Dwight Was Right, By Michael Moore

Well it's high time!  Michael Moore now agrees with me!  Or is it the other way around? 

Since his name is slightly better known than mine, I guess I'll let Michael Moore take credit for what I've been saying since I stole most of it from my dear old Dad. 

 

Curious Carl

Dwight Was RightBy Michael Moore, OpenMike Blog

30 September 10

o ... it turns out President Eisenhower wasn't making up all that stuff
about the military-industrial complex.

That's what you'll conclude if you read Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's
War. (You can read excerpts of it here, here and here.) You thought you
voted for change when you cast a ballot for Barack Obama? Um, not when it
comes to America occupying countries that don't begin with a "U" and an "S."

In fact, after you read Woodward's book, you'll split a gut every time you
hear a politician or a government teacher talk about "civilian control over
the military." The only people really making the decisions about America's
wars are across the river from Washington in the Pentagon. They wear
uniforms. They have lots of weapons they bought from the corporations they
will work for when they retire.

For everyone who supported Obama in 2008, it's reassuring to find out he
understands we have to get out of Afghanistan. But for everyone who's
worried about Obama in 2010, it's scary to find out that what he thinks
should be done may not actually matter. And that's because he's not willing
to stand up to the people who actually run this country.

And here's the part I don't even want to write - and none of you really want
to consider:

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. And Congress (which
experienced its own escalation in lobbying from defense contractors just as
the Afghanistan escalation was being decided) might well do it. (By the way,
if you want to listen to Lyndon Johnson talk in 1964 about how he might be
impeached if he didn't follow the military-industrial complex's orders and
escalate the war in Vietnam, just go here.)

So here's your assignment for tonight: Watch Eisenhower's famous farewell
speech.

And then start thinking about how we can tame this beast. The Soviet Union
had its own military-industrial complex, which is one reason they got into
Afghanistan ... which is one reason there's no more Soviet Union. It
happened to them.

Don't think it can happen to us?