Army chief fears backlash for Muslim U.S. soldiers
9th November 2009
… which illustrates part of the problem. You get to be a colonel by being a good soldier; you get to be a general by being a good politician, as the memoirs by Norman Schwartzkopf and Tommy Franks make clear. Quite often that produces a useless ass-covering paper-pusher, like Al Haig and Wesley Clark. And it always produces an upper leadership in the armed forces that walks the walk of Political Correctness. This process has been going on since Vietnam, as limned in James Webb’s first (and best) novel, A Sense of Honor … and it is almost impossible to resist, as Webb’s subsequent career makes clear.
General George Casey, U.S. Army chief of staff, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about whether religious beliefs motivated the accused gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States of immigrant parents.
This is just pure stupidity, and somebody this stupid ought not to be a General at all, much less hold office as Chief of Staff.
At least Joe Lieberman gets it.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:48
Wow! You nailed the difference between colonel and general perfectly and your reference to Jim Webb hammered it home. (It pains me to praise a comment, but this one deserves it.)
November 9th, 2009 at 17:00
I got that distinction from Norman Schwartzkopf, one of the greatest generals of the 20th century IMHO. Nothing I’ve seen since contradicts it.