This somewhat stinging look at soldiering was first published on April 27, 2007. I added a new first sentence. — RDC

“Generals and majors, uh huh,” goes the old lefty XTC song… And in between them are colonels — in this case, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, who has written a scathing critique of his superiors’ conduct of the Iraq war in the Armed Forces Journal, a non-governmental publication:

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq’s grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America’s general officer corps. America’s generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America’s generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

“Yingling served as deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Iraq’s Operation Desert Storm in 1991. He attended the Army’s elite School for Advanced Military Studies and has written for one of the Army’s top professional journals, Military Review,” according to the AP; his byline says he “is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago.” He’s the real deal, in other words. It’ s a long article, and Yingling goes to great pains to prove his point, but I am hardly fit to say whether his analysis is correct or dead wrong. You simply have to know the topic to make that decision and read his analysis critically, and I don’t; neither Yingling’s rank nor his use of of military and tactical terminology tell me anything about his qualification to judge the work of the officers who command him. Interestingly, the magazine offers a forum for reader discussion, and when I wrote this, there were no comments at all — even though this article is being reported on Drudge and the Associated Press.

Democracy: Good. Free speech: Good. Honesty: Good.

Active duty military officers criticizing their superiors in print? I don’t know. If he’s right, I want to know, don’t I? But aren’t there problems with this? A year ago, a debate erupted over public commentary about the White House’s management of the war by retired generals. This seemed mostly to be a matter of a breach of custom, a lapse in discretion, though Fred Kaplan, who frequently covers the military (and always criticizes the Bush White House regardless of what it does), thought it was the beginning of something much bigger. The focus then was on public criticism among active officers of civilian policy-making or policy-makers, which according to this is actually a crime.

Now it is something different: A military man is criticizing the general officers’ corps — his uniformed bosses. It is not as bad as criticizing the Secretary of Defense or the Commander in Chief, because it does not threaten the constitutional principle of civilian leadership of the military. On the other hand, the publication of this article is arguably a serious breach of military protocol, which of course Yingling knows. It is a perfectly sensible policy that one not use the press or other vehicles outside the chain of command to circumvent that chain, whether in terms of policy or otherwise. There are exceptions in the case of the reporting of crimes — but policy disagreements?

What should be done? Read the rest of this entry »

Ross Douthat, via Insty, describes his vision of “the conservative cocoon”:

The cocoon is the constellation of mutually-reinforcing conservative institutions – think tanks and advocacy groups, talk-radio shows and websites – that can create the same echo-chamber effect that the liberal media has long produced, and that at times makes it difficult for the Right to grapple with reality.

I’m with him this far.  Think “Fred Thompson.”

The cocoon is the place where it took an awfully, awfully long time for conservatives to admit that the post-2004 crisis in Iraq wasn’t just a matter of an MSM that wouldn’t report the good news.

Uh oh.  Losing me.  Am I still in the cocoon?  Am I the cocoon?  Wait:

The cocoon is the place where conservatives persuaded themselves, in defiance of most of the evidence, that the reason the GOP lost Congress in 2006 was excessive spending, and especially excessive pork.

Would love to see that evidence, though he’s probably onto something there.

And today, the cocoon is the place where conservatives are busy convincing themselves that Sarah Palin’s difficulties handling high-profile media appearances aren’t terribly important, that her instincts are more important than her grasp of national policy, and that the best way to defeat Barack Obama is to start with the lines that Palin has used on the stump – Ayers, anti-Americanism and ACORN – and take them to eleven.

“Take them to eleven” — that’s a reference to a joke from “This is Spinal Tap,” ok?  So, he’s probably mostly right, except about Iraq… and that’s a big except… but what does this get him?

So when I say that a populist conservatism needs elites, what I really mean is that it needs elites who can step outside this cocoon and see national politics more clearly – whether they work for conservative outlets, MSM outlets, or something else entirely.

Why do we need elites for that?  I’m not even sure how he’s using the concept of “elites.”  Does he mean opinion leaders, but ones who agree with him more?

This is not, I repeat not, a matter of listening to Beltway conventional wisdom instead of the practical wisdom of the heartland. It’s a matter of recognizing political realities, instead of denying them outright – whether you’re in DC, New Hampshire, or Wasilla.

Now, again, he sounds sensible, I think…

The Sarah Palin who ran for statewide office in Alaska appeared to understand this, which is why she seemed like such a promising figure to me months before McCain selected her: As governor, she was conservative and pragmatic, right-of-center and anti-ideological. The trouble is that since she’s burst on to the national stage, she’s entered a right-wing world that’s bent on, well, cocooning her – telling her how great she is regardless of whether she gets up to speed on policy and handles Katie Couric’s questions, feeding her lines that appeal primarily to the segment of the electorate that’s already in conservatism’s corner, and calling out anyone who criticizes her as a cocktail-swilling elitist.

Well, that could be.  I have found some of my fellow conservative bloggers to lack the degree of intellectual suppleness with which I might enjoy interacting more.  But — what’s his tactical point?  It’s two weeks and goal.  Does he want to send Sarah Palin out to Professor Henry Higgins?  She isn’t going to pick up that masters from the Woodrow Wilson School between now and Election Day, and it would hardly matter if she did, would it?

She needs to pick up rocks, mud and pointed sticks.  And do her worst with ’em.  Because, Ross, that’s what we’re down to.  And I ain’t spinning you no silk here.