didn't say they are not good soldiers. and every general i expect has a high opinion of what is correct to do in a situation. however, i expect some group take in all the information and make a judgement. and a good soldier goes along with the judgement and follows orders.. retired or active.
these guys are pissed off because the army is changing they some were bypassed for promotion. listen to the other side of the argument from myers and franks who were there. and post i recently posted by op ed in florida .
ps here is franks interview with matthews.
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for April 14
Read the transcript to the Friday show
msnbc.msn.com
FRANKS:
It's—I said in my book that Don Rumsfeld has a very interesting management style. He holds everything very close to himself, he's a contrarian.
I know very few military officers who have ever given him a briefing or given him information and had him immediately say, oh, gosh, that's a great idea, I really love that.
That's not the way Don Rumsfeld does business. And so from that point of view, the point of view of a guy who is a pretty successful civilian CEO, a pretty successful secretary of defense, at a time when our country is at war, he steps up and he puts people through their paces.
EXPOSING the mindset of poor pathetic whiners
Now, it is not a thing that very many people who have spent the last 30 years of their life having people listen to them—I'm talking about the generals—it's a pretty hard thing to sit there and find yourself in a pretty serious hardball dialogue with a senior civilian.
..........
MATTHEWS:
Isn't it the job of the architects of this war, the generals, to tell the boss, or the client, you can't do it that way, it won't work?
FRANKS: Absolutely.
EXPOSING no one who knows what really went on is speaking against Rumfeld
And I think one thing that's missing in a lot of the reporting is that a great many generals, in fact, did that with Don Rumsfeld. I mean, ask him about our dialogue. Ask him as we spent 14 months planning this thing, Chris, the number of times that I'd look at him or he'd look at me and say absolutely not.
The discussions that we had, and a great many people were privy to those discussions, and interestingly, none of them happened to be the ones the generals who have spoken out. I mean, that's the sort of thing that you find with Don Rumsfeld.
Look, we live in a great country, Chris. Where else can we be so proud of military, seasoned military professionals, who are able to have frank, no kidding, not yes, sir, yes, sir type dialogue with a secretary of defense and still have civilians control the Office of the Secretary of Defense and our national security, as is called for in our Constitution.
I think it's a great blessing.
...............
EXPOSING Greg Newbold hyprocrisy
MATTHEWS:
Isn't the business of a general of your rank, and these other generals, to speak to the civilian leadership and say we don't buy this ideology of yours that we go into another country, take it over and convert it to democracy in the interest of some geopolitical objective?
Can a general say that to a secretary of defense? Because they're saying it now.
FRANKS: Chris, absolutely.
Well, my memory—and of course, I mean, I'm an older fellow, but my memory does not embrace a single event wherein Greg Newbold told the secretary of defense anything like that. I was in a number of sessions.
MATTHEWS: He's saying it now.
FRANKS: Yes. And the fact of the matter is that I said a great many things to Secretary Rumsfeld over the course of our professional relationship, as I think military people and secretaries of defense will.
There was friction. In fact, I think if you look at some of the reporting of that time, there is mention of the fact that—or the suggestion that Franks was thrown out of his office and this and that, and that's all foolish, that absolutely did not take place.
But one-on-one, face-to-face dialogue, wherein we discussed the puts and the calls associated with Iraq planning, certainly did take place. And I must tell you that I don't recall Greg Newbold having been involved in many of those sessions.
..................
EXPOSING the Rumfeld and the neocons big lie
MATTHEWS:
Where did that strategy come from? Was he coming in there with advice from his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, from another undersecretary, Undersecretary Doug Feith?
Was he coming in with sort of a civilian's idea of how to win a war based on ideology and confronting you generals with, OK, do this, I want this done?
FRANKS: Chris, not one time ever did I see Don Rumsfeld brief or present a plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whereas I on multiple occasions presented a plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and on several occasions in the presence of Don Rumsfeld.
And so the suggestion that the secretary of defense had a notion and took it forth to the members of the military and said, here's what we're going to do, well, that simply didn't happen.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: But what did you just say? I thought you...
FRANKS: The plan was generated by me and my staff.
MATTHEWS: But I thought you said that he wasn't open to suggestions, he came with a fixed purpose, a mission in mind.
FRANKS: Oh, sure. Let me give you a vignette, Chris, of how that happens. I remember as we—the word that I use is iterated, as we talked about this plan for more than a year, on many occasions, I would walk in and say, oh, Mr. Secretary, I have a great idea today. In his contrarian way, he would listen to the idea, and he would say, I don't know, general. I don't know if I buy that.
And then I would take a different point of view, and I would say well, if you don't like that one, Mr. Secretary, how about this one? And we would talk, and over the course of time, we would iterate. We went back and forth on this plan, and at no time do I recall Don Rumsfeld having said, general, I heard what you said, now this is what I want you to do.
And candidly, I'm not sure that anyone who is now on the stand in front of mainstream media saying what they're saying could say that he ever did that.
MATTHEWS: So he was open to a give and take between the experts and the civilians?
FRANKS: Yes, indeed. |
