"Leadership
Matters"
by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)
OpEdNews.Com
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,
cockpits, 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.
© 2004 Karen Kwiatkowski
originally published in www.militaryweek.com
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