By BJ Bjornson
It is good to see that the military leadership in the U.S. still knows where their proper place is in the scheme of things.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey blasted a common refrain heard on the GOP presidential campaign trail � that as president candidates would listen to the generals � as "offensive."
. . .
"I'll probably make news with this but I find some of those articles about divergence or control of the generals to be kind of offensive to me," Dempsey told reporters traveling with him in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
"And here's why. One of the things that makes us as a military profession in a democracy is civilian rule. Our civilian leaders are under no obligation to accept our advice; and that's what it is. Its advice. It's military judgments, it's alternatives, it's options. And at the end of the day, our system is built on the fact that it will be our civilian leaders who make that decision and I don't find that in any way to challenge my manhood, nor my position. In fact, if it were the opposite, I think we should all be concerned."
Of course, the GOP leadership is no more interested in what the military leadership has to say than they are regarding court rulings, as they proved when the Bush administration drop-kicked General Shinseki out of the way when his advice and military judgement of what it would take to secure a post-invasion Iraq ran counter to their aims and beliefs. The only generals they want to listen to are those who tell them what they already believe. Otherwise, it�s just a club to try and hammer Obama and any other opponent with.
Still, nice to see some push back on the meme.
Apparently you don't recall David Petraeus sandbagging Obama into an Afghanistan "surge" which he actually opposed?
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't recall Obama being all that opposed to it in the first place. I recall some discussion over its size an scope, and certainly a lot of progressives were against the idea, but I don't see Obama as being sandbagged on that one. He's shown repeatedly that he'll let everyone talk and then take the course he feels is best, whatever the advice, and that he was and is more than willing to escalate the situation in Af/Pak.
ReplyDelete"My first order as Commander in Chief will be to end the war in Iraq and refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and our broader security interests."
ReplyDeleteCandidate Obama 2008
Would appear to suggest that Petreus didn't have to do all that much 'snadbagging'.