Let the Swift-Boating of the Generals Begin

[MSgt213]

I know I posted to much but, this is a great response to the cowards who just don't get it.

We live in low, dishonest times, where spurious charges come fast and furious daily, but few can trump the cheapness of the recent attacks directed at some of the retired Generals that recently came out against Don Rumsfeld's stewardship of the war effort. Witness, for instance, Glenn Reynolds approvingly linking to this treatment from Judith Klinghoffer:

The American army in Iraq does not have a single general with enough guts to respond to the president's question with "depends on what you want us to do?" Sorry, guys, civil control of the military is not our problem. Gutless military leadership is.

To which Glenn comments: "Ouch". Ouch what? That someone sitting at the Political Science Department of Rutgers has the gall to speak of these men as "gutless"? Critics like these are not fit to shine, say, Major General Swannack's boots, let alone call him "gutless". It was the 82nd Airborne, after all, under the command of Charles Swannack, that took the lead on some of the most critical missions of the Iraq War, like establishing a training post for both Iraqi police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps under very difficult conditions in Ramadi around September of 2003. In addition, the 82nd was involved in some of the most difficult battles of the Iraq war, like that of Fallujah, in case anyone is keeping score, as we scandalously go about accusing people of being cowards. From a rapporteur's note of an appearance by Swannack at the Washington Insititute for Near East Policy:

Like other coalition forces, the 82nd Airborne had to deal with insurgent attacks on a daily basis, often involving AK-47 and RPK rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The insurgents also attacked coalition positions with mortar fire and rockets; U.S. troops used precision artillery strikes in retaliation. Not even aircraft were safe; several coalition helicopters were shot down in the Fallujah area by surface-to-air missiles. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) proved particularly dangerous; they are inexpensive to make, easy to conceal, and can be detonated remotely, allowing the attackers to escape. The most difficult of these devices are vehicle-borne IEDs. Even shooting the drivers before they reach their targets may not prevent them from accomplishing their objective. In addition, recurring attacks on military convoys led the 82nd Airborne to reinforce its vehicles. Steel plating was added to the doors of Humvees, and Kevlar blankets were used to line the floors. When the division was deployed out of Iraq, it left this material behind for the relieving unit. Surgical combat operations were the hallmark of the 82nd Airborne, which conducted over 600 such actions. These operations are very different in scope and technique from conventional warfare. Through them, the division was able to capture 3,800 individuals, including 37 high-value targets and 50 foreign fighters.

Indeed, Swannack personally escaped injury, when the convoy he was traveling in was attacked in Fallujah. Remember, all of you now, Judith Klinghoffer has described the man who led these men into battle, on the ground in Iraq under perilous circumstances, as being "gutless." Incroyable mais vrai, as the French say!

But there's more, much more. Let us not forget Major General Batiste, who commanded the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq from 2004-2005. The U.S. First Infantry Division is very storied indeed, the oldest continuously serving division in the U.S. Army. The 1st "successfully fought battles against Iraqi insurgents in Baquba, Najaf, and Samarra and joined the Marines in the second successful assault on Falluja" (see here). Many of these campaigns occurred under General Batiste's leadership, causing him doubtless frequently to grieve when troops under his command died. "Gutless" leadership, per Klinghoffer. Again, critics who dare to question these men's guts are not fit to shine their shoes, let alone castigate them for cowardice.

Klinghoffer writes:

To hear two and three star generals whine that Rumsfeld is too intimidating causes one to ask who else can so easily intimidate them? Are we talking perhaps of the insurgents, Ahmadinejad, Assad Fils, the North Korean or China? Imagine being a soldier who has served under the command of so easily intimidated a general.

"Imagine being a soldier who has served under the command of so easily intimidated a general."

Stop and think about that sentence for a second of two.

To which Glenn Reynolds adds:

If things were so bad before, they should have resigned in protest instead of complaining publicly once they were safely in retirement and, in some cases, had books to promote.

How disgusting. These Generals are not "whining" because Rumsfeld is "too intimidating". That's prima facie absurd. They're up in arms because they were too often facing conditions or fighting an enemy materially different than the one that was war-gamed, and to add insult to injury, Rumsfeld has often been too stubborn to make serious adjustments that run against the grain of his utopic transformationalist nostrums.

Regardless, the reasons they didn't resign in protest before are many. Because they have been wrestling with their consciences for years now, because they believe in this mission, because they wanted and still want to see it through, because they felt duty-bound to do so at the time they were leading their men into battle. Make no mistake, these are men of real character, in stark contrast to those who would so breezily impugn their motives. Glenn might have book promotion on his mind of late, but it is very low indeed to describe men like Swannack and Batiste as waiting until they were "safely in retirement" to come out and then intimate, wink-wink, that they might cash in on their criticisms of Rumsfeld, just because Zinni or such has a book out. I mean, General Batiste passed up a third star rather than continue to serve under Don Rumsfeld's command.

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/2006/04/let_the_swiftboating_of_the_ge.html