Posted on 04/17/2006 7:54:58 AM PDT by STARWISE
“Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone....”
--Woodrow Wilson
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is a strong personality, tasked (among other things greater and lesser) with managing a puzzle palace full of strong personalities and huge egos.
‘No plan survives first contact.’ And hindsight is always 20/20.
Currently an excrement storm is swirling around the SecDef as a few retired General officers are grousing that their former boss should be pink slipped.
President Bush is standing fast with his guy and says Rumsfeld has his full support and that Rummy’s leadership was “exactly what is needed at this critical period.”
Notwithstanding the Presidents support, a small collection of perfumed princes have taken umbrage with Don’s management style and leadership. Hey, even before 9/11, everyone knew Don Rumsfeld could be a s.o.b. Fortune magazine had listed him as one of America’s toughest bosses…before he took over the Pentagon.
It is axiomatic that an alpha dog like Rumsfeld would p.o. other alpha dogs in uniform…and he did/does.
Rumsfeld was a wrestling champ in high school and at Princeton. He was a navy pilot, congress critter, U.S. ambassador to NATO, chief of staff for Gerald Ford and then Ford’s Secretary of Defense. He was CEO of Fortune 500 companies and always, an effective, superior tough bastard.
Prior to ascending to SecDef, his plans for morphing the Pentagon into a leaner, meaner, more efficient entity had institutional bureaucrats apoplectic.
One of his 154 “Rumsfeld’s Rules” states, "Prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually." (You can see the full list at www.defenselink.mil/ )
So a few retired generals have their panties in a bunch over what their boss did or didn’t do and how he did or didn’t do it…big whoop!?!
Retired 2-Star John Batiste said he thinks the clamor for Rumsfeld to step down is "happening for a reason." Yeah, because retired the generals can say whatever they want. Batiste said, “We also served under a secretary of defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, and who didn't build a strong team."
Wait one General…the same guy who ran Fortune 500 companies to billions, served as SecDef and a President’s Chief of Staff; Ambassador to NATO doesn’t understand leadership?
Another whiney 2-star said Rumsfeld fostered an “atmosphere of arrogance”. Gee, I saw the same thing at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg…and it persists at Coronado, Quantico, and other places where ‘Eagles Flock’.
One interesting sidebar Rumsfeld mentioned in the wake of the recent itching and moaning is significant on a couple of counts. He noted there are between 3,000 to 6,000 retired and active generals. The mere fact there are so many flag officers hanging around supports my contention there are way too many generals. Also, a statistical analysis of the number of general offices cheap shoting the SecDef suggests this noise is a minor minority report.
Civilian and military leaders have bumped heads before…and will in the future.
Lincoln relieved General McClellan. Truman fired MacArthur. During Vietnam, generals were chronically grumpy about White House command and control of bombing missions.
Batiste referenced Gen. Eric Shinseki, who as then the Army chief of staff, told Congress a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that occupying the country could require "several hundred thousand troops," rather than the smaller force that did the job. Batiste snidely says "And we all remember what happened to him…He was retired early, and the Secretary of Defense did not go to his retirement ceremony."
Hey, Shinseki was in deep kimchi before the “several hundred thousand troops” comment. He is the guy who gave the entire Army nifty black berets (previously the distinctive headgear of Army Rangers). Eric had ‘other’ problems, which sealed his fate before his mouth wrote checks his body couldn’t cash.
It is also no big surprise that the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Peter Pace, is the strongest defender in uniform of his boss. Hey, Rummy is his boss! "He does his homework. He works weekends, he works nights. People can question my judgment or his judgment, but they should never question the dedication, the patriotism and the work ethic of Secretary Rumsfeld," Pace said.
Could Rumsfeld have done things differently? Sure. Should he be fired because he’s a ‘hard Richard’? No!
Doctor Robert Jarvick (who invented the artificial heart) once said, “Leaders are visionsaries, with a poorly developed sense of fear, and no concept of the odds against them. They make things happen.” That quote personifies Don Rumsfeld. If he is a tough, mean, arrogant, confident s.o.b., that is probably a good thing. If he upsets the institutional equilibrium of General Officers and Pentagon bureaucrats, HOOAH!
World & National News
Pentagon Defends Rummy
Memo defends defense secretary; Myers dismisses criticism
The Pentagon made public Sunday a memorandum it sent to supporters and critics of Donald Rumsfeld, after a week in which several retired generals called for the defense secretary's resignation.
The memo is an apparent attempt to challenge accusations that Rumsfeld has not adequately considered the views of U.S. military leaders in formulating decisions.
"The U.S. senior military leaders are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process in the Department of Defense," the first line of the memo said.
Ding
http://www.neoperspectives.com/rumsfeld.htm
The Best of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
If you've noticed, the dims always bang the drum to get rid of anyone who is effective.
Love it, Meg .. thanks.
Very nice
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3aaf017e5301.htm
A source close to the issue said Mr. Rumsfeld feels compelled to act in the face of widespread disagreement with the beret policy.
The Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, who set out the policy in October as a symbol of "a transformed Army for the 21st century," is said to be discussing how he should respond if Mr. Rumsfeld suspends the program permanently. Congressional and Army sources say the four-star general is convinced he made the right decision and stubbornly defends it.
Asked a retired soldier who worked in the Bush campaign: "Can Shinseki take a hint?"
Real men don't go whining to the media.
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/backup/cohen_111902.htm
November 19, 2002 — During a war, who should run the show: Politicians or generals? According to Eliot Cohen, author of a new book that looks at the tension that often arises around this question, the answer is simple: the politicians. Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, defended his views last night in the ARCO Forum.
“War is too important to leave to military generals,” he said. “They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.”
Cohen read passages from Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime, his controversial book that has received much media attention since it was published in May, even making it on to President Bush’s summer reading list.
Included were stories about U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, a civilian leader with limited personal military experience, who played a major role in Civil War strategy despite conventional wisdom that his military leaders were calling the shots.
Lincoln, for example, sent a series of letters to his chief military commander, General Grant, telling him what a great job he was doing and that he should let him know if there was anything he could do to help.
“But that wasn’t the real story,” Cohen said. Instead, through a spy, Lincoln was getting daily reports on exactly what Grant was doing.
“Even though Lincoln said he was turning over the campaign to Grant, that’s not what he does,” Cohen said. “He really was supervising Grant all the way through.”
Why the indirect approach? “I don’t think Lincoln ever was direct,” Cohen said. “He trusted no one. He was as devious and cunning as he was noble and heroic.”
He wasn’t the only one, Cohen said. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and France’s WWI leader Georges Clemenceau also pressed for details during war, asked questions of their military forces, and demanded a large role.
It makes sense, Cohen said, quoting Prussian political philosopher Carl von Clausewitz who once said that war is about politics.
“Therefore, it’s the politicians who are able to see the big picture,” Cohen concluded.
Tad Oelstrom, director of the Kennedy School’s National Security Program and a former Air Force general, served as a counterpoint panelist. He began his remarks saying, “If you’re expecting a dual tonight, you’re wrong. I probably agree with 90 percent of what’s in the book.” However, he argued that there are times when politicians make it difficult for soldiers to do their jobs. As a pilot during the Vietnam War, for example, he wasn’t allowed to shoot at night at trucks below when they had their lights on — even though he knew they were going to disappear into the jungle, flick their lights off, and began shooting at them — because of rules of engagement being dictated by civilians not actually in combat.
Thanks for the ping, STARWISE. :-)
Pinz
Precisely.
Treasonous Six Ping!
DING, PING, BUMP
As an old timer "still serving" as a civilian, I've been in and around the military a long time. We just haven't felt the effects of the SECDEF's alleged "micro-management" around here. No picking the bombing targets, the fusings, the ingress and egress routes, like Robert Strange MacNamara in Vietnam. No "strap-hanger" laden, condition-driven, White House monitored, rolls of the dice, like Desert One under the Peanut Farmer. No dreaming up Afghanistan Special Ops missions in the Oval Office with Hugh Shelton, like the Bent One. If anything, Mr. Rumsfeld's been guilty of the heinous crime of "macromanagement", attempting to set over-arching priorities and develop an organizational structure to meet actual or perceived contingencies. In other words, exactly what we pay a Secretary of Defense to do (whether you agree with him, or not).
He (Shinseki) is the guy who gave the entire Army nifty black berets . . .
With "Made in China" tags.
Yep.
These Generals need to take McArthur's example, and "quietly, fade away."
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