What’s Wrong with our Generals and Admirals?

It’s no secret that I thought two weeks ago that we needed to support a “No-Fly Zone” over Libya.  While I still think that is the right thing to do, our rookie President managed to do it in about the worst possible way.  I expected that, but what I didn’t expect was that the entire military establishment would roll over for Obama. 

I’m not inspired by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen – he’s sort of “Mr. Rogers Joins the Navy.”  Where are Admirals like “Bull” Halsey when you need them?  One would think that with the exception of former Marine Commandant Jim Conway the only senior officers in the services were General Stanley McChrystal and General David Patraeus.  We need to hear from our senior military leaders.

One of the big lessons from the Vietnam War was that the American people have got to be behind us before we commit troops to a conflict.  Another lesson is that the Armed Services need a clearly defined and achievable mission that identifies an end game or exit strategy.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any trouble with following up an attack on Americans with something simple like “Destroy as much of the offensive capability of the [insert country name] air force, army, and navy as can be achieved in three weeks for less than $110 Billion.”  Every United States action doesn’t have to have as an end state a Jeffersonian democracy in some third world pig sty.   Look how well that worked on Kaddafi when Reagan did it.  We have to get over the “we broke it, we own it” syndrome.  We also have to have a precise goal before we commit soldiers, sailors, air men, and Marines to combat. 

With that said, I think that our rookie President is going to find out that a “limited war” is going to be analogous to being partially pregnant.  Since Obama sublet the presidency to his Secretary of State - I hope that some general or admiral looked at President Hillary and said “Exactly what do you want us to do and how will we know when we have won Ma’am?”   Then they should have had someone put some really inspiring stuff on Obama’s teleprompter along with some cogent rationale of why we are doing this and push him in front of the Congress and the American people.  All that needed to happen before the first shot was fired.  If we are planning to just keep the bad guys and the people that we think might be good guys apart – that could be a long term proposition.  The UN stepped in to separate combatants in Cyprus in 1974 and they are still there in between the combatants. 

Kaddafi has been begging to have his ass kicked for 40 years – this is as good a time as any.  However one Congressman echoed my thoughts when he said that it was wrong for him to learn that we were going to war with Libya when he heard about the bombs being dropped on CNN.  It was wrong for me to find out that way too (only it was on Fox News).  The very best people to have framed this in the right way were professional military officers who know better.  They have a duty to us and their loyalty is to the Constitution not a temporary occupant of the White House.