The General's Revolt

Lawrence Henry writes a good analysis of the General's Revolt in The American Spectator. Here are the final three paragraphs:

The World War II generation would have understood the pique, as I say. The generals got their rice bowls broken. That rattling noise, under all the whining, was the jingle of hundreds of generals' prospective shoulderboard stars washing out the Pentagon sewers and down the Potomac.

So never mind the apparent policy differences or the complaints that Secretary Rumsfeld is "arrogant" and "doesn't listen." Those are just pretexts for making a political move, hardly unexpected from the politicized Army that survived the Clinton administration.

What strikes me are the paradoxes. Disaffected general officers fall in with the civilian critics who want to re-cast Iraq as another Vietnam. They offer their help in the very process of demoralization that led to America's Vietnam defeat, to the very people they wanted to protect the Army against. Meantime, the all-call-quagmire types have joined forces with the oldest-line representatives of the military industrial complex.

You should read the whole thing.