An Intellectually Honest US Military Commander

2. Military and Security Review (An
Intellectually Honest US Military
Commander) Paperback – November
4, 2015 by Agha Humayun Amin
(Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Military-
Security-Review-Intellectual-
Commander/dp/1519103808
Military and Security Review (An
Intellectual Honest US Military
Commander) Paperback – November
4, 2015
by Agha Humayun Amin (Author)

3. Notably in Afghanistan both Generals Mc
Chrystal and Petraeus made no effort to
oppose the senseless 2009-12 surge
that led to high US casualties and led to
no operational or strategic advantage for
the US. On page 79 of his book US
journalist Michael Hastings described Mc
Chrystals intellectual dishonesty as
below. Hastings stated that Mc Chrystal
was clueless about why US is fighting in

4. Helmand but soon launches a major
offensive there which costs many US
casualties. The lack of moral courage in
the US political and military leadership
may be imagined from the fact that while
90 % US military casualties were inflicted
by Pakistani state proxies the US
commanders still blamed Al Qaeda and
some non state Taliban as the real
enemies. This was tactically convenient
and strategically counterproductive but
no US leader political or military
possessed the courage to face the fact
that it was the Pakistani state and not
non state actors that were the cause of

5. their problems. The surge of 2009-2012
was the worst example of this classic
strategic deception where US troops
were distributed in penny packets on a
platter to Pakistani proxies to be
sacrificed for no tangible or precise
military objective. Long ago a great
military thinker , perhaps worlds greatest
described this particularly malady that
afflicts the US political and military soul
at the highest level. Sir B.H Liddell Hart
in his magnum bonum “ Strategy the
Indirect Approach” thus stated :--
“common fault of leaders—that of
sacrificing the truth to expediency

6. without ultimnate advantage to the
cause.For whoever habitually
suppresses the truth in the interest of
tact will produce a deformity from the
womb of his thought.” Hastings
described such a deformed creature that
US military system produced , on page
346 of his book he quotes Admiral
William Fallon less delicately describing
Petraeus as An ass kissing little chicken
shit ! But note that this character was
selected as DCIA also ! A 2012 US war
narrative by eminent US journalist
Michael Hastings describes US Armys
failures in intellectual honesty at the

7. highest level in his book “ The
Operators” which may have possibly led
to Hastings abrupt and unnatural death.
Hastings on page 7 of his above
mentioned book describes General
Casey as one who “ oversaw Iraqs
complete spiral to shit and didn’t stop
it,didn’t adapt”. Hasting goes on and
describes Genearl Mc Kiernan as an
upright man who does not suck up
enough when congressmen visit
frontlines and does not have a deep fan
base in the media. Hastings thus
ascribed Mc Kiernans downfall to the fact
that he was not a sucker and thus had

8. few supporters in media and US
government. What a sad description of a
great super powers armys higher
leadership and the success standards
set for them by US politicians. In this
climate of total sycophancy and apple
polishing General Joseph F Dunford.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
stands out as a lone but solid rock of
highest integrity in an endless and
bottomless sea of mediocrity known as
United States Military system. Dunford
dared to state the truth about Syrian
Faux pas of US political leadership in the
US senate. In recent senate hearings

9. General Joseph F Dunford. The
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told
the Senate Armed Services Committee
this week: “The balance of forces right
now are in Assad’s advantage”. It may
sound harmless but those who know the
US system will realize that Dunford is a
man of immense guts in saying what he
did. Let us hope that Dunfords
intellectual honesty is institutionalized in
the US Army.