A General for Obama?

Even though many of his political operatives are surely anxious for presidential candidate Obama to shore up his national security credentials by selecting a retired general as his running mate, he should not choose one. The reason is simple: the ones available simply do not have the requisite moral character and professional acumen. Today's June 30 issue of Defense News is running a new commentary by Straus Military Reform Project adviser Col. Douglas Macgregor arguing the case.

Find this commentary at http://defensenews.va.newsmemory.com/default.php?type=&token=e88c12e66111e7ec1d5c5631645fed36&pSetup=defensenews_intl, and below.

By DOUGLAS MACGREGOR

Within the American political system, a polarized celebrity cul­ture conditioned to respond to emotional buttons, clichés and slogans, military uniforms and badges have acquired astonish­ing power. But Obama might think twice before attaching too much im­portance to the trappings of mili­tary glory. A life spent in hierar­chical, rule-bound, tightly con­trolled military organizations is not necessarily the best prepara­tion for accurately judging the fluid world of politics at home and abroad.

More important, nowhere in the Constitution or in any other public document that frames the government of the United States is there mention that the presi­dent, a senator, a secretary of defense or any other federal offi­cial should have served in the armed forces. Military service can be ennobling, but there is no evidence that military service confers greater moral authority on a soldier over matters per­taining to war and peace.

Perhaps this explains why Americans automatically blame politicians for whatever is wrong — and politicians are rarely blameless. However, the record shows that whereas bad political judgment in war can often be rescued through effective mili­tary leadership, the reverse is rarely true. It’s why high com­mand in wartime requires people of the highest caliber and char­acter. Such people, like Gens. Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman in the Civil War, John Pershing in World War I, and George Patton and Douglas MacArthur in World War II, tend to be demanding, sometimes dif­ficult for politicians to control, and often unpredictable; but without such people, regardless of the resources available, suc­cess is impossible.

Unfortunately, the George W. Bush administration always ex­hibited a marked aversion to ad­vancing men of character to the most senior posts in a way not seen since the days of President Lyndon Johnson’s administration. If they had, events might have turned out very differently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps it’s be­cause such men would have fought the administration over its culture of torture and abuse in relation to Muslim detainees, be­havior that has betrayed Ameri­can values, cost us our moral au­thority and done us incalculable damage internationally.

Instead, the Bush administra­tion opted for biddable corpo­rate men who followed orders, pushed the party line, lied and dissembled where necessary.

The most disturbing example of moral gutlessness occurred when Ambassador Paul Bremer announced the decision to dis­band the very Iraqi Army which the top U.S. Army generals had planned to reconstitute and use to restore order. A minority of generals — John Abizaid, for ex­ample — who composed the U.S. Army leadership in Iraq knew it was a disastrous decision that virtually guaranteed the most ap­palling consequences. But did he or any of the generals stand up and oppose the decision or threaten to resign en masse, and speak out publicly? No, they folded — and eagerly accepted the promotions that followed.

Such moral cowardice is inex­cusable. In the final analysis, the generals turned a limited mili­tary intervention to remove the corrupt leadership of a weak, in­capable despot into a destructive war of occupation waged against Iraq’s Sunni Arab population. Then, they replaced Saddam Hussein’s regime with a corrupt Shi’ite Islamist Arab government with ties to Iran.

No less disappointing was the readiness of the retired generals to defend the incompetence and failure of their chosen succes­sors by misinforming the Ameri­can people about the true condi­tions on the ground in Iraq. Thanks to their disinformation campaign on television and ra­dio, the disaster was concealed from the American public until the strategic consequences were so negative the only way to re­duce U.S. losses was to buy off the insurgent enemy with bags of U.S. cash under the guise of the surge.

Despite the desperate need in our republic for accountability from everyone, including gener­als, the demand for accountabili­ty has been frustrated. Journal­ists who covet access cannot write stories if the generals and the Bush administration bar them from doing so. And politi­cians find it easier to attack each other. But the truth is, if the active and retired generals were corpo­rate officers with a track record like Iraq, the shareholders would be up in arms, and the generals would have been fired en masse long ago.

No, Obama needs no help from former generals or from anyone sporting medals to win in No­vember. ■

Douglas Macgregor is a former U.S. Army colonel and a decorated Gulf War combat veteran who writes for the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, Washington.

Now that Sen. Barack Obama has emerged the victor in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, the pressure is on from some quar­ters inside the Democratic Party to find a suitable general to be his running mate. The implica­tion is that a former general, or at least someone with military experience, will confer credibili­ty on the Obama ticket.


Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
301 791-2397
winslowwheeler@msn.com