Either George W. Bush is abnormally skilled at sleight-of-hand tricks, or the American public is abnormally skilled at falling for sleight-of-hand tricks. The “deference” that the President is showing to General David Petraeus is cynical and dangerous; it not only shifts responsibility away from the President, but it casts an ominous shadow over the inevitably painful domestic reckoning that will follow the American defeat in Iraq.
This faux-subservience to the generals comes approximately five years too late. I think any realist, and I take pride in fancying myself a realist, would agree that the officer corps of the American military was opposed to invading Iraq. And all honest people that disagree with me on that point would have to concede that, if the generals had truly been in charge, the invasion and occupation force would have been three times as large as it was.
It was clear from the start that this was a civilian war; no generals were pushing for war in Iraq. This was a strictly bureaucratic bloodletting. Smart and vain men, elected to office or appointed by those who were elected to office, came up with the brilliant idea of an unprovoked invasion and indefinite occupation of the cradle of civilization with a "light footprint".
The military, it must be said, did not protest enough before being sent on this fool’s slaughter. They should not be faulted for this, however, because arguably the most precious element of our Constitution, which is far more inspired than the Bible, is the principle of strict civilian control over the military.
The generals were given an illegal and impossible task by eggheads and sociopaths who aimed to remake the world. This is the point where the civilians should have stepped back; they gave the strategic task to the military. They should have then ceded total control over tactical decisions to the military, but they didn’t.
Nearly five years on, the President speaks of General Petraeus as if the President owes the General his job. This is cowardice; the present policy in Iraq is the President’s, not the General’s, and it is an abdication of leadership to imply otherwise. The President is constantly trumpeting the fact that Petraeus “wrote the book on counter-insurgency”. Indeed he did, and if the President had read the book, he would have learned that the General’s calculus calls for half a million men to occupy Iraq and successfully defuse an insurgency.
So the President tells us that this is an existential undertaking, of a moral and strategic gravity that is equivalent to the wars against fascism and communism. This is a war of necessity, the President tells us, a war that we can not and must not lose. Does he then allow his commanding general to run this war as he sees fit? No.
As noted above, Petraeus' counterinsurgency calculus calls for 500,000 soldiers to secure a population of 25 million. The President, who tells us that this war is on par with World War II, rules out the possibility of a draft and has called for absolutely no material austerity from the American people. So this is the greatest struggle of our time, and the military must be allowed to run the war as it sees fit, but it must do so with one-third of the troops that its own doctrine calls for.
And while the President attempts to shift responsibility, a.k.a. blame, to the military, so is the anti-war Left. Let me put it metaphorically: Fuck MoveOn.org. Oh, wait, that was literal. What balls it must take to print “General Betray-Us” in the New York Times. And what folly; I couldn’t imagine a better way for the anti-war movement to discredit itself. By castigating General Petraeus, a Princeton PhD and a patriot if nothing else, MoveOn is marching to the President’s drum.
If MoveOn.org is so incensed about the war, which they have every reason to be, they should take out a full-page ad in the New York Times charging George W. Bush with war crimes. To blame the generals is to create a crippling synthesis; both the Democrats and the Republicans are now blaming the military for the defeat, which will rip this country apart at the seams.
If the war is allowed to be remembered as a tactical military blunder rather than a civilian-driven criminal enterprise, it will happen again, and eventually the military will revolt, and for good reasons as well.
This war is not a military failure; it is a moral failure. And it is a civilian failure first and foremost. We did this. This is a democracy; even if we didn’t vote for George W. Bush, and even if he wasn’t legitimately elected, we are going to pay for this.
This faux-subservience to the generals comes approximately five years too late. I think any realist, and I take pride in fancying myself a realist, would agree that the officer corps of the American military was opposed to invading Iraq. And all honest people that disagree with me on that point would have to concede that, if the generals had truly been in charge, the invasion and occupation force would have been three times as large as it was.
It was clear from the start that this was a civilian war; no generals were pushing for war in Iraq. This was a strictly bureaucratic bloodletting. Smart and vain men, elected to office or appointed by those who were elected to office, came up with the brilliant idea of an unprovoked invasion and indefinite occupation of the cradle of civilization with a "light footprint".
The military, it must be said, did not protest enough before being sent on this fool’s slaughter. They should not be faulted for this, however, because arguably the most precious element of our Constitution, which is far more inspired than the Bible, is the principle of strict civilian control over the military.
The generals were given an illegal and impossible task by eggheads and sociopaths who aimed to remake the world. This is the point where the civilians should have stepped back; they gave the strategic task to the military. They should have then ceded total control over tactical decisions to the military, but they didn’t.
Nearly five years on, the President speaks of General Petraeus as if the President owes the General his job. This is cowardice; the present policy in Iraq is the President’s, not the General’s, and it is an abdication of leadership to imply otherwise. The President is constantly trumpeting the fact that Petraeus “wrote the book on counter-insurgency”. Indeed he did, and if the President had read the book, he would have learned that the General’s calculus calls for half a million men to occupy Iraq and successfully defuse an insurgency.
So the President tells us that this is an existential undertaking, of a moral and strategic gravity that is equivalent to the wars against fascism and communism. This is a war of necessity, the President tells us, a war that we can not and must not lose. Does he then allow his commanding general to run this war as he sees fit? No.
As noted above, Petraeus' counterinsurgency calculus calls for 500,000 soldiers to secure a population of 25 million. The President, who tells us that this war is on par with World War II, rules out the possibility of a draft and has called for absolutely no material austerity from the American people. So this is the greatest struggle of our time, and the military must be allowed to run the war as it sees fit, but it must do so with one-third of the troops that its own doctrine calls for.
And while the President attempts to shift responsibility, a.k.a. blame, to the military, so is the anti-war Left. Let me put it metaphorically: Fuck MoveOn.org. Oh, wait, that was literal. What balls it must take to print “General Betray-Us” in the New York Times. And what folly; I couldn’t imagine a better way for the anti-war movement to discredit itself. By castigating General Petraeus, a Princeton PhD and a patriot if nothing else, MoveOn is marching to the President’s drum.
If MoveOn.org is so incensed about the war, which they have every reason to be, they should take out a full-page ad in the New York Times charging George W. Bush with war crimes. To blame the generals is to create a crippling synthesis; both the Democrats and the Republicans are now blaming the military for the defeat, which will rip this country apart at the seams.
If the war is allowed to be remembered as a tactical military blunder rather than a civilian-driven criminal enterprise, it will happen again, and eventually the military will revolt, and for good reasons as well.
This war is not a military failure; it is a moral failure. And it is a civilian failure first and foremost. We did this. This is a democracy; even if we didn’t vote for George W. Bush, and even if he wasn’t legitimately elected, we are going to pay for this.
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