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Lee Siegel

Generals Can't Be Trusted

BS Top - Siegel Generals Paula Bronstein / Getty Images General Stanley McChrystal wants 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan. Lee Siegel on why presidents should be skeptical of such requests from people who are, at heart, warriors.

There is a reason why the nation’s commander in chief is a civilian and not a military man. The generals can’t be trusted.

That is to say, they can’t be trusted to assess a political situation in anything but the most aggressive military terms. And they are not averse to disobeying orders or even lying about the situation on the ground to achieve what they believe to be, with ironclad conviction, the only objectives worth striving for. Think MacArthur, Patton, Westmoreland.

Because they are born and trained to fight, generals' prescriptions will always be belligerent. Escalation is their middle name.

They may be honorable men, and they may be courageous men, but the most ambitious and powerful generals are warriors above all. Their instinct is to hold their ground rather than retrench, advance rather than retreat, intimidate rather than negotiate. Generals make war the way birds fly, singers sing, and architects build. Because they are born and trained to fight, their prescriptions will always be belligerent. Escalation is their middle name.

Ted Sorensen: America’s Next Unwinnable War

Walter Russell Mead: Why We Need Deals With Shady People to Win in Afghanistan

Christopher Buckley: It’s Time For Us to Leave Afghanistan

Michael Smerconish: Musharraf on Fixing Pakistan and the Afghan Surge
It’s strange how naïve the mainstream media is about the warlike nature of the generals. Last Saturday, a greatly impressed New York Times article about revisionist interpretations of the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt observed that the revisionism had made its way into the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, created by General David Petraeus, and “adopted in 2006 by the United States Army and Marines… smack in the middle of the debate over whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.” The article went on to say that “the manual’s prime conclusion is the assertion that insurgencies cannot be defeated without protecting and winning over the general population.” Sure enough, a few days later, a wide-eyed David Brooks concluded a column worrying that Obama doesn’t have the guts to keep fighting in Afghanistan by echoing the earlier article, writing admiringly that “Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said that counterinsurgency is “an argument to win the support of the people.”

What the article didn’t say, or even seem to know, was that the very same strategy of “protecting and winning over the general population" was stated military policy during the Vietnam War—it was called “hearts and minds.” The result—it is almost sardonically proverbial—was to end up destroying much of the general population in order to save it.

But, then, “hearts and minds” was the earnest phrase of a civilian, President Lyndon Johnson. You could not blame the generals for interpreting the idea of winning over the population in military terms and translating it into “subjugating the population.” That’s what generals do. (McChrystal, who has been accused of complicitness with torture in Afghanistan, may well have just such surprising ideas about how to “win the support of the people.”) In fact, the concept of total war was invented by an American general during the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman—a policy whose horrendous consequences reverberate to this day in the rift between “red” and “blue” America. In this case, Sherman had the blessing of his president, Abraham Lincoln—Obama’s idol—who was smitten with his generals.

When, earlier this month, McChrystal publicly rejected the idea of narrowing the war effort in Afghanistan, some people made the comparison between him and Douglas MacArthur. Just as McChrystal seemed to have questioned White House policy, MacArthur publicly criticized President Truman’s desire to keep the conflict in Korea from expanding into war with China. But you didn’t have to accept this somewhat hysterical analogy to be troubled by McChrystal’s audacity in influencing political policy.

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October 31, 2009 | 7:41am
Comments ()
dillon12

As per article: Gen McCrystal = Gen McCellan(Civil War general who always claimed he needed more men. Lincoln fired him.

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8:50 am, Oct 31, 2009
bcaldwell

Siegel is right that we should not trust the generals -completely. But, I have always thought it good that a commander in chief have some level of military service even if it is national guard service for the minimum allowed time. It gives them some sort of perspective on the military that someone who has never served cannot understand.

That being said, the general is a warrior and the idea of him being a politician and diplomat I have always believed diminishes the warrior's effectiveness. MacArthur said, "the soldier above all others prays for peace." He should have added....after he beats his enemy. One should remember that when you deploy the military , you deploy a blunt instrument. It's a hammer, not a scalpel. Siegel mentions four names, Sherman,MacArthur , Patton and Westmoreland. Of those names, three were effective and one was not -Westmoreland because he HAD to play politics. The others , at least until Korea and MacArthur did not. Lincoln unleashed Grant who unleashed Sherman on an unsuspecting Georgia and Roosevelt allowed Ike and Bradley to unleash George Patton to eliminate the Germans which he did with cold brutality. The UN and Truman in Korea unleashed MacArthur with stunning effectiveness- Inchon was pure genius. One could argue that if Truman had allowed Mac to bomb those bridges at the Yalu and cut off the Chinese supply and retreat that the world would be diferent today - The Chinese could not have crossed that river without severe losses.

The point is though, sometimes the politicians disregard their generals at the politicians peril. Truman and Mac Arthur being a case in point. If you are going to unleash the military, you unleash the military, you let them fight and you let them win. If you do that, you also have to be straight with the populace, you have to tell them to be ready for caskets and maimed people. We tend to want to sanitize war, think that we can do it without collateral damage, that we can somehow bomb the bad guys and only the bad guys but somehow spare the innocents. You cannot do this. War is not just a fight between two armies or militaries, it is a fight between societies. In Afghanistan it is the US against the Taliban /al qaeda, the Taliban was the "official" government of Afghanistan and for the longest time until we came in the populace of that country supported them. They helped to facilitate the attacks on America on 9/11 therefore it is our society against their society. If we would understand that more when we mobilize troops for battle I believe that we would also limit our involvements and those involvements that we do get into would be short and effective and the outcome not in doubt. Go heavy and hard or do not go at all and do it from the start.

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10:12 am, Oct 31, 2009

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12:48 pm, Oct 31, 2009
bcaldwell

Grumpyguy, I'm afraid that Afghanistan gets played out in one of only 3 ways. 1) We continue the mission as is- a recipe for slow disaster.2) We escalate by the 40,000 and it is to no effect really because you are backing a government that cannot control anything beyond its capital city and a few northern provinces.3)We begin to pull out- not good either, because a full scale bug out just creates chaos and that would lead to high US deaths because those things are not pretty or a slow withdrawl where Americans get killed.

Unfortunately, Afghanistan does not lend itself easily to outsiders coming in and taking over. The last sucessful group were the Moghuls 1000 years ago and before that Alexander the Great 1300 years prior. The only way to effectively deal with Afghanistan is all out total war, meaning if you are an Afghan, you are the enemy and we will not do that no matter what political party is in power. Note how hesitant the Bush Administration was about putting too many boots on the ground there.

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12:56 am, Nov 1, 2009
goedel

Bealdwell begins by seeming to distrust the generals but quickly favors their views in every instance. Military service he favors as a primmer for presidents, though our most belligerent presidents never served. Washington and Lincoln served, but they were doves compared with LBJ, RMN, WJC, WHWB, GWB and BHO, none of whom saw combat. He believes that HST should have OK'd bombing the Yalu R. bridges, because the Chinese would have suffered heavy losses crossing the river. He forgets that the Chinese were very willing to endure heavy losses, as the "human waves" showed, and we are not.

The author omits two highly significant points:

1. Generals do not like to lose. They much prefer to fight on and commit ever increasing resources, until there are no resources left. Were it not for money borrowed from China, we would have no resources left. We are now fighting on the pledge of our future resources. Generals like to blame their failures on others: the stab in the back, traitors on the home-front, restraint by politicians. It's never their own stupidity.

2. The question of morality with regard to Afghanistan is omitted. There is no moral justification for the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan nor of Iraq. A quick strike, in and out, to clean up Al Qaida bases is one thing. An occupation with a puppet government for eight years is quite another. Terrorism is criminal and should be dealt with by the use of intelligence, police and the criminal law. It should not be an excuse for the imperial projection of power. The "take out the bad guy" argument is also no excuse for invasion and occupation. We have plenty of bad guys right here in the US. Let's take them out!

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11:41 am, Nov 1, 2009
cmhandy

Lee Siegel your a clueless ass-clown. Your premise is that McChrystal is telling POTUS what to do. A 4-Star campaign commander gives his advice to the president, not orders. I think your doing your reporting from behind your kitchen table. Lincoln wasn't "smitten with his generals" he kept them at arms length. Sherman didn't invent "total war", Sipio Africanis did during the Punic Wars. GAWD your naive! Have you ever talked to "the lowliest grunt on the ground" ? How would you know what they think, let alone what thier opinions of thier bosses are. Macarthur did't CAUSE the Chinese to join the Korean war, by attacking deep into NK, they had been massing on thier side of the Yallow River for MONTHS before they crossed (at the direction of Joseph Stalin, you might learn if you knew to do research beyond what you learned in 5th grade history). By the way, has anybody ever read any of your books?

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10:23 am, Oct 31, 2009
reality4all

This clown actually writes books full of this garbage?God help us all.

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11:02 am, Oct 31, 2009
crypto

cmhandy: Right on. It's easy for some jerk to set behind a political chess board and make the decisions. Now if you want to do it right all those candy asses need to spend one day on an active battlefield. Remember our troops are there for months at a time. Right now Obama needs to stop playing commander and listen to the people that have been there and know. And before any of you jump I've been there three times and would go again if I could and was needed.

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7:32 am, Nov 5, 2009
mdargo

Remember the Oscar-winning 1974 documentary film "Hearts and Minds" by Peter Davis? It was an incredible indictment of the Vietnam "strategy." From Wikipedia ~~ "Hearts and Minds" is a documentary about the Vietnam War directed by Peter Davis. The film's title is based on a quote from President Lyndon Johnson, "The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there." The movie was chosen as Best Feature Documentary at the 47th Academy Awards presented in 1975

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10:46 am, Oct 31, 2009
Mauiboy

Actually, I believe there was another phrase that came out of that movie and it went something like this: "If you've got them by the b@lls, their hearts and minds will follow!"

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11:56 pm, Nov 1, 2009
reality4all

This moron again!Siegal must have cut T.D.B. a deal; buy two self-serving propaganda pieces,get one anti-military article for free!
You are so cowardly,you call Generals liars,schemers and occuse them of putting troops in harms way unnecessarilly,but then you try to keep some credibility by saying Gen.s are brave and honorable men.You and your type are sickening.Where's your article on why we shouldn't trust Obama due to the fact that he's a politician/lawyer who knows nothing of sacrifice and honor and bases all his decisions on polling numbers?And you do realize that Obama appointed Gen. McCrystal, right? So either Obama made a poor choice in apppointing him ,or,is so caught up in liberal politics that he is incapable of following through on recommendations given to him by the most knowledgeable person on the subject.Either way your guilty of liberal spin.Shame on you!
You daily reap the rewards of our srtong military and the actions that truly honorable men have taken,yet you spit on them and on those who have given all in defense of our freedoms!At least be upfront about it and stop hiding behind your "intellectual elitist turtleneck and smug smile.
Oh and by the way,Obama just said he's increasing troop levels in Afgh. again.How ironic,Obama's the warmonger now!

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10:59 am, Oct 31, 2009
cbeenthere

What hotline are you privy to?

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1:29 pm, Oct 31, 2009
speakingout101

You're right on some levels and wrong on some. Here's why:

As far as his denouncement of a general's ability to handle civilian relations, I think Siegel is spot on. A general's job isn't to win over a local population, it's to direct an army to defeat an enemy at any cost. In that sense, I agree with him that any high officer is not a good choice for a strategy like the one needed in Afghanistan.

As far as Obama being a war-monger is concerned, if he continues escalating in Afghanistan, then yes, he definitely should come under criticism for it. The problem is that he probably won't. The left, unfortunately has a bad habit of unwillingness to scrutinize itself. What needs to happen is for the anti-war left to break this habit and speak out against what they see as unjust.

That's just my opinion. Yours obviously differs.

http://rethinkafghanistan.com

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12:04 am, Nov 1, 2009
cmhandy

I think your both completly wrong. A General DOES take the civilian populace into account, and by all reports that's McChystals' biggest job. McC's got several hundred civilians working for him, from U.N. and State dept. types down to Ag Dept he's got a hugh staff of people advising him on what to do. In this type of fight he has made it very obvious that his main duty is to improve the lifes of the civilian populace, thus neutralizing the propoganda that A-Q and T-B are telling them.

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7:57 am, Nov 1, 2009
peppermint

In other words Siegel, you want your generals to be a bunch of dithering pantywaists..... tell me, just what military experience does Obi-One have in fighting the enemy? We know he has no intention of winning. The very thought of victory must terrify him. He said the troops would get whatever they needed but so far, all we see are record numbers of them being killed every day! The time has finally come to actually make a hard decision and he doesn't have the spine to do it. What would Hillary do?

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11:04 am, Oct 31, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

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12:32 pm, Oct 31, 2009
JohnScottRidgway

I have to say this comment pisses me off. Check out General Matthew Ridgway, who was drummed out of the army for saying we should not go into Vietnam. This kind of generalization shows a prejudice against military men. Believe me, they want peace more than you do.

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11:28 am, Oct 31, 2009
lowellt

I was sure somebody would quote the old, "War is far too important to be left to generals" line.

Mr. Siegel's well-written and researched article here gives us the reason why the above statement is so true. Very good work.

http;//buythecover.com

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11:40 am, Oct 31, 2009
Frenchmanaz

So many miss Mr. Siegel's point. These are not personal attacks on McChrystal or any other military leader. What Mr.Siegel was trying to say is that we cannot expect these Generals to think any differently than they do. This is why we have specialist in the world, people who spend their lives training to think one way.

I have said this in numerous posts that Generals are programmed to win. We could think of them as computers, we write some software, upload it and then let them loose. If that software can morph on the fly, it will recalculate every possible configuration aimed only at achieving the final objective that was programmed at the beginning.

McChrystal is not lying to get what he wants, he is simply looking at the " project " with one solitary goal, to eradicate the Taliban and AQ. Diplomacy does not compute in this calculation. More firepower, more boots on the ground, more of everything related to the war machine.

I have also stated that, on top of the one track mind, these Generals are also thinking about their legacy. When their hero's are people like McCarthur and Patton, they want their own names to go down in the history books. When we think of Westmoreland the only connotations are negative.

We cannot expect military leaders to be tamed and to think about the picture beyond the theater. Which is why they don't make policy decisions.

The Commander in Chiefs job is to decide if that original goal is still attainable and if it is worth the pain in life and treasure. If the original objective seems unattainable, there is going to be mass outcry from the military leaders because you threatening to do everything that is counter to their programming. It's no different than feeding an addict smack for years and then jerking the needle out of their arm. That addict is going to fight with everything they have, including coming up with all kinds of reason why they should be allowed to continue shooting up.

Lastly if we do pull out of these wars, which I pray we do, these Generals are going to go back to pushing papers around a desk.

So yes, these Generals are lying but it's not done so in evil terms but rather lying out of fear.

More troops is not the answer.

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12:08 pm, Oct 31, 2009
whipmawhopma

Frenchmanaz - I agree with your identification of Siegel's main point. Generals are generals because of their militarized perspective on how to fix a problem and their ability to provide the wisdom\experience\leadership to get there sucessfully. It's not a fault of theirs. It's what we expect them to be. And what we need them to be.

But not every problem is a military one, or an exclusively military one. Politics domestic and international come into play, as do humanitarian concerns and economic ones. It's not that the generals are insensitive to those concerns, but they are biased in terms of viewing even them from a military perseptive.

To a hammer everything is a nail. Whether that hammer is a general, or a politician, or a diplomat, or a business person, or a peace activist.

Disclaimer to other readers: This comment is not intended as a slight against the US military.

BTW - I was amused by Siegel's comment "Patton wanted to take on the Red Army at the end of the Second World War and drive straight to Moscow. If he'd had his druthers, American troops might now be worrying about IEDs in Poland."

I doubt that the Poles would have done any such thing and would have eliminated anyone so inclined to do so, welcoming the American military as their liberator from the brutal Russian yoke, which they were quite familiar with.

Once we hit the borders of the communist version of the Russian Empire, then that's a different story.

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12:06 am, Nov 1, 2009
rtchap2

Lee Siegel is an obvious Obama Zombie! This guy just wants all of the Socialist Regime of Obama to make every damn decision regarding you, me, the military and every thing else that concerns this country. This guy is in the tank for Obama and probably would be happier in China so he can live the way he and Obama think we should live. Generals are there for a reason! That is to make sure this country is protected and snuffs out any threat that is paramount to this countries survival. The people they let write for the Beast must be coming from Rolling Stone.

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12:14 pm, Oct 31, 2009
flyoverland

"Trust, but verify" Ronald Reagan

"Watch the watchers" Josef Stalin

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12:30 pm, Oct 31, 2009
blowme

Yes, you mean like the warrior Colin Powell? In the Bush administration, it was actually those people who had never been in battle that were pro-war. Those who had been in battle were very cautious. So, - Blow Me!

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1:26 pm, Oct 31, 2009
rapierwits

Like when Powell sold the war in Iraq on tv and to the UN?

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10:35 pm, Oct 31, 2009
blowme

Colin did not believe in that speech. He allowed himself to be bullied into it. He was against this war.

I'd love 5 minutes alone in room with you, a tube, and a bottle of Drano. I'd shove that thing where the sun don't shine and give you a Drano enema.

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8:26 pm, Nov 1, 2009
Harrumph

Journalists can't be trusted, either.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, buddy.

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10:40 pm, Oct 31, 2009
downunder

much much better to have a Harvard trained lawyer making decisions about troop deployment,weaponry,method of combat than some old crusty professional General who has spent his lifetime learning about warfare.

As for Generals suggested tendency to exaggerate I DO thnk the POTUS is much more skilled in this art.

As for McArthur in Korea I thought Eisenhower actually threatened to nuke them before he decided to sign the treaty?

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1:26 am, Nov 1, 2009
TheDuffer

This has to be one of the dumbest authors in recent memory. We shouldn't trust Generals? As compared to all the fine politicians who make policy. What is really tragic is how stupid this guy (and so much of the rest of the country) is when it comes to history. LBJ was a buffon who did not want the war to get into the way of his domestic agenda. Westmoreland undertook the wrong strategy in the initial phases of Vietnam. But it was one supported by the civilian leadership. Although labeled "hearts and minds," it was a conventional execution. Abrams truly set into a motion a winning military strategy, one that by all accounts was working, however the political side was already lost.

There is no American who invented total war. That concept goes way back to the dawn of man. To say Generals have no concept of the political side of war and/or foreign relations is absurd. A more correct statement is that writers/journalists are the ones who truly don't have a clue on the conduct of war or the political efforts.

Given how long it takes to become a General (25 years) and the amount of real world practical experience and advanced schooling (McChrystal studied at the Naval War College, a fellow at Harvard and served on the Council for Foreign Relations, Petraeus has a PhD from Princeton), I would rather listen to a General on all matters of war and International Relations than I would a community organizer from Chicago.

Once again we have a clueless ass clown who truly has never studied history, merely repeats the popularized themes and who truly doesn't understand the military.

Instead of writing books, I suggest you take a couple three years and start reading some books.

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7:17 am, Nov 1, 2009
eurydice9276

Generals are politicians, they just happen to be wearing a uniform. Being promoted to general is much more about who you know than what you know, as most anyone in the armed forces can tell you. That doesn't mean that generals can't be brilliant tacticians or great warriors, but the mind that makes it to general (especially the upper ranks) is essentially a political one. And having a civilian politician in charge of military politicians is no great check or balance.

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7:31 am, Nov 1, 2009
Greatcaesarsghost

Note to goedel, who for all I know, may have been Mr. Siegel's fact checker for this column, Richard Nixon did serve in the US Navy in World War II and was deployed outside the continental US, and Geo. W. Bush served in the Alabama Air National Guard. I'm not sure who WHWB is, although I suspect the writer meant Geo. Herbert Walker Bush, who also served in the Navy in World War II and was shot down in aerial combat.
There is very little in Mr. Siegel's column to suggest he has the faintest familiarity with the military, it's role as an agent of foreign policy, or its complete subordination to the executive branch of government. Generals and admirals are charged with being familiar with the forces at their disposal and the responsibility of advising the policy makers of the best way to accomplish the policy objectives of the US. Once the executive announces the policy objective, miitary men, regardless of their personal opinions, are charged with implementing it. Commanding officers of any rank are probably the easiest government official to remove from their command, in the event they are not trusted to carry their mission. Oh, and while they remain on active duty, military men are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activities.

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4:51 pm, Nov 1, 2009
shoshido

So "Generals Can't Be Trusted". Which you know because, why? Oh, you wrote some unrelated books? Oh, well then. :-P

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6:16 pm, Nov 1, 2009
zepfan81

Yes, generals think in terms of brute force because their JOB of the military is to use violence to coerce other groups to do what our government wants. I know that sounds very un-PC in todays society, but that IS what they do and that is what seperates them from the justice and state departments. Generals do fine when they are given a clear mission that doesn't keep changing. Generals don't do so well with these "civilize the barbarian" conflicts we've been involved in frequently since WWII. So should we trust ALL generals? Of course not. But when he civilian leadership decides there will be a war they must pick the best general they can find to WIN and not just fight until the American people get bored and the Left starts having Vietnam nightmares. If the generals can't be trusted who do we trust to lead our troops? Amnesty International? Some bloggers? Some member of a think tank that has spent more time reading about a said country than being there?

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10:08 pm, Nov 1, 2009
zircus

Lee,

Your article could also be titled "Why most political columnists don't know anything about political strategy, military tactics, or international relations".

As an Iraq veteran, a former US Army officer, a woman, and an ethnic minority, I always find it amusing to listen to the stereotypes that civilians pin on military personnel. To read Lee's article is to assume that all generals think the same, act the same, and react the same.

This is not even close to the truth. Generals at the 4 or 5 star level in any US military branch have vastly different philosophies on how to fight and win wars. They are not all interchangeable carbon copies of each other.

For example: General Petraeus' strategies and overall grasp of military tactics bears no resemblance to the beliefs or military procedural approach of General Ricardo Sanchez (former V Corps Commander in Operation Iraqi Freedom) or General Tommy Franks. To suggest that all these high ranking generals think the same, act the same, or have the same command philosophy is not just ignorant. It's downright stupid.

The challenge for any commander in chief is to pick the right general for the right war. This sounds simple, but is in fact a hell of a lot harder than it appears. World Wars I and II bear no resemblance to the conflicts the US Armed Forces are expected to participate in today. Consequently, the type of general that the US needs at the moment also differ drastically. For example - Navy admirals played a huge part in World War II. This is not true for Iraq or Afghanistan, which are primarily land conflicts.

Your lack of understanding of the complexity of military operations is most apparent in your clumsy reference to President Lincoln's decision to relieve General McClellan from command. President Lincoln did NOT relieve General McClellan because he kept asking for more troops. He relieved the General because he realized that McClellan's grasp of battlefield infantry tactics and procedures was subpar. It would never matter how many troops McClellan received, because he would never know how to use them. That is why he was relieved.

To take this analogy to another level, let's look at what General Petraeus did with the extra troops he received for Iraq. He used them as part of his overall battle plan to reposition US troops outside the super FOBs and integrate them into the populace (in addition to negotiating ceasefires with insurgents and battle alliances with tribal councils). His battle plan worked because of the tactics it contained, which were successfully implemented thanks to the infusion of extra troops.

I think one of the reasons that President Obama is reluctant to move forward with this type of strategy in Afghanistan (ie, the strategy that was probably recommended by General McChrystal) is that he senses that it will change absolutely nothing about the fundamentals of Afghanistan. If successful, this strategy will simply allow the US to prepare to withdraw from the region without our efforts there looking like a total failure. This may not be the end objective that Obama is aiming for.

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12:53 am, Nov 2, 2009
meisme

So you think the tactic was a success in Iraq? Did you really win? Or the locals are tired to let you keep coming in and keep accusing their people, torturing and killing them in the name or terrorism? and just let you all have what you wanted. Well, that's your final assumption as successful and overlooked the sufferings the people have gone through, what happened to Iraq now? Total chaos, why don't the military clean their own front and back yards before cleaning others? You Americans are really paranoid, why only the USA is the only country so paranoid of their own home security and then go abroad and attacked other countries while there are more crimes and terrors committed every second in the USA soils by their own people? You said you were in Iraq, but you are totally only a puppet, seeing your own country fellows being killed, under lots of pressures, mentally depressed and yet still encouraging more to go there? and then to Afghanistan? any sane mind person will NOT agree to let his fellow man to go into a danger zone of unknown in the name of their home security which is thousand of miles away and every minute under attacked of other means of crime that they overlooked. Our government will not allow our kids to go to Afghanistan in the name of protection to our home security. They stay here to protect us, not overseas. We only sent them overseas to study, not to fight. As long as private military companies such as Black Water in operation, there will be unending "terror" threats coming, if you a real military person, look deep into the real scenarios and the roots, those privatised military companies are being paid billions in the name of HOME security, if TERRORs stopped, those companies would be sinking, the TERRORs and TERRORISM acts are 85% done by those companies, they trained their people to learn Arabic, learned the cultures, acting like Muslims, and taught them how to create terrors and when they were caught by the locals, NO one recognised them, and they were also not circumsized which every Muslim man should, but these news will not be allowed for press or media release in the USA, the USA people only heard the BAD about other countries, 80-85% of Americans are known to be never gone abroad, so these people who will believe these sort of BAD news. The Bush people has succeed to terrorise the American for his own profits. There is no other country in this world as paranoid as the people in the USA who are being brainwashed by their before government, there has been no this kind of terror engulfed the people before as bad as the Bush eras. Sorry for my bad English and grammar because I am not a native English speaking, but at least I know English but you don't understand mine.

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3:58 am, Nov 10, 2009
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Generals Can't Be Trusted

by Lee Siegel

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