The Power of Hindsight

[Report Line]

Is it me or does the recent critcism of UK foreign policy and our allies lack of nation building ability, by retired senior officers, leave a nasty taste in the mouth?

Surely, if one is so critical of the system, of which you are a part, then it is your duty to voice those concerns at the time and not a week before your book launch?

Within the military doesn't weak leadership and a perception that the ship is rudderless and in the hands of politicians have a negative effect on retention and morale?

Working on the assumption that our CG against AQ is cohesion and the integrity of formed international coalitions, doesn't it seem strange that such senior individuals do the work of AQ by producing critical comments about our allies in public?

Freedom of speech and all that - but think back to Staff College days and try and determine potential consequences of actions.

Just a thought.

[nigegilb]

The reputation of Jackson has in no way been enhanced by his tales of silent opposition to US occupation plans in post - invasion Iraq.

My favourite internet comment was "tosspot."

That said, the British press are eager to hear his message. If he decides to start caning Tony Blair and his dreadful Labour Govt then I could be a late convert to he of face-lift fame.

[wokkameister]

No big fan of Gen Jackson, I remember him saying that every good soldier takes toilet paper away, after troops complained of a shortage after about six weeks in the field and any supplies stashed in a bergan could have reasonably been expended a long time before. TW@T
But, Our military lords and masters are expected to tread a silent path, and not directly oppose the political path, no matter how distasteful they find it. It has been like that for centuries, right or wrong.
At least as we sit in the APOD at Basra or Kandahar awaiting AT that may or may not arrive, we can console ourselves that at least the brass have to suffer the indignity of having to deal with Blair/Brown in person.
Bring on a delayed flight everytime, a shower will wash off a delay!

WM

[Pontius Navigator]

But, Our military lords and masters are expected to tread a silent path, and not directly oppose the political path, no matter how distasteful they find it. It has been like that for centuries, right or wrong.

Absolutely and then they are free to criticise once they are out.

The point of contention was that he was not in a position to criticise sooner; he should have been.:}

[wokkameister]

Absolutely and then they are free to criticise once they are out.

The point of contention was that he was not in a position to criticise sooner; he should have been.:} Today 18:53

Agreed. But this is not the first outburst from Jacko since he left office. He recently lambasted the Iraq War he implemented, more specifically the post-war reconstruction for which he was only partially involved.

As an aside, I would not be in favour of our top brass becoming politicized and openly disagreeing with the government. I would be in favour of them putting the boot in a lot more firmly behind closed doors though.

WM

[brickhistory]

Stepping in a bit here:

We've had some of our mid-level generals retire then say they didn't like the mission in their post-retirement books.

While I agree that the military top brass should never disagree with the political masters in public, in private, they are paid to offer their best advice, even if contrary to what the politicians want.

Then, if they can't stomach the order to proceed, they should resign. None did.

The only one of our generals who spoke up was US Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. When asked during Congressional hearings before the war, he said it would take several hundreds of thousands of troops and many years.

He successor was announced shortly thereafter. Shinseki found out about that at the same time the press did and then SECDEF did not attend his retirement ceremony. Very shoddy treatment, in my opinion.

At, to my knowledge, Shinseki still hasn't made a public statement in retirement about "I told you so." A true gentleman.

[Archimedes]

brick, I thought - I may be completely wrong - that news of Shinseki's departure appeared several months before he made his observations to Congress?

IIRC, at some point in mid-2002, the New York Times reported that Shinseki was to retire in 2003, and that Rummy had chosen Jack Keane to replace him (which was, of course, completely wrong), and it was taken as being something of a snub to Shinseki for his (supposed) successor to be announced while he still had some time to go, since it potentially cast him as a lame duck Chief of Staff.

His comments about troop numbers were met with a public rebuttal by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who suggested that the General didn't know what he was talking about, and that they knew best...

Have I completely mis-remembered this?

[brickhistory]

I will defer if you remember more correctly; my recollection is that Shinseki testified, then his successor was named. And Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz then threw him under the bus.

As for Gen Keane being named erroneously, I simply don't recall. I do believe, however, that Rumsfeld brought back from retirement Shoomaker (sp?) to send a signal to the upper military that you toe his line or don't expect to keep advancing. And it apparently worked...................until they retired and came out with their books.............

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edited to add:

Some googling revealed that archimedes is correct. A report of Shinsecki's successor was put forth in 2002, not after he testified to Congress.

He still hasn't commented publicly since his retirement on the Iraq war.

[Pontius Navigator]

Whilst it is clear that many of us say they should resign if they disagree they have often espoused a counterview. 'I love my service and think I can do a better job protecting them from within.'

This might be a self-licking lollipop but . . .

Then there is the risk if they do jump early. Given a 2 year tour? At what point have you amassed sufficient credibility that a premature resignation might influence Government?

'he found the job was beyond his limited intellectual skills.'

It depends on a non-military public being aware of the skill sets required of a lt col battalion commander or a battle group commander. Many generals have never been in the public eye. Who, outside the Army, had heard of Danatt?

Then bottom line, remember they are still on the payroll. Remember Air Marshal Curtains;)? He was going to go public until someone whispered the magic words 'indexed-linked' in his ears.

[Top Right]

CO 1 Mech Bde seems to be speaking out, according to BBC and DT.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KCXZEHNQB4EHLQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/09/10/wiraq110.xml

[GeeRam]

Hmmmmm........just read an interesting snippet by Piers Morgan in his The Insider column in the Mail on Sunday TV weekly supplement.
Doesn't pull any punches :E about his thoughts on Mike Jackson. It's not online so for the sake of 10 mins I've typed it word for word (if anyone wants a pdf scan PM me).


Former army chief Sir Mike ‘I’m a soldier’s soldier’ Jackson has furiously denounced everyone but himself for the Iraq War fiasco in his new book.
I once met General Jackson at Sir David Frost’s annual garden party, where he was guzzling champagne and laughing and joking with his Number 10 crony Alastair Campbell. It seemed an odd thing then for our senior military man to be doing as war raged.
I recounted our exchange in my first volume of diaries, The Insider:
‘Here’s someone who needs reconstructing,’ said Campbell. ‘Have you met anti-war editor Piers Morgan?’
‘You must be very proud of yourself,’ Jackson sneered.
‘Not as proud as you must be waging an illegal war. What are you doing with Alastair – just getting your orders to go and bomb Iran and Syria as well?’
‘What would you possibly know about war?’ he said.
‘Well General, I do know we haven’t found any WMD yet and, forgive me, but I thought that was why we did it in the first place.’
‘Listen to me, Morgan,’ he snapped back. ‘Let me explain. It’s very simple. Bad guy got slotted, OK. What’s your problem, for God’s sake?’
‘My problem, General, is that there are loads of bad guys out there and we can’t just march into all their countries “slotting them” or the world will end.’
His eyes screwed up. ‘What a load of typically sanctimonious left-wing b******s. Saddam Hussein was a tryrant and the world is safer place now he’s gone.’
No mention then of all the serious concerns he is now airing about Iraq. Sir Mike would like us to view him as a craggy-faced war hero. But I, and most military people I know, just see a vain (how many ‘soldiers’ soldiers’ have cosmetic surgery to remove the bags under their eyes?) old expert-in-hindsight who is now shamelessly cashing in on his role in the biggest British military disaster for centuries.

[Tigs2]

Wow
possibly the best thing Morgan has written for years. Maybe Gen Jackson should pitch up on the next series of 'Britains got Talent':}:}

[Archimedes]

Would that be the ex editor of the Mirror, sacked because he tried to stitch the army up with some faked photos and who blames said army and especially its hierarchy for his dismissal (after all, the credibility of the photos was blown apart over on the army means)?

The dialogue seems about as credible as the photos...

[Compressorstall]

Perhaps we're all living to the wrong ideal - I grew up reading Victor comic believing that Brits all asipred to be square-jawed heroic types standing up for what they believed in, but history is littered with men who learned to say 'yes' the higher up the ladder they went because when they looked down they realilsed how far they had to fall. Government doesn't like to be seen to be wrong and so those beneath it tend to agree with what our leaders want or fall by the wayside since there will always be plenty of other ambitious types who are prepared to say 'yes' to order.
However, the dichotomy is that the fast-acting and far-reaching communications media that means that those in authority feel under increasing pressure to be seen to sing the company song lest they are found out also means that the Victor/Warlord readership have more visibility of the decision-making process. Hence here we are airing our opinions when we probably should be doing the washing-up. What's the solution? The champagne receptions and garden parties offer membership to an exlusive club that few would want to give up once they are in and if the price of membership is singing the company song, it becomes hard to stand up for what you believe in if it is at odds with the party line. The idealists still believe that they can change things from within - Jackson certainly gave the impression of being the gravelly soldier's soldier, but obviously even he bowed to the pressure - so what happens? Vote for people who don't say what they think will get them elected? All leave the Armed Forces/NHS/Civil Service in a fit of pique?
I don't know the answer, but I prefer to look after the people who work for/with me and accept that the barbeques I go to are much more relaxed than garden parties where you have to mind your p's and q's.
Anyway, I'm off to find my old Warlords and Victors - Lord Peter Flint - now he was a British hero in the classic mould and Alf Tupper knew how to keep going too...

[DSAT Man]

The higher the monkey climbs, the more he shows his arse.

[Pontius Navigator]

Dsat man, this is also known as the Koala bear theory. At the top of the tree, looking down, all you see is smiling facs looking up.:}

[moggiee]

Anyway, I'm off to find my old Warlords and Victors - Lord Peter Flint - now he was a British hero in the classic mould and Alf Tupper knew how to keep going too...
Now you're talking! Lord Peter duffing up Karl Shaft and Max Kaminsky (nasty Nazi/Commie types!) and Alf Tupper beating the Yanks at athletics on a diet of fsih and chips (and not a steroid in sight).

[TMJ]

Now you're talking! Lord Peter duffing up Karl Shaft and Max Kaminsky (nasty Nazi/Commie types!) and Alf Tupper beating the Yanks at athletics on a diet of fsih and chips (and not a steroid in sight).

To get it back towards a military aviation theme I recenty saw a newly written Battler Britton book in a shop in London. For them as are into graphic novels, it was written by Garth Ennis, the chap who wrote Preacher.

A quick search turns up the Amazon page:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battler-Britton-Garth-Ennis/dp/1401213782

[Compressorstall]

Warlord - there was a comic. Imagine if it was updated to the present day...Lord Peter Flint cutting around in downtown Basra...Union Jack Jackson serving in the troop surge with the Americans, wearing US uniform but carrying his trusty SA80...Squadron Leader Killer Kane in his trusty GR7 dropping enhanced Paveways on the Taliban...it goes on... Perhaps that way the media image might be improved if we saw some of the heroism of our brave boys and it might give people something to idealise.
I grew up reading such comics - Victor, Warlord and Battle that became Battle Action and Commando comic books - the same sort of people portrayed in there (with the possible exception of D-Day Dawson) are on the ground in Afghanistan or Iraq or flying above it today, they are just perceived differently. Imagine today's issues - "This week Lord Peter Flint writes a business case to acquire some surveillance kit through the Surveillance and Special Projects IPT", "D-Day Dawson tackles a particularly thorny workflow notification on his JPA", "Killer Kane maintains his night currency"...