Obama & military leaders part ways on policy
The Washington Post has noticed that military leaders and the President aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on the use of the military as a means to a political end. That’s probably because the military sees itself as a tool of policy that must be unfettered in order to accomplish the country’s stated goals abroad, while the White House thinks that the use of the military is a means to make domestic points with voters and it’s political base.
About the Afghanistan surge, the Post writes;
Obama’s relationship with the military was indelibly shaped early in his presidency by the 2009 debate over whether a troop surge in Afghanistan that his generals were pressing for stood a good chance of turning around the worsening conflict.
“From his perspective, he trusted the military and they betrayed him,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a blunt assessment that is shared by many in defense and policymaking circles. The president felt boxed into a political corner by leaks about the troop numbers the generals wanted. After that, “I think this White House made it pretty clear that they intended to run all foreign policy from the Executive Office Building.”
And form the military’s perspective, Obama betrayed the troops by seeking a political compromise on a military solution in Afghanistan. According to campaign-Obama, Afghanistan was the only war worth fighting, but he only gave the commanders half of the troops they told him that they needed to win. The result has been exactly the outcome that those commanders and the CIA predicted – that the troops are currently withdrawing under fire.
Obama’s recent threat to use force in Syria to make political points without actualy accomplishing in the region has met with criticism from two of his Defense Secretaries, William gates and Leon Panetta;
Obama’s two former defense secretaries weighed in on the controversy Tuesday night, saying they disagreed with the president’s decision to seek congressional authorization for a strike. While Leon E. Panetta said a cruise missile attack would have been worthwhile, Robert M. Gates said the plan was akin to “throwing gasoline on an extremely complex fire in the Middle East.”
“To blow a bunch of stuff up over a couple of days to underscore or validate a point or principle is not a strategy,” Gates said at a forum in Dallas in which the two appeared
The Post neglects to mention the harsh criticism Panetta heaped on President Obama, the New York Times didn’t;
Mr. Panetta, also speaking at the forum, said the president should have kept his word after he had pledged action if Syria used chemical weapons.
“When the president of the United States draws a red line, the credibility of this country is dependent on him backing up his word,” Mr. Panetta said.
“Once the president came to that conclusion, then he should have directed limited action, going after Assad, to make very clear to the world that when we draw a line and we give our word,” then “we back it up,” Mr. Panetta said.
The Obama/Biden campaign in 2012 leaned heavily on the military’s accomplishments during their first term, and all the while, the administration was planning to balance the federal debt on the backs of the military and on the veterans who gave them their campaign slogans. Loss of money for training and equipment are plunging the military into a hollow force. Steep personnel cuts are causing the military to lose faith in the commitment to them by the government.
Their inability to negotiate a successful Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the government of Iraq has allowed that country to fall back into a morass of blood of thousands, turning the clock back to the 2006 Sunni/Shiite civil war. The situation there is causing the administration to examine ways they can get US troops back into Iraq.
From the Post;
“The U.S. military feels it has been burnt with half-measures,” said Peter J. Munson, a retired Marine officer who most recently served as a senior adviser to a Marine Corps commander. “There is going to be on the part of our senior military leaders an aversion to using force when you don’t have clear ends and escalation can take on a life of its own.”
Mostly because military solutions shouldn’t be restrained by public opinion polls and shouldn’t be dressed up to look pretty and clean for public consumption.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues
I find it ironic that the NYT is once again publicizing the old “national prestige” argument as sole justification for use of military force (they’re doing this by publicizing Pannetta’s views). We all know how wonderfully exactly that concept worked out for the US in Vietnam.
Then again, it’s also unsurprising. The NYT and other US major media outlets were quite supportive of the Vietnam War initially. It was only much later – after things had obviously gone sour and the LBJ administration’s lies became too blatant to ignore – that they began to ask hard questions.
And so it begins.
I suspected that his previous supporters and upper-level people, as in DoD, might start to publicly disagree with him, right around now, and I was right.
I wonder how much longer it will take for the rest of them to chime in.
If Obama had actually nominated Secretaries of State who understood how and what State should do, the need to rely on Defense to meet endstates best met though diplomacy would have been negated.
The best part is knowing that at least one of these failed Secretaries will run for President and tout their State credentials as proof of their diplomatic knowledge.
My step-daughter was planning on making a career out of the Army but just told us that due to what was going on with the deployments, cuts, gays in the military stuff ( which serve no good rational other than to drive social change) she is getting out and a bunch of her fellow soldiers are also doing so.
The President/Democrats that are using the Military as a social experiment are destroying it
#4 jonp
Yep! If this continues, in the end, we’ll end up with an out-of-date gay bickering top heavy (too many chiefs, not enough Indians) hollow undersized failed-social-experiment military.
Obaomao will be long gone, but We the People will be left to suffer with The Enlightened One’s actions for many years, if not decades.
#3 bobo
When/if Shrillery runs for Teh Preezy, and tries to use her time as SecState as a running point, all one needs to do is shout long, loud and often, “Benghazi”, “Benghazi-gate”, and her most (in)famous quote, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” (referencing WHY the muzzies attacked the consulate).
The Post turned what was a decent article into a pretty lame puff piece at the end.
“Obama developed close, and in some instances warm, relationships with his military chiefs, McDonough said.
‘Their job is to give their best military advice, which they always do, without regard for politics,” the chief of staff said. “The president appreciates that above all else.”
“Administration officials say Obama is proudest and most humbled when he is surrounded by troops. “
Says Baracka the First, “You guys make a pretty good photo op”. That sounds “proud and humble”./sarc
He tried to leverage congress into passing his budget, which is untenable by threatening to stop paying service members and veterans… I wonder if he realizes anything about his supposed specialty. Such as, I don’t know, the history of the Constitution? Someone might want to give him a history book (a real one, not one of the Progressive ones) and show him what happened last time the “powers that be” tried to not pay the troops.
Still don’t understand why military/law enforcement service isn’t a requirement for the office of President of The United States. Allowing no experience walk ins to fulfill the highest enforcement leadership billet in the country is beyond retarded.
The founders really dropped the ball on that one.
FatCircles, the qualifications are 35 years old; native born citizen; that’s it.
Actually, I think we need to return to the draft and require military service of every US citizen and especially illegal aliens who want to become US citizens. I think it would sort out a lot of stuff.