Responses From Military Personnel
Tom Bevan at the Real Clear Politics Blog asked military personnel what they thought of the Gannett Times editorial demanding Rumsfeld's removal. He got quite a few responses. The consensus: Who cares…..
I'm a Major with 18 years of service in the USAF. In the USAF, the AF Times is understood to be useful source of information, but we all know it's not a military publication and it doesn't speak for us. I just came from three years in the bowels of the Pentagon and the SECDEF is generally though of there as tough but fair. Have mistakes been made? Sure, they always are but the professional military learns from it's mistakes.
Rumsfeld should have probably committed more soldiers to the peacekeeping in Iraq. We didn't need more to win the battle but to pacify the country afterward. Problem is the services are so small after the Clinton years that there just aren't enough forces to go much above 140K on a continuing basis. And no one here wants a draft. It would have been nice to get further international support, but that didn't work out, especially after Madrid. I think everyone in the Pentagon, if not the entire DOD hoped the Iraqis would take more responsibility for themselves and not destroy their country's infrastructure and their countrymen. But unfortunately they are not.
The Army Times op-ed probably won't change a single mind in the services. We're all pretty hard-headed and don't generally take our cues from the press. We wouldn't be in the Service if we did.
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I enjoy and appreciate your web site, and visit it frequently (even when deployed in the Middle East). With respect to your question on the impact of the editorial from Military Times Media Group calling for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation, I'd venture that it will be negligible.
Things are obviously not going well in the central region of Iraq, but that has little to do with any miscalculations made by the Secretary of Defense (which certainly occurred). As has so often been the case since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, a sizeable Muslim population is squandering yet another opportunity for integration into the modern world.
I just returned from a 6-month mobilization in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I can't say that I'm overly optimistic about the near-term prospects for stability in the region. Lack of significant progress in that respect has more to do with the collective malevolence of the Iraqi people than anything else.
Bottom line on the editorial: no impact.
There are quite a lot more. I've already had to delete one unhinged comment on my earlier post on the editorial this morning. The left thinks this is monumental - they simply do not understand that the Times publications do not speak for the military. They are essentially trade rags.
By Quilly Mammoth, Sunday, 5 November , 2006 @ 7:52 am
The Left thinks this is monumental because _they_ don’t undersatnd that the Army Times is a trade publication. Sadly the same will be true for most of the population. This is a true dirty trick and Gannett should pay a price for it.
By mokus, Sunday, 5 November , 2006 @ 2:32 pm
All the Dems can bring to the table is gay bashing and yellow journalism, with a few insults for the troops thrown in to stir the pot on slow news days. It reminds me of a few lines from Kipling’s “Tommy.”
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!â€
But it’s “Saviour of ’is country†when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!