Should we listen to the GENERALS when it comes to war?

Question

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070824/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq

Answer 1

Yes, the politicians should listen to the generals. The generals in the direct chain of command of this war. I.e. The Joint Chief, The individual Military Branch Chiefs, The Commander of Central Command, The Commander of Special Operations Command, The Commander of the Multi National Forces in Iraq (Gen Petreaus), and the Commander of CJTF-82 in Afghanistan.

They in turn should be listening to the commanders on the ground, those commanders actually meeting and engaging the enemy. They give their orders and direction and allow those in battle to follow through as best fit by the situation on the ground.

Answer 2

Who else would know more about it?

But there is the legacy of Vietnam, where American military leaders made incorrect statements. But the generals' errors were no worse than those made by the State Department and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

President Harry S. Truman used to complain of the stupidity of generals, but he relied heavily on General George Marshall. If fact, even after Marshall retired, Truman still referred to him a "General".

Politicians and generals usually distrust each other. Politicians just have better PR.

BTW don c, General Patreus does have experience in Iraq. He commanded the 101st Air Assault Division during the invasion.

Answer 3

You really have to take anything anyone says with a grain of salt (you never know if they're biased or pushing an agenda) but when it comes to military action of any type the best people to talk to are the subject matter experts, like the generals running the war or the soldiers in the field.

Answer 4

Bush's atrocity in Iraq has highlighted just exactly how politized the military is and how questionable their judgement is.

In the beginning,those Brass who opposed the war were effectively ousted and any Brass that said there were vnot enough troops were quietly put out to pasture.

Now we know we didn't and don't have enough troops etc and we now have the anti-Rumsfeld Brass in charge.

Like most of us in all our positions and jobs,looking out after number one is number one and often that means shutting up when we know we shouldn't..

The same is true of the military brass who "suck up to the boss and say what the boss wants them to say " .

We really cannot demand ofv the military Brass that which we do not demand of ourselves.

All of this to say that we should LISTEN to the GENERALS and LISTEN to the CITIZENS and LISTEN to our allies and LISTEN to anyone and everyone who has a constructive contribution.

LISTENING does NOT mean AGREEING with or acting on.

In a democracy ,the MILITARY is SUBSERVIANT to the Civil Authority and while their expertise is extremely important as it pertains to MILITRAY matters,Iraq is only partly about MILITARY matters and much more about POLITICAL matters .

Answer 5

Definitely, they can't be biased, can they?
They only tell the truth, like Colin Powell told us about WMD in 2003, don't they?
Like about Tilman and J. Lynch and Abu Graib and the 2 Trillion Dollar missing since 2001 and the Hospitals in such bad shape, that Veterans died from infections there, and all that other bad stuff, the poor innocent Generals had to deal with.

Answer 6

That's how we won world war 2. And our politicians haven't listened to them since. So we have lost every war since. I think generals would probably know more about war than bribe taking congressmen or some slick talking president. We should not fight wars we do not want to win.

Answer 7

Absolutely not! Never listen to them because their existence as a general is in the hands of our Commander-in-Chief, George Bush the bumbler. Obviously what they will say is what Bush wants them to say.

Answer 8

We should listen to the Generals on the ground in Iraq.

Answer 9

Overall yes.

But they can't even agree amongst themselves; how do they expect us to pick which one to listen to?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070824/tc_afp/usiraqmilitary_070824185231

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294421,00.html

Answer 10

Yes, and let the ones on the ground be heard the loudest