PrintDecember 27, 2006
Victory the Old Fashioned Way
CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid's planned retirement in the middle of a war reflects a business as usual mentality on the part of our senior leaders, who seemingly find it impossible to fight and kill the enemy all the way to victory. There were no such inhibitions on the part of Ike and Patton in WW II. Comparing the current leadership with the way Ike held together a complex coalition, while getting the most out of his brash and colorful general, shows how far we have slipped into military-academic skullduggery, meant to excuse incomplete victories behind a veneer of professional elitism.In our previous global conflict, failures of military leaders in a combat zone would have never have been tolerated by a theater commander, and would have nearly always been handled within the military chain of command. Decisions on keeping flag officers in their jobs rested on one criterion alone: having commanders focused on the total defeat of the...(Read Full Article)
