From today’s Washington Post Politics Trivia Question:
*Any * “federal officer” is subject to impeachment (as **John ** would have known he’d bothered to use The Google just a bit instead of once again informing us of his ignorance).
Rummie wouldn’t even be the first in the job - Sec of War William Belknap was impeached in 1876, although for bribery, not incompetence.
This is not surprising at all, however I very much doubt the average soldier is really properly equipped to assess Rumsfeld’s administration.
The fact of the matter is, when Rumsfeld was appointed he had a very admirable, and laudable goal. Furthermore, it was a goal guaranteed to earn him the enmity of the top brass.
It’s often glossed over now, but Rumsfeld’s goals when he was mad SecDef revolved around restructuring the U.S. military to deal with the new threats faced in the modern world, to make our military more mobile and responsive and to move thinking and structure away from that which was developed to handle the Cold War.
Make no mistake, when we invaded Iraq we were invading Iraq with a military that was still largely set up to fight in the Cold War. Our military is wholly unsuited to deal with the kind of threats we’re dealing with now, and we’ve been playing catchup ever since we invaded Afghanistan.
The resistance to change seen by the top military brass has directly contributed to making the military more anachronistic and outdated. And while our spending and technology advantage will keep us the world’s preeminent military power for the time being, unless we continue to implement the reforms Rumsfeld has been talking about since day one, that isn’t a situation that will likely last very long.
What’s unfortunate is, Rumsfeld has fumbled the ball several times as SecDef, meaning his ideas for reform are being dismissed and resisted based on his failings in other areas. With that in mind I’d like to see Rumsfeld replaced with another SecDef who will continue his reforms but not have the tainted image Rumsfeld does that hamstrings his ability to get things done. Ultimately, we can’t really listen to input from the top brass here, at least until the current top brass dies off*. Because these are men who grew up and were trained to fight a Cold War, and are wholly unwilling to modify their way of thinking.
The fact that most of them have very valid criticisms of Rumsfeld in response to his handling of the Iraq situation does not erase the fact that they themselves are contributing to an systemic problem in the U.S. military.
*There’s some top Generals who I think definitely see that things need to change and we need to retool our military in response to changing geopolitical realities. But by and large many of our top military leaders are digging their heels in.
Why does the US military need to become more mobile ?
Think about it.
You’re just too funny! :rolleyes:
“was”? Isn’t he still the mad SecDef?
Daniel
Lol, :rolleyes:
It’s not unbelievable at all. Many in the military have been unhappy with Rumsfeld since almost the beginning of his tenure.
As was already pointed out, the various military Times newspapers aren’t the official voice of anyone, and most of the time they’re more of a voice to the military or for the military rather than a voice of the military.
Stars and Stripes (AKA Stars & Lies) is closer to an official military newspaper.
There are things we know. There are things we dont know. There are things we know that we dont know. ETC. He should have been laughed out of office that day.He has old timers disease.
This is an absolute insult! **Martin Hyde ** not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who’ve given their lives!
These Americans who are risking their lives in the fight against terrorism in Iraq deserve better than to have their service demeaned by a Straight Doper! Our soldiers need **Martin Hyde’s ** support, yet **Martin Hyde ** offers nothing more than disparaging commentary!
The poster’s suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and shameful! The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots – and **Martin Hyde ** owes them an apology!
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I’m not sure what you mean by this. The I was referring to this sentence:
Yes and no to your first paragraph. When Rumsfield first started nobody really cared about him, let alone knew about him. When all the shit originally hit the fan, I think most military men and women liked the fact he was a hard ass and did not back down. However, things have not gotten better and he has the same attitude. He has shown little regret for lives loss, and it seems he is basically against one of our biggest sayings: adapt and overcome. He seems to have no desire to adapt to the situation.
I was reading that the Times (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force) has a circulation of 250,000, but I must point out that it is read by probably 4 times that number. When I was in an infantry platoon, we only would have one amongst our whole platoon, but I bet at least 50 of us read that one Times. Very few actually know that it is not published by the actual service it ‘represents’.
I’ve never seen any personal evidence to suggest that the average soldier has any more information about political affairs in the United States than the average American citizen; which is not near enough.
Ah, so not only are soldiers ignorant, so are the rest of us. Perhaps its just as well that Kerry didn’t mangle the speech you wrote.
But we’re not talking about “political affairs” and the SecDef is not a political position anyway. We’re talking abotu the competency of the SecDef, and the average soldier is better positined than the average citizen to know about that. If the leader is not respected, he’ll almost certainly be ineffective.
I would say, however, that I’d be more intersted in what the mid-top level officers have to say about Rumsfeld than the rank-and-fiel soldiers/marines/sailors/airmen. The fomer are in a better position to see what policy is and compare it to what if could or should be.
The SecDef absolutely IS a political position, by definition, being appointed by and serving at the “pleasure” of the President. All Cabinet positions are political.
As to how the top brass view Rumsfeld… the best evidence I know of is in Bob Woodward’s newest book, A State of Denial. I think it’s by and large accurate – the White house trashed it, but AFAIK couldn’t directly refute any of its specifics. Rumsfeld is widely hated at the Pentagon. You can find fairly extensive excerpts of Woodward’s book online.
I can tell you that most of us AF types refer to the AF times as the “Air Force Enquirer”. I read it because they have it in the base library but they do sensationalize pretty much everything and they sell their papers by convincing young troops that they have inside info in the paper when in reality all of the information can easily be found free and is routinely disseminated through official memos or email distro long before hitting the newsstand.
If you open one up you will find that there isn’t much real info or reporting in them. In fact they are all wrapped in plastic so they can’t be browsed at the checkout line. You could get all interesting facts out of that rag in the 2 minutes waiting in line, then you’d never buy it.