An Admiral to Fight a General’s War

When the Village People sang ‘In the Navy’, they laid out all the attractions of life as a seaman.

Where can you find pleasure
Search the world for treasure
Learn science technology
Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true
On the land or on the sea
Where can you learn to fly
Play in sports and skin dive
Study oceanography
Sign of for the big band
Or sit in the grandstand
When your team and others meet

Nowhere in that recruiting pitch did they mention that you could fight a landwar in Asia. That kind of thing has been traditionally held for the Army and Marines. But that doesn’t concern George W. Bush. Bush thinks outside of the box.

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz Reports: ABC News has learned that the president intends to nominate Admiral William J. Fallon to replace General John Abizaid at Central Command. The announcement is expected next week, before the president gives his Iraq strategy speech, according to US officials…

…Fallon, who is in the Navy, is currently head of Pacific Command; he will be overseeing two ground wars, so the appointment is highly unusual.

I have nothing against Admiral Fallon. I’m sure he is an excellent commander of the Pacific Fleet. And, I am equally sure, he has not had the kind of training our Army and Marine Generals went through for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This continues a tradition that Bush set when he used an attack on our country by Saudi religious radicals holed up in Afghainstan to attack a secular regime in Iraq. He tried to appoint Harriet Miers, his personal attorney with no judicial experience, to the nation’s highest court. And now he has assigned an Admiral to command our forces in the largest and most volatie landmass in the world.

That does not make sense.