Duct tape for the mouths of generals – a line item for the next Pentagon budget

US Army generals have a disconcerting and yet consistent habit of declaring, or, at least, implying, that victory is at hand - after the apparent success of a week or less...

Yes, you are not hallucinating: I really did write “a week or less.” Follow the news carefully and you will witness this phenomenon again and again for yourself.

A pattern of disasters over months or years, linked with numerous lives lost, tends to be dismissed with a phrase such as: “We have put the past behind us.” In career advancement terms, quite possibly.

Not so for the dead and the injured and the permanently scarred and their loved ones. The cynicism and ignorance of such US Army language defies civilized description.

Language has a special lack of meaning when used by the Army. All too often, a mere description of an aspiration is confused with substance.

It has to be so – if a general says it.

Such attitudes are morally corrupt, and militarily ineffective. Nonetheless, they are the norm.

The average US soldier who is 'outside the wire' – and most virtually never leave their fortified encampments (yet still draw combat pay) deserves better. He or she has shown that the best of America is as courageous as it gets – but he or she is in a minority of the military. Most of our soldiers are garrison troops who are focused on their three meals a day and who do not venture forth. They are focused on lobster on Fridays. Kellogg, Brown and Root (owned by Halliburton) are doing a commendable job at distracting our troops from the mission at hand.

Short-termism is a feature of the senior American military mind, unfortunately. Long term institutional memory, except where the Army Leadership feels it has been slighted (an important qualification), is not. In fact a detailed knowledge of history, of the kind that might be gained from extensive study and consideration of the history of warfare, is perceived as near treasonous. To read is to think; to think is to question; and to read, think, question – and to advocate fresh ideas is akin to conduct unbecoming a gentleman and an officer.

Which is essentially why Brigadier General Billy Mitchell of the Army Air Corps was court martialled and found guilty.

Mitchell had the impertinence not only to suggest, but to demonstrate, that air power was going to be the coming thing.

Outrageous! Why that was like suggesting that maybe the tank might replace the horse – or that armored vehicles in the maelstrom of 21^st Century warfare, were essential if you did not want your soldiers to be killed!

Probably the best known example of the type of ill-advised public declaration that this piece is about was General William Westmoreland announcing that there was “light at the end of the tunnel” – just before the 1968 Tet Offensive took place (thus destroying the already waning faith of the American public in the Administration’s Vietnam policy). The Viet Cong lost technically by a wide margin, but they won the battle for public opinion; and the North Vietnamese won the war...

By the way, the Army responded to General Westmoreland’s singularly unfortunate statement – which came on top of several disastrous years of leadership of US forces in Vietnam – by promoting him to be the Chief of Staff of the Army.

The man's warfighting record had been truly miserable, but competence, in the general military sense, is not a required attribute for that particular top job. In fact, bravery and tactical success on the battlefield may well count against you. All that matters is the consent of the club of generals - and that you are politically acceptable to your civilian masters. Broadly speaking, Administrations prefer compatible types that they can push around rather than warfighters. They know that talented warfighters are difficult by another order of magnitude. Just for start, they fight for what they believe in.

These days, the Army rarely punishes incompetent generals because it might suggest that some generals actually are incompetent – which clearly they cannot be if they are either left in place or promoted because the Army leadership is, by self declaration, both omnipotent and infallible.

Note: if that concept gives you a headache, reflected that Catch-22 was written about the Army – in the days before the Army Corps had its revenge by divorcing the Army to become a separate service. Billy Mitchell really did have his revenge.

In contrast, disloyalty to the club of Army generals is generally regarded as deserving whatever charges can be made stick – or shunning if the offender has retired. Shunning means being excluded from high paying defense contractor retirement jobs so it is scarcely a minor matter.

Questioning the status quo, for instance by writing a controversial book or article or by questioning the direction of the Army Leadership in the press, is, without question, considered to be disloyalty. Being right merely makes the offence worse. According to current Army culture, wisdom and insight on any and all important matters, belong solely to senior officers; and there intelligence and perception are neatly ordered by rank and seniority.

No lowly captain, for instance, has the right to be right even if he is right – if a general thinks he is wrong. Even more to the point, no lowly captain has the right to be right even if he is right - if he even hints at the thought that he might have arrived at his particular conclusion ahead of those senior officers who are ordained, by virtue of senior rank, to hog any and all glory.

To show up a general may well be a hanging offence.

I would confirm - but I do not want to even hint that I could ever possess the certainty of a general.

I was prompted to write these remarks by reading Major General William G. Webster’s recent comments that US and Iraqi forces have “mostly eliminated” the ability of insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity attacks in Baghdad. Whether true, or otherwise, it was a remarkably dumb thing to say, albeit in the time honored style and bombastic tradition of a whole series of US Army generals in Iraq.

Remember Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt? He was the US Army’s equivalent of Baghdad Bob – and one has to admit, he did nearly make that particular excruciating standard. In fact, one has to wonder – if one is prone to surrealism - if they are not perhaps the very same person.

General Fuzzy (the troops really do call him that for solid reasons) Webster’s comments were singularly ill-advised for more reasons that I can adequately cover here – but it would be churlish not to get the discussion started:

• It is an impossible to judge the capabilities of an insurgency over a short period. The normal pattern of such insurgents is to “bend with the wind.” That means that, apart from a few designated stay-behinds, they give ground when attacked with overwhelming force, but re-infiltrate afterwards. If you want an example of this technique, look no further than Falluja. It was subjected to more applied violence than just about any city in Iraq – and is subject to more detailed high technology US Marine control right now - yet the insurgents are back to killing US troops within Falluja.

• Insurgents feel no obligation to conform to our agenda. Just because we are launching Operation Princeton (for instance) does not mean they are obliged to resist it. They may just decide to soak up the rays during that particular period. And their agenda includes messing with their opponents heads.

• It is a really bad idea to be arrogant in the face of the enemy. Our enemies understand the concept of ‘hubris’ as well as anyone and enjoy answering a boast with mayhem and slaughter.

• Whatever be the disconcerting truth, it is an even worse idea for a military commander to demonstrate publicly that he or she is dumb.
  

General Webster’s singularly ill thought through comments were – predictably - greeted by mayhem and slaughter in Iraq the following day.

Ordinary soldiers die when generals say and do thoroughly stupid things.

We really do need to improve the quality of leadership of the US Army. Right now, we are not even seriously thinking about it. Accontability is a joke. And so we get the generals, and the maimed and the dead, and the mind numbing costs, and the failed missions that we deserve.