As I noted here, General David Petraeus granted an interview with blogger and radio host Hugh Hewitt last week. The topic of the interview was the military progress in the war in Iraq.
Though there was absolutely zero questions or answers that were political in nature, the Left-o-sphere jumped into knee-jerk reactionary/slighted mode and insisted that General Petraeus was a political hack and a tool of the Administration.
Of course this charge came from men who have never served in the military, and have zero idea as to the military’s very non-political and non-partisan role (unless of course you are talking about the fact that the overwhelming majority of military personnel are conservatives and vote Republican).
But that hasn’t stopped faux-journalist like Glenn Greenwald from impugning the integrity and honor of a better man than himself by asserting otherwise.
And just for good measure, in an email exchange with the PAO for General Petraeus’ office, Greenwald goes ahead and insults the integrity and honesty of Col. Steven Boyla, too.
Because, you know, the Left support the troops and all.
I was going to attack the Greenwald piece for being a pile of whining-tripe — but I’ll simply defer to Grim over at BlackFive, who does a good job of debunking the “the military is a political tool” absurdity flying from the uninformed left:
Mr. Greenwald and others assert that General Bergner is involved in politics, because his answers to some questions of fact match the White House’s answers. One is surprised by the assertion. The intelligence the White House is using is likely arising from military operations, after all. It’s not really shocking that the assessment of those in the elected, civilian branches is similar to that of the military professionals who saw the intel on its way up. Indeed, we’d expect that to be the normal condition. We’d be surprised when it was not that way.
Instead, Mr. Greenwald essentially calls General Bergner a liar and a tool of the administration. The first question is one of honor, to which I expect the General is able to reply on his own if he feels Greenwald is worthy of a response. The second one is a genuinely dangerous assertion.
The attempt to conflate the military with the administration; the assertion that the military is acting as a mouthpiece for the administration; and the attack on the underlying public support that nearly all Americans have heretofore felt for the military are of a piece. It is these men who are trying to politicize the military. I gather they are doing it because they do not like the answers to the “questions of fact” that the military are giving; so they would like to portray them as “questions of politics” instead. But they are not forays into political questions: they are a provision of facts from the ground. Those facts may inform the political debate, but they are not a part of it.
Read the whole thing.
“Of course this charge came from men who have never served in the military, and have zero idea as to the military’s very non-political and non-partisan role”
Anybody who believes the US military (and particularly its leadership) has a non-political role is either quite ill-informed, or is playing politics. The military is the death-dealing arm of the United States government, which means it is mainly a partisan tool for “robust” political expression. That it is the most heinous such tool at the disposal of politicians is unquestionable, and to imagine that generals are not also politicians, and do not play politics (inside and outside their commands) is to imagine them hopelessly ignorant and inept about the reality of their situations.
That might be one way of explaining the gross incompetence we have witnessed by one US commander after another in Iraq, but it is more likely that Bush, by seeing to it that all generals critical of his policies have been dismissed (those generals after all had not displayed the political wits and will to survive), has insured that only the most dishonest or most deluded officers are still in command in Iraq.
Left by klasher5 on July 24th, 2007 at 4:20 pm