Remember this one?
This to me demonstrates one of the major political problems we have in this country today. History demonstrates time and time again how the military is usually much more loyal to the government than anyone else. The holders of the view that general Patraeus was a bad guy must really be much more afraid of the internal threat our own military represents than any external enemies. I find it consistent that these same individuals constantly underestimate today’s Islamic militancy threat. The very people who have the ability to defeat the enemy in open combat are the greater threat. Well, this needs to change.
President-elect Obama is going to take the military and show them whose boss. We don’t need them in this war, so he needs to put them in their place after the free hand the military has been given under the Bush administration. Like the good soldiers they are, they will obey orders. JFK had an attitude similar to this when he took office. As with any parallels, a number of differences are present. This is not a good one to be similar to given how today’s threat is much less immediate, but much more likely to evolve into events.
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From today's Washington Post,
ReplyDelete"Open and serious debate versus ideological certitude will be a great relief to the military leaders," said retired Maj. Gen. William L. Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations. Senior officers are aware that few in their ranks voiced misgivings over the Iraq war, but they counter that they were not encouraged to do so by the Bush White House or the Pentagon under Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"The joke was that when you leave a meeting, everybody is supposed to drink the Kool-Aid," Nash said. "In the Bush administration, you had to drink the Kool-Aid before you got to go to the meeting."
Obama's expected retention of Robert M. Gates as defense secretary and expected appointment of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser have been greeted with relief at the Pentagon.