General Says Bush doesn't listen to his Generals

[forestal]

Well, I already knew that, but some of you need convincing. Maybe you'll listen to a military man?

From Vote Vets
<img src="http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/images/eaton.jpg"/>

General Eaton's Letter to President Bush on Veto May 1, 2007
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Today, in your veto message regarding the bipartisan legislation just passed on Operation Iraqi Freedom, you asserted that you so decided because you listen to your commanders on the ground.

Respectfully, as your former commander on the ground, your administration did not listen to our best advice. In fact, a number of my fellow Generals were forced out of their jobs, because they did not tell you what you wanted to hear -- most notably General Eric Shinseki, whose foresight regarding troop levels was advice you rejected, at our troops' peril.

The legislation you vetoed today represented a course of action that is long overdue. This war can no longer be won by the military alone. We must bring to bear the entire array of national power - military, diplomatic and economic. The situation demands a surge in diplomacy, and pressure on the Iraqi government to fix its internal affairs. Further, the Army and Marine Corps are on the verge of breaking - or have been broken already - by the length and intensity of this war. This tempo is not sustainable - and you have failed to grow the ground forces to meet national security needs. We must begin the process of bringing troops home, and repairing and growing our military, if we are ever to have a combat-ready force for the long war on terror ahead of us.
.....
I urge you to reconsider your position, and work with Congress to pass a bill that achieves the goals laid out above.

Respectfully,

Major General Paul D. Eaton, USA, Retired

​

 

[AndyMarquisLIVE]

Well, I already knew that, but some of you need convincing. Maybe you'll listen to a military man?

From Vote Vets

General Eaton's Letter to President Bush on Veto May 1, 2007
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Today, in your veto message regarding the bipartisan legislation just passed on Operation Iraqi Freedom, you asserted that you so decided because you listen to your commanders on the ground.

Respectfully, as your former commander on the ground, your administration did not listen to our best advice. In fact, a number of my fellow Generals were forced out of their jobs, because they did not tell you what you wanted to hear -- most notably General Eric Shinseki, whose foresight regarding troop levels was advice you rejected, at our troops' peril.

The legislation you vetoed today represented a course of action that is long overdue. This war can no longer be won by the military alone. We must bring to bear the entire array of national power - military, diplomatic and economic. The situation demands a surge in diplomacy, and pressure on the Iraqi government to fix its internal affairs. Further, the Army and Marine Corps are on the verge of breaking - or have been broken already - by the length and intensity of this war. This tempo is not sustainable - and you have failed to grow the ground forces to meet national security needs. We must begin the process of bringing troops home, and repairing and growing our military, if we are ever to have a combat-ready force for the long war on terror ahead of us.
.....
I urge you to reconsider your position, and work with Congress to pass a bill that achieves the goals laid out above.

Respectfully,

Major General Paul D. Eaton, USA, Retired


​

Pre-K get out late today?

 

[High EGT]

What flavor of cool aid today!
Your so called military expert although should be honored for his service to country is nothing more then a single individuals point of view that fits into your Far Left thinking. If polled our commanders on the ground would agree that the cut and run is the worse case senaoirio for Iraq and for the US in the long term. War is hell and we need to come to grips with that hard fact. But you obviously feel more enlighted then the rest of us so I would suggest to futher that enligtment you bookmark some other web sites beyond Move On.org.

 

[Coventry17]

Your so called military expert although should be honored for his service to country is nothing more then a single individuals point of view that fits into your Far Left thinking.

You imply that he's not an expert? He was commander of ground forces there. Also, the Far Left loonies position for the most part is "Bush lied, we should have never been there in the first place". General Eaton's position is that Bush did not listen to the advice he was given from the leaders in the field. Eaton is not the first, nor the last, to point out that Bush is myopic and tends to marginalize anyone who has a dissenting opinion.

If polled our commanders on the ground would agree that the cut and run is the worse case senaoirio for Iraq and for the US in the long term. War is hell and we need to come to grips with that hard fact.

You can't speak for the commanders on the ground, nor can anyone else. The best you can offer is "war is hell"? What next, a rolling stone gathers no moss? Don't take any wooden nickles? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?

But you obviously feel more enlighted then the rest of us so I would suggest to futher that enligtment you bookmark some other web sites beyond Move On.org.

A person is not any less, or more, "enlighted" (your word, not mine) than you just because his opinion is different than yours. Just because the majority in this forum agree with your way of thinking doesn't make you, or them, right.

 

[czygvtwkr]

I often wondered isn't it unethical for any military officer to pubilicaly question the orders of their superior?

 

[Coventry17]

Not if they're retired.

 

[Lenny]

Please explain for all of us how the statement

"...your administration did not listen to our best advice. ..."

became

"... Bush did not listen to the advice he was given from the leaders in the field..."

 

[pingrr]

I often wondered isn't it unethical for any military officer to pubilicaly question the orders of their superior?

untheical that would imply that it is morally wrong to question a superior. The military has already said that is not a valid excuse. Take abu grabe for instance. The military said the people there should have questiond thier superious about the things they were told to do.

 

[czygvtwkr]

Somehow I dont see anyone giving an order of "put panties on that Iraqi's head" or "point at his willy and take a picture"

 

[pingrr]

Somehow I dont see anyone giving an order of "put panties on that Iraqi's head" or "point at his willy and take a picture"

That is the excuse that they gave. when they were in trouble for taking those pictures. They said they were just following orders.


It is just a very fine line you walk if you pubilicly question a superior. If your point is good enough you may be OK. However if you question the wrong thing it could end your career.

 

[Coventry17]

Please explain for all of us how the statement became

Is English your second language? Here, I'll dumb it down for you. That general guy, he loves him sum green clothes. Prolly goes a'huntin' in 'em. Anyways, he is pissed 'cause the prezdent won't lissen to whut he's a been tellin' him from duh A-rab place. Duh prezdent, he is two busy, irregardless.

 

[PsyOps]

Well, I already knew that, but some of you need convincing. Maybe you'll listen to a military man?

Convinced of what Forest? That Bush made mistakes? That Rumsfeld made mistakes? I don't think anyone is doubting this.

Are you trying to convince us that because of these mistakes we should just abondon the cause? If you get in a car accident due to your own mistake are you going to quit driving altogether?

Here is something a little interesing though. Here is a quote from a DoD article :

“And we have built a team that is very high performing where people have operated outside of their comfort zone,” Eaton said. “Outside of their experience, outside of their competence, and have risen to the occasion and have continued to keep moving this very important project and very demanding project down the road."

Then there is this from Vanity Fair:

It would take three to five years or more to field a competent Iraqi Army, [Eaton] told them. The Americans training them were 'on the ragged edge of our competence.'

One gives a very positive outlook on Iraq and the other doens't. You chose which is the REAL Gen. Eaton.

 

[Coventry17]

I, for one, am all for being proactive against terrorism. The fight just isn't in Iraq; I don't think it ever was. We're wasting time, money and most importantly, lives.

 

[High EGT]

You imply that he's not an expert? He was commander of ground forces there. Also, the Far Left loonies position for the most part is "Bush lied, we should have never been there in the first place". General Eaton's position is that Bush did not listen to the advice he was given from the leaders in the field. Eaton is not the first, nor the last, to point out that Bush is myopic and tends to marginalize anyone who has a dissenting opinion.

When you mention Commander of ground forces please note that his command had jurisdiction over reconstruction and not tactical. In combat there are many levels of command and yes commanders often have differance of opinion including that of the CAC. And yes mistakes have been made in this War and if you check history there has never been a war without mistakes. Some costing thousands of lives in a single event. The big differance here is we now lack the resolve as a people to see this thru and our enemies know this. As far as Bush lied there has been no supportive evidence other then those who would like to believe that he did as well as believe he stoled the election in 2000.


You can't speak for the commanders on the ground, nor can anyone else. The best you can offer is "war is hell"? What next, a rolling stone gathers no moss? Don't take any wooden nickles? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?

Yes thats true, But what I can do is listen to objective people on the ground who are not poisoned by political partinship and who simply hate Bush so much that they would want us to loose just so they can say I told you so.


A person is not any less, or more, "enlighted" (your word, not mine) than you just because his opinion is different than yours. Just because the majority in this forum agree with your way of thinking doesn't make you, or them, right.

Yes, but you have got to admit he's at least a form of Forum entertainment if not a true blue example of narrow far Left idealogy. And just to be fair the same can be said of the far Right who desire to be the moral police.

 

[Coventry17]

Trust me, I'm no proponent of "far" thinking, left or right. There are good examples of both in this forum that make me cringe when I read some of their posts. I lean left socially, right fiscally. I guess that puts me in the middle. I'm a registered independent who actually IS independent (unlike O'Reilly, who CLAIMS to be independent but is pretty much a lock step Republican).

 

[PsyOps]

You imply that he's not an expert? He was commander of ground forces there. Also, the Far Left loonies position for the most part is "Bush lied, we should have never been there in the first place". General Eaton's position is that Bush did not listen to the advice he was given from the leaders in the field. Eaton is not the first, nor the last, to point out that Bush is myopic and tends to marginalize anyone who has a dissenting opinion.

If I am president and I get views varying directions, don’t I, as president, get to chose which to go with, especially if it supports the direction I would like to go? If Bush had listened to the half dozen (or so) Generals that are coming out saying he didn’t listen to them, the other half would be writing all these letters and complaining that Bush didn’t listen to them. Current dissenters have conveniently put Bush in an impossible position of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

You can't speak for the commanders on the ground, nor can anyone else. The best you can offer is "war is hell"? What next, a rolling stone gathers no moss? Don't take any wooden nickles? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?

Fact of the matter is, war is hell. It never goes as planned. Mistakes are made. But that’s just too unacceptable for you dissenters. Your level of expectations is unreasonable. WWII was an far more ugly war than this. We just live in a different generation that has no concept of winning and national security. A sad time we live in.

A person is not any less, or more, "enlighted" (your word, not mine) than you just because his opinion is different than yours. Just because the majority in this forum agree with your way of thinking doesn't make you, or them, right.

So let me get this straight… When you disagree with the president it is called dissent, but when we disagree with your take on this, we’re wrong? Pot calling the kettle black…

 

[Coventry17]

I never said you were wrong. If BELIEVE you're wrong, and that's my opinion. Big difference. Any leader who doesn't have people on either side of most political arguments advising him is missing the boat. By all accounts, Bush has surrounded himself with people telling him what he wants to hear. Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" illustrates this point exhaustively. I realize the President has to make a decisive course of action for better or worse and that at any given time, half the country is going to disagree with him. My problem with his decision making process is that he seems to discount all but a trusted inner circle of people. I also have a problem with a leader who feels like he needs to withhold imformation from the American public. Even O'Reilly agrees with me on that point.

 

[Lenny]

If I am president and I get views varying directions, don’t I, as president, get to chose which to go with, especially if it supports the direction I would like to go? If Bush had listened to the half dozen (or so) Generals that are coming out saying he didn’t listen to them, the other half would be writing all these letters and complaining that Bush didn’t listen to them. Current dissenters have conveniently put Bush in an impossible position of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Those of us who study war professionally (Listen up, Coventry, I DO know what I'm talking about) know that Clauswitz said "War is a continuation of policy by other means." and

...absolute war was violence unchecked by any controls, whose aim is to utterly annihilate the enemy. "The destruction of the enemy's military force is the leading principle of war; … The results will be greatest when combats unite themselves into one great battle," he wrote. But Clausewitz went on to note that in reality, such abstract "pure" war did not exist, for political strategies and goals served to restrain such massive carnage.

The decision to go to war is not secondary to a testosterone storm or a brain fart, it fits into the grand strategy of a nation. Though the absolute justification for entering a war may not be adequate on its own, the decision taken in light of the nation's vital interests can make war the only option.

The decision on how vast or destructive a war to execute is also determined by political forces. Thus, you might have the forces and the justification to bomb a nation into the dark ages (or cross into Bagdad and destroy Saddam in 1991) but you don't because yoru allies would then become your enemies interspersed in your ranks. You might have the justification to turn Iraq into glass parking lot, but don't because others in the region will turn it into an opportunity to do mischief.

In other words, the generals know how to fight a war, the politicians know how to prosecute a war. And generals never want to prosecute a war.

 

[PsyOps]

I never said you were wrong. If BELIEVE you're wrong, and that's my opinion. Big difference. Any leader who doesn't have people on either side of most political arguments advising him is missing the boat. By all accounts, Bush has surrounded himself with people telling him what he wants to hear. Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" illustrates this point exhaustively. I realize the President has to make a decisive course of action for better or worse and that at any given time, half the country is going to disagree with him. My problem with his decision making process is that he seems to discount all but a trusted inner circle of people. I also have a problem with a leader who feels like he needs to withhold imformation from the American public. Even O'Reilly agrees with me on that point.

There's a big difference between you saying I'm wrong and you believe I'm wrong. Sorry, Cov... you just lost a great deal of credibility with that one. All your doing now is playing a word game to support a failed argument.

As far as Bush surrounding himself with people that tell him what he wants to hear... Why are you pretending like this something new with presidents? Heck, Kennedy brought his own brother in. I don't think anyone disagrees that Bush is making decisions that fall within his thinking. So what? This is nothing new among presidents. It just so happens that it gets a lot more attention because we at war. Do you have any idea how many times Clinton ignored advice from advisors and commanders because it would interrupt his golf game? Have you ever read the book "Dereliction of Duty" (by Robert Patterson)? You might enlightened about how many times Clinton ignored advice from his commanders and advisors when it came to national security decisions. One of the big ones (not mentioned in the book) was the Able Danger operation. Ever heard of that. It was a military intel group that was watching al Qaeda in the US. They tried to warn Clinton that al Qaeda was planning a big attack in the US. Clinton and his group of crack legal advisors ignored it.

So, perhaps it's time to stop pretending all these lapses and missteps are something new and that Bush is the first to ever listen to advisors that fed him what he wanted to hear.

 

[Coventry17]

There's a big difference between you saying I'm wrong and you believe I'm wrong. Sorry, Cov... you just lost a great deal of credibility with that one. All your doing now is playing a word game to support a failed argument.

A failed argument? I think the situation in Iraq skews a lot closer to my way of thinking than yours. It's not a word game, I am intelligent enough to know that just because I feel passionately about a particular issue, I don't hold the key to right or wrong. That is the basis of an opinion. When someone makes karma comments such as "tard", "dimwit" or any other of the choice comments I get, they obviously can't make that distinction. Besides, I'm not arguing with you or anyone else on the topic of the Iraqi occupation. Arguing would imply that my mind wasn't made up and I could be convinced otherwise. I am absolutely sure in my mind that we don't belong there and given what we now know, we never should have been.