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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
G.I.'s speaking out, angry vets signing petitions, generals attacking him. George Bush's once-rosy relationship with the military is turning sour.
Oct 2, 2003 | Rarely in recent memory has a president seemed to enjoy such a close personal -- and political -- relationship with the U.S. armed forces as President Bush does. A few hundred of Florida's overseas military ballots narrowly helped him become president in 2000, after all. And since Sept. 11, the Bush White House has unleashed the armed forces to wage two wars in two years.
For the first time in a decade, Army generals have become household names, U.S. soldiers have discovered newfound admiration among the general public, and in May, Bush himself donned a flight suit in an elaborate visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce that major fighting in Iraq had ended. Immediately after Bush's whirlwind victory in Iraq, his relationship with the armed forces seemed untouchable.
But in recent months, the GOP and the Bush White House have suddenly faced a new, increasingly chilly reception from men and women in uniform. There are the growing ranks of retired generals who have turned Bush critics, like Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command and a special envoy to the Middle East. Zinni endorsed Bush in 2000, but recently during a particularly scathing public critique compared Iraq war strategy to a "brain fart" emitted from a Bush "policy wonk."
But perhaps more troubling for Bush is the increasing frustration and anger being voiced by officers and enlisted personnel alike. It's a frustration fueled not only by the unexpectedly difficult military situation in Iraq and the absence of a clear exit strategy, but by broken promises over veterans issues. Could 2004 be the year when the military vote swings to the Democrats? That might seem too farfetched a hope for Democrats, who have watched the military become a solidly Republican bloc over the past 30 years, to the point where a recent study found Republicans outnumber Democrats 8-to-1 among today's officers. But that trend, at least, could very well come to an end -- and the entry of four-star Gen. Wesley Clark into the presidential race as a Democrat and powerful Bush critic surely helps.
"What you have going into 2004 is the potential for some [political] forces, usually pushing in the direction of Republicans, to not be pushing so hard, or some maybe even be pushing towards Democrats," says Peter Feaver, military expert and professor of political science at Duke University. Feaver says Bush starts out with the political support of the armed forces. "But if Iraq worsens -- if Bush faces hostile relations both on the ground overseas and economically at home -- and the Democrats nominate somebody who looks strong on national defense, like Wesley Clark, then the military vote becomes more ambivalent."
It's already easy to spot strains in the once unwavering relationship between the White House and the armed forces. The blunt assessments of the administration are often scathing. "[Bush] pats us on the back with his speeches and stabs us in the back with his actions," Charles Carter, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer, recently told a Knight-Ridder reporter. "I will vote non-Republican in a heartbeat if it continues as is."
A recent posting on a Military.com chat room bulletin board is not atypical: "It is likely a lot of Active and Retired Military who supported this President will find 'staying home' a strong option at the next election. We put our trust in President Bush and he has let us down."
Even more stinging was this first-person Army account: "For the past six months, I have been participating in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom." That was published last month in the Peoria Journal Star, by a U.S. soldier named Tim Predmore serving on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division, based near Mosul in northern Iraq. (And there is this complaint of an ex-G.I. whose wife was deployed.) The harsh words from military men are especially poignant "when you consider how Bush became president by a few military absentee ballots," says retired U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth. "I suspect a huge number of those overseas ballots will not be marked Republican in 2004."
The reason is simple, says Hackworth, a White House critic whose Web sites, Soldiers for the Truth and Hackworth.com, have been documenting the contempt many service men and women feel for the Iraq war planners. "Most military guys who understand war, professional soldiers, they recognize America is engaged in its largest and nastiest war. And like in Vietnam, they don't see any light at the end of the tunnel," he says. "My e-mail, overwhelmingly from soldiers and vets, says these guys are really pissed off about the handling of the war. And what's amazing is the huge number of folks from this group no longer relating to the Republican Party."
