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Dwight
was Right
by Michael Moore
So ... it turns out Eisenhower
wasn't making up all that stuff about the military-industrial complex.
It matters not whom we elect. The
Pentagon and the military contractors call the shots.
The title "Commander in Chief" is ceremonial, like "Employee of the
Month" at your local Burger King.
Everything you need to know can be found in just two paragraphs from
Obama's War. Here's the scene:
Obama is meeting with his National Security Council staff on the
Saturday after Thanksgiving last year.
He's getting ready to give a big speech announcing his new strategy for
Afghanistan. Except ... the strategy
isn't set yet. The military has presented him with just one option:
escalation. But at the last minute,
Obama tells everyone, hold up - the door to a plan for withdrawal isn't
closed.
The brass isn't having it:
"Mr. President," [Army Col. John Tien] said, "I
don't see how you can defy your military chain here.
We kind of are where we are. Because if you tell General McChrystal, 'I
got your assessment, got your
resource constructs, but I've chosen to do something else,' you're
going to probably have to replace him.
You can't tell him, 'Just do it my way, thanks for your hard work.' And
then where does that stop?"
The colonel did not have to elaborate. His
implication was that not only McChrystal but the entire
military high command might go in an unprecedented toppling - Gates;
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of
U.S. Central Command. Perhaps
no president could weather that, especially a 48-year-old with four
years in the U.S. Senate and 10 months
as commander in chief.
And, well, the rest is history. Three days later Obama announced the
escalation at West Point.
And he became our newest war president.
But here's the question Woodward doesn't answer: Why, exactly, can't a
president weather ending a war,
even if he has to fire all his generals to do it? It's right there in
Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:
The President's in charge of the military. And so is Congress: the army
can't just march over to the
Treasury Department and steal the money for wars. Article I, Section 9
says Congress has to appropriate it.
In the real world, though, the Constitution's just a piece of paper. In
the real world, a President who fired
his top military in order to stop a war would be ruined before you
could say "bloodless coup." The Washington Post
(filled with ads from Boeing and Northrop Grumman) would scream about
how he was the reincarnation of
Neville Chamberlain. Fox and CNN (filled with "experts" who work for
think tanks funded by Raytheon and
General Dynamics) would say he was a girly-man who had to be impeached.
If Obama's ultimate goal wasn't to make the Republicans like him...
If Obama had some fire in him, enough to make people fear
him...
If Obama wasn't being rolled by EVERYONE in Washington...
an exit plan for Afghanistan and they politely told him to "Go fuck yourself."
That's treason and I wish Obama had the gravitas to fire the insubordinate sons of bitches.
But he lacks the backbone to be decisive so he sends another 30,000 men into harm's way?
How can you be Commander in Chief if you follow the Pentagon's orders?
I hate saying this, but Obama is turning out to be Harry Reid with darker skin.
I'm afraid the history books will call him Barack Surrender Obama.
If we lose the House and Senate, will this ugly timidity continue?
Is there anything that can wake Obama out of his "Please like me" stupor?
IF Obama is going to be a
one-termer, why not go out fighting?