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Who Are "The Deciders"?

Saturday 03 October 2009

by: David Sirota, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

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President Barack Obama talks with Gen. Ray Odierno.(Photo: US Army / flickr)

     The war in Afghanistan poses two important questions: What should be done and who should be "the deciders"?

    Congressional Republicans say the answer to the first query is military escalation. But according to polls, most Americans disagree. At the same time, many experts wonder "whether or not we know what we're doing," as President George W. Bush's former deputy national security adviser said last week.

    One thing's for sure: The U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says he wants more troops. His new memo calling for a bigger Afghanistan deployment prompted President Obama to begin carefully considering different ways forward - and Washington to hammer the White House for entertaining any alternative to McChrystal's request.

    Republicans lambasted Obama for letting "political motivations...override the needs of our commanders," as Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said. Likewise, the Washington Post insisted that Obama's failure to promptly back McChrystal's surge proposal could "dishonor" America, while the New York Times said no matter what the president wants, "It will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal."

    The coordinated assault sharpens that question about who "the deciders" should be - elected officials or the military?

    The Washington Establishment clearly believes the latter, and that's no surprise. The war-mongering political class has called for presidential and congressional deference to military demands since Hollywood movies and anti-communist ideologues began countering the public's "Vietnam Syndrome" by blaming that quagmire in Southeast Asia on elected officials. In the purest articulation of the argument, Ronald Reagan asserted in 1980 that Vietnam was lost not because of flaws in mission or strategy, but because politicians allegedly forced soldiers to fight "a war our government (was) afraid to let them win."

    Avoiding another Vietnam, says this school of thought, requires a figurehead government - one that delegates all military decision-making power to generals and effectively strips it from elected civilians who will supposedly be too "politically motivated" (read: influenced by voters). This authoritarian ideology explains not only today's vitriolic reaction to the president's Afghanistan deliberations (including the conservative magazine Newsmax fantasizing about a military "coup" to "resolve the Obama problem") but also some of the most anti-democratic statements ever uttered by American leaders. It explains, for instance, Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that public opinion "doesn't matter" when it comes to military policy, and President Bush saying Iraq "troop levels will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington."

    Of course, the Constitution deliberately gives "political figures in Washington" final say: Article I empowers Congress to declare and finance wars; and Article II states that while the White House "may require the opinion" of military officers, ultimately "the President shall be Commander in Chief."

    Those provisions were no accident. By separating political from military power, and vesting our elected representatives with ultimate authority, the Founders purposely constructed a democracy that seeks to prevent the dictatorial juntas that often arise when no such separation exists.

    In that way, the Constitution doesn't worry about elected officials' "political motivations" as Sen. Bond does, nor does it fret about "a disconnect ... between the military leadership and the White House," as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., lamented. It views "political motivations" and a "disconnect" as democratic forces guaranteeing that public opinion, via elected "deciders," is somewhat involved in military policy.

    Certainly, Obama and Democratic congressional leaders may still end up defying public will by making the lamentable choice to escalate the Afghanistan War. But after recent quagmires justified by knee-jerk subservience to military prerogative, America should at least applaud these lawmakers for refusing to immediately rubber stamp that course of action. In exploring all options, they are honoring the Constitution's separation of powers - and our nation's most democratic principles.

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    Copyright 2009 Creators.Com

  

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David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books "Hostile Takeover" and "The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com.

Comments

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There are two important

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 17:04 β€” Isidoro Rodriguez, Esq. (not verified)
There are two important oversights in this article: first, the 2006 mid-term election was a mandate to change the policies to the Bush Administration on the Iraq and Afghanistan military plan; second, the September 2008 economic bust; and finally, the 2008 Presidential election. All of the above was a clear signal that both the public is tired of this undeclared war, and the USA economy cannot stand the strain. Thus, this writer contends that citizens must review the history of the past 35 years since Watergate to rethink the emulation of the British system of government, i.e. the President=King; Congress=Parliament; and, the Chief Justice=Lord chief Justice. I often wondered why citizens did no object in the '70 when Rehnquist et al., pushed this analogy. Not only did the Founding Fathers fought the Revolution to not emulate the British system, but more importantly the structure of limited federal government did not envision the need for a recall of confidence vote and general election.

Are you telling us that the

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 17:40 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Are you telling us that the US Senate and the House of Representatives do not have a clue that we are in that country to build a Pipe-Line? To protect that pipe line after it is built will require a larger army just to protect the pipeline and we will have to stay there for another fifty years as we are in Korea,{1950-2010}.

So Who's In Charge Anyway?

Sat, 10/03/2009 - 18:05 β€” Jruss (not verified)
So Who's In Charge Anyway? It begs that question and also (that of) why the disconnect between public opinion and foreign policy. Americans were ready to withdraw from Vietnam years before it happened. It's certainly no paranoid fantasy to assume that a cabal of right-wing oligarchs, a military/industrial establishment and a pernicious CIA are calling the shots despite the will of elected officials. I was shocked when W. Bush decreed that generals on the ground overseas would make strategic decisions and not politicians, including him. I believe that he always deferred to his reactionary sponsors since his knowledge of history and geography was cursory at best. He was a scion of the corporate ownership class as well as believer of the neocon/Reagan-era doctrine that that class, not the voting public should make important policy decisions both domestic and foreign. What's good for business is good for America. It's astonishing that this gospel was presumed to be true for the past 35 or so years. And worse, it was parroted daily by corporate media as the new zeitgeist so effectively that matters of foreign policy were seldom questioned. If they were, they got little coverage in the media.

The screaming blather

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 18:07 β€” Robert Walters (not verified)
The screaming blather issuing from the Rethuglicans, especially Cheney & Co., and including the Senator from Missouri, to defer to militarists/generals is further incontrovertible evidence of their utter disdain for Constitutional government, as if we needed more. Every citizen should become aware of the dire implications of such development, because this is one of the most blatant expressions of the drive for a totalitarian, militarist/corporatist dictatorship we've seen recently. Combine this active subversion of the Constitution at the highest levels of our government with the raging idiocy being inflamed by the right-wing noise machine and you have a fertile ground for the "military coup" suggested/encouraged by Newsmax, or some other, equally malign actions. This is clearly bordering on treason, if it hasn't, in fact, already spilled over into it.

why aren't we ending the

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 18:36 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
why aren't we ending the war? Where are the jobs for our men and women to come home to? What will happen to the economy when the war machine stops cranking out war profits? China has won. They haven't sent a single soldier into our nation, and yet they own us through the economics of two wars we cannot win. China declared us their future enemy in 1997, and today even our lightbulbs are being made in China. Thomas Edison, where is your inventive genuis today. We need to reclaim our manufacturing jobs, our scientific jobs, rebuild our own infrastructure, develop educational plans that cultivate true discourse, and we need to bring our troops home.

A mistake made after

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 18:47 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
A mistake made after refusing to immediately rubber stamp any particular course of action, and after giving the appearance of exploring all options, is still a mistake.

The 2006 congressional

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 18:59 β€” David Brookbank (not verified)
The 2006 congressional elections and 2008 presidential elections may in fact have been "votes for change"but there was no candidate of change when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. voter is a player in U.S. politics only in the sense that we participate in this charade without openly calling its bluff, without loudly and massively announcing that the imperial president (really a capitive to the powers-that-be) has no clothes on and has no power that can't be neutralized, be it by a concocted impeachment, a red-baiting media campaign, or, ultimately, an assassins bullet. May the Afghan people, as the Vietnam people before them, defeat U.S. imperialism and may the efforts of many nations, peoples and movements be successful in creating a multi-polar world which the U.S. ruling class (and its global allies) cannot invade, dominate, and rape.

There is an oddly academic,

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 19:20 β€” PapΓ‘ Kokopelli (not verified)
There is an oddly academic, oddly detached air to this article. Of course we must observe the Constitution!! Have we become so inured to a Congress which has so disgracefully and for so long abdicated its responsibilities, clearly spelled out with regard to declaring and financing wars, that we have to turn to the history books to remember? We are talking about the lives of our sons and daughters here. Gen. McChrystal's request for a large number of troops is actually a blessing in disguise, because by not being so incremental, it requires us to examine it carefully. Let's be clear here: There is no good reason for us to be in Afghanistan. There is no coherent goal and no coherent strategy. There is no definition of victory. There is no exit strategy. And we cannot afford it.

We do not have a choice in

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 21:30 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
We do not have a choice in Afghanistan. We must stay. The Afghans don't want the Taliban. They don't really want us, either. Our job there is to edge the Taliban out so that the Afghans can establish control over their own country. For the past eight years our policy (maybe our only policy) was to destroy the poppy crop. We have not protected the people and helped them to control their own country. If we leave Afghanistan now, we will be attacked again. Remember where the 9/11 attack came from.

Are you kidding? "Applaud"

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 22:20 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Are you kidding? "Applaud" lawmakers who refuse to rubber-stamp a general's call to send more troops into an eight-year quagmire? We should be grateful for the brief polite pause before pursuing folly headlong? How pathetic.A columnist in the Los Angeles Times -- and he is no conservative -- recently said that we KNOW Obama is a salesman, but what product is he delivering? The depressing, honest answer to that is: not much that is new or different or even begins to resemble what he promised he would do on a range of issues. We need to get out of Iraq, go after Al Qaeda wherever, and shut down the American "nation-building" exercise with sitting-duck Marines in Afghanistan. NOW.

War is a Racket Major

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 22:27 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
War is a Racket Major General Smedley Butler USMC ret. WWI

β€œWar is just a racket. A

 Sat, 10/03/2009 - 22:31 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
β€œWar is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

Could dishonor America.

Sat, 10/03/2009 - 23:43 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Could dishonor America. Very funny. America's middle name is dishonor, from here on. Since WWII it's been a civilian mass murder. America tortures. Itself included.

Every single comment here

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 00:12 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Every single comment here (except Brookbank) is worthy and to the point. We the people and the Congresspeople we elected need to be reminded that the constitution provides explicitly for separation of military and State just as it does for separation of church and State. I am convinced that we need another constitutional provision for the separation of banks and State.

(typo and logical inversion

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 01:29 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
(typo and logical inversion corrected) There are more dimensions to this issue than alluded to in the article. Does the author think that the women of Afghanistan want a return to Taliban rule? Could be that given half a chance, the women of Afghanistan would try, convict, and jail at least half the men in Afghanistan. Yes, the U.S. administration, carrying out the foreign policy of the military-industrial complex, is misguided in extremum. In addition to stopping Al Quaeda, the Taliban must be stopped, utterly and completely stopped.

Eishenhower already

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 02:13 β€” David (not verified)
Eishenhower already explained it, David Sirota. It is strange to see articles that avoid the obvious facts of American life as Dwight Eisenhower predicted. The facts are that the military-corporate-war-banker-media cadre are in charge of the government. Many Americans see war and the military as a jobs program. Volunteering to invade and destroy other people's countries is not see as a sin or war crime, but as a good job, or even as heroic. Liberals say they "support the troops," even though many of the troops are right-wing, Christian, gun-loving fundamentalists who joined the military because they need money and also because they like to shoot, dominate, invade, etc. America is probably the most warlike country on earth, with a track record of homicides in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Philippines, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. We have our imperial army stationed in more than a hundred countries. Why? To guard the interests of the corporate elites, to secure oil and other resources so we can continue to be the most obese, most polluting nation on earth. There is no mystery about who the deciders are. They are the people who participate in, profit from or orchestrate death, occupation, weapons systems...the entire war-loving country that we have become.

A strong military is good in

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 03:02 β€” Garrett Connelly (not verified)
A strong military is good in the historical vicissitudes of time. We need generals who stand like a rock to guard against whatever military madness may be directed our way. There is no shame on a ready military sent to strike for unclear motives, retrospectively. Take a deep breath and think of birdsong with dawn. The United States needs to bring it's hard working people home. We need all the help we can get, right here at home.

SINCE 9-11 the constitution

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 04:06 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
SINCE 9-11 the constitution has been shredded. The unread but voted for Patriot Act has doomed us. Did you look up G20 summit on you tube and see the robocops against PEACEFUL demonstrators? Why no mainstream coverage? Because Pittsburgh was in virtual lockdown. No doubt a trial run. Drones now stationed on bases in New York? Our troops have been trained to follow orders. Our school system has been dumbed down and to teach conformity, not to think independently, to know right from wrong. Check out what is happening in Hardin, Montana. Federal prison built left empty for two years as it wasn't up to code.?? Now the town is financially desperate (like a lot of other towns in America), and welcome in 'American Police Force" (who are they?) to come in and take over the prison and they want another 5-10,000 acres for a military training camp!! Who are they training? Who is paying? Why is this allowed? NOTHING in the mainstream media. This is no long a country of the people, by the people.

Everyone I know voted for

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 04:33 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Everyone I know voted for Obama because he focused on change and getting out of the war. There are more troops over there than when Bush was in and it is growing. NO end in sight. If he had real power he would have gotten us out or at least had a withdraw plan in action by now. Seen any? Heard of any? So what does that mean? The president if only a figurehead as he doesn't have final say, or he lied to too in order to get elected and he doesn't care how many innocent people are killed. Either way, the killing will go on. We are trapped by the war machine and the corporations. Read '1984', it use to be required reading in high school. Hasn't been for some time. We are living it.

"Dishonor America?" What

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 14:55 β€” captain pneumo (not verified)
"Dishonor America?" What the Hell do you think these illegal wars have already DONE? Much of the world's people, and not a small number of Americans, are and have been deeply shamed by America's transparently imperialist efforts all over the globe. It's as if no one's thoughts or feelings mattered but those of the Oligarchy..."get the oil and screw the rest of 'em. We need it, and they have it." This is simple brutality on a global scale, and must be tempered with reason. Soon.

Obama The Enabler is the

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 16:04 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Obama The Enabler is the Decider. He duped we "Progressives" who voted for him. Admit it! We got conned. Gitmo won't close. Iraq will see enough troop withdrawls for a good photo-op by Thanksgiving or Christmas. Blackwater changed it's name and moved to Afganistan, where the contractors want to approach 100,000 in number. The Enabler changed the name to the Afgan-PAKISTAN WAR. Any media notice that journalistic slight-of-hand? We need a DRAFT to wake up the dumbest, most ignorant electorate on the planet. It looks like the RepubliCons are pushing The Enabler deep into "Obama's War", so a draft can't be far behind. We can win if we use our successful Iraq tactics: more boots on the ground, living in the villages in small bases, winning the hearts of those Afgans, by building schools, and infrastructure, that's so necessary to "US VITAL INTERESTS"! And never mind about those 8 US soldiers killed today, you don't read the crawlers on the bottom of the tv screen anyway.

To "We do not have a

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 18:34 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
To "We do not have a choice": OK the education system failed you, (or visa versa). The Taliban eliminated the opium crop. US aggression made it bloom again. Persons identified (not imagined) to have been involved in the events of 9-11 were Saudi Arabians- the folks to whom we annually give 5 billion dollars in foreign aid, and Jordanians. Can you say, "Carlyle Group?" I don't usually engage in ad hominum attacks, but bubba- yer dumb.

Attention Taliban

 Sun, 10/04/2009 - 19:03 β€” Jruss (not verified)
Attention Taliban Exterminators! I have no argument that the Taliban represent a reactionary faction of Islam and their brand of "justice" is comparable to the Inquisition (well, similar). Please consider this when defending our role as global cop: We subsidize an equally repressive regime in Saudi Arabia that publicly executes criminals by decapitation and forces people to watch. The also mutilate, in public, those accused of lesser crimes. They repress women in a most pernicious manner yet we support them with billions of dollars in oil purchases. The regime in Pakistan we also subsidize includes a faction that funds the very Taliban and Al Qaeda we claim to be against. This arrangement was set in motion over 20 years ago in our zeal to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. A disparate collection of barbaric thugs in Africa is perpetrating atrocities as bad or worse than the Taliban, yet we offer no police force to try to stop them. They have murdered possibly some 5 million civilians in the past 15 years. The Taliban, for all their crimes, at least offer some semblance of order in a very chaotic region. Our efforts to eradicate them actually attract new converts and patriots who are determined to drive us from their homeland as we would surely do had we been invaded. It sickens me to watch the same tragedy occur in slow motion, that we witnessed 40 years ago against a communist insurgency in Vietnam that, to be sure included some evil terrorists, but also included many patriots doing what their counterparts in Afghanistan are doing today. There is no simple sorting of issues or struggles into "good" and "evil." The sooner we get out of the Middle East and Central Asia the sooner those populations can solve their own problems and years hence, very likely evolve into respectable world citizens--something we don't trust them to do for themselves.

Those that want to escalate

 Mon, 10/05/2009 - 02:22 β€” Allan J Krueger (not verified)
Those that want to escalate the mistake in Afghanistan need to pack their gear and get aboard that plane. If they are too old and feeble, they need to pack their kids bags and send them over their to be sacrifices!!!! It is time that we get a grip and realize that this is a FAILED STRATEGY! Get the Russians on the phone and ask them about their invasion debacle! Oh I forgot, we have to fight them there, so we won't have to fight them in California! Cha-Ching - just listen to those cash registers! We have seen the enemy and it is US!

This article really brought

 Mon, 10/05/2009 - 12:05 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
This article really brought out the far left liberals! We should not be applauding Obama for delaying a decision to help the soldiers dying in Afghanistan, rather we should be asking why he and his administration are not completely up to speed on this critical responsibility of the federal government. They should be able to respond immediately and proactively without even days of discussion, much less weeks or months. All of the discussion should have already taken place during strategic sessions. He should have been here taking care of his responsibilities as president instead of over in Denmark trying to get the Olympics for Chicago and seeing the world on the taxpayers' dime. He needs to cancel all of his apology tours and keep his ass at home working on the issues the federal government is actually responsible for - he will make enough pension when he is out of office to afford the travel and see the world. There is no excuse for his criminal irresponsibility.

Win the peeople over with

 Tue, 10/06/2009 - 14:04 β€” Anonymous (not verified)
Win the peeople over with investment projects and the men in black lose. Continue bombs and we lose. Without the Afgan people it will be like Vietnam all over. Hello!!