Generals are not fucking saints:
Everyone should remember that these are military careerists. War provides the opportunity for testing their skills, getting medals and promotions. A compromise peace without their definition of “victory” might be considered a failure. They all want to march down Pennsylvania Avenue like General Norman Schwarzkopf. Likewise, the contractors want to continue making their huge profits. It is the common soldiers, however, who are providing the sweat and shedding the blood.
The veneration of Petraeus by the DC media is nauseating, and I hope this guy, who got fired for saying that the military uses PowerPoint like a crutch, might at least make a few DC stenographers think twice before genuflecting.
(via a Sully underling)
Arclite
Hey Mr. Mix,
Thanks for posting great stuff, day in and day out.
El Cid
Well, as the page ads might agree, looks like we could have the next GEICO news commercial star.
cleek
beltway journalists like war as much as the next profiteer.
beltane
If they were saints, the media would not genuflect before them. Our power worshiping media goes weak at the knees at the sight of careerists, authoritarians, and other assorted non-saints.
stuckinred
Holy shit, it’s the troops that make the sacrifices. . .who knew.
El Cid
To this day you can read commentary on how Petraeus’ SURGE in Iraq avoided the ethnoreligious sectarian bloodletting so many were predicting, I mean, as long as you don’t pay too much attention to the fact that Baghdad’s neighborhoods and districts are now successfully ethnically cleansed and became this way via a sectarian bloodletting which completed itself at the time His Holiness Petraeus’ SURGE began.
whinger
Oh my God. The troops must hate the troops!
How long has this been going on?
debbie
It’s not just the military; everyone uses PowerPoint far too much.
WereBear
It is also the journalists who “make their bones” on war.
shaun
Yes, an underlying dynamic of war is that it’s good for mega-corporations, keeps generals busy and neocons hard between the legs. But you are being too tough on Petraeus.
As generals go, he has been the best of the best in recent years and deserves the credit for talking a cowed George Bush into accepting a strategy in Iraq that was a success militarily. The rest was up to Al-Maliki and his henchmen, and of course they blew it.
Petraeus is in an impossible situation in Afghanistan for which Bush and now Obama share blame. He also is perhaps the least god-like commander of recent memory (think Powell, Schwarkopf, Franks, McChrystal . . . )
mistermix
@Arclite: Thanks for reading.
Jayackroyd
@mistermix:
Apologies. Tweeted the link, and attributed the source to John. Thanks for the link.
It is very weird that one consequence of going all volunteer has been a fetishization of the armed forces.
aimai
@Jayackroyd:
I don’t agree–there’s been no *new* fetishization of the armed forces. There has always been a strong strain of upper class worship of upper level management in the military, and a permanent disdain for the average soldier/sailor. Of course, there has always been a use of an “Old Shoe” as “Wag the Dog” put it. But draftees or volunteer the actual fighting soldier is always used and put away when not in use.
aimai
wilfred
@Jayackroyd:
This. the ridiculous slobbering over the Gluuuuuuurious Troops is the worst legacy of Reagan. i.e. the re-militarization that began with Top Gun and continues today.
@aimai:
Kipling was the Sean Hannity of his day; he wrote that in response to the British public’s rightful disdain of its legionaries. When Kipling’s own son was killed he changed his tune a bit
Hiram Taine
Eh, you might perhaps recall when the US Congress, including more than a few Democrats took the time to officially condemn a private organization that was insufficiently servile towards General Betr.. err.. Petraeus.
FWIW, I recall reading on the old Intel-Dump that Petraeus got the moniker Betrayus from his own subordinates originally due to his never flagging talent for self promotion above all other considerations..
doctorpsycho1960
No, this needs to be tattooed on the belly of every General, so journalists can look up and see it.
cleek and WereBear, very true. War is popular because so many get so much out of it. Even the ground-pounders, if they live, get to take home war stories to add to their resumes, which can make a big difference if, for instance, they want to run for office. That’s why, for one thing, the General worked so hard for so long to keep minorities and women doing shitwork away from the front lines, where they stood less chance of earning medals and commendations.
salacious crumb
9/11 and the Republicans, but even Democrats, created an atmosphere where nothing short of worshipping the military became mandatory. No questions asked of war crimes and bad judgement committed under bad leadership, by troops etc and also the veneration of police force. This is what led to Abu Ghraib and other war crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. And we have yet to hold anyone on the military (and this includes special forces) of significant stature accountable for all the bad work done in our name. anyone that questioned the military’s policies were shouted down and their patriotism questioned
Michael
Back around ’04, a friend of mine called me from Baghdad to vent. It seems that this officer was present at a staff meeting where a Colonel and a Brigadier General got into a 30 minute argument over what the color of the background was on the powerpoint presentation that was occurring at the time.
The presentation pretty much was useless anyway, but as I understand it, the meeting was mandatory.
Amanda in the South Bay
Well, if you don’t like military hagiographies, don’t read Tom Ricks’ book about the surge that came out a few years ago. It reads like a hagiography of Petraeus and the officers that supported them. Literally, they are all portrayed as lean, mean exercise machines who all have PhDs provided at government expense from top schools in poli sci and IR.
Cat
My father, an career NCO who served in Vietnam, told me wartime was the best time for promotions. I’m assuming this was from personal experience.
Though, people have been making their career and reputations from wartime for ages. Why we keep thinking this time will be different strikes me as stupid.
JoeT63
I consider myself as liberal/progressive as the next guy, but I also served as an Army Officer for nine years. I urge caution about making general (ha!) statements about senior military members. In my experience, the overwhelming majority is professional, cares about nothing more than the men and women who work for them, and really don’t want to be in a war zone. To make it a black and white “all senior officers are evil” sort of argument makes us as bad as the true enemy…conservatoids. We do nuance and shades of gray, remember? And we judge the individual, not the group.
anon
@JoeT63:
I respectfully disagree. That military officers would exhibit a bias regarding wars, because wars mean more opportunities for advancement, makes sense, unless you think military folks are saints and not human.
How about this generalization: “colonels are far more Republican than the general American populace.” (IIRC the ratio of R:D among colonels—not sure it was full bird or not—is 9:1.)
someguy
@JoeT63:
Yeah, I get it. You were just a handmaiden to the Lords of Empire, not actually one of them. Just a spear carrier, not the guy who decides. So that’s *totally* different.
salacious crumb
@Amanda in the South Bay: agreed. we also shouldnt forget that he was one of the biggest cheerleaders for war with Iraq and refused to pose any hard questions to the more jingoistic members of the military gunning for war as well as the retired military members posing as analysts for Fox news
JoeT63
@anon
First point: I don’t disagree that advancement is a byproduct more of an operational deployment than peacetime training…but that’s more by circumstance than design. Maybe the MOST senior military officers can influence go-to-war policy, but the vast majority don’t. Regardless, good thoughts…and they ain’t saints.
Second point: I completely agree that military officers are overwhelmingly Republican. They think that party cares more and funds them better. (I don’t agree, and boy did I get into some hot discussions in my time.) But similar to my previous point, that’s not germaine to any go-to-war policy-making…except by only the most senior handful.
@ someguy
I think I should be insulted, but I’m really not sure. Really your post just makes me want to take a shower. I’m proud of my service and consider them good years. And if my first post exhibited some perceived shortcomings, I heartily apologize for them.
Mike in NC
One of the worst offenders in terms of blind worship of the modern US military is Robert D. Kaplan, who’s written “Imperial Grunts” and other neocon trash. He makes Tom Ricks come across like Noam Chomsky.
Daddy-O
“…remember that these are military careerists. War provides the opportunity for testing their skills, getting medals and promotions.”
I remembered that. In 1991, and in 2002-3, too.
I knew war was inevitable. I knew the AUMF would mean nothing, and it did. As bartcop put it, Bush got his war hard-on, and only ONE THING would satisfy it.
Cat
@JoeT63:
Unless you had some special assignment in your 9 years in the army just how many senior officers could you have come into contact with on a regular basis? Outside of war zones and DC you just dont run into that many senior officers at the same time.
Its pretty naive to think and say out loud senior officers “cares about nothing more than the men and women who work for them” as if this was the case they’d be very uncompetitive for promotions. There are several officers in the military in my family. They don’t fit the bill as evil and they do care about their troops, but promotions and their career are a big part of their lives.
Jeff
@wilfred:
To call Kipling the “Sean Hannity of his day” is quite unfair to Kipling,
who, although he is hardly a deep thinker, or a revolutionary, was light-years above the LongGuyland Lightweight in prose style and
even in doggerel verse.
George Orwell had a good essay which sums up Kipling’s strengths and definite weaknesses.
Jeff
@Cat:
I think he was actually agreeing with your point.
seems to me to be saying that the officer cares about nothing except the men and women who work for them.
Amanda in the South Bay
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being proud of your military service; its just hard to disentangle what should be an honorable, challenging job that few people are capable of with the fucked up wars of the past decade.
I think there are lots of things that are rotten with the general culture of the military-the general drift of the officer corps towards the GOP since the Clinton years, over-representation at all levels of people from southern and rural states, the pernicious influence of evangelical Protestant chaplains (in the Army, at least). I guess it doesn’t surprise me that an organization with that kind of demographic balance would have stuff like prisoner abuse, etc as major problems.
I’m a poor college student trying to land on my feet in one of those ubiquitous tech jobs that’ll catapult me to the middle class, and when I see the great mass of people here in Silicon Valley in their 20s and 30s go about their daily lives, completely oblivious to many of the people their age in the military sacrificing good chunks of their lives to multiple deployments overseas, and bitching about the rat race that is the Silicon Valley yuppie lifestyle, I get a little pissed and defensive.
I went to anti-war rallies while I was in and got discharged for coming out as transgendered; with a background like that I oughta be pretty self loathing about the military, but living in such a (supposedly) left leaning area like the SF Bay Area, I tend to rely on it as a crutch sometimes, something to feel a little proud of when I’m feeling depressed and self loathing. If I was to travel to small town bum fuck America, I’d probably be the exact opposite and trash the military.
I guess this long winded rant is my way of saying that we shouldn’t make assumptions about people based on things like their military service.
Cat
@Jeff:
That was not my point. My point is that in order to advance in the commissioned ranks of the US Armed forces, you have to care about more then just the soldiers serving under you.
In order to make it to field grade and beyond requires institutional savvy. Promotion within the officer core isn’t something most people are familiar with as its not mirrored exactly like civilian life.
The Army doesn’t open up a new ‘franchise’ all that often so they have a need for more junior officers and room for them to move up. A lot of the Junior officers will be people fulfilling their contractual obligations for having the military pay for their college degree. The military at times even has an over supply of these types of candidates and can’t even offer them active duty commissions so they end up in the reserves.
These are the people who you hear with stories like, “I was an officer in ______ for 5,8,9 years.” If it was just a BA the military paid for they’ll start as be O1’s and maybe make it to O3 before deciding military life isn’t for them or being ‘seperated’ , military for fired, if they have been passed over for promotion one to many times.
If it was a medical degree I think they come in as CPT(O3) now with almost guaranteed promotions.
Anyways, back on topic.
A military career has a shelf life. If you don’t get promoted you will get separated out at the junior officer level. There are limited numbers of promotions with many people competing for them. If you want to be a career officer in the military you have to be concerned with promotions.
Cat
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Get out of the Valley. Move to Boston or NoVa. The cost of living is still reasonable and the jobs pay just as well and are just as bountiful.
Taking into account the other factors I’d suggest Boston. There is still a lot of redneck left in NoVa even though its pretty diverse.
wilfred
@Jeff:
I wasn’t comparing their poetic gifts. I quite like Kipling, actually, and agree with Orwell’s description of him as a ‘great bad poet’.
I was comparing their pig-headed, self-righteous jingoism, especially as applied to an ill-educated audience.
Gwiwer
The deepest irony of it all is the fact that it’s the Republican Teabagger folks who are likeliest to consider the military leadership to be an infallible source of all things good and decent in the Universe. Yet, these are the same people who claim an undying devotion to the beliefs and principles of the Founding Fathers. You would think that they would then understand the cognitive dissonance of these views considering that pretty much all of the Founding Fathers, Washington included, often had a healthy distrust of the military getting too involved with political affairs and tried their best to ensure that there was a strong series of checks and balances in place to make certain that the civilian leadership in the government retained the ability to remain firmly in control of the military at all times. Then again, the greatest asset to Republicans as a whole, and Teabaggers in particular, seems to be the fact that so much of the country currently seems to have completely lost the ability to honestly evaluate their own beliefs and recognize when these beliefs are absurdly incompatible with one another.