Richard Perle resigns

[Carl Remick]

>From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
>
>The Chiefs of Staff will round on the civilians when the war is done if it
>turns out they were right and the civvies were wrong. ...  But I very much 
>doubt that's at work now.  Whatever their other
>professional faults, soldiers don't generally panic and play office
>politics one week into a war.  And a two or three month war would not be
>ranked a disaster from their point of view.

But it's already a disaster from a civilian standpoint, and ever since 
Vietnam the Pentagon has been acutely sensitive to changes in public mood 
and the need to move fast to shift responsiblity for COMMFUs
(Complete Monumental Military Fuck-Ups) to their civilian overseers du jour. 

  Two nights ago I was amazed to see a gaggle of high-ranking military 
retirees on the Lehrer Newshour clucking about the inadequate resources and 
unrealistic timetable of the allied attack.  Where, I wondered, was that 
gung-ho spirit?  Then I realized the military was *already* in evasive 
maneuvering, putting as much daylight as possible between themselves and the 
early (civilian) forecasts of a lightning war.  As Fran Leibowitz once 
noted, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you lay the blame.

Carl

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