Help Wanted, General Idiot

The White House is considering hiring a war Czar a leader, a man in full charge to take the war from where it’s been to where it needs to be. (I thought we held an election for that?) But they can’t find any takers, full employment perhaps? Or maybe they just don’t make Generals as dumb as they used to. The pages of history are covered with young Generals taking command and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Think of it, you’re a young Brigadier General and here is your chance to leapfrog your way into the top echelons of power.

Napoleon a young Brigadier used his artillery to fire on royalists and saved the French revolution, Irwin Rommel in Africa short on supplies used stealth and tactics until Montgomery took the thankless and at the time what was considered to be the hopeless task as commander of the 8th army. Napoleon was blind with ambition and the chain of command during the revolution was almost non-existent if he won he was a hero if he lost it could mean the guillotine. Rommel was an outsider to the Prussian military core, his break through in Sedan sealed France’s fate and he was a favorite with his men because he won battles with tactical advantage rather than blunt force trauma. And most important being in Africa he generally disregarded instructions from the Fuehrer he didn’t agree with.

Bernard Montgomery was a General who would not be moved pushed or intimidated by his superiors. Montgomery knew when he took the job Churchill was desperate for a victory and was out of options.

The thread that ties these men together is intelligence, strong will, and a belief they could succeed. So, why in our military establishment can’t we find such a leader?

Could it be the Stalin Syndrome? The win or die mentality, no I think in this case it’s should more appropriately be called the Disney syndrome.

The administration wants a general to sit at the table with Alice and the Mad hatter while they hold their tea parties! This puts the situation in a whole knew light, finding a General loyal to the constitution is easy enough. But finding a General who will swear, “I believe Tink!” is a little tougher.

Military men are pragmatic they get squeamish fighting wars in fantasyland or frontier land. Generals who pass through this haunted mansion know that these specters are unreal and that the true reality lies outside its walls. They quickly grow weary of animatrioc morons trying to explain to them that what is needed is just one more surge. For Generals are educated people and their education is in war and they know the truth when they smell it! When Steam boat Willie claims what is needed is one more surge the hair stands up on the back of their neck, they have heard such talk before, before the gates of Moscow from the streets of Stalingrade and the suburbs of Berlin.

Generals grounded in reality know they would actually be fighting a two front war, the first front the actual war, and the second front, the fantasy war. The war of the true believers still waiting for their flowers and candy, “The Back to the Futurities.” The General might consider the first war almost lost cause, but would shake his head in disgust at the prospects for the second.

So the ideal candidate must posses only a limited amount of intelligence and must not be overly grounded in reality. He must swear allegiance to Steam Boat Willie and the party over any allegiance he might hold to his troops or the military or the Constitution. It makes me proud to be an American when I hear every General in the military has turned them down Cold!

Because they are the unsung hero’s in the Presidents long war on intelligence, Generals that have consistently stood up and publicly criticized the President when he tells his lies. Generals unwilling to work for Goofy and unafraid of the red queen when she yells off with their heads! The turn over at the Pentagon in the last six years rivals a busy McDonalds restaurant. This is both a comfort and a fear as they dig through the honorable seeking only the ambitious from the bottom of the barrel.

Because it’s easy to point out the funny similarities between the cartoon shenanigans of Mickey and Minnie and this administration. But they have a caste system here which parallels the third Reich, Loyalty to the President followed by loyalty to the party and then lastly qualifications and sooner or later they will find their boy. Because they are men in a hurry, the doomsday clock is running and like a child on the fourth of July they want to shoot off all the fireworks before bedtime. Then they will drift off to victory land with Tink and all the other lost boys.

But for you and I too frightened to even consider the possibility of sleep, we will live in that last reel of Doctor Strangelove. A black and white waking nightmare, unable to stop them despite reason, logic, love of God or law and watching over and over as the insane cowboy rides the bomb down on all of us.

Maybe they aren't as stupid as they've been acting.

Don Rumsfeld is available. Now if they could only dig up General Custer.