Or, the rest of our senior officer corps either.
I think he's right on target. They're very good at self promotion and looking like generals, but short on the skills needed to actually win wars. Military prowess takes a back seat to pandering and manipulation.
He says this about Petraeus:
"...He wasn’t the military magician portrayed in the press; he was a self-constructed hologram, emitting an aura of preening heroism for the ever eager cameras..."
And, this about senior commanders:
"...But we still shouldn’t allow our military establishment to give us one generation after another of imitation generals who pretend to greatness on talk shows and photo spreads, jetting around the world in military-spec business jets.
The generals who won World War II were the kind of men who, as it was said at the time, chewed nails for breakfast, spit tacks at lunch and picked their teeth with their pistol barrels. General Petraeus probably flosses. He didn’t chew nails and spit tacks, but rather challenged privates to push-up contests and went out on five-mile reveille runs with biographers..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/o....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121118
I think he's right on target. They're very good at self promotion and looking like generals, but short on the skills needed to actually win wars. Military prowess takes a back seat to pandering and manipulation.
He says this about Petraeus:
"...He wasn’t the military magician portrayed in the press; he was a self-constructed hologram, emitting an aura of preening heroism for the ever eager cameras..."
And, this about senior commanders:
"...But we still shouldn’t allow our military establishment to give us one generation after another of imitation generals who pretend to greatness on talk shows and photo spreads, jetting around the world in military-spec business jets.
The generals who won World War II were the kind of men who, as it was said at the time, chewed nails for breakfast, spit tacks at lunch and picked their teeth with their pistol barrels. General Petraeus probably flosses. He didn’t chew nails and spit tacks, but rather challenged privates to push-up contests and went out on five-mile reveille runs with biographers..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/o....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121118
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