Obama's military problem is getting worse

[Jaron]

But overall he listened to his military and policy advisers rather than his political advisers. Unfortunately, for too long this was Dick Cheney. So it's not like NOT politicizing these kinds of decisions is any guarantee of coming to the right conclusion.

Dick Cheney ws 100% about politics, and 0% about military or policy except insofar as they enabled the administration to send the right political signals.

Not politicizing the war would have involved listening to his generals even when they said things that were unwelcome or politically uncomfortable.  Bush and Cheney failed spectacularly at that until McCain (who, like the generals, was in favor from the beginning of what later became known as "the Surge") forced it upon them.

the problem was that the generals were originally mostly wrong.  indeed, it took a few year for Bush to find his Grant.  A peacetime Army leads to the advancement of mediocre, bureaucratic generals who rise to the top because they were skilled at avoiding to offend anyone.  It is quite telling that most generals opposed the surge, luckily bush ignored them because they had lost credibility.  Listening to bad military advisors got Bush in this mess, he needed to first find some good ones to listen to.  When you blame Cheney, don't confuse the argument for going to war with the management of the war, the generals were able to fuck that up all by themselves.  It was the deferrence to the generals wich created so much of the problems.

Hans, is there any talk in the military about a coup?

[Hansmeister]

But overall he listened to his military and policy advisers rather than his political advisers. Unfortunately, for too long this was Dick Cheney. So it's not like NOT politicizing these kinds of decisions is any guarantee of coming to the right conclusion.

Dick Cheney ws 100% about politics, and 0% about military or policy except insofar as they enabled the administration to send the right political signals.

Not politicizing the war would have involved listening to his generals even when they said things that were unwelcome or politically uncomfortable.  Bush and Cheney failed spectacularly at that until McCain (who, like the generals, was in favor from the beginning of what later became known as "the Surge") forced it upon them.

the problem was that the generals were originally mostly wrong.  indeed, it took a few year for Bush to find his Grant.  A peacetime Army leads to the advancement of mediocre, bureaucratic generals who rise to the top because they were skilled at avoiding to offend anyone.  It is quite telling that most generals opposed the surge, luckily bush ignored them because they had lost credibility.  Listening to bad military advisors got Bush in this mess, he needed to first find some good ones to listen to.  When you blame Cheney, don't confuse the argument for going to war with the management of the war, the generals were able to fuck that up all by themselves.  It was the deferrence to the generals wich created so much of the problems.

Hans, is there any talk in the military about a coup?

We're drafting the list of people to be proscribed right now.  What's your address?

[Jaron]

We're drafting the list of people to be proscribed right now.  What's your address?

305 W 3rd St, Oxnard, CA