The LA Times has an interesting profile up on Admiral Mike Mullen, current Chief of Naval Operations and nominated by SecDef for to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
There were a number of things I didn’t know about the Big Boss. The fact that he’d never intended to make the Navy a career for example. Or the fact that, like Chester Nimitz, the Admiral was selected for command at a very early age. No doubt this was a harbinger of future success, even if – much like Chester Nimitz, who grounded his first command – our CNO at one point ran his ship afoul of a navigational buoy.
There are worse things for a man’s character than to have to overcome significant adversity in his youth.
A kind of primus inter pares role, the chairmanship is nevertheless the pinnacle of uniformed achievement. If confirmed, ADM Mullen will be the first Navy officer to permanently hold the post since Bill Crowe in 1989.
Read it too. I would have never of guessed he was a pill player..I always figured Shoes were too slow for da game. Learn something every day!
b2
I just read the ship Nimitz ran aground was one of the early USS DECATURs….quirk of fate? Anyhow, fate smiled on the world by letting him experience that and letting him grow in the profession…
Even Olberman likes him! He must be doing something right.
In Skippy’s link, Admiral Mullen agrees that there has not been much political progress in Iraq. Is this to be distinguished from military progress? Comments??
I think I’d almost prefer to be endorsed by NAMBLA than Olberman.
CNO was not a huge fan of the Surge, Michelle – and one of the things that got him the nomination for the chairmanship was that he answered “The Army,” when asked by SecDef what his largest concern was. To admit to military progress is only to acknowledge the obvious. Unfortunately, the same is true in a reverse sense for the political “benchmarks” the US had set out for the Iraqi government, such as a Petroleum law which would enfranchise all of the Iraqi people in their country’s only real resource, and amendments to their constitution to rectify portions which the Sunnis – who sat out of the electoral process for the constitutional convention – object to. The tacit promise of those amendments taking place was a pre-condition for the Sunni’s to participate in the national election of 2006.
There hasn’t been much movement on either issue.
Part of the Surge strategy was aimed at setting the conditions for political accommodation. That’s like leading the horse to water, but he’s got to want to drink. It is either true that Nouri al-Maliki lacks the political credibility to move these and other issues forward, or that he and his supporters lack the desire to do so, thinking perhaps that in the case of a US pullout, they might be able to strike a better bargain with their guns and numbers than they could negotiate over little cups of sweet tea and coffee.
That’s one of the reasons he (al Maliki) is objecting so strenuously to the US arming Sunni militias that have vowed to strike al Qaeda in their midst – it reduces the potential for a Shia military victory should civil war come. It therefore adds pressure to seek a political accommodation while also killing Qaedist jihadis – a win/win for us.
Essentially, the kinds of political change that the US benchmarked are probably the two most fundamental aspects of Iraqi society. After all, after a long history of oppression, the Shia have only just gotten the kind of access to political power that their numbers ought to have given them and they will be loth to yield much of it back to the class that once ground them underfoot. And the petroleum law is essentially the country’s entire economic basis – you can see why they want to ensure that they get that one just right.
Nothing of importance happens quickly in Arabia. It was foolish of us to ever think that their democratic process could be compelled to align with the dictates of our impatience.
“CNO was not a huge fan of the Surge, Michelle ”
Smart Man!