Calling Generals... (The Hidden MoDo)

Maureen Dowd isn't my favorite of the NYTimes stable of columnists. Frankly, I think her attempts at acerbic wit are more spotty than spot on. But she's got a good one with The Rummy Mutiny (fully available to Times Select subscribers):

History will long dwell on how America made the same bloody errors in Vietnam and Iraq within a generation, trading the arrogant, obtuse, wire-rimmed Robert McNamara for the arrogant, obtuse, wire-rimmed Donald Rumsfeld.

First the public began bailing on supporting the conduct of the Iraq war, and now top military voices are balking. Six prominent retired generals say that Rummy discounted the dangers in Iraq and managed with an intimidating style that left commanders feeling jammed into submission. He promoted sycophants like Richard Myers and Peter Pace, while slapping down truth-tellers like Eric Shinseki. Again, Rumsfeld's rules could have helped. There's one about the "indispensable" and "gracious" art of listening.

W. should have fired Rummy long ago, after the sickening news of Abu Ghraib and torture stories out of Gitmo. He should have fired him as soon as it became clear that the defense secretary who bungled the occupation and insurgency has no idea how to get out of Iraq and stop American kids from getting blown up day after day by homemade bombs.

[...]

Mr. Bush's pretense — that he was just following the advice of the military when he endorsed Rummy's inadequate troop levels — rings hollow now that the former generals have spoken out about the defense secretary's airless policy of coercion. Convinced Iraq was all but won, Rummy prodded Tommy Franks to cancel the final Army division in the war plan, the First Cavalry Division.

"Rumsfeld just ground Franks down," Tom White, the former Army secretary, told Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor for "Cobra II," their Iraq war history. "The nature of Rumsfeld is that you just get tired of arguing with him."

Retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold writes this week in Time about the "invented war": "My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results."

Anyone who challenged the administration was painted as traitorous, so why not respected military leaders? A few Rummy apple-polishers raced forth yesterday to accuse the candid generals of undermining the military and the country. It's fitting that the military is attempting a coup of the civilian leadership, since the Iraq war followed the civilian leadership's coup of the military.

As the XTC song goes:

Generals and Majors ah ah
like never before, are tired of being in the shade.