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WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama will lay out broad strategic guidelines for Afghanistan after November 7 runoff elections there but will not "micromanage" the generals fighting the war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday. Clinton made the remarks when asked whether forces would be pulled back from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border under a new strategy that reportedly will refocus the US-led military effort on protecting Afghan population centers. "The president is not going to micromanage what our generals do," she said in an interview with PBS television. "The president is going to say, 'Here's our strategic objectives, here's what...

News that Air Force Generals were sacked by the President for recent mishaps, incidents and failures in exercises at nuclear missile batteries hidden across the Western United States has been widely questioned by the Airmen and Airwomen based at these facilities. It's time that somebody brought out the truth that the politicians in Washington DC seem desperate to hide' one NCO reported in a blog sent out yesterday NCO's at Minot ND's Air Base are quick to point out that nothing abnormal, or unexpected has occurred over the past year that could possibly have warranted the removal of these Air...

Iraq news wires here WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — Three retired four-star American generals said today that attacking Iraq without a United Nations resolution supporting military action could limit aid from allies, energize recruiting for Al Qaeda and undermine America's long-term diplomatic and economic interests. "We must continue to persuade the other members of the Security Council of the correctness of our position, and we must not be too quick to take no for an answer," Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The officers' testimony came on...

Vets for Freedom Connecticut representative Melissa Weaver (SGT, CTANG, OIF 2003-2004) has sent me an e-mail requesting our help. A sometimes co-host and a brave woman and soldier … I assured her we would not hesitate. We have never wavered in our support for our soldiers … and right now our soldiers in Afghanistan need our help. Tomorrow (Wednesday) The Vets for Freedom, which led the charge for the surge in Iraq, will launch a petition drive urging the President to give the Generals the additional troops they have requested for Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The parents of slain Army Ranger and NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns Tuesday that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan. In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Pat Tillman Sr. accused Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of covering up the circumstances of the 2004 slaying. "I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation," Pat Tillman Sr. said.

The Pentagon will replace its top general in Afghanistan as President Barack Obama tries to turn around a stalemated war, defense officials said. The exit of Gen. David McKiernan comes as more than 21,000 additional U.S. forces begin to arrive in Afghanistan, dispatched by Obama to confront the Taliban more forcefully this spring and summer. McKiernan, on the job about a year, has asked repeatedly for additional forces. Obama’s revamped strategy for Afghanistan does markedly increase the number of U.S. forces in the country but focuses on nonmilitary solutions as a better long-term solution. Military officials who spoke on condition...

Lebanon released on Wednesday four generals who had been held for nearly four years without charge over the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri following a ruling by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The four were escorted separately out of Roumieh prison on the outskirts of Beirut in a convoy of vehicles after The Hague-based STL said there was insufficient evidence to charge them. Speaking from their respective homes after their release, the generals said they had been vindicated by the court and insisted they had nothing to do with Hariri's 2005 murder in a massive car-bombing that also killed 22...

6 Air Force, 2 Army Generals Punished For Shipment Of Nuclear Fuses To Taiwan Eight generals, ranging in rank from one to three stars, have been disciplined as a result of the mistaken shipment of fuses for nuclear warheads to Taiwan, The Associated Press has learned. Defense officials said Wednesday that the six Air Force and two Army generals were given disciplinary letters that vary in seriousness but often can end careers or hopes of promotion. The officers are mainly in logistical jobs and were involved to some degree in the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four electrical fuses for...

This was why many Army officers were excited when Petraeus was appointed to chair this year's promotion board. Rarely, if ever, had a combat commander been called back from an ongoing war to assume that role. It almost certainly meant that McMaster would get his due. (Some referred to the panel as "the McMaster promotion board.") McMaster did get his star—but so did many others of his ilk. That's what makes this list an eyebrow-raiser. Among the 40 newly named one-star generals are Sean MacFarland, commander of the unit that brought order to Ramadi; Steve Townsend, who cleared and held...

Zimbabwean generals have 'taken Robert Mugabe's power' By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor Last Updated: 9:03PM BST 05/06/2008 Zimbabwe's generals have mounted a "military coup by stealth", reducing President Robert Mugabe to a "figurehead", a senior western diplomat said. The tight circle of "securocrats", who sit on the Joint Operations Command (JOC) committee, are now believed to be in day-to-day charge of Zimbabwe's government. They ensured Mr Mugabe did not step down after his defeat in the presidential election's first round in March and are now masterminding a campaign of terror to suppress the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and guarantee...

An Army board headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus has selected several combat-tested counterinsurgency experts for promotion to the rank of brigadier general, sifting through more than 1,000 colonels to identify a handful of innovative leaders who will shape the future Army, according to current and former senior Army officers. The choices suggest that the unusual decision to put the top U.S. officer in Iraq in charge of the promotions board has generated new thinking on the qualities of a successful Army officer -- and also deepened Petraeus's imprint on the Army. Petraeus, who spent nearly four of the past...

In his evidence at the trial of Croatian generals for crimes committed in the course of Operation Storm and its aftermath, Andries Dreyer, former security coordinator in the UN Knin base, described how Croatian soldiers drove over dead bodies in a tank. The bodies were those of persons killed in a mortar shell attack on the crowd that had gathered in front of the UN base on 5 August 1995. When the shelling of Knin began at dawn on 4 August 1995, Andries Dreyer, security coordinator in the UN Knin base, had to evacuate the personnel of the UN and...

Odierno’s Departure Max Boot Nadia Schadlow has an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal pointing out why it would be folly to move General Petraeus out of Iraq prematurely. This is a point that others, including me, have previously made, but Nadia adds an important historical dimension by noting all of the major generals, from George Washington to Creighton Abrams, who have spent years overseas directing American war efforts. By those standards, Petraeus’s deployment abroad, while lengthy and strenuous (counting a tour in the Balkans, since 2001 he has spent 50 months, or more than four years, overseas), is...

Petraeus Helping Pick New GeneralsArmy Says Innovation Will Be Rewarded By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 17, 2007; Page A01 The Army has summoned the top U.S. commander in Iraq back to Washington to preside over a board that will pick some of the next generation of Army leaders, an unusual decision that officials say represents a vote of confidence in Gen. David H. Petraeus's conduct of the war, as well as the Army counterinsurgency doctrine he helped rewrite. The Army has long been criticized for rewarding conventional military thinking and experience in traditional combat operations,...

WASHINGTON - Gen. David Petraeus faced lawmakers Monday with glittering stars and the weight of an unpopular war on his shoulders. Much as Gen. William Westmoreland defended another divisive conflict with a steely-jawed optimism four decades ago, the Iraq war commander sat stoicly before his questioners. The first moments weren't without a discordant note indicative of the divisiveness in the air over Iraq war policy. "Tell the truth, general," shouted protesters as the four-star general made his way into the crowded hearing room. Petraeus did not respond, either to them or to the sole heckler who interrupted the session in...

When it comes to the troop surge in Iraq, a bunch of arm chair generals in Washington are influencing the Bush Administration as much as the Joint Chiefs or theater commanders. A group of military experts at the American Enterprise Institute, concerned that the U.S. was on the verge of a calamitous failure in Iraq, almost single handedly convinced the White House to change its strategy. They banded together at AEI headquarters in downtown Washington early last December and hammered out the surge plan during a weekend session. It called for two major initiatives to defeat the insurgency: reinforcing the...

BAGHDAD - U.S. military commanders said Friday the troop buildup in Iraq must be maintained until at least next summer and they may need as long as two years to ensure parts of the country are stable. The battlefield generals' pleas for more time come in the face of growing impatience in the United States and a push on Capitol Hill to begin withdrawing U.S. troops as soon as this fall. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said in an interview that if the buildup is reversed before next summer, the military will risk giving up...

CONCORD, N.H. - Three retired generals challenged a dozen members of Congress in a new ad campaign Wednesday, saying the politicians can't expect to win re-election if they support President Bush's policies in Iraq. "I am outraged, as are the majority of Americans. I'm a lifelong Republican, but it's past time for change," retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste told reporters. "Our strategy in Iraq today is more of the same, a slow grind to nowhere which totally ignores the reality of Iraq and the lessons of history," Batiste said. "Our president ignores sound military advice and surrounds himself with like-minded...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US generals came under fire Friday in a stinging critique by a mid-level officer and combat veteran who charged that as a whole they repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling said the generals failed to prepare the military for counter-insurgency warfare, kept silent when the country went to war with too few troops, and botched the post-invasion occupation. "In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war," Yingling wrote in an essay published in the...

An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there."America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."Yingling's comments are especially striking because his unit's performance in securing the northwestern Iraqi city of Tall Afar was cited by President Bush in a March 2006 speech and provided the model for...

The current director of the Air National Guard has something interesting to say about the war. Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley was serving at the Pentagon on 9/11, and marks that day as one of the worst in his career. Today, when talking about how we have taken the fight to the enemy, he does not parse his statements with politically correct language. Instead, he praises our strategy and says he feels vindicated by the war's progress. What’s more, in a subtle jab at those who would forget, he warns that we can't let our armed forces "atrophy" like we did...

“Today, I am announcing my recommendations to the President for nomination to key command and leadership positions in our nation's Armed Forces. America is truly blessed for the service of the outstanding men who are leaving their current posts, and for the superb officers who have stepped forward to take their place. “Generals Pete Schoomaker and John Abizaid are retiring after decades of selfless and accomplished service to the nation. “General Schoomaker was in retirement during the summer of 2003 when he received a call from Secretary Rumsfeld asking him to become the Army’s 35th chief of staff. He would...

BAGHDAD — Combined operations by Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to target al-Qaida terrorists at the same time as reconstruction projects continue throughout Iraq, Coalition officials told reporters on Thursday. In a joint press conference, Multi-National Force – Iraq spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, IV, and Maj. Gen. William H. McCoy Jr., commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division, discussed progress being made on both the operational and reconstructions fronts. Since August 30th, over 150 focused operations have been conducted in Iraq, Caldwell said. The operations resulted in 66 terrorists killed and over 830 suspected...

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY The president's news conference this week was as close to a declaration of policy bankruptcy as anything seen so far in his stewardship of the 3 1/2-year war in Iraq. With his poll numbers still down around his ankles and even some key Republicans questioning the wisdom of staying the course in Iraq, President Bush flatly declared there will be no withdrawal of American troops before noon Jan. 20, 2009. I believe it was Will Rogers who said when you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is quit digging. The president knows...

Senior Israel Defense Forces officers expressed dissatisfaction yesterday with the announcement by Chief of Staff Dan Halutz that he had recently instructed the Field Security Directorate at the General Staff to keep track of their telephone conversations. According to a report in Haaretz yesterday, Halutz instructed the Field Security Directorate to provide him with the telephone logs of the generals, their department heads and their secretaries, in order to crosscheck whether they have had contacts with journalists. [ . . . ] According to the disgruntled officers , the chief of staff's action "stinks of McCarthyism" . . .

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- As the leadership of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force changed hands, the departing and incoming commanders said they believe an investigation into accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will ultimately strengthen the corps. Lt. Gen. Keith Stalder took command of the Camp Lejeune-based group on Wednesday from Lt. Gen. James Amos, who is headed to the Pentagon to become deputy commandant in charge of combat development. "We don't know the facts on Haditha, let alone what the facts mean at this point," said Stalder. "We do owe it to the American people...

<p>There is a direct link between the alleged atrocities in Haditha and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. His poor decisions and bad judgment in 2003 and 2004 are the root causes for the prolonged challenge we now face. Haditha is but a symptom of a much bigger problem.</p>

The World War II generation would have understood the revolt of the six generals right off. Coming through a five-year conflict that involved the whole of American society, that generation found military behavior, organization, and language second nature. "KP." "Double-time." Most important, terms like "battalion" and "regiment."

The matter of Rumsfeld v. the Generals bears close scrutiny. The controversy represents the worst breach in civil-military relations since Harry Truman dismissed Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951 for his conduct and his criticism of the president during the Korean War. It has proven an unwelcome distraction for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs, and has added to the already considerable woes of President Bush in his role as a wartime commander-in-chief. Notably, the calls from a group of recently retired generals that Rumsfeld should resign has also thrust senior military leaders and, by proxy, the uniformed services...

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has taken a serious beating recently. His critics, including several retired Army and Marine Corps generals, have accused him, in essence, of being personally responsible for perceived failures in Iraq. His critics charge that he ignored military advice and insisted on a plan for Iraq that employed too small of a force, that he failed to adapt to new circumstances once things began to go wrong, that he failed to foresee the insurgency that now rages, and that he ignored the need to prepare for post-conflict stability operations. The first thing to realize is that...

First, if there is a rebellion of any active duty General, this writer has not heard about it, but if one believes the media, Generals are in full-scale revolt. As Colonel Sherman T. Potter of MASH fame said, “horse pucky.” Of course there are disagreements, and should be. On the other hand, if there was an actual rebellion, “Houston, we have a problem.” Second, disagreement is the fire that refines arguments and thinking. The decibel level may vary, but in the end, after the arguments have been heard, active duty Generals have a UCMJ and Constitutional obligation to “keep silent.”...

The press coverage of the recent censure of Donald Rumsfeld by six retired general officers has been bereft of one fact and that is that each of yapping officers is a product of the Clinton Pentagon and owes his stars to Democratic office-holder approval. Let's put to rest the first issue raised by these generals speaking out. They are retired from active duty and unless they signed an agreement to keep quiet about military secrets, they are free to state their views and should do so. On the other hand, they will have to defend those positions in the rough...

ARLINGTON, Va. — Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker on Wednesday criticized retired generals who have come out against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other defense leaders, calling their comments “unfortunate” and “inappropriate.” “I was retired, and you didn’t see me doing it,” Schoomaker told reporters during a Washington press breakfast. “If I thought what these officers were saying was true, I would not be here.” Schoomaker suggested that if the generals were so unhappy with their civilian masters, they should have left their jobs in protest. “I think we have a responsibility, while we’re in uniform, if we...

SAN FRANCISCO--George P. Shultz was the secretary of state of the United States during the years that the Soviet Union was led, successively, by Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev. During those years, 1982 to 1989, the United States was led by Ronald Reagan. At the end of our interview, as he was showing me out of his apartment, Mr. Shultz invited me to stop in the dining room. "I want you to see something," he said. We walked over to a table. "Have a look at that. It arrived in the mail the other day." It...

Much thought and ink has been expended of late on the subject of retired military officers speaking their minds on political issues and criticizing the Secretary of Defense. As the debate raged on, this Sailor remained silent because we're only talking about a handful of the over 8,000 retired admirals and generals still on the payroll. Six of 8,000 does not exactly make for a serious mutiny, and that's something a good Chief Petty Officer should be able to put down. So, I let the shouting rage around me and pretended to ignore it, until that is, I really start...

Criticism of Donald Rumsfeld by the uniformed military is nothing new. As I noted a year ago, most of Rumsfeld's critics are uniformed officers unhappy with the changes he has wrought during his tenure as secretary of defense.But the rhetoric has notched up recently. Several retired generals have denounced Rumsfeld and called for his resignation over Iraq. Much of the language they have used is intemperate, and some is downright contemptuous. For instance, Marine general Anthony Zinni, Tommy Franks's predecessor as commander of Central Command — the organization responsible for implementing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — has described...

A critical element of the “General’s Revolt” that has not received enough attention is the involvement of the Center for Defense Information (CDI). The CDI is a Washington-based advocacy group that, like the Institute of Policy Studies or the National Resources Defense Council, is usually described with a bland, harmless-sounding tagline that hides more than it reveals. The CDI claims to be an organization making available continuing, objective information and analyses of our national defense when in fact for the past three decades it has been the Left’s point organization for attacking military and defense policy. The CDI was founded...

WASHINGTON - Everyone is saying that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s days are numbered, thanks in part to increasing calls by some former generals for Rumsfeld’s resignation. But Rumsfeld was hired by George W. Bush to do precisely what he has done to the consternation of the generals who are now coming out to complain about him. When President Bush brought Rumsfeld back to the Pentagon, the president told him to shake up the Pentagon, to transform it from the Cold War structure and culture that it was stuck in to a new force with strategies that could respond to...

April 24, 2006 — The six retired generals who have called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation may soon get a chance to bring their complaints to Capitol Hill. In response to a request from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said he would ask his committee to vote on whether to hold a hearing with all six generals. The hearing would give critics of the embattled defense secretary a high-profile forum to air their grievances about his management of the Iraq

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, on Monday came under more fire after another retired general joined the growing list of retired brass gunning for his resignation. Retired Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, a three-star general who retired in 1997, told Fox News that Mr Rumsfeld was not capable of leading the Pentagon effort in Iraq. He is the eighth former general to call for Mr Rumsfeld to step down. "When I look at where we are in this war to date, and imagine where we could have been if the right number of troops had been put in at the...

The vitriol leveled against Clinton during his administration was tasteless, to be sure. But the attacks against Bush (a commander-in-chief in time of war) and his chief lieutenants, have not only soiled the grounds of common decency; they may well have crossed over from general dissent into the realm of sedition.

Clinton wants anti-Rumsfeld generals to testify WASHINGTON Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton says the generals who have been calling for the removal of Donald Rumsfeld should testify before the Senate. Clinton weighed in today on the growing effort to oust the Defense Secretary, but did not call for Rumsfeld's removal. She says it's more important to find out what did or did not go wrong in planning the war in Iraq. Some fellow Democrats have criticized Clinton for voting for the war and not doing more now to bring the troops home.

Former President Ford said Friday he is troubled by the efforts of retired generals to force the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Ford, who appointed Rumsfeld as his White House chief of staff and then chose him to be defense secretary during his administration, said in a statement that President Bush was right to keep Rumsfeld in his post. The statement was released by spokeswoman Penny Circle as Bush arrived in California for the weekend. Ford, 92, said the decision on keeping Rumsfeld is the president's alone. "Allowing retired generals to dictate our country's policies and its leadership...

In just two weeks, six retired U.S. Marine and Army generals have denounced the Pentagon planning for the war in Iraq and called for the resignation or firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who travels often to Iraq and supports the war, says that the generals mirror the views of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more. This is not a Cindy Sheehan moment. This is a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the U.S. armed forces by senior officers once responsible for carrying out the orders of...

Last time around, the antiwar left did not have a very high opinion of generals. A popular slogan in the 1960s was "war is too important to be left to the generals." It was the generals who had advocated attacking Cuba during the missile crisis of October 1962, while the civilians preferred -- and got -- a diplomatic solution. In popular culture, "Dr. Strangelove" made indelible the caricature of the war-crazed general. And it was I-know-better generals who took over the U.S. government in a coup in the 1960s bestseller and movie "Seven Days in May." Another war, another take....

The US top brass are ducking their responsibilities - and beleaguered Donald Rumsfeld is just doing his job WHO WILL be the Admiral Byng of the Iraq conflict — the symbolic victim executed for the alleged failures of the war? That is what the current “revolt of the generals” against Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, is about. It is the ruthless Washingtonian version of “pass the parcel”. Much of the military brass feels that it carried the can for the civilian leadership’s errors in Vietnam and is determined never to do so again. General Anthony Zinni — the former...

LONDON (AFP) - A senior British military officer, who worked in Baghdad in 2004, believes US generals try to act like gung-ho movie stars such as John Wayne, a newspaper reported. Brigadier Alan Sharp made the comments in an academic report on Britain's influence on US foreign relations, The Daily Telegraph said. The 46-year-old, who worked alongside the US military in Baghdad, said there was a "strong streak of Hollywood" among American officers. He said an important part to being a success in the US army was the ability to combine the "real and acted heroics" of Audie Murphy, a...

Here's a special "Political Tidbits" post about those armchair generals. For all is not as it would appear on the surface. A lesson in common sense and the baggage so many of them carry.

WASHINGTON, April 17, 2006 – Recent criticism voiced by a half dozen retired generals over Iraq war planning does not reflect the mainstream views of the officer corps, a senior Defense Department official told Pentagon reporters today. "There are a handful of officers that have exercised their right to speak their mind, and certainly that's their right to do that," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman said. Brushing aside a reporter's suggestion there's widespread disagreement among senior officers over Iraq war planning, Whitman said there are thousands of active duty, reserve component and retired general officers from all of the armed services....