Five retired generals have called for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as Secretary of Defense. It is interesting to compare their criticisms with remarks George W. Bush made in a February 2004 interview on MSNBC. Asked about Vietnam, Bush opined:
The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons [sic] that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War.
Compare that to this, in the New York Times (Apr. 13; registration required):
A common thread in [the generals'] complaints has been an assertion that Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides too often inserted themselves unnecessarily into military decisionmaking, often disregarding advice from military commanders.
Rumsfeld isn't a politician--but then neither was Robert McNamara.
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