An American Patriot

by Mary

(Ret) General Anthony Zinni was once a Bush fan and had been asked by Bush to represent the US in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Zinni had even voted for Bush believing that a Bush administration would bring honor back to the White House. Yet, in the leadup to the Iraq war, even before the Congressional resolution vote in October 2002, Zinni spoke against the war and warned of what a catastrophic mistake this war would be. Recently he spoke before the CDI (Center for Defense Information) and in a powerful and compelling way, listed the 10 biggest mistakes in his mind that had been made in regards to Iraq. Yet the speech was not just on the mistakes but also contained some starting ideas on what could be done to rectify the situation. Frankly the Iraqi situation has been so depressing lately that it is a relief to see that some still have ideas of what might be done to forestall the worst outcome. Unfortunately, the likeihood that this administration would listen is vanishingly small.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but I wanted to highlight an answer to one question asked after the speech because it points out a truth that often gets forgotten. Namely, the US military does not belong to the President. It belongs to the people of the United States and those in the military also swear an oath to protect and defend the constitution. And they have the right and indeed an obligation to speak out against misguided actions and to resist illegal orders.

LARRY KORB: General, Larry Korb. Under Goldwater-Nickles, the military are supposed to be able to talk to the president and the Congress, to tell them that. You're quite right to talk about Gen. Shinseki. Where were the other chiefs when this planning for the war with all the optimistic scenarios were going? Don't you think if they all have spoken out, it would have been harder for the administration to just push it along?

ZINNI: First of all, I'm not going to speak for the chiefs. And, I'm not going to speak against them in any way. I will tell you this. When I was a commander at U.S. Central Command, and Hugh Shelton was the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hugh Shelton sent us the book Dereliction of Duty. He required all of us 17 four-star General Commanders to read the book. And we all reported to Washington, I believe it was (the) 28th of January, 1998, for a breakfast meeting.

At that meeting was a then young Army Maj. McMaster who wrote the book. Dereliction of Duty describes the dereliction on the part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War, who had strong feelings about all the mistakes that were being made, but didn't speak their minds, and didn't speak up, with the exception of former Commandant of the Marine Corps, David Shoup. The message to us, after we heard this, from Hugh Shelton is, that will never happen here. And the message to us from Secretary Cohen at that time, too, is that door is always open, and your obligation to the Congress, which is an obligation to the American people to tell them what you think, still stands strong. And that's the expectation that we have.

They did not ever want to hear that we had a problem, something sticking our crawl, that we didn't bring up to them, and we didn't honestly express if we felt it had to be expressed. I can tell you there were times when I disagreed with the policy and I can tell you one time in particular that I was taken, personally, to a principals meeting, because the secretary and the chairman wanted to be sure that my views, which were different, were heard by the President.

Now, I think there is an obligation to speak the truth that when you're confirmed, and when you raise your right hand in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee and in front of whoever the administers that oath for your appointment. You answer to those many bosses. One is the secretary of defense and the president, another boss is the Congress, who represents the people. And you're going to have to speak the truth, like (Eric) Rich Shinseki did. It's painful at times. Believe me. I've been down that road. But it is an obligation that comes with the uniform. And I think if there are those, and I don't know this one way or another, I don't ask, if there are those wearing that uniform that have concerns and doubts about this or objections, and didn't voice it, there is going to be a second edition of Dereliction of Duty down the road.

I suspect that Zinni really wishes he could take that vote back and reinstall a president that truly did understand what it meant to protect and defend the constitution.

(Thanks to larre and pessimist both who pointed out Zinni's remarks.)