After firing general after general for incompetence or refusal to fight the enemy, President Lincoln finally finds his man in General Grant.
Oh, please do! Please do! General Chicken Littles are threatening to quit if President Bush orders a strike on Iran. Fine, I say, While I would prefer President Bush firing them for insubordination and dereliction of duty, removing their sorry selves is also just fine with me. After all, what do we do with troops who refuse to follow orders or run when ordered into battle? We remove and court-martial them. What a message these generals send our enlisted. How dare they.
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,†a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.â€
Just because someone wears the uniform does not mean they are a warrior. Generals who sit in Washington, DC are politicians. Shiny uniforms do not automatically translate into courage. I’ll take a dust-covered troop slogging it out in Iraq before I will a decked-out officer sitting in his air-conditioned suite in DC.
Let them resign, or better yet, let the president learn who these people are and fire them. Cleaning house of hopeless naysayers would be an appropriate homage to President Lincoln during this month of his birthday.
Generals who are afraid to fight, have become politicians in uniform with political reasons for wanting to stop a president, isn’t anything news. During the civil war President Lincoln fired generals who would not fight, eventually bringing into the fold the generals who would–Grant and Sherman. Pipeline News has a reminder of the action President Lincoln had to take in order to get the job of war done properly:
Consider that in November of 1861 Lincoln fired General-in-chief Winfield Scott; in August of 1861 Lincoln fired General Fremont for refusing to remand his order to free the slaves in Missouri; in July of 1862 he fired General Halleck, appointing General Pope; in August of 1862 General Pope is sent packing after he was defeated by a far smaller force at the Battle of Bull Run, and then Lincoln rehired McClellan; in November of 1862 Lincoln again fired General McClellan; in January of 1863 Lincoln fired General Burnside; in June of 1863 Lincoln fired General Hooker replacing him with General Meade.
Lincoln did all of this to get to the two generals who were capable of prosecuting the war, Grant and Sherman.
President Bush, during our time of war, seems to be the anti-Lincoln, refusing to remove from power generals and other military strategists who only see defeat and what’s not possible. So I welcome the news that defeatist generals and other Chicken Littles in the Pentagon are threatening to quit if we need to strike Iran.
While I wish the president had the courage of Lincoln to fire these people, perhaps the spirit of Lincoln is making sure the fearful remove themselves this time.
However it happens, I say, Don’t let the door hit you on the way out “Generals.”
Be careful with this story, Tammy. An unnamed source predicting disaster – it has the look and feel of another pre-emptive MSM smear job. A British “Jamil Hussein”, perhaps?
I hesitate to make blanket statements. Yes, the Union went through a bunch of generals who simply didn’t have what it takes. But it must be remembered that there are times to fight and times to stand down. General Burnside marched into a disastrous and avoidable Union debacle at the Battle of Fredericksburg. The Confederates held high ground that simply couldn’t be taken by a frontal assault, so this was not the place to challenge them.
In the aftermath, Republican Senator Zachariah Chandler wrote, “The President is a weak man, too weak for the occasion, and those fool or traitor generals are wasting time and yet more precious blood in indecisive battles and delays.” Seems that political critique doesn’t change much over the ages.
The big question about an attack on Iran is the aftermath. In an ideal world, we would want a surgical strike against weapons facilities, followed by business as usual. But of course it won’t happen that way. Without a follow-up invasion, the evil Iranian leadership will remain intact, working immediately towards revenge. It would be as if Japan, after having hit Pearl Harbor, had declared they’d taught us a lesson and that was that. A raid on Iran is an act of war, and we’d better be physically and psychologically prepared to deal with the follow-up. I’m not saying not to do it. Somebody’s got to stop those maniacs. But our leadership had better be thinking several steps ahead if we want our solution to solve more problems than it creates. The situation in Iraq indicates we need to improve in this department.
While caution about the story may be appropriate, it is still true that flag officers (generals and admirals) who have not known war (like those today–Viet Nam was stabbed in the back by Democrats in Congress 35 years ago) are incapable of waging a war. FDR knew that, so he called General Pershing out of retirement to pick who should prosecute WWII. MacArthur was retired from the US military at the beginning of WWII. Eisenhower was a Lt. Col. at the beginning of WWII. But FDR, probably thinking of Lincoln, went to old warriors for advice on who the new warriors would be, sidesteping the politicians in the War Department.
I have an uneasy feeling there are more than five who feel that way. There are signs that there is serious disagreement between the White House and the Pentagon. The White House has been saying nothing is off the table with respect to Iran. Then, General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs, made a flat statement that there was “zero chance†of war with Iran. In response to the discovery of evidence that Iran was supplying Iraqi insurgents, General Pace toned down the accusation by saying it might not have been from the government but from elements in the Revolutionary Guard.
Such public repudiation is a serious sign of deep disagreement with the administration. I’m not ready to attribute these significant misgivings to cowardice or say the top military brass should just shut up and follow orders if they see disaster ahead. I don’t want to believe we are really in such a woeful situation that these generals can be right in their assessment, but something profound is going on.
We are faced with a serious threat. No arguing that. How we allowed things to deteriorate to this point is a reflection of the Bush administration. Sorry, I’m coming to see it that way. Bush is fine when it comes to initiating bold action, but to my eyes has failed miserably in providing the sustained leadership necessary for success. I agree with Talking Horse about the aftermath and our preparedness for the consequences. I am very concerned that thanks to incompetence we are in a lose-lose situation.
Hold on just a second here. Let’s take a more sober perspective on the situation. The US is effectively losing the war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan has turned into a stalemate and now Ms Bruce is calling for a third front to be opened up? Does she want to the US to risk losing the entire war? Wars are not won by armies biting off more than they can chew.
All that the US military is capable of at the moment is air strikes on Iran and we all know that air power on its own has never won a single conflict in the history of warfare. With the situation in Iraq showing no signs of dying down any time soon, another land war is out of the question – there are too few troops, unless of course rabid bloggers like Ms Bruce intends to sign up and finally put their money where their mouth is. It’s easy to sit there are behind a keyboard and denounce everybody as cowards when it’s other people’s children being fed into the meat grinder.
It is a very sad comment on American history that we have had and still do have so many Generals in the Army that want to play soldier as opposed to be soldier. It is a good comment that Abe at least fired so many of them! Too bad Bush did not follow Abe’s good example!
Some think wearing a uniform and marching in parades is great fun. But actually going to war; awful.
I agree with you completely,Tammy! But can you imagine the reaction of the media?? They would have a field day trashing Bush for firing those poor little generals who refused to carry out the President’s order to take us into yet another war in the Middle East! CNN and their ilk would have the American people and politicians calling for Bush’s impeachment,sad to say. I just can’t see the President firing any of his critics,but it would be nice.
In order for Bush to rally the troops before an attack on Iran he really should get Congressional authorization (like he did before Iraq), that would be the most Constitutional way. Because of Bush’s low popularity also he should make his case before Congress. If Congress authorized a war with Iran then any discontent from the Pentagon would evaporate. And I’m sick and tired of being the world’s policeman and getting no appreciation or help from people like France, Germany, and Russia. I say to hell with the rest of the world, let’s build a strong SDI to protect ourselves and let the rest of the world defend themselves.
The main problem with many of the Union generals like General McClellan was that they wanted a political settlement with the South including a compromise on slavery. McClellan after all accepted the Democratic (you guessed it, the Democratic) nomination for President in 1864 to run against Lincoln. The main reason Lincoln was able to defeat McClellan was because Sherman captured Atlanta just before the election. There are Democratic generals out there who, like McClellan, are willing to let politics play a role in their judgement. They should be reassigned to Kansas or Utah to protect us there.