One of the biggest dangers to anyone who criticizes senior leaders within an organization is to lose objectivity to emotion. This is the primary fault of Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in his article "A failure in generalship" in the May issue of AFJ. I believe that his genuine frustration regarding both the perceived inequity of treatment between the junior and senior ranks and the overall lack of accountability in some of the senior ranks has led to his inability to articulate a specific problem and a specific recommendation for fixing it. Instead, he chooses to blame everyone and make recommendations that are both illogical and infeasible.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/07/2792766

Col Aumuller's riposte to Lt Col Yingling's earlier diatribe against 'the Generals' is quite remarkable. He has developed a very well argued case that broadly states all the current crop of military senior ranks are some of the best educated and competent th US has ever been lucky enough to have. As a famous Uk Prime Minister once said "You have never had it so good". Aumuller also robustly dismisses Lt Col Yingling as an insubordinate no-hoper. That may or may not be true but in his whole article, how then does Col Aumuller explain the current situation in Iraq? He does offer some very serious debating points and I assume they are the key issues as he sees them, but none of them focus on the extant relationship between the Commander-in Chief, the former Defence Secretary, the UK political leadership and the current crop of Generals who seem to be politically neutered and bound to pursue an endless and hopeless strategy to save...something. I wonder what that something might be? To make a real difference, perhaps Col Aumuller should direct his evident intellect to proposals on how a robust military may once again be the primary advisor of the Commander-in -Chief on how to conduct military affairs, as opposed to a bunch of Beltway bandits who saw an opportunity for immense profits at whatever cost to the Iraqi people and world security. But, I am only a humble Scot with a few years of UK military service under my belt, for what that might be worth.