Read it and weep
I read the transcript of Gen. Sanchez’s remarks at the Military Reporters and Editors Luncheon. The Times piece was revealing, but there’s only so much that can be captured in a 1,000-word piece. The full speech is gut-wrenching; a powerful and incredibly troubling address that is fully capable of rendering tears from the strongest man or woman with an ounce of patriotism, and contemplates how much George Bush has damaged this country.
The first half of the speech is a damning indictment of the press, but it pales in comparison to the second-half condemnation of the Bush administration and the Republicans that controlled Congress for so long, and continues to do so today via filibusters. Democrats did not come out unscathed, but it is abundantly clear where Sanchez focused his remarks.
As I mentioned earlier, I spot-checked some of the Right-Wing, We’re-Never-Wrong, Party-Above-Country, Patriot-Police blogs and was admittedly surprised, especially considering what I initially thought would be the tenor of the Above Reproach Group.
Sanchez articulated one of the most troubling personal assessments of the war I have read, but that was not important to the Above Reproach Group. Instead, they turned their vigilante rhetoric on the media for failing to adequately report (their view, not mine) Sanchez’s harsh remarks about the press.
Power Line obviously established the initial talking points for this narcissistic, say-anything-to-divert-negative-blowback, slanderous crowd.
If the Bush administration gets attacked, the press will report it. But what if someone attacks the press? If the attack goes unreported, did it ever really happen?
…The Post has an agenda, and those headlines wouldn’t have advanced it. The same is true for essentially all newspapers and other news outlets.
It’s quite a luxury to be able to decide whether criticisms of your own conduct ever see the light of day–a luxury the mainstream media not only enjoy, but abuse.
Allahpundit at Hot Air was in lockstep with Power Line, but given this blogger’s blowback on Sanchez’s war assessment, it is hard to believe he/she/it fully read or comprehended the speech in spite of making specific reference to the transcript. (Emphasis in original).
[Media accounts] of the speech are emphasizing his withering attack on the conduct of the war over his equally withering attack on the media’s coverage of it…It’s not that they focus more on his criticism of the war than on his criticism of the media; it’s that the criticism of the media is omitted entirely.
The amazing thing about the second half of the speech, where he takes on the war, is how vague, redundant, and unrealistic it is as a prescription for what to do now.
PoliPundit was unable to grasp what Sanchez said, but did not have a problem following the Established Talking Points. (Emphasis in original.)
What did Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez actually say?…This appears to be another case of the media, hold it, shock, making things up out of whole cloth.
And then there’s Hugh Hewitt. No one would dare question Mr. Hewitt’s sound commentary and analysis.
The Washington Post and others have wrongly suggested that Sanchez’s primary targets were within the Bush Administration.
Zabrina at Thought You’d Never Ask is also in perfect lockstep.
Powerline got my attention this morning by pointing out how the media attended and then deep-sixed the very newsworthy tongue-lashing delivered to it yesterday by General Ricardo Sanchez.
Sanchez’s criticism of the media was appropriate and justified — there needs to be more of the same — but declaring the media’s failure to publicly criticize itself as the salient point of the speech is at minimum incredulous.
Although the full transcript is available, several excerpts of Sanchez’s speech are below. I have not included press-related excerpts. That by no means is a direct or indirect minimization of Sanchez’s criticism of the press. It’s simply a matter of what’s more important and keeping this post from being a mile long.
As we all know war is an extension of politics and when a nation goes to war it must bring to bear all elements of power in order to win. Warfighting is not solely the responsibility of the military commander unless he has been given the responsibility and resources to synchronize the political, economic and informational power of the nation. So who is responsible for developing the grand strategy that will allow America to emerge victorious from this generational struggle against extremism?
After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve “victory” in that war torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism. From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the administration’s latest “surge” strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize its political, economic and military power. The latest “revised strategy” is a desperate attempt by an administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war and they have definitely not communicated that reality to the American people. An even worse and more disturbing assessment is that America cannot achieve the political consensus necessary to devise a grand strategy that will synchronize and commit our national power to achieve victory in Iraq. Some of you have heard me talk about our nation’s crisis in leadership. Let me elaborate.
While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power -our soldiers die! Our national leadership ignored the lessons of WWII as we entered into this war and to this day continue to believe that victory can be achieved through the application of military power alone.
…Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat. The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable.
There has been a glaring, unfortunate, display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders. As a Japanese proverb says, “action without vision is a nightmare.” There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight.
Since 2003, the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship as the Republican and Democratic parties struggled for power in Washington. National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us from devising effective, executable, supportable solutions. At times, these partisan struggles have led to political decisions that endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than our national security objectives….There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope.
…Congress must shoulder a significant responsibility for this failure since there has been no focused oversight of the nation’s political and economic initiatives in this war. Exhortations, encouragements, investigations, studies and discussions will not produce success – this appears to be the nation’s only alternative since the transfer of sovereignty. Our continued neglect will only extend the conflict.
…Our commanders on the ground will continue to make progress and provide time for the development of a grand strategy. That will be wasted effort as we have seen repeatedly since 2003. In the mean time our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines will continue to die.
…Starting in July 2003, the message repeatedly communicated to Washington by military commanders on the ground was that the military alone could never achieve “victory” in Iraq. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were destined to endure decades of fighting and killing people without the focused, synchronized application of all elements of national power.
…By neglect and incompetence at the National Security Council level, that is the path our political leaders chose and now America, more precisely the American military, finds itself in an intractable situation. Clearly, mistakes have been made by the American military in its application of power but even its greatest failures in this war can be linked to America’s lack of commitment, priority and moral courage in this war effort. Without the sacrifices of our magnificent young men and women in uniform, Iraq would be chaotic well beyond anything experienced to date.
What America must accept as a reality at this point in the war is that our Army and Marine Corps are struggling with the deployment schedules. What is clear is that the deployment cycles of our formations has been totally disrupted, the resourcing and training challenges are significant and America’s ability to sustain a force level of 150,000(+) is nonexistent without drastic measures that have been politically unacceptable to date. The drawdown of the surge to pre-surge levels was never a question. America must understand that it will take the army at least a decade to fix the damage that has been done to its full spectrum readiness. The president’s recent statement to America that he will listen to military commanders is a matter of political expediency.
…America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq. A precipitous withdrawal will unquestionably lead to chaos that would endanger the stability of the greater Middle East. If this occurs, it would have significant adverse effects on the international community. Coalition and American force presence will be required at some level for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of a grand strategy, we must move rapidly to minimize that force presence and allow the Iraqis maximum ability to exercise their sovereignty in achieving a solution.
At no time in America’s history has there been a greater need for bipartisan cooperation. The threat of extremism is real and demands unified action at the same levels demonstrated by our forefathers during World War I and World War II. America has failed to date.
This endeavor has further been hampered by a coalition effort that can be characterized as hasty, un-resourced and often uncoordinated and unmanaged. Desperately needed, but essentially ignored, were the political and economic coalitions that were the key to victory and stability in the immediate aftermath of the conventional war. The military coalition which was hastily put together in the summer of 2003 was problematic given the multitude of national caveats, inadequate rules of engagement and other restrictions on the forces deployed…Today, we continue our inept coalition management efforts and, in fact, we are facing ever decreasing troop commitments by our military coalition partners. America’s “revised” strategy does not address coalition initiatives and challenges. We cannot afford to continue this struggle without the support of our coalition partners across all elements of national power. Without the political and economic elements of power complementing the tremendous efforts of our military, America is assured of failure. We continue on that path. America’s political leadership must come together and develop a bipartisan grand strategy to achieve victory in this conflict.
Achieving unity of effort in Iraq has been elusive to date primarily because there is no entity that has the authority to direct action by our interagency. Our National Security Council has been a catastrophic failure. Furthermore, America’s ability to hold the interagency accountable for their failures in this war is non-existent. This must change. As a nation we must recognize that the enemy we face is committed to destroying our way of life. This enemy is arguably more dangerous than any threat we faced in the twentieth century. Our political leaders must place national security objectives above partisan politics, demand interagency unity of effort, and never again commit America to war without a grand strategy that embraces the basic tenets of the Powell doctrine.
It seems that Congress recognizes that the military cannot achieve victory alone in this war. Yet they continue to demand victory from our military. Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management this war? They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these type of leaders would immediately be relieved or court-martialed.
America has sent our soldiers off to war and they must be supported at all costs until we achieve victory or until our political leaders decide to bring them home. Our political and military leaders owe the soldier on the battlefield the strategy, the policies and the resources to win once committed to war. America has not been fully committed to win this war. As the military commanders on the ground have stated since the summer of 2003, the U. S. Military alone cannot win this war…Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort and America should not accept this. America must demand a unified national strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good above all else. Too often our politicians have chosen loyalty to their political party above loyalty to the Constitution because of their lust for power. Our politicians must remember their oath of office and recommit themselves to serving our nation and not their own self-interests or political party. The security of America is at stake and we can accept nothing less. Anything short of this is unquestionably dereliction of duty.
Update: The following sentence was revised to convey the intended context. Original: “The full speech is gut-wrenching; a powerful and incredibly troubling address that is fully capable of rendering tears from the strongest man or woman with an ounce of patriotism.” Revised version: “The full speech is gut-wrenching; a powerful and incredibly troubling address that is fully capable of rendering tears from the strongest man or woman with an ounce of patriotism, and contemplates how much George Bush has damaged this country.”
