You too? Another policy wonk at JCS?
Every time I hear some policy maker talk about “destabilizing” (as you did the other day, discussing a possible Israeli military attack on Iran) my heart sinks. For two reasons:
–First, because the Middle East–no, make that the whole world–has been destabilized to a fare-thee-well, and many fuses have been lit. All the big countries are unstable. Russia is convulsed, China is facing angry Tibetans and frustrated Han, Japan has already blown up, Europe is a mess, and we’re waiting for the next act in the Great Recession. The Middle East follows suit with multiple domestic insurrections and renewed terrorist attacks (Iraq, for example). None of that was caused by any Israeli attack on Iran;
–Second, the United States is a revolutionary country. Our very existence is destabilizing, especially to the tyrants who are trying very hard to kill us. You know all about that, General, because your guys are getting shot and blown up in Afghanistan every day. A lot of the mayhem, from the killers to their weapons and explosives, comes from Tehran. Not to mention the Iranian plans to assassinate one of their targets in downtown Washington. Even Senator Schumer is worried about Iranian-backed terrorists in Manhattan.
So when I hear someone with your knowledge and your experience talk as if things were moving along nicely with Iran (sanctions are working, the Tehran regime is “rational”), my heart sinks. As it happens, the Iranians just spat in our eye again, sending the latest crew of UN “nuclear inspectors” packing when they asked to look at a nuclear site. And the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave yet another speech declaring that nothing would deter his Islamic Republic from successfully fulfilling its nuclear dreams.
You say that we know, or “think we know,” that they haven’t decided to go ahead and construct atomic weapons. I don’t read the intel reports that you do, but I believe that the supreme leader made that decision many years ago. I also believe that our intelligence on Iran stinks, as it has ever since the days of the shah. Given that track record, I believe you should work as hard as you can to protect us against the worst case, and not go whistling past the Persian graveyard.
When the Iranians chant “death to America!” just what do you think they mean?
Well said, Michael. You are right on, but your thanking him for his service seems a little obsequious to me. Those perfumed princes are used to having there a**es kissed. Any kind gesture, however honestly meant, just increases their disdain for the common soldier and/or citizen. I would like to ask them why some high ranking officer has not fallen on their sword protesting the inclusion of women in combat or close-to-combat roles in the services. Paraphrasing the words of Mark Helprin,novelist and political commentator, “God will not look kindly on those nations who ask their women to do their fighting for them.”
The inclusion of women in our fighting forces is the greatest un-reported scandal in our nation, just ask any sailor how many pregnancies happen during each deployment.
thanks very much. hey, he’s been in combat, he’s served. only a tiny fraction of americans have served, so it is obligatory to thank him. and i do wish him well, even though i’m unhappy with his testimony…
i totally agree with the dangers of women in combat, and indeed our ships have had to be refitted to make room for longer hair in the drains, and less vibrating (bad for fetuses). on the other hand, women can perform some missions better than men (eg flying in combat; they withstand more G’s than men), and many of them have excelled. so it’s slightly more complicated…
Michael,
I like your post, as usual, but this issue of women in combat is something else. The one thing I deplore about it the most is sending mothers of small children off to combat. I cringe every time I read a story about some “proud” mother going off to war while leaving her babies in the care of her husband or mother. A nation that does that cannot be called civilized. And pregnancy while serving should be grounds for discharge, dishonerable if unmarried.
Right on Bigfoot, but when a woman gets killed you hear all the freaks saying oh they shouldn’t be in heavy combat. There is no winning
Hmmm. I’m not convinced of the requirement to thank him, but I won’t argue that here.
What I AM convinced of is that there is NO reason to assume that a man who has served in the military – combat or not – can be trusted to put the nation’s welfare ahead of his own career advancement.
We have GOT to find a better way to select men for high military rank. The current system rewards political suck-ups rather than good men.
Good shot! O8-10 commanders tend to be politicians, with rare exception, eg, Patton, MacArthur. Which is why our military has been so relatively ineffective since WWII.A president should not be our Commander In Chief because he may lack the education, training and experience to function effectively. George Washington was uniquely qualified in that regard, but few others have been.
All military officers understand that success lies in bringing ones full force against the enemy. To do less is to sacrifice men needlessly and to increase the probability of failure. Analogically, no coach starts his second team.
Dawdling through a series of ten year wars; not making every effort to win, may vastly enrich those who finance both sides of all wars, as well as the munitions makers, but the negative effects include great loss of life, and massive public debt. When Generals genuflect to political sociopaths in return for rows of colored ribbons on their chests- it is time for new sets of both sociopaths and generals. Would we not fare better with a parliamentary form of government and an electorate intellectually and morally qualified to select our legislators?
Mr. Ledeen is precisely correct in his conclusions.
The Middle East is inherently destabilized. They have always slaughtered whoever happened to be available- and they will always do so. It is their nature.It is the way of Esau, the Hamitic methodology. With them, Emotion always triumphs over Reason. If we fail to strike pre-emptively, or to conspire with Israel to do the dirty work for us, we are looking at WWIII.
Michael – Bravo for once again calling out our political/national security executive class. They seem to think the world is more like a law school moot court session than a Jersey barroom brawl.
One question: at what point do you think that the most senior military leaders at the O-10 grade (full, “four star” generals and admirals) such as Dempsey, Petraeus, Mullen, Mattis, Ordierno, etc.) have a responsibility to their services and to our country to respectfully resign their positions and speak as citizens about the threats that presidents Obama and Bush have punted?
Our current senior officers are all from the officer age cohort who felt that that U.S. senior military leaders during Vietnam had been derelict in their duty (to use the phrase of BG H.R. McMasters, one of the most distinguished Iraq officers and Petraeus’ handpicked choice to be the ISAF J5 and commander TF Shafafiyat. (http://www.amazon.com/Dereliction-Duty-Johnson-McNamara-Vietnam/dp/0060929081)). As of now the record is that senior officers saluted and carried out their orders as our troops were shredded by Iranian EFPs in Iraq and then saw their sacrifice wasted as we essentially handing the keys to Iran. Same story in Afghanistan where President Obama launched his Surge with less than the recommended number of troops and began to end it early in July 2011 (the height of the Afghan “fighting season”), with the withdraw of some combat troops (including a cavalry squadron from Eastern Afghanistan, focus of the Haqanni Network, http://www.army.mil/article/61191/).
Well said. If they feel that in good conscience they cannot carry out the orders of the commander in chief, they are obliged to resign.
But it is not just a question of “feeling”. It is a question of right or wrong, at a very high level scale. When Presidents order “a balanced use of force” commanders face moral decisions. If airstrikes, artillery, napalm, etc., precede an assault wherein we outnumber the enemy by three to one or better, victory should be ours,(numerous other factors set aside for purposes of illustration). Loss of American lives should be at a minimum. Then we must hold the real estate we have died for. We must never give it back, wanky rationalizations notwithstanding, or we will have to pay for it, in blood, again. Ask the men of the 173rd Airborne about a position in ‘Nam they took FIVE times!
There are alternatives to resigning ones career and source of income because ones’ newly elected CIC is a sociopath. The Moral Imperative must carry the day, or we all perish! Shall we reflect on the possibilities?
Respect for the General as a Warrior cannot stop us from thinking that this administration is simply getting ready to accept a second Holocaust as a fact. They are getting ready to say “Oh, we didn’t know, we thought the bombs were not ready, we thought that the regime was “rational” “.
Morally, they are at the bottom of the pit of hell.
And if we, as Americans, think that we will not be attacked with at least three or four dirty bombs full of the plutonium now being manufactured/enriched in Iran we are fools. It’s probably already here.
There is no way the high ranking general could possibly disagree in public with his superiors, unless he has already resolved to himself that resignation was the only honorable choice available to him in the circumstances. In his case, the CIC is just 2 notches up from him. Since the supreme boss has generally been AWOL on the urgent matters of national security, the top military fellow winds up with the unenviable job of trying to say something inherently nonsensical as politic as possible, cornered as he was into trying to make the absurdity of his higher-ups sound reasonable, which of course is just one more case of mission impossible.
So, he winds up talking about how prudent it is not to destabilize the present mess! He has to fall in his sword in order to keep the big boss smelling like a rose, to the extent humanly possible, and so he did! Being a soldier is dangerous work, for the bottom to the top! No wonder whatever he had to say was disheartening!
Trying to hang on to the branches on the way down, I still find it somewhat reassuring that the general has not given up.
Im sure our president knows the history of Irans war against the US. As a senator, he was one of the few who voted against designating the IRGC (Iranian revolutionary guard) as a terrorist organization. In fact, a nuclear armed Iran might be quite useful to a second term Obama. By allowing them to stall for time in 2012, Obama can reap maximal fundraising from Jewish Democrats, while appearing tough on Iran. Once Iran obtains nuclear weapons, he can tell Israel that they are on their own, and they have to obey unfriendly UN resolutions or face the wrath of nuclear Iran on their own. Its a win win for both Obama and Khamenei
Good column. Sadly, we have politicians instead of leaders in the White House. One comment I heard recently is if Iran is attacked now, the region will be destabilized and oil prices will shoot up. And if Iran is attacked later…? No matter when we deal with Iran, it will be bad. A second theme is that we need to allow time for diplomacy and sanctions to work. Really? Doves say we need to try everything else before we take decisive action – but there is no end to “everything else” and the decisive action comes when Iran gets a nuclear weapon. Chamberblain tried it with Germany and I guess this administration wants to replicate that experiment. Finally, liberal types keep talking like Iran may or may not be working towards a nuclear weapon; that train left the station years ago.
While I agree with your assessment of General Dempsey’s testimony, I am less sanguine about your thoughts on how to best help the Iranian people topple the current regime. We have seen demonstrated, very clearly, in Syria just how this group of thugs and fellow travelers will treat their countrymen. I very much doubt that financial and communications assistance will do much for those who have to face the Iranian Army, the Republican Guards, and the Basiji. The unfortunate fact of a war with Iran is that at least as many of our Iranian friends as Iranian enemies will die.
This talk of “destabilizing” is nonsense. There will be nothing more “destabilizing” than Iran with nuclear weapons.
The only chance for stability is stopping that from happening.
As far as Israeli capabilities they were not supposed to be able to get as far as the Iraqi reactor in Osirak but they did, through hostile airspace. They were not supposed to get through the Syrian air defenses but they did that with only 4 aircraft and no losses. These are not stealth jets. They were even able to get special forces on the ground in the middle of Syria with laser targeting equipment and somehow magically get them out again.
Israel cannot afford to bluff. They will not waste their most valuable assets on a mission unless they had the capability and there was a high probability of success. Dempsey is a fool.
Two American soldiers killed because we burned a Koran. Obama apologizes.
Succinct and pithy. The religion of peace in action. And this administration is ever so careful not to talk about Muslim extremists or terrorists. What more proof do they need?
They’re as rational as Hitler was when his antisemitism led to an exodus of nearly half the theoretical physicists in he country, and when his antisemitism led him to expend resources (trains and men) to destroy resources (6+ million Jews) when he was fighting a major war on several fronts.
Dempsey appreciation of the logical iranian policy ( conquest of Iraq, military allaince with Syria and Russia, nuclear weaponization , strategic policy to destroy once for all Israel ) does not surprise me : If you go to http://www.stratfor.com an article by G.Friedman (Iran, the strait of Hormuz ) qualify Iran policy and the weak american response as both logical too. But exactly as the Obama team G.Friedman makes a point of omission concerning the death to Israel policy which has been many times claimed as central to the ayatollah’s ideology.
Therefore Obama Panetta Clinton are ONLY interested in the strait of Hormuz and they logically don’t give any weight to Iran destroying or badly wounding Israel. Obama has washed his hands of Israel, he will accept the iranian nuke as long as it is ONLY aimed at Israel and not at the Hormuz strait: Clear, and logical dont’ you think ?
You are simply the most interesting person on the planet re: middle east issues
thank you
“they withstand more G’s than men”
Check that fact please…all flight instructors I’ve known say the exact opposite….that women black out sooner under g’s, and thus will at greater risk to being shot down by most any man in a dogfight as he can typically turn harder, longer.
General aviation skills and weapon systems articulation against ground and/or non evasive/distant air targets is a non issue, I’m specifically referring to resistance to G-forces. Its my understanding women typically have a lower threshold.
Just like they typically have with Push-ups, Pull-ups, endurance and load carrying. That I can attest to.
The sad part is, Dempsey is just a good soldier following orders. I’m sure he has been given his marching orders from Obama that not one thing will happen to Iran before the election. Nothing that could possibly widen the war in Afghanistan. I’m sure that if either Israel or America bombs Iran, Iran has made it perfectly clear that it will mean total war across the board, meaning Hezbollah will attack Israel from Southern Lebanon, Iran will destabilize what is left of Iraq, and Iran will probably send full army divisions into Afghanistan to help the Taliban, greatly widening the war there. And let’s not even talk about the Straits of Hormuz or the Persian Gulf itself. They will be loaded with sea mines before you know it.
Dempsey is not stupid. He knows all of this and he also knows that we are in no shape financially to take on a huge war like this. The only real option is massive Black Ops inside of Iran to try and destabilize the government, making it possible for the people to overthrow it. But I doubt Obama is even willing to do this before the election. I feel sorry for soldiers like Dempsey, because they are only following orders.
You are painfully WRONG. An Israeli strike, one that almost certainly fail, will instigate a missile campaign against ISRAEL. It will short and sweet. And Iran will cruise out of the NPT into the nuclear club.
If the U.S.gov joins in on the attack, then this becomes an existential war for Iran and they proceed to escalate to all the things you listed plus many more you have not even thought of. The U.S.gov stands to lose a CBG in the PG, its HQ in Bahrain, stands to be overrun in Kuwait, stands to have 30% of the oil shut down. And quite more.
Iran and U.S.gov do not want war with each other. Each knows that. Israel knows that too. That is why it is too chikensh*t to attack without a guarantee of military support action by the U.S.gov.. That is why your PM, with all his legions of dual loyalist Israel-firsters in AIPAC and CONGRESS and the MEDIA are going beat B.O. and his generals over the head until they agree to self immolate.
You traitors disgust me.
The U.S.gov and Israel interests DIVERGE
once you start using caps, you’ve lost the argument. stick with lower case.
Koos Amak Emir. Iran is toast.
If the issue is still alive when president Santorum takes over, he will tell Iran to shut down all nuclear activities; or he will.They won’t, he will, and we will all live happily ever after.
I thank him for his service. I also want to say that he’s a pawn in their game.
I hope I am right, but I think I am wrong in suggesting the possibility that Gen. Dempsey’s comments (and those of other administration quacks) may be construed as misdirection. If anybody is going to initiate an attack, I would think that it would be better if the attack-ee felt confident that an attack was not about to happen.
Personally, I think the Americans and the Israelis, as well as the Brits, French, et al, would do well to just keep their traps shut. Uncertainty in an enemy is a good thing. Right?
Great points, as always. I haven’t had time to write about this, but I consider the whole “rational” theme misguided. If there’s one thing the 20th century taught us, it’s that one can be “rational” and very bad at the same time. The point about the mullahs in charge of Iran is that they do evil and seek to do more of it. Being “rational” doesn’t somehow make them easier to work with.
I do think they are rational. What they are NOT is just, amenable to comnpromise, or supplied with compunction. They very rationally calculate that they can withstand sanctions and press on toward their goals, because they have so far, and they continue to get help doing it. They very rationally suppose that Russia and China will be interested to keep their hand in with Iran by continuing to do business with her. How could they be wrong about that? — history is on their side. They very rationally calculate that Russia and China will be able to deter the US, and possibly even Israel, from attacking Iran. As the Eastern hemisphere sees it, that is exactly what has happened in Syria. If one were betting on what Obama will do, the average person would bet just about as the mullahs do.
They are not irrational, they are evil. That’s why they could be successfully intimidated by genuine, and generalized, determination. Evil is a coward, only as “strong” as we let it be. Reagan proved that against the Soviet Union.
The most desirable outcome with Iran has never been a military attack against her. Of all the Islamic nations of the Middle East, Iran is just about the best constituted to reform herself from within. That is what we should be pushing for — the way Reagan did, by supporting reformist and liberalizing movements, by strengthening our miitary hand against the self-declared enemy, and by calling out evil for what it is.
The Iranians can’t…simply can’t…be “rational” in our Western sense because their Islamic history and theology and traditions are “rational” only when viewed from an Islamic/theocratic standpoint.
We in the West have a major problem in anticipating the belligerent actions of those in the Islamic East by our Western secular standards. They’re separate poles.
That seems to leave us in the awkward position of straddling a “re-active” military position side by side with a “pro-active” military position.
General Dempsey’s position is one of having to straddle his public statements, whether he believes them or not, with what is discussed behind closed doors….and the orders of his dangerously inexperienced Commander-in-Chief.
Lastly…. we hapless commentators here are are at the bottom of the information chain…we’re mere observers and readers of after-action reports.
I wish us, all of us, luck.
Well,I guess first I should say I have little respect for those that make it to the JCS. Most are not real combat types. The Generals that command do not have time for the political games needed to make it to the JCS. Those that do make it to JCS are so far removed from any time they might have spent in a combat leadership role, they forget what it was like.
Now, as to women in combat roles. I believe you will find that they all have requested to be there. They have worked hard to learn their skills and want to prove they are just as good or better at their jobs and just as dedicated as the male troops. We are no longer a nation where the womenfolk sit at home while their husbands, brothers or lovers go off to war. They want to be by their sides fighting for what they believe in. I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell any woman in the Armed Services… Move over little lady and let a man handle that, I’ve been out too long and I sure don’t want to get my butt kicked at my age.
very good thinking, perry. our warrior women are often extraordinary. and don’t be so hard on the generals at JCS. I know some that are terrific, and very much involved in combat both before and after their JCS billet.
“Now, as to women in combat roles. I believe you will find that they all have requested to be there. They have worked hard to learn their skills and want to prove they are just as good or better at their jobs and just as dedicated as the male troops.”
You are incorrect. Women are not in combat roles (infantry, armor, artillery), but combat support roles. Then didn’t “request” to be there, but simply deployed with their units. Due to the scope of combat in the ME, support units are engaging the enemy much more often than their traidtional roles in warfare.
I’ve noticed that most people with an opinion on this never wore a uniform or understand exactly what is asked in the service. It simply becomes another armchair issue over gender equality in an alternative “career path”. There is also no longer a legal basis for exempting young women from the draft. How “heroic” of those American citizens favoring this, but it won’t be them going abroad now will it.
Dempsey should have asked his troops who were blasted to bits by Iranian made IEDs whether they think that the Iranian regime is a rational actor.
I loved that you picked up on that “destabilization” bugaboo word from the Vietnam days when we “understood everything” as Communist Dominoes (sounds like a fun game) and the almighty “domino theory.”
The State Department has been unequaled in modern history in inventing absolutely vacuous phrases. For example “At this POINT in time we will…” … ok, well how’s that any different than, “At this time we will…”
It’s the same as this new nonsense surrounding “kinetic” — someone has been flipping through his son’s Physics 101 book for good “new words” to foist upon an unwitting public. I’d pay good money to see a war in which no kinetic energy is spent — since, um, typically, Mr. speechwriter, there’s (1) “kinetic energy” and there is “potential energy” — but “kinetic” by its lonesome sound like a name for a Rock&Roll group, and, again, by its self makes me think of “spastic.” Hey I’m just free-associating here. And anyway this is coming from a guy who dropped out after 3 years of hard-core Physics at UC Berkeley — that’s back in the day where they told you before the beginning of the first class: “exactly 50% of you will be getting the grade of ‘C,’ a smaller percent ‘B,’ and smaller percent still, ‘A’ – it was clear that we were competing against each other and that the phrase “grade inflation had not yet quite made its way out to the Left Coast, the veritable birthplace of “student takeovers,” Sproul Plaza, Power to the People, and the whole Mishpacha — the thought still makes me quiver till this day: I… I was being asked to… t… I can barely say it, to LEARN! (I mean who were those people anyway?). It worked out well for me though as I found Computer Science and we’ve been married for, wow, it’ll be 25 years now (w/an MS in there somewhere and some refreshing Talmud study in Jerusalem too).
But you know what was worse than kinetic: “optics” — again, someone foraging through their kid’s Physics book: I’m telling you it’s the same guy! I still am not sure how they are using this word “optics!” Clearly from its more traditional definitions, it has something to do with viewing and distortion (which can be good or bad depending on whether you want to distort the other other guy / country or bad in the inverse case.
But if they’re just using it as a “new and ostensibly cool” way of saying “point of view” as in “the point of view from where the Senator is sitting is, sadly, less clear than the optics with which we can see the battlefield and all the required Geo-spatial data-points including the Dow at THIS POINT IN TIME than from on the ground barf…uh, cleanup on isle 4 by the Fox News reporter.”
It’s just this constant grabbing for “words of hard science” — which all the soft sciences do all the time, so I suppose speechwriters can do it too that I guess just get to me on occasion. It’s just that English happens to be one of the most descriptive languages in the word. Sigh.
My all time favorite is: let’s just abandon the adjectives game altogether and merely refer to them in the abstract as in “We condemn this in the strongest possible terms” <—- WELL STATE DEPT., What TERMS might those be? You are now well insulated from every having said anything of substance other than the one word “condemn” — well one can condemn a bully taking candy from a smaller kid, on can condemn a robbery, and one can condemn the Armenian Massacre. So “Condemn” in an of itself” really isn’t going to “do it” for you Mr Speech writer, that is if precision is what you’re after. Me thinks it’s the opposite of precision that is what these “speech templates” allows. “We’re commending it now, and we’ll tell you how much we condemn it after we get a feel at the UN for exactly what the rest of the scared quivering ambassadors think, or were instructed to think/say. This allows us to fill in those “severity levels” with which we condemn (and we condemn it 100%!) the latest hideous act in Iran, but until we are all “on board” with our allies, and various ministers and senators, we cannot fill-in the actual words of severity with which we condemn this… this…. thing lest otherwise we’ll be seen as, gasp leading! No No, perish the thought!”
Are they these: (1) “angry” (2) “disgraceful”(3) “disgust” (4) “forcefully?”
But as the 1960′s were known for the first really serious computer programs, the State Department (and other large American bureaucracies) decided to jump in. This enabled us to say something that sounded damning, but without really saying anything. George Orwell would be proud. If you condemn something in the strongest possible terms! And am allowed to misplace those exact, uh, “terms” (they’re around here somewhere, the speaker says while patting his coat pockets, I remember folding them up and putting them… no, darnit, that was the parking ticket. Well, we’ll provide any journalist that really must have those terms spelled out (unintelligible)…
But once the State Department realized they could frame all their statements in such a manner – using the notions of abstractions as they now do, all the easier it was then to deny it, or amplify it, however much the situation called for! Fun with words!
They even created an algorithm, to back them up if necessary (if some pesky English major journalist asked “which words, precisely, are you sir, referring to?”
“We condemn this in the strongest possible terms”
RUN (let SP[i]=word, i=0; i=i+1; until i < (a reasonable length tirade as defined by POTUS) {StrongestPossible = choose from the set of all known words in English language where word is also in the set of [negative English adjectives & adverbs] SP[i] = StrongestPossible; loop;} i = max-words;
Now State can just hand over the following to the inquiring mind, I mean journalist: RUN (For i=0 i< max-words; i=i+1 {print SP[i]};) editing the list as they so desired to meet the 24-hour news-pulse of the day.
have you thought of starting your own blog FF? really. this is terrific and very good fun.
Yeah I’d like to start my own blog, how do it do it and make money?
I don’t have a CS or Physics MS (had to refer to FF on spelling), but I do have a BS Economics with mucho international and foreign policy exposure, export trade (aircraft stuff) for many years and broadband….
I read about Dempsey, armor MOS, adv. degree in English, professional a** kisser etc. The “rational actor” stuff exposes a useful idiot.
Bottom line: the Israelites will clobber Iran soon, and depending on how bad BHO internals are, we may join in. It also depends on what Bibi has in the dosier on BHO ie history, UBL BS-story, sexual stuff etc as crunch time is now.
How am I doin’ so far?
Yours.
RMH
well it’s very hard to make any money from writing. just ask my kids…but the best advice is to write, and submit to the publication of your choice, and if you’re good, and lucky, you’ll find your way. you’re doing fine.
….Hey! may I contribute “metrics”?…the metrics of this, the metrics of that, metrics here, there, everywhere.
Frumi – In the field, “kinetic” and “non-kinetic” are simple and clear words which distinguish between operations which effect via killing people vs. operations which effect via another TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures) such as training, building a road, handing our soccer balls, etc.
Let me write General Dempsey’s rational speeches:
Concerning Iran’s mass facilitating the conduction toward acceleration of more and more Israeli potential energy, in conjunction with the diffraction of Iran’s truth while taking account the gravity of the situation in the field, will provide clues to Iran’s momentum and energy, assisted by the American optics of Iran’s impulse toward war.
Beats the heck out of “leading from behind.”
Wonderful stuff. “point in time” has always bugged me, as which points are they that exist outside of time. Possibly imperfect memory tells me that this came up during Watergate, and that John Dean may have been the culprit.
Mike I finally fully agree with you, Netanyahu and anyyone with half a functioning neuron would be nuts to pay attention to anything that comes from the Obama White House. Good grief I was listening to an interview with Obama’s mid east specialist Samantha Powers in which she recommended invading Israel to prevent Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians. Add on the acknowledged incompetence of Brennan, Clapper, Hillary, General Jones to say nothing of Obama’s arrogant ignorance and you have the theme for the next Baron Sasha Cohen movie. The mere fact that General Dempsey found favor in Obama’s eyes speaks against his competence and character.
hey! even Obama makes mistakes. there are plenty of good people in there…but it’s hard to remember the last time a high official resigned over policy. Maybe Cyrus Vance?
” the United States is a revolutionary country. Our very existence is destabilizing, especially to the tyrants who are trying very hard to kill us.”
That is an awesome concept, and you sir, need both the commentation for it and the flag pole to run it up. My thinking was just changed!
My add-ins to your commentary: The warrior traditionalists in this war on terror are stuck on the old rules. Marching in rows and columns and shooting in volleys did not help the Colonial British until the revolutionaries tried to match them. This is where women warriors can succeed. The asymetry of the M.E. is that it is a men’s only staging.
yes, JED, women are a great revolutionary force, especially in the Middle East nowadays.
Once again Bravo Michael for exposing our weak paper tiger policy makers and in this case our General Dempsey and at the same time giving them some real education!
Hope they read and take it well like a good soldier and a good public servant!
dear Michael…..
as usual…..you’re RIGHT ON…….but you know what……folks in DC who really make the policy are MORONS……Dempsey included……but most of the idiots are collectively are in state dept…….lol
told you in 2003……regieme in iran can be fliped easier than most think….b/c its a street thing not a complex problem…..as long as you drive a wedge between people and gov. that runs things.
most of the problems is solved……we are already there…..now is the easy part…..supplying tools/weapons…..to people on the streets………to create chaos and allow the people to direct ALL of their anger and frustrations directly against the gov…into action……
I know your group always preach non-violent movement…but you know what……you folks all are wrong that theory will never work in iran and not w/ this gov………I mean NEVER…
if we ever want to destroy this cancer (islam) islamic gov….from iran……they are like cancer and only will be removed by force…..the trick is …we have to allow people of iran to do it themselves or it won’t work…………..sorry……its a cultural thing……pride….persian pride…
persian culture won’t allow it…..even the iranians who hate the gov….(over 90%) will join forces w/ the arabs who are runnig the islamic gov to defend the country……….and thats what those ayatollahs are counting on…for foreigners to attack….
.we need to make sure to let the world recognize that people of iran have no idea what the arabs in charge called islamic republic are doing on their behalf and expose more of their bank accounts on european and overseas banks…..@ the same time drive a wedge between persian people and arabs(ayatollahs)and those who are livin as al qaida or anyother name .specially the office that hamas opened up in tehran recently……most of the info that we know…..people of iran have no clue …what is being done on their behalf………….and if Israel attacks…..which I think it should…..and secretly ….most of the people inside iran i talked to….they want israel to attack…..they see it as a sign of vengence taking against ayatollahs for years of pain and suffering the people had to endure by the hand of mullahs…..so people secretly would support israel……..inside
but what they don’t understand is how coward the great untied state has become in the world……..there was a time that united states would demand respect now a few ayatollahs w/ few missles bought from russian mob….can scrae the pants off of the great power so easily………..so now even the people of iran don’t trust the noise that is comming from washington…….they know its all hot air………as usual….
if and only if the idiots in washington got serious about destroying the ayatollahs once and for all……let me know……I think we can help…..other than that don’t waste your time…..what will be will be………..God helps us all…………………….
just to let you know……….I am a political Zionist…..
D
ps….it doesn’t hurt to tell that kid ….pahlavi……to be more visible in public so people of iran who most of them don’t even know him………would get to know who he is……it would be a good start….
BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!!
Thank you Mr Ledeen for stating the obvious. It is so apparent that The General as well as Secretary Panetta have their White House approved scripts prepared for prime time.
Unfortunately they are so counterintuitive to rational policy that one cannot help but be caught with that “huh, what-did-he-say-moment” owing to the incongruity of his reasoning.
I have tried, repeatedly, to point out the unreliablesness of any cogent semblance of containment in President Obama’s Iran policy as well as in most of his foreign policy decisions. Ideology supplants reasoning as policy.
I am sure the general is a talented individual but sometimes principles must stand above lap-dog rhetoric.
I just keep hoping that all the public talk is disinformation and that we are actively engaged in the background destabilizing Iran and that we are succeeding beyond our wildest dreams. If anyone thinks that Iran is not interested in targeting the US, read today’s article about the wife of the Iranian nuclear scientist that was blown away in January. He dreamed of nuking Israel and the US. I doubt if he was the only nut who had those goals.
I’ll remind everyone that Persia/Iran has been a thorn in the side of Western Civ for multiple millenia. For them it’s a feature, not a bug. Throw islam into the pot and stir and I’m afraid that Belmont Club’s Three Conjectures are a lot closer to reality than the administration is willing to admit. Is evil less real because the powers that be cover their eyes and ears and yell lalalalala Bushdidit! really loud? We can thank another notable Democrat president for this for not making the rubble bounce in Tehran in ’79, cowardly plick.
Michael Ledeen wrote: “Every time I hear some policy maker talk about “destabilizing” (as you did the other day, discussing a possible Israeli military attack on Iran) my heart sinks….”
Amen. So does my heart sink. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000. Where was Ledeen’s heart when Bush repeatedly mislead the American people about Islam, Saudi Arabia’s complicity in the global jihad, Israel, Iran, etc., following the 9/11 Muslim-terror atrocities in New York and Washington? I lost faith and confidence in Bush. Where were conservatives and Republican leaders? Why did Republicans and conservatives carry Bush’s water for seven plus years after 9/11 in light of all these untruths. Were Republicans, like Santorum said last night, “team players?”
The following is what President George W. Bush’s Joint Chief of Staff said about Israel during the second Bush term:
“Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has warned that an Israeli strike on Iran could prove “extremely stressful” for his forces.
Mullen: “Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us. That doesn’t mean we don’t have capacity or reserve but that would really be very challenging, and also the consequences of that are sometimes very difficult to predict.”
“He said an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would be a high-risk move that could destabilise the whole of the Middle East.”
Where was Ledeen? Where were conservatives, radio talk show hosts, etc.? Where were Republican leaders?
I was fiercely attacking Bush, Cheney and the others, in books and blogs you have not been courteous or serious enough to read.
Fair enough. You make a valid point. Perhaps you can direct us (me and your readers) where to look for your attacks. I purchased one of your earlier books (Kindle edition), “The War Against the Terror Masters.” I bought that one first because I am interested in your perspective on the overall “war on terror” as Bush put it. Here’s my problem.
On page 201, you wrote:
“In the summer of 2001, Prince Abdullah sent a personal message to President Bush that was unprecedented in the history of U.S.–Saudi relations for its lack of diplomacy. In essence, Abdullah said that either the United States stop Israeli military actions against the Palestinians, or the Saudis would end their strategic alliance with Washington. This from a country whose survival depended on the American strategic umbrella! The White House did not respond immediately, and while President Bush pondered his options, September 11 arrived and put the Saudi question in an entirely different context. Now we began to realize the enormity of our shortsightedness. Just as we had failed to notice the emergence of the terror network itself, American diplomats, intelligence officers, and policy makers had failed to notice that the Saudi royal family was underwriting the terror masters…..”
But what did President Bush do after 9/11? “President Bush refused on Tuesday to release a congressional report alleging possible links between Saudi Arabian officials and the Sept. 11 hijackers.” (CBS) “BUSH REFUSED TO RELEASE 28 PAGES FROM CONGRESSIONAL 9/11 REPORT ALLEGEDLY DETAILING SAUDI FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR TERROR” (Time Magazine)
Within hours of receiving Crown Prince Abduallah’s twenty-five page letter late August 2001, President Bush caved to the prince’s brinkmanship. Bush betrayed an friend and ally (Israel) at the urging of an enemy.
You wrote, “the White House did not respond immediately.”
“Within thirty six hours, Bandar returned to Riyadh with a groundbreaking personal message written by the president to mollify Abdullah…” (House of Bush, House of Saud by [left-leaning investigative reporter] Craig Unger pg. 243)
“The Prince (Prince Bandar bin Sultan) thought it would take four or five days to get a reply from the White House. To his great surprise, the administration went into overdrive, and thirty six hours later he had Bush’s response in hand.
“It was just two pages long and ‘very classic Texan’ in its bluntness, as Bandar remembered it….Finally Bush committed the United States for the first time in writing to seeing a Palestinian state established alongside Israel.
…Bandar was overwhelmed… Abdullah was equally moved and relieved.”
“….Bush’s advisers were hard at work over the weekend of September 8-9 drafting a major Middle East policy speech and that the only remaining question was whether the president himself or Secretary of State Powell would deliver it.” (The King’s Messenger by David B. Ottoway)
Mr. Ledeen, George W. Bush became the first American president to make the establishment of a Muslim-enemy state in Israel’s heartland “a formal goal of U.S. policy.” Bush codified it for the first time in the history of the GOP in our national party platform, August 2004, over the objections of Cathie Adams, Texas delegate to the platform writing committee. Where was the outrage? Where were conservative activists and Republican leaders? Where were Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity?
You wrote: “Our overall mission was defined early on by President Bush when he declared war on the terrorists themselves and on the countries that harbor or support terrorism — but it is complicated in practice.” (page 156)
Indeed. The Palestinian Authority (Fatah / PLO) harbors and supports terrorism. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (the man Bush called a “man of peace; a man of vision”) was arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat’s right hand man for decades. He allegly financed the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes. He is a Holocaust denier; a Muslim terrorist and a Jew hater.
Bush repeatedly misled the public about the nature of the enemy. Bush said:
“The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam…..
“Its (Islam’s) teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah….
“The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.”
Bush invited jihadists to meet with him in the White House. He campaigned with them in Florida to get out Florida’s Muslim vote in 2000. Bush celebrated Ramadan with them. Bush prayed with them in their mosques. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Omar Ahmad, Sami Al-Arian, Abdurahman Alamoudi, etc.
This borders on treason, does it not? Where was the outcry on the right? Is it any wonder American elected this dangerous man who now occupies the White House, November 2008?
Again Mr. Ledeen, I am waiting for you to cite where you’ve attacked former President George W. Bush (much less fiercely attacked him) in books and blogs that I’ve not been courteous or serious enough to read. I am speaking of fiercely criticizing Bush on fundamental foreign policy that has had disastrous implications for the United States. Foreign policy such as standing by our friends, identifying the enemy, etc.
Sun Tzu’s dictum, “Know your enemy” is fundamental to winning a war. Some of the strongest things I found thus far are similar to the following:
You wrote: “Instead of working to bring down the regime in Tehran, the Bush administration fell into the same trap as all its predecessors, from that of the hapless Jimmy Carter to the present. Every president during that thirty-year span, whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, eventually convinced himself that we could make a deal with the mullahs, and they all pursued this deal as energetically as conditions permitted…” (Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West)
As I wrote earlier, Bush became the first American president to make the establishment of a Palestinian Muslim state in Israel a “formal goal of U.S. policy.” Bush betrayed our only reliable friend in the region at the behest of our enemies. The Muslim and the Muslim-Arab world is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The Palestinians are merely a proxy for the Muslim world’s on-going war of annihilation of the Jews. What did you write or say about this transformative and immoral policy decision by Bush? Bush caved late August 2001. He sold-out to a Saudi prince.
President Bush repeatedly mislead the American people about Islam, assuring us that Islam is a religion of peace; that the “terrorists” are traitors to their faith. What did you write about these untruths Bush propagated for seven years post 9/11? Bush called the Saudis our friends when nothing could be further from the truth.
This has been my problem with prominent conservatives with influence in Washington like yourself. You were silent with respect to the most egregious things Bush said and did as president; things that have had lasting consequences for the conservative movement and this country including, I believe, the election of this dangerous president who currently resides in the White House.
you are asking me to write a book or blog about subjects i haven’t addressed, which is like asking a basketball coach to deliver a sermon about soccer. i was vigorously critical of Bush et al for doing Iraq militarily when we should have focused on Iran, with a very different strategy. i don’t get much involved in the Palestinian issue. there are plenty of people who do. talk to them. For me, Iran, Syria, and terrorism are quite enough to fill my aging grey cells.
You are an American citizen, are you not?
I am not asking you to write a book expressly about the Muslim world war against the Jews, but why not touch on it? I am asking you to address subjects that are relevant to your worldview.
You advised President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, Alexander Haig. Wasn’t Haig the only member of Reagan’s cabinet that had the courage to say Israel did the U.S. a favor when she bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, 1981? The others (James Baker III, George H. W. Bush Sr., Casper Weinberger) demanded Israel be punished? Didn’t Reagan order U.S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick to condemn Israel in the United Nations Security Council? Didn’t the Security Council unanimously condemn Israel for doing something which the international community later thanked Israel during the first Gulf War and G. W. Bush’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom?”
Did any conservatives then (do any conservatives today) find fault with President Reagan – albeit he did many good things – for his weak / pusillanimous policies in the Middle East? Didn’t Osama bin Laden cite Reagan when he (Reagan) cut and ran, February 1984, from Lebanon because an Iranian proxy blew up the U.S. Marine barracks, murdering 241 US Marines? Because of that in addition to Vietnam, Somalia, etc., Bin Laden said Americans are weak. Did conservatives take Reagan to task for dealing with the murderous Iranian regime; trading arms to Iran in exchange for hostages held in Lebanon?
I do not disagree with your view on Iran as I understand it, except that at this juncture regime change is wishful thinking. Isn’t it?
The only thing that can conceivably stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power — with nuclear-armed missiles aimed at Israel’s cities, Europe’s cities and one day perhaps aimed at American cities — is military force. I do not see this administration acting militarily anymore than I expected the Bush administration to act militarily. So that leaves it to Israel. Absent the Israelis acting, the world’s worst nightmare will become reality.
Mr. Ledeen, as men with aging brain cells (you and I), we both know politics is about doing what is right, even in the small things. As I say, what most disappointed me was the negligence on the part of you and others, not holding Bush accountable for the very bad things he did and said following the 9/11 attacks; his misleading the public about the nature of the enemy, the Muslim war against Israel, etc. You cannot separate the “Palestinian” issue (thank God there is no Palestine or Palestinian state “yet” in Israel) from the Muslim and the Muslim-Arab war against Israel, and the Muslim war against the West. Israel and the Muslim world war against Israel’s Jews is central to understanding this global conflict.
no, you asked if i had criticized Bush. I said I had. so then you changed the subject: yes, I had criticized Bush on Iran, but I failed to criticize him for other things. i said i didn’t work on those things. you think i should. perhaps i should, but i don’t. and i didn’t work on Middle East questions for Haig, either (the Soviet Union was the main enemy and the main worry).
you can’t do everything well. i try to do serious work on those subjects i think i understand. i haven’t worked on the stuff that you want me to address. so i’m not writing about that stuff. sorry.
Iran a rational actor? Who knows?
From the moment I saw Bush on the aircraft carrier, I’ve worried whether the USA is a rational actor.
Michael, thank you for the wise letter. But unfortunately is addressed to a blind administration and to its paper tigers who do not dare to aiming their warnings to the HOLLOW regimes (the masters of international terrorism) who murder them more than 30 years.
I wonder, the innocent of women and children in Syria are kidnapped and raped and a butchered and mass murder around the clock by Bashar Assad’s thugs, after all, comes an decent general describing them in “rational goves”…How their conscience could allows them to think positively about the most evil leaders in the region?! Syrians asking for “SOS” in most of Syrian towns…they are bleeding to death and asking the entire world to stop the massacres that committed by Assad’s brutal regime and also with the help and blessing of its close allies “Russians and Chinese”. Sir, this is your moral duty as a great nation to HELP THEM, per se is a defend your life and your values and freedoms.
In Tehran, the mullahs are seeking to acquire the bomb, because this is a part and parcel from the nature of the Islamic fanatic theocratic regime. The using of Hard-Power is the best solution to deal with this sort of evil people. the USA should deters them…the world without them would become happier and safer.
Who knew the Chairman of the JCS was a ‘Paulbot’? And how exactly is Russia ‘convulsed’ Mr. Ledeen?
ask Putin about all those ongoing demonstrations…he knows…
I am fed up with political generals, more concerned with saving the political lives of their paymasters than with protecting the actual lives of troops on the ground.
Michael,
I want the regime to fall, and I think nukes in their hands is terrifying, and will be “highly destabilizing” if it occurs. But as to openly calling for Iranians to overthrow their regime, let me pose a hypothetical: let’s say we call for a peaceful revolt, and then they peacefully revolt, and then the regime starts slaughtering them, this goes on for months, the opposition takes up arms, and they ask for help, what then? (Notice the lack of originality in this scenario, aside from our calling for peaceful revolt). Did we lead them on? Is it then worth sending Marines in?
The regime has killed plenty of Marines (and other Americans, military and civilian), but I’m not sure the Iranian opposition, as oppressed as they are, are worth more dead Marines.
Not saying that’s what you’re proposing, but there are echoes of Hungary in 1956, or the Shia in Iraq after Gulf War I.
they did rise, on their own, and we in essence embraced the regime. never mind hypotheticals. we already abandoned them, more than once (Powell walked away from supporting a scheduled general strike in 2003. so far as I know, neither Bush nor Obama has ever established a dialogue with the opposition, although obviously I wouldn’t necessarily know about secret talks…but I will write a bit about such talks shortly, including back channels to the regime as well.
This general needs to man-up. When I see Panetta too, I see a staggering cluelessness and a very troublesome attitude; as if he has been sold a bill of very suspect goods. There is some kind of betrayal in the WH; the MB there, advisors must have the entire administration by the gonads.
So Dempsey (the PC General and not the warrior general)… Am I right or am I right????
While realizing that they have a putative commander in chief, Generals who go along to get along aren’t doing anybody any favors. Except maybe, they imagine, themselves & their careers.
I heard a weak, tentative General Dempsey on the news, just as I heard a dissembling General Casey in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings. (I think that the families of those slaughtered at Ft. Hood have a legitimate cause against the army for handling Mjr. Hasan with kid gloves in the years leading up to the slaughter.)
While remaining “loyal”, General Petraeus has managed to convey his intense dislike for the conduct of the military action in Afghanistan and for America’s intentions there.
The lesson of Hitler and Stalin is that both could have been easily stopped early on.Unfortunately we are past early on with Iran.
yes indeed.
Poor Israel. History will recall no two bigger fools than Bush and Obama.
Do you know that there is only one member of the Joint Chiefs who has a combat medal? He is the Marine. (General Amos, Bronze Star.) Figures.
I thnk GEN Dempsey has a Bronze Star w/V device and Oak Leaf cluster.
It is so depressing when our top military leaders are revealed to be so naive, politically correct and foolish.
‘You say they’re “rational.” Are mass murder, mass torture, and mass rape in Iran and Syria “rational”?’ From a certain perspective the answer is yes, yes and YES!! Hitler’s attacks on the Jews, first in Germany then generally, was highly rational. First, it silenced the Intelligentsia, which had an over representation of Jews. Second, it gained access to Jewish wealth, which was extensive. Third, it focused blame on the OTHERS among US. Evil is often rational, oft-times more so than the pure of heart.
Who were the generals that saw the Wehrmacht overwhelm them, when Hitler’s military were rolling up victories, during the Second World War?
Dempsey is just as forgettable as them.
I must admit that this statement by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dempsy, about his fear that any actions that Israel we might take against Iran would likely “destabilize” the Middle East, is just one of a few troubling recent statements by some of our “top” military leaders that, it seems to me, betray a warped sense of priorities, a fundamentally wrong misreading of the world situation, a real lack of common sense, way too much political correctness, a lack of toughness, and almost naiveté, none of which fill me with confidence.
Start with two other statements by Dempsy in recent testimony, in which he characterized the barking mad Iranian leaders as “rational actors,” and the “Muslim Brotherhood”–whose stated goal is the imposition of of a world-wide Caliphate and Shari’a law–as an a-political organization doing good works, and a force for good in the Middle East.
Then, there was the statement a while ago by Army Chief of Staff General Casey, that his overriding concern was that our reactions to the Jihadi massacre carried out by Major Nidal Hasan at Ft. Hood (13 killed, 30 other soldiers shot, and many of them seriously injured) wouldn’t harm Army efforts to promote “diversity.” This on top of Army and Homeland Security reports on this Jihadi massacre by self-professed “soldier of Allah” Hasan that in almost 200 pages managed to not once mention Islam, Jihad, Muslims, or terrorism, and which categorized this massacre as an instance of “workplace violence.”
I’m hoping that this crap is just something that these top generals—seemingly from these statements more politicians than military leaders and warriors–feel they have to say in the current political climate, and that it does not really reflect what they believe, or the policies that they are implementing, and how they are attempting to protect the United States and its citizens.
These are, however, the military leaders that Obama has kept or put in place.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that they are saying what they truly believe, or are very cynically playing to Obama & Co., which makes me believe that they are much more politicians than warriors in the tradition of past leaders like Pershing and Patton—the type of “old fashioned,” fearless, blunt military leaders that we could sure use a whole bunch of right about now.
GL dEMPSEY IS JUST A PITIFULL SIMPLETON: BY STATING THAT A CRIMINAL ACTS LOGICALLY TO REACH HIS AIMS YOU DO NOT GIVES HIM A FAVOR,IN ANY CRIMINAL COURT A MURDERER WHO HAS KILLED IN COLD BLOOD, IN A LOGICAL MANNER, WHO HAS SUCCEEDED TO CANCEL HIS VICTIM WILL BE CHARGED WITH THE HARSHEST PENALTY I.E THE DEATH PENALTY. BUT IN GL DEMPSEY TWISTED ” LOGIC ” A CRIMINAL REGIME , WHICH KILLS THOUSANDS OF OPPONENTS AT HOME , WHO MAIMS THROUGH ITS PROXIES, HUNDREDS OF US SOLDIERS IN IRAQ, IN AFGHANISTAN , WHO ASSIST THE SYRAINS BUTCHERS, IS ONLY LOGICAL AND THIS LOGICAL QUALIFICATION SHOULS ABSOLVE HIM OF ITS CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR. WELL GL DEMPSEY THE NAZIS WERE LOGICAL, THE KGB WAS LOGICAL,
THE JAPANESE ATTACKING PEARL HARBOUR WERE LOGICAL. HOW LONG WILL YOU, GL DEMPSEY TRY TO FAKE THE REALITY TO PLEASE YOUR MASTER, THE UBER-LOGICAL CHAMBERLAIN OF OUR TIME ?
ARTICLE TITLE INCOMPLETE
It should be “to General Dempsey as he speaks within the White House Doctrine.”
Military freedom of speech vanished in 1948 when the Air Force was made independent. Armed Services were decapitated, replaced by Civilian Secretaries with authority over strategy, tactics, materiel etc. Service Chief heads rolled into a cage called “Joint Chiefs of Staff.” After MacArthur was removed, the Joint Chiefs learned to their horror that as an advisory group they were not to offer advice on anything new unless asked by the White House. On new things, keep mouth shut until White House has finished its ruminations.
The USN and MacArthur’s replacement and the new field commander had planned 5 amphibious landings which would have turned the Chinese Army into suchi. Truman ordered that there would be no more amphibious landings in the Korean Peninsula. Care to guess on the Joint Chiefs’ opinions on that?
Field grade officers and above speak with the voice of the White House, or within the field defined by the White House. To do otherwise is to be a civilian in 24 hours. Those articles by sergeants and butter bars in the service magazines, some of them say hair-raising things. One wonders about that.
Women in the military is a project with problems. The prime failure, typical of all social engineering, is that it has not been analyzed for monetary cost.
On the job, they are possibly in a live-fire situation. Biologically, men are expendable and women are not and that tends to be an issue in the mind that one knows even if not an item of learning. This can be alleviated somewhat. Female troops, Army/Marines, after Basic Training should have additional training in rifle marksmanship. A rifle is like a violin. The important rifle skill is learning where the sights predict the bullet will go, being able to advance the trigger without disturbing the sight alignment, and getting the conscious mind to be a spectator. If shooting at 10 meters indoors with a .177 target air rifle long enough, one advances on the learning curve from the Equipment Familiarity part of the learning curve which everyone masters in Basic and goes out a distance on the Long Plod to Proficiency. The skill slowly grows. As rifle skills transfer freely among rifles, with Equipment Familiarity being the only barrier, the M16 range scores will go up. The men will notice this and have their natural feelings about females in combat negated by shooting scores. The females will get to the point they will not fire a miss. Scuttlebutt about females in live-fire will modify from what it is to things such as, “Well if they do manage to attack our warehouse, they are all doomed as soon as Betty-Lou steps out of her forklift.”
Michael…Well done…I also wrote complimentary note to Senator McCain regarding his comments after his meeting with Israeli PM..and both McCain and Graham spoke unkind words about Gen Dempsey and his political comments…reminds me of PM Chamberland (Britain) and his negotiating approach with Chancellor Hitler (the rational fellow)…lots of suffering there and finally some really big fireworks
When it comes to Iran and its nuclear ambitions I wish this Dempsey were a lot more like Jack.