Yes, I caught that, but was trying to let it go for your sake. You mean “Father of the Iraqi Army” Major General Eaton? Nice choice. He was given that title in 2004 and now look where our Iraqi brothers are.
Might we be heading toward a military coup?
(looking at Hastart’s opponent, Petty Officer John Laesch, who was a Naval intelligence analyst in Bahrain, and in my own district Democrat congressional candidate Major Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs flying a Blackhawk in Iraq.)
Nah, just doin’ it the old fashioned way, by running for office.
Oh, well, that explains it. You are most likely a cracker, and crackers are iggernant.
I think David has probably seen this once or twice before. It’s never a pretty sight and we always seem to come out licking our wounds, vowing “Well, I’m never going to kiss an allegator again,” but the we nuzzle up to another toothsome lizard and start making kissyface.
When you enter into a conflict without having a goal to achieve and a plan for getting out, this is what you get. (“To restore democracy” to a region that never had it isn’t either a goal or a plan.) It’s a soldier’s lot to go where he’s told, do what he’s ordered, and if necessary risk life and limb in pursuit of such, but that’s under the assumption that the folks at the top are doing their jobs to make that option a last resort, not a part of their political grandstanding.
Stranger
Beats me about Slovik. I’m inclined to doubt it because I don’t think anyone but those in his immediate unit knew much about his case. This Wiki article states that over 2i000 were given various sentences for desertion in WWII. My WAG would be that most were in Europe. Where would a deserter on a small island in the Pacific go to be inconspicuous? As to why the local population wouldn’t turn them in? Some did but my experience was that the local population in France was relatively indifferent to our presence except as we could help them out personanlly. My amateurish analysis is that the French have seen foreign armies in their country for many, many years and we were just another one.
So Eaton was unable to turn Iraqis into a first rate army in a year or two. That affects the validity of his comments about the “lack of candor” of very senior officers and Rumsfeld’s sieve how?
I wish Dad were around; I wonder how many deserted in Australia. Then the Bounty mutiny was in the South Seas, of course. 
Mr Simmons, did you happen to catch the following comments by Gen. Barry McCaffrey? I think he expounds on your point quite eloquently.
Probably not many. Why would they? They were a long way from danger and surrounded by compatible people, able to go to bars, dances, movies and so on. And, as a friend of mine said, if you really concentrate you can even understand the language. Very few of the supply corps people deserted. Their thing in Europe, for some, was to sell stuff on the French black market.
They send damned strange Christmas cards.
Great, so can we depose and send Bush II to the Netherlands too? 
I here the Hague has nice weather.
You don’t think a failed General might be a poor critic of War Policy? (This goes doubly for you, Red. Shame on you for citing a butcher.)
I think the man’s a bitter fraud who let us down, and like a turd with a crisp buzz cut, he was resolutely flushed. As I said in Post 31.
Now we need a parallel for German officers making forbidden visits to him in WWII.
Hey, if Germany was backstabbed by the Jews (and whoever else it was) in WWI, the logical thing would be for Adolf to step down and welcome Kaiser Bill back, right? ;j
And the other 15 who appeared at the Democratic senators’s session, as described here (scroll down a little more than a third of the way) are also failed and embittered frauds? Does the rosy future and the "we are making good progress scenario portrayed by GW and Rummy reflect what the top general’s are telling them does that indicate the generals are telling them the straight dope? If that’s what the genrals are telling them the case I also question their general’s candor. If that’s not what they are being told the president and the secretary are in LaLa land.
It looks like, to you, anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the president is either bitter fraud or a butcher. You have, without anything but your own assessment of their motives, accused thse retired officers of going on TV and lying to the public.
Nor anything else, for that matter, when you think about it. 
No, General Eaton is a fraud. General McCaffrey is a wicked man who should be brought up on War Crimes charges.
If you look above at one of my Macabre Thoughts, then we are making good progress in Iraq.
No. I am indicting them separately. They are not team players and as such, are part of the problem.
Look, you must not know me, so I’ll just lay it all out. I am not a supporter of this or any war, but I do know that we need Generals who will enact the plan that is laid before them. We don’t need free thinkers.
There was this saying in the Corps: we need to get our shit in one bag. I believe we have only that choice now in Iraq. Get on board, or get the fuck out of the way.
Being a “team player” is irrelevant if the game has no rules, strategy that holds up to impartial scrutiny and lacks any possibility for conclusion.
To a certain extent. I think there were some of those at Nurnberg.
IOW, become an automaton, do as your told and forget about right or wrong.
Yep, brains are certainly overated.
As far as you or I know all of these retired officers who are speaking out carried out the plan to the best of their ability while they were active duty.
Now that they are retired some of them are saying the plan stinks, others are saying the plan was badly carried out, others are saying “What plan?” and Eaton is saying that Rumsfeld picks only toadies to be his immediate contacts, among other things.
Now, if they are all off base there are plenty of other retired generals, such as Franks, who could rebut them and that hasn’t happened. Until it does I will go with what they are saying instead of apeculative guesses as to their motives.
One more time. They are retired. They are not in any way impacting actual operations in Iraq. They no longer have to be “on board.” Of course, if GW and Rummy want to shut them up I assume all are in inactive status and can be called back in at any time.
Which brings us back to BINGO. I said I wanted opinions of Boots On The Ground, not Old Grey Geldings.
My in-laws have a friend over for dinner occasionally, a retired General and Marine Aviator whose heyday was Campuchea, who also happens to be chock-full of opinion on the current situation. In reality, he’s just an armchair quarterback with a million-dollar pension; what he says doesn’t mean shit, but it’s a good yarn every once in a while.