Posted on 05/05/2012 7:10:09 AM PDT by evilrooster
“After a series of 'troubling incidents,' US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tells troops bound for Afghanistan he needs them to display 'the utmost integrity in everything you do.”' - - The Telegraph - May 5, 2012
The biggest mistake those who have not served, or in Panetta’s case, served minimally with no combat experience, make is to provide direct guidance to the troops. There are very few that can garner the respect of warriors, outside of warriors themselves. And make no mistake about it, our troops are warriors. It’s what they signed up to do and it’s what they consistently train for.
As Secretary of Defense, Panetta’s job should be to provide general guidelines to the Commanders in charge, and let them do their job. The same is true for other members of the executive staff with the exception of the Commander in Chief who should limit his comments to a “job well done”.
Simply put, our civilian leaders should define the mission and leave it to soldiers to command soldiers.
We are at war, and ugly things happen in war. To dispute that fact is ignorant. A few pictures displaying the dead corpses of those who minutes before tried to kill you is not going to increase insurgent recruitment two or even three fold. The same people who tried to kill our soldiers yesterday are the same ones trying to do so today. And quite frankly, we’ve seen worse depicted on cable news on the part of the insurgents. The beheading of Daniel Pearl comes to mind.
Court Martialing three soldiers for giving an insurgent a bloody lip during an interrogation seems a bit over the top,
That’s not to say certain atrocities should go unpunished. The actions of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were uncalled for and those involved were deserved of the punishment dispatched by the military. The recent killing spree by SSG Bales cannot be condoned under any circumstances, though there certainly may be underlying issues that caused the tragedy. Let’s hope our Military doesn’t just hang Bales out to dry without considering potential underlying issues caused by multiple combat deployments.
The United States Military is, without a doubt, the finest fighting force this world has ever seen. Day in and day out they perform their duties in a manner reflective of the morals of the United States. Caution is undertaken to limit collateral damage, medical care is provided to enemy combatants, and prisoners of war are treated with dignity and respect.
The problem with the war in Afghanistan is the same problem we’ve had in every military engagement since World War II, the war is being directed by civilians instead of the commanders on the ground. Political consideration is given more latitude than military necessities, and our troops suffer.
They suffer because goals change from week to week, they suffer from rules of engagement that prevent development of effective battle plans and the suffer most of all because they are being used in a manner they are not trained for. Soldiers are trained to defend this country by eliminating enemy threats. They are not trained to act as a police force. Get in, eliminate the threat and get out. Ten years of fighting and multiple engagements per troop is a roadway for defeat. One that we should be well aware of after Korea and Vietnam, where we won the battles but lost the war because of the reasons discussed above.
Apparently the Seals have recently warned Zer0 about his behavior.
Panetta, former military, lecturing the troops in a sports shirt, no tie, looking like a slob. He’s not even worthy of digging a latrine hole for these soldiers.
Yeah, don't for instance piss away the taxpayer dollars flying back and forth between home and DC on private planes.
Why doesn’t Panetta just admit he sides with the enemy? My god I cannot WAIT for this administration to get the boot.
Panetta needs to advise the President to get our troops out of Afghanistan, not be issuing warnings to our troops.
Get our troops out of Afghanistan now!
Nothing like a hypocrite telling people who literally put their lives on the line, everyday, how to behave. When politicians behave legally, ethically and morally, then the troops should listen. Otherwise, when push comes to shove, well...I won’t go there ‘cause big brother’s watching I’m sure.
The actual tone was more like don’t diss the thin skinned mulatto who stole a POTUS suit and is squatting in the Whitehouse or his “Sons of Barack” brigades will stop by your neighborhood with a welcome basket.
Ubama is America’s first openly-gay, openly-Communist President, and Pendejo is concerned about troops peeing on dead enemies?
Bad behavior starts at the top of the command chain.
Hope he doesn't mind us thinking that he is a no-talent political hack working assiduously to wreck our country's armed forces for the Illegal Alien-in-Chief?
Interesting. So you have the same sloagan as the Socialist Worker's Party? Did running along with the antiwar, anti-US Leftists become a conservative position?
Just some obvious points. At the end of WW II...we had a lot of guys who were battle-scarred and had seen some pretty bad experiences. At the end of 1945...all the Pentagon had to do was discharge all of them....sending them home. They didn’t have to worry about marriages, divorces, alcohol, or emotionally unsettled guys. We can all admit that we had uncles and relatives from this era and they consumed an awful lot of booze, but in the 1950s and 1960s....no one really cared to worry about alcoholics that much.
After the Vietnam War, the Pentagon again had a bunch of guys with issues. They quietly downsized and utilized drug-testing to put these emotionally-scarred guys out of the military. By the 1980s....they had cleaned house and back to pure status.
So here we are...a volunteer force put through a decade of war, and we’ve got lots of guys with emotional scars. We really can’t downsize like we used to. Unlike previous episodes....we can’t discharge them, and the Pentagon is stuck with a problem that they never envisioned or wanted to deal with.
Panetta’s words are simply words of warning. The truth is that you’ve got a bunch of folks with issues....and you really don’t want to waste time or resources on the overall future. It’d be so nice to revisit 1945 and just do a mass discharge and rebuild....but you can’t do that.
Leon Panetta is an obnoxious puke unworthy of his position. He’ll never command the respect of our military.
You could appoint a liberal congressman from California to do a lot of things, not many of them good, but definitely NOT this.
The high-pitched whirring sound you hear is General Patton spinning in his grave...and all other true military leaders who would never believe what has happened to the US military.
Leon, pick up a goddam gun and trudge your ass out in the bush or desert daily and see how you'd act when you finally get some payback. A goddam Democrat coward enforcing his sleaze morals on honest, loyal Americans who have been abused by a Muslim CINC.
Unless we have some stated, objective goals and a strategery to obtain same, hanging out is not really worth it.
Maybe we’ll figure the scam out when the great grandchildren of the first troops on the ground are there.
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