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Read other letters about this article
(sorry for the long post, but I hope it's worthwhile)
Pedinska, you are off on other adventures at the moment, but ... thanks for your appreciation, and your thoughtful comments generally. Cavalry is on standby, 24/7. Just let hubbie know we're on your side, when we show up ...
Cabbie - you raised good points, incl. what may seem like small change, i.e. the way journos covering the military sometimes even get the small details wrong: ranks, chain of command, what a unit actually does, misquoting NCOs, etc. It contributes to uniformed military (especially enlisted) souring on the media, having a dim view of their professionalism, and adding one more brick to the wall, behind which they sometimes come to feel beseiged (illegimately, but understandably). I've had a lot of contact over the past 5 years with current or former embeds, some whom appreciate this.
A couple important differences. First: the stab-in-the-back syndrome re the media isn't the whole story. It wasn't even as prevalent as all that by the end of Vietnam ... for all the bitterness about early reporting, I heard a lot of respect and praise for reporters like Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, and so forth, from the officers I learned from.
The official post-Vietnam line in the army, as taught in service schools (for officers), was articulated first by Col. Harry Summers, who was tasked by the army to write the official 'lessons-learned' document after Vietnam that became a course text, 'On Strategy' (purposefully referring to Clausewitz): it wasn't the media, it wasn't the protestors, it was us, the uniformed military --- 'we' did it to ourselves. See my sig for an article about the MA scandal by an active duty LTC who doesn't get the point, but still says this line unambiguously.
Twenty-something years of papers, articles in professional journals, after-action reports concerned with 'media relations', etc, show that the uniformed military --- army, marines and navy, at least, I defer to RMP about USAF --- took this as an assumption in planning media relations, up to Iraq.
Just the same, the stab-in-the-back story seems to have gotten new momentum the past few years. I think it always has that potential. If you're dealing with someone who takes that line, the strongest counterargument is to throw the official doctrine back in their face.
Second: You said the military needs the 'consent' of the people to wage war. The doctrine put in place by Creighton Abrams, post-VN, and reflecting the constitution, was stronger than that.
The military doesn't need the consent, it needs the explicit orders of Congress before going to war: the big black hole in this, which doesn't apply to Iraq, is for 'contingency operations' which the executive is deemed to have authority under the War Powers Resolution to enact subject to congressional review (but this is a much bigger discussion). The point is, under the Abrams doctrine --- which stood until the Bush administration, the military does what it's directed to do by law under the national command authority, not go looking for fights for which it seeks the consent of the people.
Rumsfeld explicitly dismantled large swaths of these doctrinal protections, and jumped into the promotion process to ensure that there wouldn't be a fight over it. Another casualty of the Bush regime.
