I see the Dems have once again rolled out the red carpet for the only military officers they can stand; Batiste, Hammes and Eaton.
Now of course the retired generals have every right to speak out on something they feel this strongly about, especially when it concerns the military, something to which they have devoted many years of their life. Most of the comments made by these generals is standard Lefty boilerplate, nothing the public hasn't heard a hundred times over. But there is one statement by retired Major General Batiste that needs to be looked at very closely, especially since it’s used over and over by the both the generals and the Dems.
He (Batiste-ed) said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.
This is being used by the Dems, and the generals, as a good example of the kind of mindset that Rumsfeld had about the war. And I have every reason to believe this observation is completely true. Rumsfeld could have very well made such a threat. General officers serve at the pleasure of the Commander in Chief, and I am sure that if the SecDef, any SecDef, told the President that he had lost confidence in the commanders he was about to send off to war and wanted them replaced, they would be replaced.
So it shows Rumsfeld was not willing to listen to those officers who disagreed with him about post-war planning. Maybe they had a great plan for post-war Iraq, maybe they didn’t. They certainly don’t seem to be offering up any great plan now, even though they've had years to think of one, and have the media ready to record every utterance they make about such a plan in their head. Still, no plan. So take from that what you will.
But let’s get back to that one statement, the one about the SecDef willing to fire anyone who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.
So….what exactly does that say about a general like Batiste, Hammes, and Eaton? Well, let’s extend the sentence a bit, to bring it to a logical conclusion since we know these generals decided to stay quiet at the time, even though in their own words they say they disagreed strongly with the way the war was being planned.
Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq so I decided it was better for me to keep my job than to take a stand that would save the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of my soldiers.
Or how about
Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq and since I was so close to retirement, I wasn’t about to screw that up, just to make sure that the nation had a good war plan.
Or how about
Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq so I decided right then and there that as soon as I was safely esconced in retirement, I wouldn’t hold back on my condemnation of such shoddy planning.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
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