Letting the military have its way

That's a favorite solution to all problems among the blowhard white-guy crowd. Of course, you still have to pick which infallible generals you're going to let have their way...

And it's not always a presciption for sure success. Robert Fisk writes about Ehud Olmert's experience with doing what his military wanted in the 2006 Lebanon War (Olmert undone by the militia he said he could destroy Independent 05/03/07):

A close reading of the interim report of Judge Eliahou Winograd's report on
the summer war - to which Mr Olmert himself only granted the title the "Second Lebanon War" a month after it had happened - shows clearly that it was the Israeli army which ran the military, strategic and political campaign. Again and again in Winograd's report it is clear that Mr Olmert and his Defence Minister failed to challenge "in a competent way" (in the commission's devastating phrase) the plans of the Israeli army.

Tags: ehud olmert, israel

Who does this sound like?

It reminds me of somebody...

From Olmert fights to save career as inquiry cites 'serious failings' by Donald Macintyre Independent 05/01/07:

Ehud Olmert was fighting for his political survival last night after a government commission excoriated the Israeli Prime Minister for his leading role in the "very serious failings" in last summer's Lebanon war.

The unexpectedly scathing first report from the commission, headed by the retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, blamed Mr Olmert for a "serious failure in exercising judgement, responsibility and prudence" at the outset and during the 34-day war. The report was also withering in its criticism of Amir Peretz, the Defence Minister, and the now-departed Israel Defence Forces' chief of staff Dan Halutz, for a series of decisions, including starting the war without proper consideration of the alternatives or consequences.

But it made no effort to deflect blame from a Prime Minister who the report said had "made up his mind hastily [to go to war] despite the fact that no military plan was submitted to him and without asking him for one". ...

It added that Mr Olmert did not "adequately consider political and professional reservations presented to him" before the "fateful" decisions taken after the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbollah on Israel's northern border on 12 July. (my emphasis)

It sounds so familiar. But I can't quite place who it reminds me of.