MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACKING. An introspective look back to the Bush Years.

Of all the erroneous decisions that George Bush made in his eight years, his most disastrous decision was to make Colin Powel the Secretary of State. I respect and like Colin; but his military background and training was not appropriate for this job. One of the most important aspects of military life is to follow orders. Every Nation expects her soldiers to follow orders, and drills that concept into the their minds; because when a soldier refuses to follow orders he ceases to be a soldier, and he ceases to be an asset to the state, and becomes a liability.This process works well for the state, but it does have deleterious effects on the individual soldiers. Look into our own microcosm. Here we see certain ex-soldiers finding it very difficult to adjust to our Nation’s rejection of Bush militarism. They find it difficult to adjust to the diplomacy of Obama and yearn to return to the giddy old “mission accomplished” days. We saw something similar in the days after World War I when German officers found it hard to come to terms with a lost war, and their Nation’s reversal to a peace time role. Just imagine, if Colin had a liberal arts background from Yale or Brown or political science background from Harvard or Penn, or heck even an mechanical engineering degree from Stanford, with a liberal dose of pedantry and pontification thrown in: Perhaps he would have been successful in thinking independently and putting his thoughts to his “superior officer” and spared his President all the flying footwear. From what little I know of Colin, he did think for himself and did arrive at the right conclusions, but he could not overcome his deeply ingrained 50+ year tradition of following orders of a superior officer. A pity. Just a small mistake……. but serious consequences for ourselves, and our kids.