Jed Babbin has an interesting piece today on current intra-military struggles:

The Clintons – and the plural is more accurate than the singular – picked generals for their political fealty rather than military prowess. The worst public examples were Wesley Clark (a Friend of Bill from their Oxford Rhodes scholar days), and Anthony Zinni. Having spent too much time in the company of Arab leaders, Zinni became addicted to stability in the Middle East and opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. But in the middle of the April “revolt”, Zinni – echoing Congressman Jack Murtha – once accused Rumsfeld of, “disbanding the Army.”
The least public and most political general is former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki. When Rumsfeld took over the Pentagon, his orders were to shake the military out of its Cold War mindset and strategies. According to one source (who was an active duty army officer when he told me this) Shinseki tried to make Rumsfeld an offer he couldn’t refuse: Shinseki would make Rumsfeld look good on Capitol Hill if Rumsfeld would leave the Army alone and not force it out of its Cold War garrison-force mentality. Rumsfeld didn’t take the bait, and instead treated Shinseki gently, allowing him to retire with dignity instead of firing him. And then Rumsfeld went about building a better team made up of war-fighting generals who could transform the force under fire. Could Rumsfeld have treated some people more gently? Certainly. Were careers ended? Yes, and deservedly so.

More here .