I, unfortunately, was unable to get my act together enough to Tivo Zinni's appearance on 60 minutes. However, Ogged points out this tasty little sound bite of Zinni's on the show.
There's one statement that bothers me more than anything else. And that's the idea that when the troops are in combat, everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle. And that rifle was malfunctioning and troops were dying as a result. I can't think of anybody that would allow that to happen; that would not speak up. Well what's the difference between that and a faulty plan, and a faulty concept and strategy that's getting just as many troops killed, and is leading down a path where we're not succeeding in accomplishing the missions we've set out to do?Over and over and over I've heard the refrain from the 101st Fighting Keyboarders that troops are just supposed to shut up. I've heard them lambasting the occasional soldier who dared to even suggest that we might, you know, be doing the wrong thing. Court martialed and thrown in the brig to rot (if not worse).
I don't expect that Zinni's comment will convince the valiant members of the 101 - I'm sure they're busily constructing their voodoo dolls in his image and sharpening up their pins. But I'm glad Zinni said it.
I suppose you're not talking about me as a member of the 101st (I'm a sailor, not a soldier, doncha know), but I'll still have to take exception, Hal.
Using your analogy, this doesn't seem to be a case of all the soldiers saying their rifles aren't working and the brass is telling them to shut up or get court martialed. It's more the case of a former soldier (I'll even stipulate that he's an expert gunsmith) saying that he doesn't think the rifle should work, and all the soldiers still in the Army are saying, "That's funny; mine still seems to work just fine."
Still an imperfect analogy, but my point is there's room for debate...on both sides.
You're a new quantity to me, so I won't "pre" classify you.
Basically, my line of thought is along two seperate threads:
1) The militarization of a civilian leader
2) The ability for troops to speak out
The first issue really pisses me off. We have a civilian president, and I can damn well critisize the man all I like. He's not my commanding officer, speaking as a civilian. So applying the millitary mentality to civillians is a rather silly and completely illegal (by our constitution's principles) things to do.
Having said that, in my thread #2, I certainly understand that the rights of millitary personell are different - by the soldier's choice - than a civilian's rights. But I think if people are going to shout the "soldier's experience" from the roof top as "the way things really are", then they either have to allow soldiers to critisize their civilian commander in chief, or they're going to have to stop throwing the "soldier's experience" as "the way things really are".
Why? Because if the soldiers are not allowed to critisize and say bad things about what's happening - remember, chain o' command and all that - then I can't possibly trust them as a valid source of information. I'm not saying they aren't really telling me the "real" situation. I'm just saying I have no way of verifying it. If critisism is not allowed, then as an information source they suck.
So while I am certainly willing to believe that limiting a soldier's ability to critisize and roundly punishing the soldier for the action, in the interest of preserving discipline and making it possible for the millitary to get their job done, is the right thing to do. If so, then the price for this is the unpleasant reality that we are just going to have to discount what we hear from our troops.
Not my preferred choice, but who am I to tell the millitary how to do their business?
One simply cannot have it both ways.
And quite frankly others (not you :) ) have not only tried to have it both ways (i.e. our troops are saying it's all great, and they should know! while calling for court martial (or worse) from any soldier that dares to say anything bad about Iraq), they also try to bitchslap civilians with a millitary mindset of the commander in chief is immune to critisism by civillians (by patriotic citizens, that is. The anti-war treasonous scum are free to critisize).
To my thinking, this is pretty clearly a threat to critical thinking. And the lack of critical thinking is what got us into this bizzaro world in the first place.
This definitely gets into a serpentine morass of logic and opinion, Hal, I'll grant you that.
I suppose the best way to understand the reality of "freedom of speech" as it applies to military folks is to divide it in two: public speech and private speech.
Public speech is what's most targeted by those limitations on what service members can say. It's definitely a case of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," but backed up by the UCMJ and the military justice system. But even that can be instructive. You didn't hear much public condemnation of Bill Clinton from military folks during his tenure, but you didn't hear much in the way of praise, either. That's because, as a group, we didn't like the fact that he was our Commander in Chief, but we couldn't get too vocal about it.
(A little digression here: when sailors retire from the Navy (may be true for other services, but I'm not familiar with that process), the retirees get a presidential certificate honoring their long and faithful service. Apparently, someone ginned up a bunch of blanks with George H. W. Bush's signature. For at least a year and a half after Clinton was in office, retirees were still getting certificates with Bush's signature instead of Clinton's, then someone (rightfully) put their foot down and they switched to Clinton's signature. As a note, that happened about six months before I retired, so mine is a Clinton certificate.)
Back to the discussion, private speech by and among military folks is a different thing altogether. No one ever gets in trouble because they write a letter to Mom saying they hate the President, he's screwing up the military, losing the war, whatever. They're pretty much free to say the same things a civilian can say, in that venue.
You can decide for yourself whether what's being said publicly is supportive of the President, or is absent because they have nothing "nice" to say. But when it comes to private speech, it clearly runs in favor of the President from my experience. That's talking with innumerable friends who are retired or still active, and with my Marine son and his friends.
Bottom line on your post: I think Zinni is wrong, and his opinions of similar events tends to depend on whether he was in any way responsible for them. But he's free to say what he wants. I just think he's wrong, and he's hurting the United States in general, and our service members in particular, by voicing them publicly.
And if I can sneak a snark in here, isn't he selling a book?
Aargh! I crafted a long and thoughtful response, and it seems to have disappeared once I clicked "Post."
I'll have to try again later.
Nope, it's there. It's just that until I update my templates, I have to "approve" each comment. It's a pain and I apologize, but it's a decent amount of detailed work and I haven't been able to block out any time for it. Will respond to your excellent comment later (work calls).
Whew! I was worried there for a few minutes. :)
We're all selling books. But as the Ad Hominem fallacy teaches us, it really isn't relevant to anything other than we all have to make money and we have to use it or we lose it.
So I'm not really sure what bothers you about what Zinni said. Is it the quote I posted above (i.e. what this post is about) or is it the more general critisism that General Zinni, former Centcom commander of the very spot of the world where we really have a bone of contention, has the gaul to critisize our glorious leader's brilliant plan? I mean, saying that our troops should have the right to speak up and chastising the yo-yo's who are trying to shout them down doesn't seem that dangerous to me. Unlike, say, the devastating critisism of someone who actually knows what he's talking about - unlike the valiant 101 or just about everyone who has served in the milltary since the dawn of time.
In a democracy, part of the price we pay for our freedom is putting up with all the critisism. Bill Clinton had to put up with a frickin' impeachment because of a mere blow job. I think that hurt the nation in general and hell of a lot more than just our service members in particular, but that's just me.
But I do find it hillarious that the macho millitary is so fricking scared of critisism at home that it somehow demoralizes them. I mean, if you can't stand the heat, why is one even in the kitchen? Cowboy up, dude. Getting shot at and blown up is a heck of a lot more stressful and demoralizing than anything critisism by someone who actually knows what he's talking about (I'm speaking of Zinni, not me).
I mean, imagine if we hadn't been manipulated by the Iranians and duped into believing Saddam had WMDs like Chalabi and his merry band of frauds were telling us. Think how safe those 800 dead soldiers and thousands of others who are "merely" wounded would be feeling now. Particularly relevant given the new revelations of estimates of 18,000 terrorists and a recovered Al Qaeda after our failure to stamp out that evil weed back in Afghanistan. Not to mention the nebulous warning our man Ashcroft gave today.
I'm simply baffled by the millitary attitude. Somehow going to Oxford to get out of the war was worse than having one's daddy's rich friends get you into the guard where one apparently doesn't have to even show up to get a free pass. I'm also puzzled why a blow job is far worse than the entire United States being played for fools by one of the members of the "axis of evil".
But hey, that's just me. Giving critical information to our enemy in exchange for bogus WMD information on Saddm seems pretty darn close to treason, and I really do have a pittifully low tolerance for such things. I think pointing these things out only make us safer, not weaker. The soldiers will just have to tough it out.
Sorry you didn't get a certificate signed by Bush, though. Hey, do you think they're going to do the same kind of thing if Kerry wins?
Didn't think so. Ah, that sweet moral compass of the conservative mind.
Wow, so many points, so little time. Let's get the simple stuff out of the way.
I never expressed an opinion one way or the other regarding my retirement certificate. (As a friendly note, you might want to avoid imputing opinions and motives on others, especially when they assiduously avoid revealing them.) It really didn't make much of a difference one way or the other to me. I happen to have the view that the President is the Commander in Chief, regardless of who the person is who holds that position. From a more practical perspective, it's just a piece of paper that the President never even saw, much less personally signed, so who cares?
Next up, selling books. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly not selling books. Not to be insulting, but it seems disingenuous to ignore the possibility that someone is trying to generate controversy in order to raise their profile so they can sell more books, and make more money. When articulating certain positions can make someone more money, it usually undermines their credibility in my eyes. And it's not just folks with whom I disagree; the same is true when it's someone who espouses views similar to my own.
Again, at least for my own part, I'm not saying that Zinni has no right to speak his opinions. I am saying that I think his opinions are wrong. If he were correct, then I would think that whatever damage results from stating those opinions is most likely worth it in order to get to the truth. But since I think he's wrong, I believe that his statements unnecessarily cause our nation to suffer in general, and our service members to suffer in particular. Doesn't that seem logical?
I also think you mischaracterize the problems our military folk have with criticism of their mission in Iraq. Trust me, they're not afraid of criticism. The problem is that they're in a situation that requires a high level of morale just to keep going. They have to feel that they're doing the right thing just to give them that extra oomph to keep going in very stressful situations. We're there (Iraq) now; it does no good to quibble over the past while we're in the middle of the engagement. In fact, it only hurts our efforts, and most certainly results in more people getting injured and even killed.
Since you disagree with the Iraq mission to begin with, I can see how all of this can be hard for you to accept. It's probably galling to even consider self-censorship (Note: self-censorship, not government censorship) when you're convinced that we're absolutely following the wrong path. All I can say is, "Cowboy up." (Sorry for the jab)
Chalabi? Hmm...just don't put me next to him with a .45...he wouldn't be around long. I'll agree, 100%, absolutely, getting involved with this bozo was probably the most damaging decision our government has made in several decades. Ain't it nice to agree with someone from the "other side" every once in a while?
I have no doubt that, if Kerry wins and the opportunity presents itself, there will be Bush certificates presented to retirees for many months. There is little respect in the military for Kerry. When it comes to his military service, he's viewed as a paper tiger. Whatever honorable service he may have performed during his naval tenure has been greatly undermined by his lies about his shipmates and other military folks after he left active duty. There will be no forgiveness for that. If he wins the election, our service members will salute smartly and follow his orders. But his patent disloyalty to his shipmates will always be in the back of everyone's mind.
Hey, did you know that there are conservatives who hope Kerry will win, so that the backlash will push the Republican party in a more conservative direction? Kinda freaky, eh?
Great discussion, Hal. I'm really enjoying this. But it's time for bed here in Virginia.
Later.
Sorry for misinterpreting your remark about the certificate. I still find the whole story distasteful and quite beneath the honor we should expect from the soldiers that serve our country. But apologies for assuming.
In any event, I doubt we really have much that will convince the other. I did enjoy the conversation, though. Thanks for putting up with my rants.