Military Historians: A Call to Action

by Cliopatria

In the February 8 edition of the Washington Post, Thomas Ricks wrote openly -- and approvingly -- about the wonderful spectacle of gross military insubordination. General Ray Odierno, Ricks enthuses,"launched a guerrilla campaign for a change in direction in Iraq, conducting his own strategic review and bypassing his superiors to talk through Keane to White House staff members and key figures in the military." Ricks pronounces this an"audacious" move, and writes that it led to the implementation of"a strategy rejected by the full chain of command above him."

But it gets better: On Meet the Press that same day, Ricks said that he thinks"we may see a confrontation between Obama and the generals by the end of this year." Why? Take a moment and stare at this quote:

No, they feel they have made huge sacrifices, that they have had friends die and sons bleed, and that they don't want to throw that all away on the--you know, because some guy said on the campaign trail,"We're going to get all these guys out."

"Some guy on the campaign trail." That would be the president of the United States he's referring to. The military doesn't feel like listening to him, so they're going to have a confrontation over it.

So I have a proposal for military historians, retired military personnel, and anyone else who wants to participate:

I propose that we petition President Obama, as military historians, asking that he demand an explanation of these stories from General Odierno -- and that he relieve General Odierno of duty if the explanation is not sufficient.

If the story Ricks tells is accurate, Odierno and some of his fellow military officers are off the leash. They think they can confront the lawful authority elected to control the military, and they think it's a reflection of virtue to launch a "guerilla campaign" aimed at overturning the authority of their lawful superiors. If the president doesn't stop them, he's effectively no longer the president, and the American military is no longer subject to civilian control.

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John Richard Clark - 2/18/2009

I wouldn't be too heartbroken to see a generation of neocon brass hats meekly submit their resignations.

Chris Bray - 2/17/2009

While I very much recognize the possibility that Ricks is overhyping his story, there's no reasonable way to create a "conspiracy theory" on my part out of a plain reading of what Ricks said. When a reporter says plainly that generals don't want to do what the president wants them to do, and then adds that it may lead to a confrontation between the generals and the president, the claim is that those military officers are about to behave in an insubordinate manner. Address the claim, and leave the other bullshit out.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/17/2009

Mr. Hitchens, I'm not sure who you mean by "You civilians". Chris Bray is a veteran with service in the war in Iraq.

Ralph M. Hitchens - 2/17/2009

You civilians do love a conspiracy, particularly involving military men who are "loose cannons." Thomas Ricks is a fine reporter who has a far better grasp of the military culture than nearly all of his professional colleagues, but as he's shown in his other writing (e.g., his novel, _A Soldier's Duty_) he's just as much a sucker for conspiracies as any other civilian. What I saw in his Washington Post article was a lot of unsurprising high-level atmospherics surrounding a controversial change in direction in our conduct of the Iraq War, none of which any of the military participants (Keane, Odierno, Petraeus) would have characterized in such simple terms as one or more generals being "off the leash."

By the way, the increase in troop strength was only part of the reason why the "surge" is widely regarded as successful. Equally or even more important was the change in attitude toward al-Qaeda and the radical Sunni insurgents among key Iraqi sectarian leaders, coupled with Petraeus's active solicitation of local truce arrangements -- which, by the way, everyone understands to be temporary.

Barry DeCicco - 2/16/2009

Frankly, I've expected that - the senior officer corps is quite republican, and would be expected to be quite insubordinate to any Democratic president.

However, I think that the timing is poor; Powell's insubordination with Clinton came after first Gulf War, when the military was riding high. This one will come after the Iraq War, which is a stalemate, and one in which the military leadership didn't look so good (as well as Republicans in general).

Jeffrey R. Terrell - 2/14/2009

It'd be awfully inconvenient for Odierno, if he thought downrange conditions were ripe to bypass *this* regime.

Chris Bray - 2/14/2009

I thought the takeaway was that Odierno's advice doesn't suit the civilian leaders of this time, so he's trying to go around them, much as he went around some of his superiors before.

Jeffrey R. Terrell - 2/14/2009

Suit! My keyboard is disintegrating.

Jeffrey R. Terrell - 2/14/2009

Even with WaPo's treatment, I found the take home lesson was that Odernio bucked his chain of command, and was partly responsible for fueling the insurgency. But did his advice later not suite the civilian leaders of the time?

Chris Bray - 2/13/2009

Just a BTW.