So, five retired generals are calling for SecDef Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation and those in the MSM are beside themselves with glee. I note that these same generals waited to gripe until they got their pension. Real courage there.

A very important fact one must remember is this: most of these Army generals have an axe to grind because almost all of them opposed the SecDef’s transformation ideas, which in many respects meant more change in the Army than the other services. The transformation meant things would change and they were resistant to that change.

Two of these generals were classmates of my husband’s at West Point. One was a groomsman in our wedding. My husband (who retired as a full Colonel almost two years ago) has asked me not to comment on them personally.

Dan Riehl hits the nail on the head with this comment.

And I would not be surprised if much of this grousing by retiring Generals has as much to do with little military kingdoms and force structures as power centers for career military officers. It is well known that Rumsfeld went in to shake up the force and command structure and that some of that was to be done in a manner which many in the military might resist. I can’t say how much of this treason we are seeing now has to do with that, but I would bet more than some. Military officers are by nature very territorial.

Big Lizards analyzes Batiste’s complaints about unity of command and unity of effort and finds them very old school. Batiste said some other things in a speech to a local organization in Rochester, New York recently that I find very insulting to the Iraqi people.

“I didn’t meet one Iraqi who understood democracy,” he said.

And he wants gas rationing?

In a Coincidental Coda Daffyd writes about a quote he heard last night that encapsulates this whole controversy.

Victor Davis Hanson presents the long view…….

Changing the military to meet more nonconventional challenges was always going to be iffy — given the billions of dollars and decades of traditions at stake — and only more acrimonious when war, as it always does, puts theory into practice.

What we need, then, are not more self-appointed ethicists, but far more humility and recognition that in this war nothing is easy. Choices have been made, and remain to be made, between the not very good and the very, very bad. Most importantly, so far, none of our mistakes has been unprecedented, fatal to our cause, or impossible to correct.

So let us have far less self-serving second-guessing, and far more national confidence that we are winning — and that radical Islamists and their fascist supporters in the Middle East are soon going to lament the day that they ever began this war.

The Gates of Vienna smells a book deal.

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline writes that griping ex-generals are always with us…….

If I recall correctly, the MSM tended to attirbute this phenomenon to the neanderthalism within the military.

Carol Platt Liebau says flat-out to the griping generals……Stop the second-guessing.

Matteo of Cartago Delenda Est has a quote from a recent Mark Steyn article that brings one back to this question…… Why the coordinated attack against Don Rumsfeld? Is it constructive and if so who and what is it intended to help?

The Daily Dispatch examines the retired generals PR offensive.

UPDATE: Welcome Polipundit Readers!