Sunday, June 03, 2007
Respose to "Fire the incompetents, find the Pattons"
Respons to Williams blog re: Fire the incompetents, find the Pattons....
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=157157126&blogID=271655433&indicate=1
Visit Williams blog at the above site.
Patton would not have lasted a moment under this disasteradministration. Patton barely lasted under his administration. As a Democracy we dont allow these type of military leaders(good though they may be at their craft) to come to the forefront, precisely because we have a military ultimately under the leadership of civilian leaders. The first reason is that civilian politicians do not like competition(Grant and Custer come to mind). Having said that, our military leaders have tended to reflect the leadership that promotes them. The Union military leadership during the civil war under Lincoln were tepid and compromisers. They were not aggressive reflecting the previous civilian leadership that had promoted them. Lincoln changed this mid war. He set the tone of leadership in the military for the next 30+ years. Grant, Sherman and Custer were just the star examples of this shift in mentality, stimulated by Lincoln culminating in the Spanish American War and crowned by the Philippine insurgency(which we lost).
If we bring this logic to the current disasteradministration, we find that the military leadership has been weeded out to be inclusive of only 'yes men'. We have politicized the military leadership (I say 'we' because the electorate has to be held accountable for this if you dont believe the voter fraud theories) to the point where they are more interested in the headlines that reflect on the current disasterpresident rather than their troops in the field and how they are fairing. The current curriculum at the Academies is geared toward training men(and women) to follow rather than to lead. As an aside, my middle son, who is a naturally born leader, was accepted to West Point. He had to quit. They were training followers. They were very discouraging of independent thinkers, innovators. This is the backbone of being American. This is why we lost the War of occupation of Iraq in 2003 before it ever began. We did not listen to the military leaders, we told them how it would be militarily. This reflects also how the disasterpresident dealt with the intelligence leading up to the war. If it did not fit into their preconceived political notions, they invented(read lied about) intelligence to fit these political notions that they had. To show this you only have to go as far as the what the generals who got replaced quickly had to say once they were beyond retribution and retired. If you ask any of the operational intelligence people who handled the Afghan insurgencey against the Soviets, they will say that they had no input into the lead up and during the Afghan and Iraq invasion and occupation. These were our two best sets of assests in prosecuting these military actions, but they were not given a seat at the planning table.
I always hate to say it, but we have wasted another generation of our best and brightest for the whims of misguided leaders. Egos and ideology do not win wars, read Wesley Clark, von Clausewitz, or Musashi. I believe our citizen soldiers are worth more than what we have expected of them. I believe we owe them more than to leave them holding the responsibility for this WAR CRIME(ask yourself why few officers have ever been held responsible for by our leaders for the numerous scandles coming out of this invasion and occupation). I believe we owe them more as a people than to let this pointless bloodletting among their ranks continue, pushed by an incompetent, ideologically driven disasteradministration.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=157157126&blogID=271655433&indicate=1
Visit Williams blog at the above site.
Patton would not have lasted a moment under this disasteradministration. Patton barely lasted under his administration. As a Democracy we dont allow these type of military leaders(good though they may be at their craft) to come to the forefront, precisely because we have a military ultimately under the leadership of civilian leaders. The first reason is that civilian politicians do not like competition(Grant and Custer come to mind). Having said that, our military leaders have tended to reflect the leadership that promotes them. The Union military leadership during the civil war under Lincoln were tepid and compromisers. They were not aggressive reflecting the previous civilian leadership that had promoted them. Lincoln changed this mid war. He set the tone of leadership in the military for the next 30+ years. Grant, Sherman and Custer were just the star examples of this shift in mentality, stimulated by Lincoln culminating in the Spanish American War and crowned by the Philippine insurgency(which we lost).
If we bring this logic to the current disasteradministration, we find that the military leadership has been weeded out to be inclusive of only 'yes men'. We have politicized the military leadership (I say 'we' because the electorate has to be held accountable for this if you dont believe the voter fraud theories) to the point where they are more interested in the headlines that reflect on the current disasterpresident rather than their troops in the field and how they are fairing. The current curriculum at the Academies is geared toward training men(and women) to follow rather than to lead. As an aside, my middle son, who is a naturally born leader, was accepted to West Point. He had to quit. They were training followers. They were very discouraging of independent thinkers, innovators. This is the backbone of being American. This is why we lost the War of occupation of Iraq in 2003 before it ever began. We did not listen to the military leaders, we told them how it would be militarily. This reflects also how the disasterpresident dealt with the intelligence leading up to the war. If it did not fit into their preconceived political notions, they invented(read lied about) intelligence to fit these political notions that they had. To show this you only have to go as far as the what the generals who got replaced quickly had to say once they were beyond retribution and retired. If you ask any of the operational intelligence people who handled the Afghan insurgencey against the Soviets, they will say that they had no input into the lead up and during the Afghan and Iraq invasion and occupation. These were our two best sets of assests in prosecuting these military actions, but they were not given a seat at the planning table.
I always hate to say it, but we have wasted another generation of our best and brightest for the whims of misguided leaders. Egos and ideology do not win wars, read Wesley Clark, von Clausewitz, or Musashi. I believe our citizen soldiers are worth more than what we have expected of them. I believe we owe them more than to leave them holding the responsibility for this WAR CRIME(ask yourself why few officers have ever been held responsible for by our leaders for the numerous scandles coming out of this invasion and occupation). I believe we owe them more as a people than to let this pointless bloodletting among their ranks continue, pushed by an incompetent, ideologically driven disasteradministration.
