"The only effective protest is resignation, which you as a principled individual did... yes? I have a lot of respect for that.

"-- shooter242 Saturday, May 10, 2008 11:58 AM"

I missed this part of Shooter's original post --- thanks for calling it out.

Given that it's Sunday, and late in the thread, do you mind if I use your post as jump-off for a brief rant about 'principle'?

The only effective protest is resignation ... maybe. Resignation is what you do when you can't do anything else, any more, and you want to make a point of the 'issues' in your departure. In the military, witness recent departures of prosecutors at Guantanamo, early retirements of generals who had every reason to go farther (Eaton was one), and others less covered in the news. Those people appeared to be at the end of their ropes in terms of feeling that they could be effective.

I'd speculate that most generals would not see their role as to 'protest' (or not-protest). Protesting is what people who have no authority or power do, e.g. we impotent citizens. Acts of protest by general officers signify that they feel they no longer have the authority delegated to them by statute ... which is why it should be pretty damn alarming when it happens.

Imagine a president or speaker of the house resigning in protest. Who's exercising that authority, then? That alone should get our attention.

Most military officers are trained to act, to exercise authority and to make decisions as well as to follow orders from above. Not a controversial statement, I think. If handed something they think is screwed, they will act within their authority to make it right. Or screw it up worse. The point is, they won't 'protest', because they understand that they have the power to act, within the chain of command and the law (which pose their own constraints, and also protections).

Example: The Iraq invasion plan went through a a remarkable number of revisions, considering how 'fresh' the OPLAN was after the national security establishment had been slavering over 'finishing the job' since 1991. For comparison: over the course of two years, the plan for the invasion of Panama went through 8 revisions. In about a year, the Iraq plan went through 22. Some commentary at the time of his promotion laid this at the feet of Gen. Abizaid, who was said to have gone toe-to-toe with Rumsfeld on an almost daily basis. (News articles repeated the rumors that Everyone considered this career-ending for Abizaid, but it turned out not only that Rumsfeld needed him too much, but Rumsfeld also respected somebody who wouldn't cower when they saw him coming).

My guess is that Abizaid stuck it out to influence the outcome. Bob Woodward made a similar assessment of Colin Powell, which may or may not be true. I'm guessing there were many people at many levels who had analogous thoughts, though it's crucial with the senior leadership.

The rub: None of these officers will ever be able to substantiate this claim, when the official history is written. We'll look at them and think, you should have resigned. They'll look (the ones for whom this might be true anyway) in return and say, that would have been a dereliction of duty on my part.

I'm not arguing that it should be any different. This is what it means to act on principle ... to try to do the right thing even if you are not going to be rewarded, acknowledged, or even believed about what you did. Abizaid is a smart guy. I think he knew that eventually there'd be a knife in his back and that an accounting of the war would not be kind or give him a pass. If this is what really happened and he stuck around to be a positive influence, then he was acting on principle in a way that set him apart from his peers, and probably had more effect than his resigning would have.

Which is what we should bear in mind when evaluating the MAs ... compare their behavior to this realistic (though unsubstantiated) scenario.

Sorry for threadjacking, I'll STFU now.

And the conversation has ended.

There you have it, in a nutshell.

When was the last time you observed two people saying, at the end of a long, contentious but relatively civil conversation, that they would have to 'agree to disagree'?

Tangentially --- sometimes I think about a line from an essay by Heidegger, his only real attempt at literary criticism, about the poetry of Holderlin. "We have been a conversation", was the line. It pains me to read that. These days, it's more like "We have been a series of colliding monologues that end in name-calling and vitriol which further our downward spiral of solipsism and narcissism."

But that's just when I'm feeling sour. Or when I'm paying close attention, one.

Some of our threads in here give me hope, though. Some of them.

Thanks for calling out the Alterman piece and linking to it --- I read his stuff about the media whenever I find it, and generally devour the NYer cover to cover, but I'm behind and appreciate your putting it at the head of my queue.