A Seagull President
Is the military fed up with the President? Without Reservation:
Leadership is rarely seen in the senior officer who doesn't know his core skill area, whether that is flying airplanes, killing the enemy in ground combat, whether engineering or accounting. Incompetence can, of course, be remedied by the ability and willingness to learn. Incompetence without an observable ability to learn was bad news. Any sign that the suspect officer had simply no clue that he might be in severely bad kimshee and hence might possibly need to learn something was even worse news.
Some smart person ought to have mentioned this to George W. Bush when they approved the "Leadership Matters" theme.
An absence of leadership qualities in our military leaders gives rise to terms like "Seagull" Colonels and Generals, a species known to swoop in, make a lot of noise, crap all over everything, and then fly away. But our seagulls had an advantage over Bush and Cheney. Regardless of the mistakes made and not remedied, regardless of the illogic, stupidity and sheer idiocy of our present unit's existence under a seagull commander, at least we could be 100% sure they wouldn't be around for long...
Of course current military personnel cannot question a sitting Commander-in-Chief, but Lt. Col. USAF (ret.) Karen Kwiatkowski's, article is a scathing indictment on the President. All of this points to an administration that doesn't listen to anyone outside the small circle of partisans. It hardly matters what plan Senator Kerry can come up with now, in four months the situation in Iraq will have worsened, because the actions of the Bush Administration has painted America into a corner. We are not safer: Iraq is a no-go country, Afghanistan is safe up to 10 feet outside Kabul, and Osama bin Laden is free to direct and coordinate more attacks against the west. America can do better, we need a change before Iraq is completely beyond hope.
UPDATE 20040927
USAF Col. (ret.) Mike Turner writes in ‘Staying the Course’ Isn’t an Option:
If Bush is re-elected, there are only two possible outcomes in Iraq:
- Four years from now, America will have 5,000 dead servicemen and women and an untold number of dead Iraqis at a cost of about $1 trillion, yet still be no closer to success than we are right now, or
- The U.S. will be gone, and we will witness the birth of a violent breeding ground for Shiite terrorists posing a far greater threat to Americans than a contained Saddam.
So, either the United States Air Force is really pissed off at the siting CnC, or there is a huge problem in Iraq that is not being attended to. We Report, You decide.
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This is the permanent home of A Seagull President. I wrote this post at 13:40 on September 27, 2004. This post is part of grubbykid.com, a weblog. If you liked this entry, why don't you read some other posts such as President not Concerned about Osama or Dictator Musharraf thinks world is less safe? Or you could go to the site archives or return home. All are good choices.
