Without Reservation
A biweekly column by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)
posted 22 Sep 04
"Leadership Matters"
Believe it or not, "Leadership Matters" is a key theme of the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.
As a political slogan, it is very nice. Highly paid political consultants, advertisers and Extremely Smart People in Washington picked a fine one. Pithy, eye-catching, looks sharp in red, white and blue.
For people who serve in the military, leadership is beyond important; it takes on an almost mystical and compelling value, becoming a holy grail of sorts. Officers and NCOs seek to be known as leaders, to embody leadership qualities, to be seen as those with leadership potential. We spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it.
We know it when we see it. We talk about it when we don't see it. In fact, knowing what leadership is not is a key part of our professional education.
Leadership is rarely seen in the senior officer who doesn't know his core skill area, whether that is flying airplanes, killing the enemy in ground combat, whether engineering or accounting. Incompetence can, of course, be remedied by the ability and willingness to learn. Incompetence without an observable ability to learn was bad news. Any sign that the suspect officer had simply no clue that he might be in severely bad kimshee and hence might possibly need to learn something was even worse news.
Some smart person ought to have mentioned this to George W. Bush when they approved the "Leadership Matters" theme.
An absence of leadership qualities in our military leaders gives rise to terms like "Seagull" Colonels and Generals, a species known to swoop in, make a lot of noise, crap all over everything, and then fly away. But our seagulls had an advantage over Bush and Cheney. Regardless of the mistakes made and not remedied, regardless of the illogic, stupidity and sheer idiocy of our present unit's existence under a seagull commander, at least we could be 100% sure they wouldn't be around for long.
High level incompetence seems to be the natural sea-state of our militarized foreign policy, launching forth with the proud Guardsman George W. Bush at the helm and Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney as navigator.
This track record of sheer stupidity, hubris and other seagull qualities is marred only by the existence of rare officers, like retired Marine General Tony Zinni, who knew their job, led their men and women, and spoke the truth to power about the inanity of the plan to invade Iraq early on. Looking further for aberrations to the rule, we find retired Army General William Odom, conservative through and through, who speaks the truth about Bush's fantasy adventure in Iraq, politely but publicly calling it "a strategic error."
Retired officers and NCOs have had their opportunity, and we are all armchair quarterbacks now. What about active duty soldiers and Marines, who have recently seen both ugly ends of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy baby?
The words of Generals Zinni and Odom are echoed in the more earthy vernacular of thousands of military members in tanks, humvees, ****pits, trucks and mess halls and tents. These words reveal the most important tenet of leadership. With competence, an ability to learn from mistakes, and humility, there is a final critical ingredient. Leadership must demonstrate a hard-headed, stubborn and almost masochistic recognition of the truth, the harsher the better.
On the truth about Iraq, Bush and Cheney have told us it's going just fine, we are killing the appointed number of "terrorists" and "evil doers." We are winning, they say. From the key top officers, whether General Casey, General Abizaid, General Meyers or any of the lesser flag officers on active duty today, we hear only a ricochet of the President's fantasies, or else deafening silence.
But from lower ranking soldiers and marines, we hear plenty. One former marine refers to Iraq as "Bush's Magical Middle Eastern Mystery Tour." He explains why we will leave Iraq, eventually, with nothing. It is one of the rules that should have been learned early on by all leaders, even mediocre ones. Apparently Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld missed the lecture called "Nobody wins a shitstorm."
Another eyewitness to the "leadership" of the Bush/Cheney team, writes from Iraq about what is really going on and what it means. Speaking on the subject of Iraq today, and how leadership matters, Al Lorentz explains,
... it is not politically correct to point out the fact that the locals are not only disliking us more and more, they are growing increasingly upset and often overtly hostile. Instead of addressing the reasons why the locals are becoming angry and discontented, we allow politicians in Washington DC to give us pat and convenient reasons that are devoid of any semblance of reality.
Devoid of any semblance of reality. Pat and convenient reasons. Politically correct.
Leadership matters, all right. Competence, intelligence, humility, and devoted consistent brutal honesty means lives saved, objectives met. It produces everyday demonstrations of courage at all levels that inspire and motivate. Leadership improves recruitment and retention in an all volunteer military, and makes that military both awesomely fierce and awesomely proud. Leadership preserves the Constitution and strengthens the Republic.
Leadership does matter. The Bush/Cheney campaign should be ashamed of itself.
:beer:
http://militaryweek.com/kk092204.shtml
It's interesting to read what our educated members of our U.S. military have to say about the war and our leadership.
