Time to hold the US generals accountable for Afg. and Iraq

[Dayuhan]

If we're going to apply scrutiny to and question the competence of generals who failed to achieve the objective of transforming Afghanistan, shouldn't we apply equal or greater scrutiny to the politicians and policymakers who elected to pursue that rather bizarre objective in the first place?

[Fuchs]

That is supposed to happen in about 4 year intervals.

[Dayuhan]

That is supposed to happen in about 4 year intervals.

One of those intervals approaches, so you can expect to see everybody who might be held accountable demanding that somebody else be held accountable.

[Bill Moore]

We gave our military virtually everything it asked for.

Yet, in the wars we have just been through, we are left with a troubling track record.

Some senior military leaders may have failed, but as others have pointed out our civilian leaders are the real blame for developing policy end states that were not and are not achievable through the application of military force.

The only people who speak positively about our current strategy are our senior leaders, so it appears our public affairs propaganda actually has more impact on our leaders than the intended audience and they have simply followed their own deception, or worse they're lying to the American people. Missteps are understandable and should be always be expected in war, and should be forgiven, but failing to learn and adapt is not. More stupid rarely works, recognizing something is stupid and then trying something else is more likely to succeed.

Leaders must be encouraged to generate independent ideas and then have the moral courage to voice them. Responsibility, moral courage, and competence are all intermingled and should be part of this discussion for both civilian and military leaders. I rarely see debates anymore, our leaders should deeply debate strategies and only salute and move out once the final decision is made, but now we're very quick to default to group think. Why? What has changed?

We have also lost our ability to judge our actions or their consequences with a critical eye.

The author may be right, but it is due more to a culture that prohibts being self-critical rather than having lost our ability to do so. Mistakes are common in war, that is why the credit belongs to the man in the arena, but the man in the arena is expected to be a thinking man capable of adapting, not something less than a man who blindly follows doctrine or a plan.

[JMA]

Leaders must be encouraged to generate independent ideas and then have the moral courage to voice them. Responsibility, moral courage, and competence are all intermingled and should be part of this discussion for both civilian and military leaders. I rarely see debates anymore, our leaders should deeply debate strategies and only salute and move out once the final decision is made, but now we're very quick to default to group think. Why? What has changed?

Because the moral courage to speak out and pension stability are incompatible. Soldiers who need/rely on their military pension will fold under pressure.

As is said, pension slavery makes (moral) cowards out of (physically) brave men.

My suggestion is that instead of borrowing billions from China to give to the Afghan kleptocracy who turn move it to Dubai (and other places)... why not look after your soldiers who have given the best years of their lives to the service and provide them with bullet proof pensions (safe from the despicable influence... and grubby paws of your politicians).

[Dayuhan]

Leaders must be encouraged to generate independent ideas and then have the moral courage to voice them. Responsibility, moral courage, and competence are all intermingled and should be part of this discussion for both civilian and military leaders. I rarely see debates anymore, our leaders should deeply debate strategies and only salute and move out once the final decision is made, but now we're very quick to default to group think. Why? What has changed? .

Are the debates not happening at all, or are they just not happening in public?

Because the moral courage to speak out and pension stability are incompatible. Soldiers who need/rely on their military pension will fold under pressure.

As is said, pension slavery makes (moral) cowards out of (physically) brave men.

My suggestion is that instead of borrowing billions from China to give to the Afghan kleptocracy who turn move it to Dubai (and other places)... why not look after your soldiers who have given the best years of their lives to the service and provide them with bullet proof pensions (safe from the despicable influence... and grubby paws of your politicians).

How many officers have lost their pensions for giving advice that politicians don't want to hear? Obviously generals, like (for example) ambassadors, are expected not to publicly challenge decisions, but are there really such severe repercussions for dissenting opinions expressed through accepted channels? If a senior officer had expressed the opinion that occupying Afghanistan and trying to democratize it was a perverse enterprise destined for failure no matter what strategies were adopted, would he have been stripped of his pension, or would he simply have been ignored?

Maybe the fault of the people who voted for him knowing well that his background was law theory and short legislature service (history science, as minimum some deputy governor service and a more versatile -thus necessarily longer- legislative track record would have been preferable)?

The policy commitments in question were made by the President before this one... and in both cases they were elected by people with very little concern for foreign or military affairs, which are generally not the basis on which elections are decided in the US.