to be dismissed.

But there is another piece to the story, which is that the Pentagon military leadership really is incredibly resistant to change. Rumsfeld, no more or less than Aspin, Perry, Cohen*, or for that matter, Cheney, tried to perform some necessary modernization and realignment, and ran into a brick wall. Rumsfeld, in typical Bush Administration style, was particularly arrogant and insular about it, and I have little doubt that in some part, this revolt of the Generals is payback for that.

I hope that the idea of the modernization of the armed forces isn't tainted by the fact that Rumsfeld tried to do it, and that the next SecDef (hopefully soon, but if not in the next administration) keeps pushing the military leadership.

* no relation

The Harriet Myers effect was there with Michael Brown as well.

melissa --

Rummy used to be Cheney's boss. I doubt that W can force him to resign. I doubt he wants to, either, becuase if W gave even tiny fractions of rodent patotie about competence, he'd have done it some time since. The GOP has no respect for military service nor the opinions of those who serve or who have served.

T -

A dirty bomb isn't in the running as a credible deterent; there is no plausible way for a dirty bomb to be more dangerous or more directly harmful than the smoke plume for the World Trade Center or a medium-bad train derailment, and the use of one on American territory would present the strong possibility of a legal or pseudo-legal de jure assumption of dictatorial powers by the present administration.

I don't think the government of Iran would see that result as being in their interest, and because such a device would constitute a 'weapon of mass destruction', they'd leave themselves open to a thorough and vigorous nuking.

Linkmeister --

Neither Hawaii or Alaska would produce unmanageble political fallout in the way LA eating a couple megatons would be expected to do. That's the only measure this lot are using; military casualties would almost be welcomed. (Having Japan hit wouldn't be, because the regional politics would promptly go pear-shaped for values of pear that involve relativistic angular components of velocity, and that would have nearly immediate economic effects and those would have political consequences.)

The present administration have made it clear that they can, somehow, escape coherent political blame for, at a minimum, passively assisting in the destruction of a major American city. They might figure this would be just as easy to do if NK manages to nuke Hawaii, especially if that gives W. the chance to make some New Pearl Harbor speaches.

Has anyone here read Digby's [self-acknowledged] tin foil hat speculation today? Also this.

Graydon, you may be right about our relative value, but I do think the symbolic value of landing a missile in the middle of the Old Pearl Harbor might inflame a little political fallout. Since I live about 2 miles north of the Arizona Memorial, I might not be around to notice, but I'd like to think my former countrymen would think the worse of a President which allowed it to happen.

Iran can make a dirty bomb, yes?

Eventually.

Eventually, iran could make a doomsday device.

If we are willing to assume that they are suicidal and care nothing about being deterred, a doomsday device would give them everything fairly cheaply.

It needs no delivery system. It's relatively easy to defend. They only need one. They get to kill all their enemies (and neutrals, and friends) in one strike. If they can't be allowed nukes we sure can't allow them a doomsday device.

Now, consider Chernobyl and it's tiny world-wide effects. What would happen if the people running a reactor did their level best to make it go as bad as possible? They could put a lot of nuclear pollution across the world. Maybe a whole lot, particularly if they had more than one reactor to work with. People who mustn't be allowed nukes mustn't be allowed civilian reactors either.

Iran mines their own uranium. We can't keep them from getting uranium. But if we destroy their economy they can't build sophisticated weapons. Destroy all their power plants, and water works, and their railroad and road networks, and whatever industry they have ... then iran will be like Katrina only 300 times as big. No electricity, no water, no fire department, no food in the grocery stores.... They aren't going to be building any reactors any time soon.

But that still isn't enough. Iranian nuclear experts could sneak into the USA along with a bunch of terrorists. Say a hundred or two hundred could capture one of our nuclear reactors and hold it long enough for the experts to turn it into a mega-Chernobyl. We'd be cautious trying to retake the reactor because we wouldn't want to damage things, we'd probably assume they were trying to steal reactor fuel to make a tiny dirty bomb. By the time we figured out that anything we did to damage the reactor would make the disaster smaller, it would be too late. So it isn't enough to bomb iran back to the stone age. We must also invade iran and kill or detain every iranian who has nuclear expertise.

And we really ought to shut down all of our own reactors, to keep them out of the enemy's hands.

It's the only way to be sure.

On the other hand, if the iranians can be deterred like everybody else then we have a different choice to make. Once they get nukes we'll be scared to invade them. Should we do it now, so they can't stop us from invading them later?

North Korea can do an immense amount of economic damage by taking out most of the electronics manufacturing house of cards with one or two bombs. (Seoul and effectively anywhere in Japan; they could hit Taipei, too...)

Hmm, that raises an interesting point.

If North Korea were to (apparently) go nuts and hit Taipei, then China would almost have to invade Taiwan, wouldn't they? Just to "stabilize things?"

So, when / if the Chinese are ready to make their move toward forced annexation of Taiwan, Kim Jong-Il could be the useful idiot who allows them to get away with it without excessive international condemnation or US interference. In such a scenario, the US will be too busy invading and neutralizing Pyongyang to pay much attention to anything happening between Taiwan and China. What's worse than a land war in Asia? A land war in Asia on multiple fronts. Scary stuff!

j h woodyatt: My impression is that the military has been telling us that invading Iraq was a bad idea, planned badly, and executed badly, since day one. Thing is, telling us politely that we're making a mistake is about all they can do --- to do more would be a military coup or revolt, and those have a reputation for leading to unhappiness down the road, no matter how well-intentioned they were at the start.

James D. Macdonald: "[McNamara is] also the guy who came up with the concept of the "mission kill," ... " Can you explain to this non-military person what the problem is/was? Obviously you can't put all your eggs in that basket; the enemy can react by relying less on radar, or whatever. But as a technique among several, what is its flaw?

bonniers: "It concerns me that so many experienced generals who knew what they were doing have left the military recently." I have the same concern. Bad management can quickly gut any organization of its most competent people.

As far as I can tell, Ahmadinejad is a not-so-Bizarro-world mirror image of GWB. Today he predicted the extinction of the state of Israel.

WTF to do? If Bush fires Rumsfeld, which I don't believe he will, he will merely appoint someone else of the same tribe.

My opinion of the Gang of Six is negative. Perk-accepting, money-grubbing careerists.

So, I did what I could. I created "motivational posters" that they might well have had in their offices.

Just for fun, check 'em out at:
http://tikipundit.blogspot.com/

Wim L --

There's nothing inherently wrong with a mission kill; there's a whole lot wrong with designing and equipping your military to achieve mission kills -- which are generally easier to get -- in preference to hard kills.

The simplest example of why that's coming to mind right now is the USS YORKTOWN and the Battle of Midway; YORKTOWN had been mission-killed in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Imperial Japanese Navy planners concluded that she could not be returned to action in time for the Battle of Midway; this conclusion happened to be wrong, and the error was to their severe detriment.

USS LEXINGTON, sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea (a 'hard kill'), did not participate in the Battle of Midway in any capacity whatsoever.

Mission kills don't last and don't fundamentally reduce the other fellow's war-fighting capability. They're a useful tactical determination in that if it's mission-killed you don't have to worry about it right this instant.

For example, one of the consequences of the use of anti-radiation (electromagnetic radiation) missiles to suppress air-defense radars has been the partitioning of air-defense systems, so that the radar emitters are numerous, cheap, and a considerable distance from the expensive processing gear and the folks directing the defense. The suppression efforts still work, but the air defenses don't stay suppressed as new radar emitters are switched on to replace the blown-up ones. This can be very bad if you're in the follow-up wave.

This is all fundamentally one aspect of the ancient tension between the grunts, who want whomever they shoot to die dead, instantly, and not commit any final heroics, and the logistics officers and folks funding the army, who want to spend as little as possible to get the desired result.

John Miles --

The Chinese in that instance would not invade Taiwan; they'd invade or attack North Korea, with whom they have a land border and over which they conduct the large majority of such economic ties as North Korea posesses, on the grounds that an attack on Taipei (or anywhere else in Taiwan) was an attack on Chinese territory.

This would be wildly unpopular in South Korea -- independence from China is a big thing, culturally, for the Koreans -- but difficult to argue against; similarly for the US, which does not have the capability to successfully assault North Korea.

The Chinese would probably seek to extract re-unification with Taiwan as part of the quid-pro-quo over the whole thing, but the immediate negative consequences would be the global economy, gutshot by lengthy interruptions to well over half the integrated and printed circuit fabrication capacity on the planet, crashing and crashing hard.

Wim L writes: "Thing is, telling us politely that we're making a mistake is about all they can do"

I keep reminding my friends that one of the annoying things Seymour Hersh reports in his most recent article in The New Yorker is that some members of the Pentagon brass are considering "resignations under protest" as a means of registering their dissatisfaction over the planning to use tactical nuclear weapons in Iran.

When large numbers of lives are on the line, especially when there are large numbers of American lives on the line, one would hope that the place you are least likely to find people without the courage to resist illegal and immoral orders by resigning their posts— much less by going to jail for insubordination— would be among the top brass at the Pentagon.

One would hope. On the other hand, maybe one feels sympathetic for the poor downtrodden generals who are just trying to make sure that there will still be a parade in review when they retire and not just some form letter in the basement.

I mean (ganking a line from "Martin Random" at somethingawful.com), you don't protest global warming by stepping out in front of speeding freight truck on the highway, right? You might stop the one truck, but it's just part of a extensive trucking system.

I'm so not impressed with these generals who've all decided to come out and aim the political long knives for Rumsfeld's back. Why did they wait until now? Oh right— they had to finish separating from the military without any inconvenient disruptions to their retirement plans. Why couldn't they have waited longer still? Well, you know— Rumsfeld is a clodhopper.

Still, if Rumsfeld is a such a problem, couldn't they have, at least, risked a demotion by telling us sooner? Maybe he's really not that bad— he's just a little unpopular with some retired generals who wouldn't even risk a slightly less comfortable retirement to speak out against him when it really would have made a difference.

jh --

It's a very, very big deal for a general to publically denouce his boss as an egg-sucking poltroon who drools on his shoes. The degree to which civilian control of the military is a graven idol in that group is hard to overstate. That two-hundred plus year tradition is vitally, critically important to the republic and they all have that as an axiomatic article of faith. (Are in large part selected for having that as an axiomatic article of faith.)

Right now, though, there's a monumental disaster looming, and they might be able to help stop it, unlike the monumental disaster of Iraq, which wouldn't have stopped unless the entire officer corps resigned, and maybe not then.

The calculus -- for them -- has to include the cost of breaking that tradition, or bending it, and breaking the Army, versus the cost of the disaster; they're coming down on the side of the disaster being worse, which is significant. (When was the last time six retired generals commented on any political question this specifically?)

They're figuring it's worth doing now; it wouldn't have done squat earlier, and the couple guys who were particularly stiff-necked got hammered in like tent pegs to prove it.

Wim L, the loss of competent management is not confined to generals: See this NYT article about mid-level (Captains) officers leaving the Army at very high rates relative to the past.

Wasn't Bush the say guy who said Brownie was doing a "heck of a job"? I guess Rumsfeld must also be doing a "heck of a job". It would be nice if the Secretary of Defense was required to have served in the military, and I mean as more than an absent weekend warrior, like Bush.

Rummy actually was a Navy pilot in the late 1950s, as I recall. Cheney and Bush ducked service.

Over on TPMCafe, there's a thread on this where people have asked, repeatedly, just how many generals and retired generals there are, and no one has answered. Rumsfeld is quoted as saying today, "There are I don't know what 3, 4, 5, 6,000 generals..."

A quick google turns up a table that says that as of April 30, 2002 there were a grand total of 875 flag officers (Generals/Admirals) more than half of whom (439) had only one star -- all the recent critics have at least two. Subtract out 220 admirals, and there were 655 serving generals, 326 two-star or above.

Flag officers apparently move "up or out" every 4 years, with about half of each grade getting promoted and the rest retiring. That makes the average service time of a general a little under 8 years. Now, even though they retire pretty early (52 to 62, average in the mid 50's. Wow) I don't think they live much more than 30 years on average after retirement. So there are about 4 retired generals per active-duty general -- somewhere around 2600 of them, well over half being one-stars. Limit it to retirees within the last 5 years and it's probably less than 600, maybe 200 with 2 or more stars

So a) Considering his position, Donald Rumsfeld has a pretty poor idea of the number of retired generals, and b) we've heard from roughly 3% of all the 2-star-and-up generals who've retired in the last 5 years, and a much higher percentage of those who actually had something to do with the ground war in Iraq.

Jim (or anyone else) do those numbers look right to you?

With so many in the military rebelling against Rumsfeld's leadership, it's clear what must be done. The troops should resign immediately.
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2006/04/night-of-generals.html

j h woodyatt, does it ever bother you that you don't know squat about the military and its culture?

Rummy actually was a Navy pilot in the late 1950s, as I recall. Cheney and Bush ducked service.

A Navy pilot? Just like former rep and now jailbird Randy "Duke" Cunningham? Some of the stories I read about him spoke of the sense of entitlement people get from the (admittedly difficult) task of putting a hot plane on a carrier in one piece; maybe Rummy thinks his entitlement is power rather than money?

I'll keep saying it: if the ungodly mess we're in could be fixed in a flash by giving someone a blowjob in the Oval Office, what patriotic American would hesitate to volunteer?

You mean if someone gave Ann Coulter a blowjob, this would all be over??? Gees, talk about throwing yourself on a grenade...

Oh, wait, that must be wrong.

Ann doesn't work in the Oval Office.

Does this qualify as comment spam?

it certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth that seems similar to spam.

Unless, perhaps, TikiPundit is an active duty member of the armed forces who is also actively protesting Donald Rumsfeld and calling for his resignation?

Funny how Tiki chastizes these generals as basically being cowards for keeping their heads down until they retired, but Tiki doesn't even have the guts to sign his own name to his post. His blog is completely devoid of any personal information such as a name or rank or serial number.

Coward or hypocrite, I'm not sure. Maybe both...

screw it, I let tiki know directly...

I'm so not impressed with these generals who've all decided to come out and aim the political long knives for Rumsfeld's back. Why did they wait until now?

Because men with guns shouldn't be in politics?

It was entirely right for them to wait until they were no longer in a position of power to start attacking Rummy. To have done otherwise would be very suspect. Heading towards treason, to be honest.

TNH: Yes, now that you ask— it bothers me a lot that I've never understood how military people are supposed to recognize when they've been given an unlawful order and how they can reliably know when to disobey. I understand they all instinctively get this, but I don't.

Sure, the obviously contrived cases are easy, but the real world cases are never simple. They basically tell you that claiming "I was just following orders" is no excuse and it's your ass if you screw up, but they also tell you that disobedience carries the toughest penalties, and it isn't going to be you who ultimately gets to decide if your orders you disobeyed were lawful or not. The historical record contains a few accounts of guys who didn't realize their orders were unlawful until it was explained to them at their trial, e.g. Charles Graner. On the other hand, it contains countless accounts of guys mistakenly thinking their commanders were looped and getting hammered down for insubordination, c.f. General Riggs above. You think, hey— I know, I'll just obey them all except for the ones obviously contrived as a test to see whether I'm smart enough disobey the truly, awfully, stupid ones. And more than likely, nobody will ever order you to do something that only later do you find turns out to be war crime for which you'll be hanged. The worst that usually happens is your career will be wrecked because you zigged when you should have zagged, or vice-versa. Because, hey— we're all in it together, right? Right?

Or maybe that doesn't work either. As I said, it bothers me that I never managed to figure this out. I wish I had, because then I wouldn't have made an ass out of myself more times than I can count. (You're not the first person to decide that I can't be taught this material. My instructors at the academy years and years ago stopped answering questions and gave up on me. They didn't even bother to try to tell me why. I decided that it was a matter of simply not belonging in the culture. You either "get it" or you don't, and if you don't, you will hate hate hate life in the military. My potential career in the service was probably destroyed by reading Joseph Heller's Catch-22 as fourth-class midshipman.)

I suppose I've worn out my license on this subject once again. Sigh. Let me conclude by reiterating that I'm not trying to be an asshole. I'm just stupid. Dumb as a post. Really. Maybe, you'll get smarter commenters— ones that can be taught politeness and manners— in the next revision of the system. In the meantime, I offer my apologies for any offense I've inadvertantly given once again. I suppose asking forgiveness this time would be pointless, but I'm humbly asking for it anyway.

Mentioning Charlse Graner is a red herring.

None of these generals did anything illegal in conducting their orders that was supported by Congress, the Senate, and the President. I never thought we should have invaded Iraq and I never believed all the crap that Dubya was saying were our reasons for needing to go in. But just because I disapproved of the war doesn't mean I'm going to claim that it is illegal or a violation of the Geneva Convention.

If you can't see a difference between (1) executing a war approved by your government and within the confines of the Geneva Convention and (2) torturing prisoners, then we might as well stop here.

The thing of it is that I think we could have pulled off the mission in Iraq when we first invaded. We could have conquered the country, replaced Saddam with an Iraqi, democratically elected, government, and pulled out.

Whether any of the reasons given were true or not, our military could have accomplished what it was ordered to do. So, it was a legally sanctioned war and it wasn't immoral for the generals to execute it. Definitely not a "charles Graner" thing going on.

The problem seems to be that in the period between when the war was approved and today, a number of things that the military depended on our government doing didn't happen. And a number of things that the military did not expect our government to do, did happen.

And so now, I believe that we've reached a point where our military can't implement the mission it was given because Rumsfeld and the entire White House made some horendously bad strategic decisions.

of course, everything I say is wrong, so...

Greg London writes: "If you can't see a difference between (1) executing a war approved by your government and within the confines of the Geneva Convention and (2) torturing prisoners, then we might as well stop here."

I didn't mean to imply an equivalence, nor do I think there is one, but if you're going to insist on misinterpreting everything I've written as if it were produced by a caricature of fuzzy-headed pacifism, then you're right— you have nothing to gain by including me in your discussion. You've already decided to have a different discussion with a sock puppet you've constructed to take my place. Have fun with that.

And on the off chance that anyone else here wants to continue lecturing me on the subject of civil-military relations, I would recommend this article, called "Out of Control: the crisis in civil-military relations" from the Spring 1994 issue of The National Interest, which goes into some length about the degree to which our military then, only twelve years ago, had come to have— um, less than total respect for its civilian leadership.

It's really quite enlightening now to be reminded of how politically polarized was the relationship when Clinton was their CIC. If there's been any more recent developments to reduce the polarization since Clinton left office, I'd be happy to hear about them. Honestly. I'm not trying to grind an axe, and I know there are a lot of people here with knowledge to contribute on the topic. If I've been misled into thinking that civil-military relations have degraded more than they have, or that the problems I'm talking about are not as serious as they seem to me, then I'd like to know.

So far, though, I have to say I am not viewing this recent news about retired generals mucking with the civilian political process with much enthusiasm and I think I'm right to question their motivations and timing for coming forward with their public criticisms of Donald Rumsfeld. If that reveals my utter ignorance of the military and its culture to you, then well— I guess that means I suck.

jh -

Most of the Clinto-era articles were intended to create the belief that the military despised Clinton, and have about as much inherent veracity as the recent 'Bush is popular' articles. It was the prevailing narrative; whether it meant anything would take a lot of research to say. (I would look at retention and recruitment rates, myself.)

The army always gripes. Every sargeant's and warrant's mess I've ever been in in Canada -- which was awhile ago, but was a goodly number -- had the poem about "we the willing, lead by the uncaring, are doing the impossible for the unknowing" up in a frame somewhere. The interesting thing is where griping turns into action.

As for the whole culture issue, who is your tribe?

The military works, depends on, on the idea that it's more important to do your job than survive; examples, like HMS LION's Q turrent commander who ordered the compartment he was in flooded to control a fire (and keep the ship from exploding) being lauded are pretty easy to find.

In that context, your tribe is who you go out and do your job with at the risk of your life, and their lives; the current abstraction for this, the thing made more important than life, is 'mission'; doing the job. (it has been honor and lots of other things historically, but right now it's mostly mission.)

That makes the judgement of your peers that you have done your job emotionally important, on a 'core definition of self' level; "retired at reduced rank" is a heck of a kick in the teeth, becuase it's a very public statement that you haven't done your job.

This is all emotional and irrational; it has to be, becuase it's supposed to work when your rational mind is chanting 'Oh shit I'm going to die'. Attach that to a culture of scientific rationalism that doesn't have a vocabulary suitable for talking about the states of mind involved directly and it gets dangerously unregarded in a number of ways, but fundamentally the idea of 'army' is not supposed to have a rational basis. It's the people who are like you in prefering the job over their lives. (Modern special forces training, starting with the British Special Boat Service model in the Second World War, emphasises ensuring that the individuals in the unit are all utterly convinced that the mission is more important than their own personal survival.)

Once you leave troops in combat for too long -- somewhere between 12 and 15 weeks -- the notion of the job starts to give, and that's when you start getting attrocities, irreversible thousand yard stare, and the notion that the job is to kill and not die and that's about it. (Something has to give, and the notion of mission is the most complex thing in the mix, so it is what gives.)

Pretty much the entire US Army has been cycled through Iraq and kept in combat too long. The whole thing, including the groups from which future senior leaders can be expected to be drawn, are functioning as "veterans of the Eastern Front".

In the case of these particular generals at this particular time, my guess is that they've decided that expressing a political opinion is less bad than not; the army is already broken and will have to be rebuilt more or less from scratch, the job they've been given in Iraq is unrecoverably borked, and the job they are being given is either impossible (take out Iran via conventional assault) or inherently disastrous for the Republic (use nukes).

It's also possible that the issue involves withdrawal; the consensus of the flag officers may well be that they hav to get the army out of Iraq before the place melts down completely and said army is destroyed, or before it's too broken to fix, and Secretary Rumsfeld refuses to listen.

I don't think you should be viewing this with enthusiasm; I think it's entirely appropriate to be viewing this with alarm. I don't think it's appropriate to be supposing venal motives, because none of the generals involved are going to benefit at all in a material way, and the specific generals are coming from the sort of leadership positions that are typically given to people about whom nothing bad is known; the commands given to someone who is expected to advance further and who is being selected for professional excellence, rather than sufficient competence.

It's still six steps back from mutiny, but it's a very clear indication that they think things are really, really bad. Their oath to your constitution does oblige them to speak when things are bad enough, even when the question is political; I'd take the present occasion as the decision having been reached that, yeah, things are that bad.

Greg London: Giving Ann Coulter a blow-job fits the definition of 'above and beyond' to a tee.

There's a strong tradition that the highest form of protest in the officer corps is resignation.

Given that the alternatives are suicide (a big part of the frightening death rate among officers O6 and above in the Wehrmacht in 1939 was suicide), or tanks on the White House lawn, it's a good thing that it's engrained in the culture that if you can't support the civilian leadership the correct and honorable thing that makes the strongest statement is to retire.

Speaking of mission kills, there was a time when we had only three weapons systems in the Navy that were capable of a hard kill (not counting the nukes).

One problem with mission kill is that even after you've "killed" your target, you still have to keep track of it. And it's hard enough to keep track of the ships on your own side, where they're moving according to published plans and are in radio communication with you and are willing to tell you exactly where they are any time you ask, without adding the problem of keeping track of the bad guys.

When you've mission-killed your target, you have to remember to inform him that he's been mission-killed. Maybe that works on the bad guys, but with our people they kinda take pride in how creative they get when some piece of gear stops working. During the Falklands war, the Argentine air force managed to put a missile through the radar antenna of one of the British ships; this was, by definition, a mission kill. Since the British sailors aboard were unaware that their ship had been mission-killed, they continued to carry out their mission for the rest of the war.

Last night, Jordin Kare was trying to come up with an estimate of the total number of retired generals, as Rumsfeld's "3-6,000" number seems high.

Somebody in this discussion probably knows for sure, but I'm under the impression that officers are often (usually?) kicked up a step on the occasion of their retirement. So I think it's possible that there could well be several thousand "Colonels" enjoying the title and pension of "General" - officers who never actually served at flag rank.

Is this a plausible explanation for the difference in numbers?

Rummy actually was a Navy pilot in the late 1950s, as I recall. Cheney and Bush ducked service.

Rumsfeld was indeed a Navy pilot 1954-57 (post-Korea/pre-Vietnam). He continued in the reserves until 1975, when he retired with the rank of Captain.

Q. How do you know there's a Navy pilot at your party?

A. He'll tell you.

Q. What's the difference between a Navy jet and a Navy pilot?

A. Once you shut down the engine the jet stops whining.

Typically egotistically Off-Topic, I hereby submit Exhibit A in support of my ongoing campaign to get people to say "whine" rather than "whinge":

Q. What's the difference between a Navy jet and a Navy pilot?

A. Once you shut down the engine the jet stops whining.

Okay, say whatever you want, it's your bees-wax, but I say "whining" sounds like somebody whining (also, jet engines), and "whinging" does not. Onomatopoeia Roolz!

It seems to me that military pensions are handled more as favors than as contracts. They can't be increased at whim, but they can be reduced. Am I right about this, and if so, is it a good thing?

Graydon, it sounds to me as though the military is based on a premise of infinite devotion, but such is actually not available so you need people in charge who understand what can actually be gotten out of soldiers, no matter what the rhetoric says.

On the topic of nuclear doom:

Here's link to a photo essay of a tour of modern-day Chernobyl.

The gist of it is that a Soviet bloc girl borrowed her Dad's geiger counter and did a motorcycle tour of Chernobyl and the surrounding area. The essay and accompanying photographs are absolutely fascinating reading, IMHO.

If you like that, I'd also highly recommend reading Dark Sun, by Richard Rhodes.

if you're going to insist on misinterpreting everything I've written as if it were produced by a caricature of fuzzy-headed pacifism, then you're right— you have nothing to gain by including me in your discussion. You've already decided to have a different discussion with a sock puppet you've constructed to take my place. Have fun with that.

Dude, chill out. You were the one who brought Charles Graner and implied linkages to Abu Graib into this. You brought in a red herring, a non sequitor, and all I did was point it out that you're the one having the different discussion. The original topic was a number of generals who are calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. Graner is totally irrelevant to that discussion.

Scott H: I remember when Neil Gaiman posted a link to that Chernobyl website on his blog in 2004. Eventually, someone informed him that the page was a fraud. The girl who supposedly rode her motorcycle through the evacuated zone was actually just a tourist who brought a bike helmet with her on a tour to the city.

A fraud exposed, and a true thing...

It does make for interesting reading, although it is largely fiction.

Personally, I've developed a morbid fascination with Chernobyl. It may be because, to me, the idea of dealing with nuclear fallout is seeming more and more likely.

The thing that everyone must realize is this:

Nuclear weapons are nineteen-forties technology.

JDM: Nuclear weapons are nineteen-forties technology.

Thankfully, they're 1940's technology that requires the development of a substantial infrasctructure to assemble enough fissile material to make one.

It's kind of like jumbo jets, a 40-year old technology, but only 3 political/economic entities ever managed to make them, and only two ever made a profit at it. (Admittedly, profit wasn't a motive of the third, but neither was air safety.)

I wasn't too alarmed when India built a bomb, but I was when Pakistan did. Mostly because it meant that am unstable country with a really tiny wealthy class was able to pull together enough resources to do it.

It feels as if we've missed the whole lesson of the Cold War. We beat the Soviets not by fighting them with guns, but by getting them into a competition they couldn't win, economically or politically. And we still got our media messages into their closed societies.

For some reason we seem to be unwilling to see the so-called WoT in the same terms. We'd rather bomb countries that really had little or nothing to do with the recent terrorist attacts on the US than engage them. And we steadfastly ignore the countries that really do support anti-Western terrorism. And people who point this out get slandered in the media. Let's see how long it takes before Fox starts denouncing the Generals.

James D. Macdonald writes: There's a strong tradition that the highest form of protest in the officer corps is resignation.

I'd like to extend and clarify my earlier remarks.

My principle complaint with these generals is that I don't like seeing them use their career history to meddle with the civilian political process. I understand lots of folks want to believe they're motivated by a genuinely good and patriotic desire to avert a catastrophe of some kind, but as Mr. Macdonald observes, they had a chance to register a protest before they retired on schedule and at full pay, and they didn't do that.

Coming forward now, they are a day late and a dollar short. I have a lot of complaints with the President, but he's right to snap back at them like he has done. These guys are sending a bad message to the active duty corps, and this amounts to a setback for any ongoing efforts— such as they may be— to improve civil-military affairs.

And just to clear up one last point, my principle complaint with these generals is not that I think they're motivated to speak out now by venal concerns. Observing that these generals have books they're promoting seems more than a little rude to me.

Once you leave troops in combat for too long -- somewhere between 12 and 15 weeks -- the notion of the job starts to give, and that's when you start getting attrocities, irreversible thousand yard stare, and the notion that the job is to kill and not die and that's about it. (Something has to give, and the notion of mission is the most complex thing in the mix, so it is what gives.)

If I can ask, why is it that the (Western, Allied) WWII veterans did not, as a general rule, suffer from these things? A more complete rotation policy? A difference in rationale or justification, i.e. a genuine sense that the world was on the line? Or did they, and do we simply lack reportage/correlation of the cases?

In my rear view mirror the sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road
And I think of all the good things
That we have left undone
And I suffer premonitions
Confirm suspicions
Of the holocaust to come
The wire that holds the cork
That keeps the anger in
Gives way
And suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset
Hmmmmmmmmm
Could be the human race is run
Like the moment when your brakes lock
And you slide toward the big truck
And stretch the frozen moments with your fear
And you’ll never hear their voices
And you’ll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore
And as the windshield melts
My tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend
Finally I understand
The feelings of the few
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end

- Roger Waters

If I can ask, why is it that the (Western, Allied) WWII veterans did not, as a general rule, suffer from these things?

That's a bizarre thing to say. Why on earth would you say that?

I would answer:
1. What makes you think they didn't?
2. Encirclement and besiegement are one of the best causes of combat fatigue (see Beevor, "Stalingrad") and that didn't happen to allied troops so often. The 51st at St Valery were beaten fairly fast. The rest of the BEF evacuated successfully. Malta was under bombardment, but not besieged on land - the island remained free throughout. The Greek islands fell fast, as did the Narvik expedition. The 101st didn't spend long at Bastogne before being relieved.

...but as Mr. Macdonald observes, they had a chance to register a protest before they retired on schedule and at full pay, and they didn't do that.

I observed no such thing.

Any time after twenty years active service, they're going to go on the retired list. You tend to hit twenty years somewhere around Colonel (O6).

Nor can they just walk off the job. Every change of station, every promotion, carries with it obligated service.

Of the six retired generals (and recall that if they leave the service other than as the result of a sentence of a courts martial they will be retired), one was forced out (Riggs). One resigned, by his own account, in protest over US policy (Newbold). Two resigned this January, at the first moment they could legally do so (Swannack, Batiste).

All of them had years left. Take Eaton, for example. He's 55 years old. That means he had ten years remaining before he would have reached mandatory retirement age -- and he was on the fast track for a third or fourth star. That's what he gave up.

Please notice, none of these fellows retired "at full pay." The most they can get is 3/4 of base pay, without allowances.

Anarch --

The relative lack -- and it's only relative -- of psychological casualties has a lot to do with much better rotation policies (including deliberate attempts to measure the psych consequences of combat operations; there was a lot of worry about the potential long term industrial damage caused by full mobilization), relatively limited periods of high-intensity combat, and typically being on the winning side.

A very great deal of study has gone into this stuff since; it's not like the miserable failures giving the US military orders couldn't have found this stuff out if they'd cared to know.