Revolt of the Generals - Saving America

Richard Holbrooke in today's Washington Post.

These generals are not newly minted doves or covert Democrats. (In fact, one of the main reasons this public explosion did not happen earlier was probably concern by the generals that they would seem to be taking sides in domestic politics.) These are career men, each with more than 30 years in service, who swore after Vietnam that, as Colin Powell wrote in his memoirs, "when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons."

The revolt of the generals is going to continue, because each of these men swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic." Beyond this oath, each of these generals also believes that he has an obligation to speak for the men and women whose lives have been placed in harms away for "half-baked reasons" and whose continued safety is jeopardized by the right wing neo-con cabal that surrounds Rumsfeld and whose roots are firmly planted in the White House.