I have a soft spot for soldiers (you may have noticed), in addition to profound respect for our military, but that doesn't blind me to some of the Army's less attractive qualities, which are common to all bureaucracies: a powerful CYA culture and extreme resistance to change. Therefore, last week when the story first broke that 5 generals were dissing Rummy, I heaved a sigh of relief (I'd been prepared to be persuaded) that they didn't have anything more substantive to say than that he's gruff and has different ideas then their own.That's news? We've all seen his press conferences, at which, as my cousin says, he is "gorgeously withering" to the insolent and the ignorant. But these are fighting men --and they're saying they can't stand up to a 70 + year old man? Spare me.
My little bro, whom you may recall was "the line in the sand" formed by the 82nd Airborne in the first Gulf War, laughed when he read that complaint, because said he, "We all know how open Generals are to feedback and complaints." [Not very, in case you miss his sarcasm.] A big part of Bush's platform for the 2000 campaign was the reshaping of the military from the Cold War paradigm --it was one of the items that convinced me W was more serious than his caricature and that he was going to be more than another "noblesse oblige" Waspish Republican. And a certain contingent in the Pentagon has never liked it --even prior to 9/11 and the War on Terror. Here's Rummy defending himself --which of course he would, but he confirms what the story already smelled like to me.
Speaking of getting a whiff of something, Tony Blankely's been catching the scent of rodent:
This may sound far fetched, but in The Washington Post on Sunday the very smart, very well connected former Clinton Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke published an article titled "Behind the Military Revolt." In this article, he predicts that there will be increasing numbers of retired generals speaking out against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Then, shockingly, he writes the following words: "If more angry generals emerge -- and they will -- if some of them are on active duty, as seems probable ... then this storm will continue until finally it consumes not only Donald Rumsfeld." Mr. Holbrooke is at the least very well informed if he is not himself part of this military cabal intended to "consume ... Donald Rumsfeld.
To put the matter more clearly:
A "revolt" of several American generals against the secretary of defense (and by implication against the president)? Admittedly, if each general first retires and then speaks out, there would appear to be no violation of law. But if active generals in a theater of war are planning such a series of events, they may be illegally conspiring together to do that which would be legal if done without agreement. And Mr. Holbrooke's article is-- if it is not a fiction (which I doubt it is) -- strong evidence of such an agreement.
He goes on to cite the relevant statute on sedition in the Uniform Code and wonders about what precedent such a revolt might set and what implications it would have for civilian rule of the military. Me, I'm not as confident as Blankley that Holbrooke might not simply be, to sanitize what a friend told me, speaking out of an unusual part of his anatomy. But it's worth keeping an eye on. Blankley followed up the next day, noting that even that morning's WaPo editorial seemed to pick up on that aspect of the story.
