What’s new is Petraeous has input into the process and the development of seniors at the 0-6 level. If you can make it to the 0-5 rank and remain on the 0-5 promotable list…you are either the best suck-up in the world…or you are one helluva leader.

Weeding out the suck-ups would keep some of the losers out of the Pentagon and beyond. JMO.

You mean, Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower did not have a say in selecting the officers under their command during WWII?

Has Petraeus been selected to preside over this panel, or to supply expert testimony to it?

I can’t tell whether the reporter and editor understood what they were being told, and their commentary about who would head the board and it all being unprecedented comes from people with no no actual knowledge. In particular, the name of Army Secretary Pete Geren is used in a sentence as if to confirm a fact, even though he refused to comment on the board action. So I can’t tell if Petraeus was chosen to head the board, or not.

I have unbounded admiration for Gen. P., and am frankly astonished that the Army hierarchy is trying to take such good advantage from his skills. I wonder if the CIC isn’t pushing this along.

The fact that Petraues “is well-regarded by military officials for his political skills in Iraq and at home” isn’t good. Generals should carry out orders, not come home to politic on behalf of a president’s policy as Petraeus did this summer.

There’s reasons the counter insurgency lessons of the Vietnam War were abandoned and we never developed a occupation plan for hostile nations that haven’t militarily surrendered. No military officials ever thought our civilian leaders would be dumb enough to engage in these kind of wars again and we’ve never aspired to be a imperial power.

The British have a long history of such operations and they know their presence in Basra was counter productive. It’s way past time we took a few lessons from them. Arming all sides to the teeth, paying Sunni Insurgents $300 a month each to stand down isn’t a strategy for success. It just guarantees all hell will break loose when we leave.

You think having done a tour ( no piece of cake) he stayed dirty for about the whole time averaging about a shower a month (if you add them all together over 7 months), the whole group had dysentary for 3 weeks straight and not being able to take care of your butt properly made it a hell of a go, (and yes the medic was giving them butt plugs as my son calls them) then they went though the dysentary again in Iraq and then back in the states for training waiting your next deployment…. having leaves cut short for no good reason, going out in the cold for a week,
there is stress, there has been a suicide a few weeks back, just you cannot believe.

In Iraq you have to be hot, you have to be cold, if your neck gets so stiff you have to suck it up, you have to sleep on the ground, etc…they get it and they do their job, but after Iraq they are different and they will know and say what is crap and what is necessary.
If they could cut out the petty crap…..

But you know what he is the first to say to his sisters that he goes and fights agianst the bad guys because he has seen them and their handy work first hand and it is ugly.

Dan (The Infidel) is right on.

All problems start from some failing of leadership. Now I don’t know exactly what the systemic changes are going to be, but if we are going back to putting an emphasis on combat experience, then this is a good thing. See, it used to be this way, but then at some point, college degrees and tradoc time was what got you ahead. So you ended up with a bunch of well educated guys who had never truly been in charge of anything.

Okay, I’m probably gonna get pounded for this but …

I saw a documentary a while back on (maybe) The History Channel. It was about D-Day.

It was mentioned that many of our officers were some of the first killed in the landing on Normandy Beach. And that our military trains our guys in picking up and taking over, especially the non-coms … That’s why, after all our fallen, we still made it up the beach.

The next mention was that the Brits didn’t train their soldiers like that (mention of how they continuously had to check with Command whenever changes came up … needed permission or somesuch), and had the Brits been the ones storming the beaches they would have been completely exterminated if they had lost their officers the way we did …

Okay, WWII/military historians, pile on.

There are three things that an officer must do to reach the senior ranks: 1. an interservice assignment 2.Attend the Army War College and 3. An assignment at the Pentagon.

At the War College they teach you to be political. That’s a part of the senior officer’s life. You must play well and get along with others, whether you like their politics or service or not. You might be called upon to testify in front of Congress or the UN or some other World Body. An officer is required to develop the sort of political acumen that is necessary to get along with civilian leaders and inter-service assignments.

What works at the Company or BN level won’t work at the BDE or Division level of command.

Not good, my eye. You don’t get to the three star or four star rank if you are a lousy politician.

As unpopular as some might think GW Bush is, he will have left our country stronger and better able to deal with emerging geo-political conditions. Scrap the contemporary history books and get ready for some positive analysis in the future.

First off Adm. William Fallon can fck off eat sht and die…
Everyone has sensed bad apples with his BS.

300 dollars to stand down…and later to have all hell break loose….Is a sound bite of a theory made popular by the same individuals who didn’t have the capability to execute the right war strategy to begin with.

The rest of you rambling is 1 step above bullsh*t, but I will tell you who had and has a great perspective is David Kilkullen

http://kilcullencounterinsurgency.blogspot.com/

“But isn’t it ironic that pleasing your immediate higher up as the sole criteria is now seen as a poor method for promotion when CENTCOM commander Fallon himself has reportedly called Petreus an “as*-kissing little chickensh*t”.”

A run-on sentence which mixes propositional arguments and confuses a.) The false assertion that pleasing the higher-ups was ever a method of promotion, and b.) the disingenous supposed quote from Admiral Fallon, who unlike Gen. Petraeus, has not spent time on the ground in Iraq.

In acctuality, the greatest military kiss-ass in the history of warfare, is the disgraceful Gen. Wesley Clark, failed presidential hopeful.

“The fact that Petraues “is well-regarded by military officials for his political skills in Iraq and at home” isn’t good.”

False: Winning the regard of fellow commanders, both in theater, and at home, based on outstanding leadership and successful battlefield accomplishments, is a result of quality performance over-time. It is a good thing.

“Generals should carry out orders, not come home to politic on behalf of a president’s policy as Petraeus did this summer.”

False: Generals make policy, state missions, prioritize threats and issue orders. Junior officers and enlisted personnel carry them out. Generals do interface with civilian leadership while at home. The Secretary of Defense is a civilian dumbfuck!

“There’s reasons the counter insurgency lessons of the Vietnam War were abandoned and we never developed a occupation plan for hostile nations that haven’t militarily surrendered.”

False: A nonsense statement. Iraq is not Viet Nam, nor is Iran. To suggest that the American military has had no plan for counter-insurgency operations is asinine. Our forces have adapted to changing conditions on the ground like no other military force in the history of warfare. Very few comparisons can be made between today’s operations and past military experience. Military doctrine for counter-insurgency warfare is being written as we speak. Sit back and learn shitpole!

“No military officials ever thought our civilian leaders would be dumb enough to engage in these kind of wars again and we’ve never aspired to be a imperial power.”

False: Sort of, its true we never aspired to be an Imperial power, and we are under no such action. Strategic planning for various military engagements have been ‘on the shelf’ for years, and always will be.

“The British have a long history of such operations and they know their presence in Basra was counter productive. It’s way past time we took a few lessons from them.”

False Conclusion: It was the British success in Basra, which allowed them to hand-over security operations to the local forces. British forces relocated to border security.
It is true that when we have defeated the enemy, and have turned over security operations to local forces, we can engage the Iranians with the British.

“Arming all sides to the teeth, paying Sunni Insurgents $300 a month each to stand down isn’t a strategy for success. It just guarantees all hell will break loose when we leave.”

False: Using these practices within the local custom and culture is working very well, if you have’nt noticed. This is not the larger strategy of course, but you would’nt recognise that. When we leave, the insurgents will be dead, and freedom will prevail. You can go on wringing your hands, wearing pink and voting treason. God bless our armed forces!

i think it was in Rommels papers, could have been another source, but i remember this being offered as at least one reason for german sucesses over the british expeditionary forces on the western front in 1941.

A “cheap” aside … While watching the movie “The Last Of The Mohicans” I couldn’t help but shout at the British Colonial Army who waited to be told to load their weapons, take their stance, and wait for the order to fire … all while the Indians were cutting them down.

While I know the story was fictional, I do confidently assume the military practice was fairly accurate.

Regardless of the diferences in command structure, the British and American forces soundly defeated the German army in WWII (despite what Rommel presumed). Arguing over hypothetical circumstances is a waste of time. The truth is that the Allies (in this case the British and Americans) defeated a clear threat to world peace then, and are doing so now. The assertion that Basra was a British ‘defeat’ or ‘retreat’ is just false on its face, proving that British command structure continues to be successful even today.