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April 19, 2006
"Swiftboating The Generals?" Hardly
On the evening of the first day out from Goliad we heard the most unearthly howling of wolves, directly in our front. The prairie grass was tall and we could not see the beasts, but the sound indicated that they were near. To my ear it appeared that there must have been enough of them to devour our party, horses and all, at a single meal. The part of Ohio that I hailed from was not thickly settled, but wolves had been driven out long before I left. Benjamin was from Indiana, still less populated, where the wolf yet roamed over the prairies. He understood the nature of the animal and the capacity of a few to make believe there was an unlimited number of them. He kept on towards the noise, unmoved. I followed in his trail, lacking moral courage to turn back and join our sick companion. I have no doubt that if Benjamin had proposed returning to Goliad, I would not only have “seconded the motion” but have suggested that it was very hard-hearted in us to leave Augur sick there in the first place; but Benjamin did not propose turning back. When he did speak it was to ask: “Grant, how many wolves do you think there are in that pack?”Knowing where he was from, and suspecting that he thought I would over-estimate the number, I determined to show my acquaintance with the animal by putting the estimate below what possibly could be correct, and answered: “Oh, about twenty,” very indifferently. He smiled and rode on. In a minute we were close upon them, and before they saw us. There were just TWO of them. Seated upon their haunches, with their mouths close together, they had made all the noise we had been hearing for the past ten minutes. I have often thought of this incident since when I have heard the noise of a few disappointed politicians who had deserted their associates. There are always more of them before they are counted.
- Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs
Once again, Gregory Djerejian is in high dudgeon. It must be an uncomfortable state, but he seems to enjoy it.
"Let the Swift-boating of the Generals Begin!", his post begins, invoking the self-serving yet eponymous term that has come to serve as the blogospheric equivalent of Godwin's Law. And with that typically florid beginning, he puts his readers on notice that those who disagree him can have only the vilest of motives:
We live in low, dishonest times, where spurious charges come fast and furious daily, but few can trump the cheapness of the recent attacks directed at some of the retired Generals that recently came out against Don Rumsfeld's stewardship of the war effort. Witness, for instance, Glenn Reynolds approvingly linking to this treatment from Judith Klinghoffer.
Actually Ms. Klinghoffer's remarks were rather more well-developed than the brief exerpt quoted by Mr. Djerejian. Let's try examining the relevant portion on the merits:
On This Week Joe Klein, whom no one can accuse of being a Bush fan, said that Bush repeatedly asked the generals in Iraq if they had everything they needed and they repeatedly assured him they did. But when Jerry Bremer asked them what they would do with an additional division, they said, we'd clear Baghdad. Excuse me? The American army in Iraq does not have a single general with enough guts to respond to the president's question with "depends on what you want us to do?"Sorry, guys, civil control of the military is not our problem. Gutless military leadership is.
Now I am sorry, but there is a vast difference between insubordination and lying to your commander in chief because you are "afraid of" or "intimidated by" the Secretary of Defense. Note that I am not saying this is what our active duty general officers are doing now or have done in the past. But this is, unequivocally, what several of the generals currently calling for the ouster of Donald Rumsfeld have alleged: that their active duty peers are afraid to stand up to the bad scary man in the SecDef's chair. Given that the original definition of "Swiftboating" was an imputation of cowardice, then just who is Swiftboating whom?
And I would argue that general officers have a duty, when asked a direct question by their commander-in-chief (or Congress for that matter) to tell the truth.
For whatever it may be worth, there is a logical flaw in both Ms. Klinghoffer's and Djerejian's analyses. There is more than one kind of courage. There is little doubt that the generals who spoke up recently have displayed physical courage: the kind warriors display on the field of battle. Djerejian is full of righteous outrage that anyone might question the courage of these battle-tested warriors.
Military men often ask themselves what they will do when that moment of truth comes and they face the crucible. But there is a rarer, more subtle kind of bravery: often called integrity. Integrity is not an instantaneous virtue. It does not flare up suddenly, sustained by an adrenaline rush. On the contrary, it is much harder to summon up, as it requires having the constant, unwavering courage to stand by one's convictions in those hundreds of quieter moments when the relentless grind of daily choices wears away at one's conscience. In his Time Magazine piece, Lt. Gen. Newbold admitted he had fallen short on this score:
“I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat - al Qaida,” Newbold wrote in Time Magazine.
Men follow leaders not only for their physical courage and daring, but for the moral leadership they provide. This is why grizzled veterans who can no longer lead a charge can still rally men and send them off to die. It's why troops will often face impossible odds cheerfully, secure in the knowledge that their leaders look after their interests as assiduously as a father would his own son's. Historian after historian through the ages has remarked that though nations go to war for diverse reasons, when the smoke clears the men on that bloody field would probably tell you they stayed and fought for each other. But how cheerfully would they have fought if they knew their leaders were "afraid" to ask for help because SecDef might snark at them in some staff meeting?
How would they have responded if they knew the price of that extra star was two fire teams - or twelve - wiped out? And lest we forget, who is making this charge? Who is "Swift-boating" (and can we please declare a moratorium on this ridiculous term?) their peers? The generals calling for the ouster of the SecDef, that's who. The very same ones who *didn't speak out when they had the chance.
McQ at QandO has written what I think is the best take on this yet:
I see some ex-generals are demanding Donald Rumsfeld be sacked. More precisely, some retired generals are making the demand.Frankly I find that to be disturbing. If they were so opposed to what Rumsfeld and crew were doing, I wonder if in fact they shouldn’t have put their stars on the line when they served.
In early July of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and other sizeable units to deploy to South Vietnam in a major escalation of the war. What he refused to do was follow the advice of his military commanders and declare a national emergency that would freeze discharges of all soldiers. President Johnson wanted to fight the Vietnam War on the cheap and on the quiet. He didn’t want to disturb middle class America or Congress for fear they would want to pay for the war by cutting back on his Great Society social and welfare programs. So he would send off Army units seriously under strength, leaving behind the best-trained soldiers whose enlistments or draft tours were near an end.Gen. Johnson was furious. He summoned his car and on the way to the White House he removed the eight silver stars from his shoulders. But the general was debating with himself the whole way, and just short of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue he ordered the driver to turn around. Gen. Johnson had convinced himself that if he resigned in protest LBJ would replace him in a matter of hours with someone much worse and more pliable. So it was best to remain and work from within to fix what he could.
Not long before he died, in the fall of 1983, Harold Johnson sat beside an old friend at a West Point Alumni Association officers meeting. He recounted that day and told his friend: “I count that as the greatest moral failure of my life. I should have resigned and fought the decision.”
So should some others.
Read his post. Read it all. It is, as I have said, the best thing out there on this issue for a number of reasons.
During the past week I've seen an awful lot of what I think to be ill-considered and ill-informed essays on this topic. Some of them may well be my own. I don't pretend to be a military expert. Like others, I'm wrestling with the moral implications of this dilemma.
I've tried to examine General Newbold's criticisms on the merits and to provide some historical context to counter the notion that it is either unprecedented or dangerous for retired officers to speak their minds. I find this notion both offensive and patently ridiculous, for many of the reasons expressed here. As for General Zinni, he is being thoroughly fact-checked and is being justifiably dismissed, as he should be. One of the ramifications of free speech, even for retired generals, is that one is forced to defend one's thoughts in the marketplace of ideas.
For some to suggest, as the Washington Post does here, or Richard Kohn does rather more credibly here, that the criticisms of a few generals are going to bring the Republic to its knees is, to use a military analogy, a bridge too far:
The role of the military is to "speak in," not "speak out," to make its views known in private to those elected or appointed to decide. Senior officers frequently testify before Congress and are asked their personal and professional opinion; they are under every obligation to speak up. Nor do we expect officers to remain silent forever. Journalists and historians, some employed by the Pentagon itself, ask retired leaders to recount their experiences on the record and in detail. They are expected to be candid so their successors can benefit from experience and so the American people can learn what their government did in their name. But this occurs after an Administration has left office, and sometimes the interviews remain under wraps far longer. Certainly Newbold and his colleagues have the legal right to speak out. But senior officers do not retire a lifetime of professional norms and values with their uniforms. When he calls for active military leaders "to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly," and to add that "we won't be fooled again," the threat of military revolt is not subtle.
Kohn raises several interesting questions. The first is one of rights versus propriety, one I addressed earlier. One cannot help but find it ironic that Kohn writes in Time Magazine, a periodical which actively solicits quotes from "unnamed military officers" who frequently criticize the administration (violating both the UCMJ and that all-important rule about waiting until the administration is out of office), yet he finds it alarming that private citizens should exercise their constitutional rights in an open and transparent manner. It is unclear what Gen. Newbold meant by advising active duty officers to express their views. I find it unlikely he was advocating mutiny; more likely he was simply advising the kind of respectful forthrightness the Marine Corps is noted for. And no one has accused the Marines of being mutinous, at least that I am aware of.
Second, such criticism furthers the politicization of the military. Over the last generation, fewer and fewer officers identify as independents and more and more retired officers have endorsed presidential candidates of both parties. The public does not easily distinguish between serving and retired officers. When the latter sign themselves "General" and highlight their responsibilities while in uniform to give credibility to their views, they dress highly partisan acts in the nonpartisan, patriotic clothing of military service.
I happen to agree with this criticism. After his 1992 attack on fellow Viet Nam vet Bob Kerrey (who lost his right leg to a grenade) in which he uttered the immortal words:
'I am saddened that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign.'
John Kerry surrounded himself with an entourage of uniformed veterans, no doubt to minimize the impact of the war on impressionable voters. I would have preferred to see less polemic arguments from several of these gentlemen, penned under their civilian names with a short note at the bottom of the editorial explaining their prior military status, as other retired public servants have done in the past.
Finally, the harsh criticism of Rumsfeld poisons the relationship between civilian and military leaders. Given this precedent, politicians will be impelled to appoint senior officers who can be counted on for their loyalty and discretion above all, who can be counted on not to hang up their uniforms and then attack their former bosses — at least while still in office. Those will not necessarily be the most capable, accomplished, strong-minded, and professional officers needed to lead American youth into battle.
This is another valid point. The Pentagon is political enough as it is. I could wish Gen. Newbold had thought more before opening his mouth. His methods seemed likely to produce the exact opposite result from the one he held out to the public. This is a perfect example of what I was talking about a few days ago. When you push against people, they push back. One of Newbold's charges against Rumsfeld is that when Shinseki gainsaid him, that officer was deep-sixed. Never mind that this charge has been refuted in detail in several venues, one of them CNN. If Newbold genuinely believes it to be true, what on earth does he think the logical result of encouraging more retired generals to come forward will be?
Every administration from now on is going to look back on this episode and think very carefully before they pick general officers for senior posts. "Is he 'reliable'?", they'll ask themselves. If Newbold wanted to encourage outspokenness, I do believe he just killed it. I wonder whether he's smart enough to see that?
In the end, military officers have no duty or right to hold anyone accountable except those under their command and supervision. It is up to the American people to hold their government accountable, and their refusal does not transfer the authority or responsibility to anyone else, particularly the military. To have military officers, even those who are retired, take it upon themselves to unseat the civilian leadership and change American policy is indeed to turn the American government upside down.
Now here I unequivocally must disagree, if what we're talking about is retired generals: they are the American people and as such they have every right to demand accountability from their government. For Mr. Kohn to say that 30 years spent serving this nation has stripped retired generals of the rights enjoyed by ordinary citizens is a suggestion so obscene that it almost defies belief.
What all too many of the pundits looking at this issue have done is to conflate retired with active duty personnel. If these folks expect military people to surrender their civil rights for life just because they have donned a uniform, then I can tell you right now the United States government is not paying my husband nearly enough money and I will gladly tell him to get the hell out tomorrow. It's not worth it.
This is the same short-sighted attitude I decried during the Tom Toles cartoon controversy. The entire reason you retire if you disagree with a policy is so that you can express disagreement. I have had it up to here with the fear, loathing, and paranoia from folks who hear the sound of jackboots any time someone who once wore a uniform dares to exercise the rights he has spent a lifetime guaranteeing.
That said, the hyperbolic screeching about "Swiftboating" really needs to stop too. One of the perils of speaking your mind is that you just may have to defend your ideas on an equal footing with other "civilians". And if you've done something dumb and counterproductive, as I've been saying for days and as the WaPo and Cori Dauber also pointed out here, then that's fair game for discussion. By all means, speak up.
But perhaps you ought to think first. And be prepared to defend your ideas. A shoulder full of stars is no defense against a weak argument, as several of these gentlemen are finding out.
Posted by Cassandra at April 19, 2006 07:08 AM
Comments
An excellent article.
I agree with nearly everything you had to say.
I found your site on the Washington Post online listed as one of the sites blogging about their article "The General's Revolt"
The name of my site, Worldwide Sawdust, was listed directly beneath yours.
For the record my name is Bob Higgins and I am a Marine Vietnam vet. I have a relatively new and so far little known political blog which I operate in Dayton, Ohio.
I have linked to your article today and placed your site link in my blog roll.
Thank you for writing.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
http://sawdust.eponym.com/blog
Posted by: Bob Higgins at April 19, 2006 12:28 PM
You one smart lawn chica, lady. :)
Posted by: Don Brouhaha at April 19, 2006 12:32 PM
Thanks for visiting Bob (and for your service, for which we are deeply grateful).
I'll definitely be by to check out your site after work :)
Posted by: Cassandra at April 19, 2006 12:43 PM
A former Chief of JCS once told the rest of us in uniform, "if you don't like what is going on, get out." He was offered the world on a silver platter by the then president, but he got out. And, he didn't go around bad mouthing the chain of command once he was gone. In fact, he did the same thing when he left his "civilian" job with the government. A gentleman to the last, General Powell.
Do we retired military have the right to shoot off our mouths? Of course we do. By the same token, we should well expect to have some shots fired at us.
As I learned a very long time ago, once you put on that uniform, you give up certain rights as a citizen to protect all of the rights of your fellow citizens. I guess once we, retired military, get back to exercising all of those rights, we tend to overuse some of them every now and then. You know, the kid in the candy shop.
Posted by: RIslander at April 19, 2006 08:48 PM
I guess I feel as strongly as I do because I have been fairly outspoken (when I believe it is important, and it *isn't* always important - you have to choose your battles) during the time my husband has been in. And it has on occasion caused me some heartburn.
Things got so heated at one duty station because I took a stand against a whole lot of wives (including my CO's wife and a lot of other O-6 wives) that it really kind of disillusioned me. I don't believe in fighting with people and I don't talk behind people's backs. But if I believe in a thing, I will not back down just because someone finds it inconvenient to have me express a contrary opinion, especially if I have been entrusted with a position where it is my duty to defend an important principle or enforce a rule.
I've heard the "I didn't speak up because no one would have listened" argument an awful lot. And it's true - a lot of times no one does. But if you never speak up, you never give them a chance to listen, and if no one ever speaks up, you have a culture where everyone is intimidated. So as far as I'm concerned, if it's important, that's a crock of shit. You need to speak up anyway, and if they don't listen that is not your problem. You have done your duty.
I'm sorry if that sounds self-righteous. It is just what I believe.
Posted by: Cassandra at April 19, 2006 09:11 PM
Nice post, I've linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2006/04/re-swiftboating-generals-hardly.html
Posted by: Consul-At-Arms at April 20, 2006 07:20 PM