Generals opposing Iraq war break with military tradition<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.signonsandiego.com\/uniontrib\/20070923\/images\/news-gen1.jpg\")
The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq. <\/p>\n
What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation’s history. <\/p>\n
In op-ed pieces, interviews and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. generals have broken ranks with the culture of salute and keep it in the family. Instead, they are criticizing the commander in chief and other top civilian leaders who led the nation into what the generals believe is a misbegotten and tragic war<\/strong>. <\/p>\nThe active-duty generals followed procedure, sending reports up the chain of command. The retired generals beseeched old friends in powerful positions to use their influence to bring about a change. <\/p>\n
When their warnings were ignored, some came to believe it was their patriotic duty to speak out, even if it meant terminating their careers. <\/p>\n
It was a decision none of the men approached cavalierly. Most were political conservatives who had voted for George W. Bush and initially favored his appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary. <\/p>\n
But they felt betrayed by Bush and his advisers…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And they’re hardly lightweights. And some retired
in order to<\/strong> speak out. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not overstating things when I feel so passionately that our own government has been invaded by foreigners or aliens. It all feels so wrong to me. And then there’s an article like this, or a book like Hubris<\/strong> or Anatomy of Deceit<\/strong>, and I realize that the Administration is as deceitful and misguided as I think it is, and I join the anonymous throng of noisemakers. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is listening, does it make a sound? My answer is that there just aren’t enough trees falling yet. The 20 Generals haven’t been heard either. So we need 25…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Generals opposing Iraq war break with military tradition The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq. What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation’s history. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}