Reid And The Brass, Part 3
REID AND THE BRASS....PART 3....As a followup to the Harry Reid micro-kerfuffle from yesterday, here is Melissa Tryon, a West Point grad who suggested in our current issue that Democratic leaders should criticize the military brass:
Bluntly put, there's no escaping the role played by top military brass in getting us to this point. Nor can the brass avoid blame for understating the catastrophic implications of White House decisions for military readiness, training, supply, recruiting, medical systems, and overall morale....For too many senior military officials, going along with poorly considered civilian plans has been justified in the name of respect for civilian control. It often looks more like careerism masquerading as principle.That's right. In a democracy with civilian control of the military, criticism of the top brass is not only appropriate, it's necessary. It's what you get from people who actually care about how well the military works and whether our soldiers have the right leadership.....For any Democratic candidate genuinely interested in making inroads with the military, learning about the perspectives of enlisted soldiers and lower-ranking officers — not admirals and generals — will be essential. With any luck, such a candidate will come away convinced of the need for greater accountability from the upper ranks, echoing down through subordinate leaders and across to civilian counterparts.
Conversely, what is despicable is drive-by smears from blogosphere point-scorers who try to pretend that criticism directed at the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff amounts to "antimilitary slurs." That's nothing more than a desperate libel from the crowd that apparently thinks that pro-war and pro-military are the same thing. Even for them, though, you'd think that how the war was fought would matter to them.
As for Reid, the only mistake he made was in not sticking closer to his guns. If he has serious criticisms to make of Peter Pace, he should make them without apology. If his criticisms are legitimate — and Pace's habit of regurgitating administration happy talk is certainly a fair target — then neither the troops nor the public will have a problem with it. They'll only have a problem if it looks like he's not willing to say in public what he's willing to say in private.