Semi-random thought

[unixronin]

There's nothing wrong with a nation being ashamed of its soldiers' behavior when their behavior falls short of reasonable expectations.  But a nation that is ashamed of its soldiers simply because they are soldiers is doomed.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The problem specifically we face is that the President's approval rating hovers around 20%, Congress's approval rating hovers around 10%, and the military's approval rating is over 95%. That, to me, sounds like a recipe for either a very powerful and professional military being entrusted to incompetent civilian hands (a recipe for destruction), or perhaps a recipe for a military coup in this country (another recipe for destruction).

But the problem is not the approval of the military -- it is the total, utter, absolute leadership collapse of the Executive and Legislative branches.

Can't argue with that. Although sometimes, I wonder whether when government gets bad enough and corrupt enough, a good clean military coup by competent and honest generals might not be such a bad thing after all — particularly if they take power only for long enough to clean the crooks out of the pigsty and put an honest government back in power.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

I thought about that during the Katrina clusterfuck on the federal level. Then, all of a sudden, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore steps off a helo, starts barking orders, tells his boys to keep their rifles "at rest", and shit suddenly started getting done.