Coming Anarchy recently had a post about the recent politicization of the military. Now Milblogs has a couple of postings (here and here) related to the same topic about how military generals are playing a larger and larger role in today’s political discourse. Now the generals are getting involved in topics they have no expertise in:
Former US military leaders have called on the Bush administration to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
In a report, they say global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts.
They appear to criticise President George W Bush’s refusal to join an international treaty to cut emissions.
Among the 11 authors are ex-Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan and Mr Bush’s ex-Mid-East peace envoy Anthony Zinni.
Of course these former generals throw in the words “national security” to give their views some form of creditability. Isn’t amazing when these generals toe the liberal line they get quoted in the news media, but when they don’t they disappear? Take for example General Shinseki, when he said the US needed more troops in Iraq the media and the Democrats couldn’t get enough of quoting his name to demand more troops in Iraq, but now that President Bush has added more troops in Iraq you never hear anyone utter the name General Shinseki anymore because now they want Bush to withdraw troops.
Another example is when the ex-generals demanded that former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld resign and Bush decides to remove Rumsfeld and suddenly the ex-generals are no longer quote worthy except for Zinni because he is now on the global warming bandwagon. But as Milblogs pointed out these generals actually have other motivations beside politics for their views:
Research Triangle Institute is an independent, non-profit research organization based on a 180-acre campus in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. RTI is the fourth-largest non-profit contract research organization in the United States. From 1990 to fiscal year 2002, the company received slightly more than $1.2 billion in U.S. government contracts
Board of Governors member Gordon R. Sullivan served as the chief of staff to the U.S. Army from 1991 to 1995
Personally I see less of threat in the politicization of the military from ex-generals than I do by the politicization of the military by leftist groups such as Amnesty International planting their members within the US military as I have chronicled here and here for strictly political reasons backed by the largest liberal public relations firm, Fenton Communications and supported by the news media to include CBS, Yahoo, and over 200 newspapers across the country. Additionally dangerous is the recruiting of GIs by the leftist groups to go AWOL or spread lies about the military. Perfect examples of this are Joshua Key, Jimmy Massey, Jesse Macbeth, & Amorita Randall to name a few.
Finally, the media has a continuing campaign to imply the US military is only meeting recruiting numbers because the new recruits are uneducated low lives, recruiters are praying on teens from poor minority neighborhoods, and the many recruits are criminals responsible for committing war crimes all over Iraq and are not worthy of the nation’s respect. Of course none of this is true, but this perception is slowly being created by the media.
Now all of this is what I call a dangerous politicization of the military.
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7:14 am on April 17th, 2007 1
I wouldn’t be able to call it a new phenomenon until I see more of it and compared it to the past.
I can’t think of the names (I’m really bad with names), but I seem to remember a few well-publicized examples of ex-generals making hay from the Vietnam War days. McArthur was sacked for his politicization. And I’m sure we could find other cases as we looked back, and by the time you start to reach around the Civil War, we are starting to deal with a whole different military culture.
The important thing is that these are “ex” generals.
I would also say that the media today has a desire to find people like this. It is the Murtha Phenomenon - once a guy (or girl) has put on the uniform, any complaints they have about the military are news worthy — which is why these groups you have exposed decided to filter people into the ranks and then have them speak out.
But, whatever the case, we are always going to have high ranking officers who come out of the military with instant book and/or corporate and/or think-tank gigs that will touch on politics.
It is like that for other government people too.
7:44 am on April 17th, 2007 2
The ex-generals really don’t bother me because like you said it has happened before. However, now these ex-generals are moving into areas they have no expertise in which is a bit different. However, like I said they don’t bother me as as the leftist plants and recruiting for AWOL soldiers by the leftist groups to spread lies about the military that is really disturbing.
7:56 am on April 17th, 2007 3
First the pussification and now the politicization.
9:47 am on April 17th, 2007 4
The whole country has been becoming more and more polarized over the past decade, so it’s no surprise the same is happening in the military. I’d say part of the problem with active enlisted activism is leadership; it’s the responsibility of military leadership to ensure members know that it is prohibited, and to punish those that stray.
Those in the military don’t necessarily have all the rights they actually defend, as I used to say when I was in.
3:40 pm on April 17th, 2007 5
“Take for example General Shinseki, when he said the US needed more troops in Iraq the media and the Democrats couldn’t get enough of quoting his name to demand more troops in Iraq, but now that President Bush has added more troops in Iraq you never hear anyone utter the name General Shinseki anymore because now they want Bush to withdraw troops.”
I think the following analogy explains it: Gen. Shinseki saw a small fire starting in the house, and wanted to bring the firefighters in large and sufficient numbers right away to stop it. And Democrats agreed with him. So he was fired by Gen. Rove, because that was embarrassing and contradicted Rumsfield’s theoretical musings on new warfare. “Is this guy some kind of defeatist?” is reportedly what Pr. Bush shouted when told of Shinseki’s request.
Unfortunately, the entire house has gone up in flames and is now an out-of-control raging inferno which no amount of firefighters can stop or control. The only question is whether it will burn down the neighborhood as well. At this point, an incompetent-as-always White House proposes to send its firefighters into this house and certain pointless death, in the unstoppable conflageration, which everyone who hasn’t swallowed the GOP kool-aid knows is folly.
That’s sort of why. Enlightened?
3:45 pm on April 17th, 2007 6
To extend the analogy:
now, anyone who claims it is insane folly to send more firefighters into this house meets this sort of answer: “Not sending more firefighters into the howling flames of this building is an insult to the firefighters who have already died inside. What are you, some sort of firefighter hater? Why do you hate freedom?”
4:21 pm on April 17th, 2007 7
Richardson says: “Those in the military don’t necessarily have all the rights they actually defend, as I used to say when I was in.”
Richardson, you need to take a serious look again at the political reality of the American military. The American military “defends” nothing that resembles our Constitutional Republic. Nor, do most soldiers care about the Bill of Rights and the principles on which they were founded.
The second Patriot Act — condoned by the new military — is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 implicitly guts the very foundation of Western civilization: Habeus Corpus. We now live under the arbitrary discretion and powers of the state. The American military no longer defends freedom … only personal paychecks and pensions.
It’s my understanding that GI Korea’s demonstrated indifference about our lost freedoms … comes from his preoccupation with defending his own retirement. That is the reality of our military. You will never hear GI Korea speak up for the Constitutional Republic he swore to defend.
Richardson, you need to brush up on the times. My boy.
The American military no longer defends nor cares about freedom.
5:53 pm on April 17th, 2007 8
The leftist groups are intentionally enlisting people into the military in order to play politics with it. What can a commander do if Jonathan Hutto on his free time is pushing his leftist causes which was the reason he joined the military to begin with. As long as he is off duty commander’s hands are tied unless new regulations are established. If the military established new regulations to crack down on people like Hutto than 60 Minutes would be the first to say the Pentagon is cracking down on free speech. The best thing to do is to put a bar to reelistment on these leftist plants and get them out of the military.
6:26 pm on April 17th, 2007 9
GI Korea,
“LEFTIST GROUPS.” Your eyes glow red when you mention them. They sound like a scary bunch. Terror, terror, terror. Do you suppose they are colluding with Osama Bin Laden? Home grown ISLAMO FASCISTS? If sinister creatures such as these lurk within your personal demonology … then I can understand your willingness to destroy America’s Bill of Rights for a supposedly safer America. It can see how it would make you feel safer.
After you purge them from the military would you advocate suspending citizenship? Send them on a one-way boat to China? Waterboard the peskier ones?
GI, you are getting a bit creepy. Do you realize how you appear to some of your readers?
GI, some of these “leftists” are simple dissenters. Is that a new crime?
8:43 pm on April 17th, 2007 10
Richardson, you need to get out more …lets bring you up to speed.
Neoconservatives have turned the Republican Party into a Brownshirt Party. Even though I am Republican our GI Korea now thinks I am a “leftist” implant on his blog.
Regardless of GI’s ridiculous demonology … I’ll back up my statements. Look at the following evidence: while real patriots flee the party, the remaining supporters cling to power by asserting dictatorial dominance for President Bush. The Republican Attorney General denies that the US Constitution provides habeas corpus protection to American citizens. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential campaign, believe the president has the power to imprison US citizens indefinitely without warrants or trials.
The “conservative” Federalist Society favors concentrating more power in the executive. Neoconservative ideologues claim the right to impose American hegemony over all others—especially over Muslims.
All of these Republican tyrants and budding tyrants claim to be protecting liberty and democracy. Anyone who opposes … is a “leftist”.
Polls show that the percentage of Americans who tilt Republican has declined to 35 percent. Republican recruits are refusing to run for Congress. Ken Mehlman , until recently the party’s chairman, says many voters have lost confidence in Republicans. To win back people’s confidence, Mehlman says the party will have to become less reliant on white males and expand its support among Hispanics and blacks .
Decency and intelligence have departed Republican ranks. The party’s shrunken base consists of ignorant and fearful people such as our GI Korea who believe Muslim jihadists are going to murder them in their beds, rapture evangelicals who believe that war in the Middle East is the prelude to their being wafted up to heaven, the military-security complex reveling in power and fortune, and resentful and frustrated people who can freely vent their anger and hate on “terrorists” and their side-kicks “leftists”.
This collection of fear, delusion, greed, and resentment comprises the 30 percent of Americans who constitute Bush’s base. The Republican Party has made itself so unattractive that Democrats believe that it is now possible for a woman or a black to win the presidency.
The Republican Party lost its majority for the following reasons:
Greedy transnational corporations offshored US manufacturing jobs and destroyed the hopes and livelihoods of blue-collar Reagan Democrats. The gains from offshoring are diffused, but the costs are concentrated.
The same greedy and short-sighted corporations have spent the first years of the 21st century destroying the prospects of American middle class university graduates by offshoring jobs in professional services and by importing foreigners on work visas who work for less.
Neoconservatives captured conservative philanthropies, cut off funding to true conservatives, and used the captured conservative foundations to entrench themselves as advisors to the Republican party. The same neoconservatives that Reagan fired as a result of the Iran-Contra scandal occupy important policy positions in the Bush administration and dominate the National Security Council.
Republican “law and order” apathy to civil liberties easily transferred to the “war on terror.” Republicans regard civil liberties as protective devices for criminals and terrorists. Republicans mistakenly believe that the law can be cut down selectively so that only certain despised groups are deprived of its protection.
The Bush administration lied to the American people and invaded two countries on false pretenses for indefensible reasons that the administration has never acknowledged. The war has had catastrophic consequences that are now apparent to a majority of Americans, but the Republican Party still supports the continuation of the war.
The Bush administration has destroyed American prestige and moral aura with torture scandals and disregard for Iraqi, Afghani, Palestinian and Lebanese civilian lives.
The Bush administration’s budget and trade deficits have undermined the dollar. The Bush administration is calling for currency realignments that will lower the real incomes of import-dependent Americans.
The Bush administration’s determination to exercise American hegemony through warfare, and its assaults on civil liberties, the separation of powers, American prestige and on good American jobs and the value of the dollar have destroyed the party’s support.
America’s virtue is its Constitution. An administration that attacks the Constitution attacks America’s virtue. The true dangers that Americans face come from George W. Bush and Richard Cheney and their neoconservative Brownshirt Party.
And GI Korea purges the military of “leftist” implants as his paranoia increases.
God, help us.
4:36 am on April 18th, 2007 11
1:53 am on April 26th, 2007 12
10:58 am on April 28th, 2007 13
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6:41 am on May 24th, 2007 14
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10:27 pm on June 14th, 2007 15
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7:26 am on July 21st, 2007 16
[...] American left, "Scott Thomas". I have posted before about leftist plants being used to politicize the military and at this rate soon an entire platoon of them can be formed with 1LT Watada as the platoon [...]
9:00 am on July 22nd, 2007 17
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9:03 pm on August 3rd, 2007 18
[...] American left, "Scott Thomas". I have posted before about leftist plants being used to politicize the military and at this rate soon an entire platoon of them can be formed with 1LT Watada as the platoon [...]
9:06 pm on August 3rd, 2007 19
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9:09 pm on August 3rd, 2007 20
[...] Here is the latest attempt by the media and politicians to play politics with the military: [...]
7:09 am on August 7th, 2007 21
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