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It's my sober opinion that the people you describe in the sentence above are the majority in today's military. I've been talking (or trying anyway) to vets I know and none of them want to talk about the disaster in Iraq.. And I haven't talked to one yet that had any strong objection to going on to Iran..
I wish I could disagree.
On the one hand, you could always, anytime, find a bunch of spec4s (and not a few NCOs) who are ready to go fire up anybody, anytime, and can give you a bunch of reasons why that's justified. That doesn't mean anything, though. Policy isn't made by Spec4s, a point I keep making to people everytime one gets quoted on Faux News as an authority about who we should be invading. 'They're there! They know!' WTF?
It gets a lot more complicated, psychologically, after you've been in combat. One would love to believe that a soldier would be able to separate the truth from the bullshit here just as effectively as they regularly do about less consequential matters. But it doesn't happen often enough ... the seige mentality enters, the emotional shit I was referring to above, an inability to process what you're seeing around you about a 'foreign' culture, etc. Not to mention the reinforcement those ideas get here at home.
It's partially why I feel so strongly that those of us on the 'other side' of that equation have a duty to engage about this ... former military, sure, but also people who have lived and worked in the ME (or wherever the so-called 'enemy' is), lawyers or govt workers or other people who, for whatever reason, have had access to the details of how things work that have been stolen, broken, corrupted ... that is separate from, but in addition to, our duties as citizens.
And why I am such a bigmouth about the issue, alas.
About 'politically adept' senior officers. We talked about this before. I guess I don't really disagree with you, but would note a) it ain't JUST politics that put you in the chair, and B) I've been fortunate in knowing many good senior officers who don't fit this description, and who got there in spite of the BS. I would never argue that they are a majority ... but I would argue that they could use a hand, when it comes to standing up for the law, from 'out here'.
RE: Colin Powell. Woodward's three books about the current admin (but largely State of Denial) seem to show Powell surrendering his principles gradually ... either out of a desire to influence things in a positive way, or out of a desire to be close enough to his boss, the President, to influence things in a positive way. What the 'positive way' was is probably something it would take brain surgery to figure out. I'm not convinced he didn't know he was spouting bullshit when he went to the UN ... i think he was willing to supress his doubts for the reasons above.
Sadly, I'm betting we'll hear a lot of this when the other tell-alls appear. Generals who knew better (Abizaid comes to mind), who stayed on board to try and steer things in the right direction, rather than leave or resign, or those who claim to have done so. Whether or not that was the right thing to do, we know it was in vain.
