(Ex-) Military setting political policy?

The US was a remarkable experiment in democracy way back when ... and one of the prime reasons for that was the fact that the military was subservient in power to the civilian authority. This has essentially sustained the federation ... that the powers in the military have *always* been not only subservient, but almost religiously so ... military men will *always* answer criticisms from morons (generally Democraps) with the phrase "I will defend to the death their right to say so ...".

Civilian leadership of the military has sometimes proven to be highly problematic, with disasterous consequences borne by the military. When the civilian leadership, for geo-political reasons, tinker with the mechanisms of war, it generally leads to disaster. Witness Vietnam, Iran and Somalia ... where the (idiot liberals) leadership forced the military to fight with their hands tied. In the modern era, the leadership has had the wisdom to leave the fighting to the fighting men, witness the dramatic victories in Iraq (2x) and Afghanistan. Funny how the disasters took place under the Democraps, while the overwhelming victories were under Republicans ... but I digress!

Now, however, for purely political reasons, the Democraps have rallied behind a handful of military leaders who are hammering the Administration on Iraq. Nevermind the obvious hypocrisy of the lefties suddenly supporting the military (OK, not really, since these are retired leaders), nor the fact that it is a laughable number of ex-generals (what, less than .1% of the retired leadership, if we only count generals). Do we really want to get into a situation where we start getting a Kabal of ex-military commenting on political grounds?

Do not get me wrong ... "I will defend to the death their right to do so ..." ... nobody is arguing whether or not they have the inherent right to comment. Actually, I might be wrong about that, since there is a military code that leaders are held to (albeit I am not real sure of the nuance, particularly once one leaves the military).

The key here is that a line has been crossed ... these criticisms are on a geopolitical scale, not simple critique of war operations. These are also not "generic" type comments, such as questioning the efficacy of certain applications of military power (i.e. "police" actions, special ops, drug interdiction, etc), but a straight up criticism of a political decision. Finally, this is a "hit-n-run" type operation ... these "ex-generals" have not made the transition from military to political life (ala Richard Clark, who nobody takes seriously any longer), but are simply taking pot-shots from their armchairs. They are using an inherent authority (the "title" of ex-general), with its inherent immunity from criticism ("how *dare* you question true patriots"?) with no accountability whatsoever.

The bottom line is that people should realize that a line has been crossed, and that we might want to think through the ramifications of that fact before boldly moving forward.