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A 4-Star Defense of the Republic |
Current rating: 0 |
by Rosa Brooks
(No verified email address) |
21 Apr 2006
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It's very scary when it appears the Pentagon is now the most restrained part of the American national security apparatus. And a lunatic is running the asylum. |
When six recently retired generals criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war and urged his resignation, the Bush administration reacted as if the generals had announced an impending military coup. Within days, administration loyalists were suggesting that the generals had been disloyal not merely to Rumsfeld but to American democracy itself.
The dissenting generals seemed almost surprised by the speed and savagery of the administration's counteroffensive. Maybe they had assumed that their combat records and decades of service would protect them. Or maybe they had been lulled into a false sense of security by the administration's floundering Iraq policies and assumed that Rumsfeld and his White House backers were just too distracted and incompetent to go after a few courteous, highly decorated critics. But the generals should have known that this administration can be ferociously competent when there's something really important — like President Bush's poll numbers — at stake.
On the right, the key talking point in the War Against the Generals quickly emerged: "Civilian control of the military." It was an effective line of attack, and so clever that even many who ought to have known better were suckered. The Washington Post editorial board on Tuesday, for instance, fell for it hook, line and sinker, worrying that the retired generals were threatening "the essential democratic principle of military subordination to civilian control…. If [the generals] are successful in forcing Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation, they will set an ugly precedent."
They even had me nodding along there for a few minutes. After all, every student of recent history knows that if you dilute civilian control of the military, you end up with fascism or a Latin American-style military junta. Because constant security threats are necessary to maintain the power and credibility of a military regime, a nation that lacks civilian control of the military gets ensnared in unending, pointless wars, often against an increasingly vaguely defined threat. Gradually, the broader society becomes militarized. Dissenters are denounced as cowards or traitors, and domestic surveillance becomes common. Secret military courts and detention systems begin to supplant the civilian judicial system. Detainees get tortured, and some end up mysteriously dead after interrogation.
We definitely wouldn't want that kind of regime to control the United States, would we?
It was at this point that I got the joke — because, dear reader, we're already well on the way to having that kind of regime. If Rumsfeld thought he could get away with calling himself Il Generalissimo, don't you think he'd do so in a heartbeat?
In the looking-glass world the Bush administration has brought us, it's the civilians in the White House and the Pentagon who have been eager to embrace the values normally exemplified by military juntas, while many uniformed military personnel have struggled to insist on values that are supposed to characterize democratic civil society.
Iraq is only one of the many issues on which military personnel have stood up against foolish or immoral administration policies. In 2003, the three generals and one admiral who collectively head the JAG Corps of the various services wrote strongly worded internal memos opposing the administration's authorization of interrogation techniques that border on or constitute torture. Navy Rear Adm. Michael Lohr, for instance, condemned the techniques as "inconsistent with our most fundamental values." In January 2005, five retired generals filed an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court opposing the administration's argument that suspects tried by military commissions are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. Many more examples could be cited.
The claim that the six dissenting generals are betraying the principle of civilian control over the military is both silly and sinister. It's silly because polite, reasoned criticism from retired generals is just free speech, a very far cry from "forcing" the Defense secretary out. And it's sinister because civilian control is a means of safeguarding democracy, not an end in itself. When that gets forgotten, the phrase becomes just another way to stifle dissent.
Military officers must obey all lawful commands and refrain from using "contemptuous words" about their civilian leaders. But when officers take the military oath, they also pledge to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same."
That's a hard oath, because bearing "true faith" to the Constitution requires military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have gone beyond the pale. Both our democracy and the lives of the soldiers who fight in our name depend on it. If officers remain silent when our military policies go terribly wrong, there's little the rest of us can do to set things right again.
Rosa Brooks is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Her experience includes service as a senior advisor at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, as a consultant for the Open Society Institute and Human Rights Watch, as a board member of Amnesty International USA, and as a lecturer at Yale Law School. Brooks is the author of numerous scholarly articles on international law, human rights, and the law of war, and her book, "Can Might Make Rights? The Rule of Law After Military Interventions" (with Jane Stromseth and David Wippman), will be published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press.
© 2006 The Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld |
by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Apr 2006
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WASHINGTON, April 22 — The revolt by retired generals who publicly criticized Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened an extraordinary debate among younger officers, in military academies, in the armed services' staff colleges and even in command posts and mess halls in Iraq.
Junior and midlevel officers are discussing whether the war plans for Iraq reflected unvarnished military advice, whether the retired generals should have spoken out, whether active-duty generals will feel free to state their views in private sessions with the civilian leaders and, most divisive of all, whether Mr. Rumsfeld should resign.
In recent weeks, military correspondents of The Times discussed these issues with dozens of younger officers and cadets in classrooms and with combat units in the field, as well as in informal conversations at the Pentagon and in e-mail exchanges and telephone calls.
To protect their careers, the officers were granted anonymity so they could speak frankly about the debates they have had and have heard. The stances that emerged are anything but uniform, although all seem colored by deep concern over the quality of civil-military relations, and the way ahead in Iraq.
The discussions often flare with anger, particularly among many midlevel officers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and face the prospect of additional tours of duty.
"This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly," said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. "I can only hope that my generation does better someday."
An Army major who is an intelligence specialist said: "The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, 'We cannot do this mission.' They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the resignation of officers" who might otherwise have stayed in uniform.
One Army colonel enrolled in a Defense Department university said an informal poll among his classmates indicated that about 25 percent believed that Mr. Rumsfeld should resign, and 75 percent believed that he should remain. But of the second group, two-thirds thought he should acknowledge errors that were made and "show that he is not the intolerant and inflexible person some paint him to be," the colonel said.
Many officers who blame Mr. Rumsfeld are not faulting President Bush — in contrast to the situation in the 1960's, when both President Lyndon B. Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara drew criticism over Vietnam from the officer corps. (Mr. McNamara, like Mr. Rumsfeld, was also resented from the outset for his attempts to reshape the military itself.)
But some are furiously criticizing both, along with the military leadership, like the Army major in the Special Forces. "I believe that a large number of officers hate Rumsfeld as much as I do, and would like to see him go," he said.
"The Army, however, went gently into that good night of Iraq without saying a word," he added, summarizing conversations with other officers. "For that reason, most of us know that we have to share the burden of responsibility for this tragedy. And at the end of the day, it wasn't Rumsfeld who sent us to war, it was the president. Officers know better than anyone else that the buck stops at the top. I think we are too deep into this for Rumsfeld's resignation to mean much.
"But this is all academic. Most officers would acknowledge that we cannot leave Iraq, regardless of their thoughts on the invasion. We destroyed the internal security of that state, so now we have to restore it. Otherwise, we will just return later, when it is even more terrible."
The debates are fueled by the desire to mete out blame for the situation in Iraq, a drawn-out war that has taken many military lives and has no clear end in sight. A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure," had been made in Iraq.
"We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq," the officer said, noting that the definition of tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. "The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels."
Many officers said a crisis of leadership extended to serious questions about top generals' commitment to sustain a seasoned officer corps that was being deployed on repeated tours to the long-term counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the rest of the government did not appear to be on the same wartime footing.
"We are forced to develop innovative ways to convince, coerce and cajole officers to stay in to support a war effort of national-level importance that is being done without a defensewide, governmentwide or nationwide commitment of resources," said one Army officer with experience in Iraq.
Another Army major who served in Iraq said a fresh round of debates about the future of the American military had also broken out. Simply put, the question is whether the focus should be, as Mr. Rumsfeld believes, on a lean high-tech force with an eye toward possible opponents like China, or on troop-heavy counterinsurgency missions more suited to hunting terrorists, with spies and boots on the ground.
In general, the Army and Marines support maintaining beefy ground forces, while the Navy and Air Force — the beneficiaries of much of the high-tech arsenal — favor the leaner approach. And some worry that those arguments have become too fierce.
"I think what has the potential for scarring relations is the two visions of warfare — one that envisions near-perfect situational awareness and technology dominance, and the other that sees future war as grubby, dirty and chaotic," the major said. "These visions require vastly different forces. The tension comes when we only have the money to build one of these forces, Who gets the cash?"
Some senior officers said part of their own discussions were about fears for the immediate future, centering on the fact that Mr. Rumsfeld has surrounded himself with senior officers who share his views and are personally invested in his policies.
"If civilian officials feel as if they could be faced with a revolt of sorts, they will select officers who are like-minded," said another Army officer who has served in Iraq. "They will, as a result, get the military advice they want based on whom they appoint."
Kori Schake, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who teaches Army cadets at West Point, said some of the debates revolved around the issues raised in "Dereliction of Duty," a book that analyzes why the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed unable or unwilling to challenge civilian decisions during the war in Vietnam. Published in 1997, the book was written by Col. H. R. McMaster, who recently returned from a year in Iraq as commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment.
"It's a fundamentally healthy debate," Ms. Schake said. "Junior officers look around at the senior leadership and say, 'Are these people I admire, that I want to be like?' "
These younger officers "are debating the standard of leadership," she said. "Is it good enough to do only what civilian masters tell you to do? Or do you have a responsibility to shape that policy, and what actions should you undertake if you believe they are making mistakes?"
The conflicts some officers express reflect the culture of commander and subordinate that sometimes baffles the civilian world. No class craves strong leadership more than the military.
"I feel conflicted by this debate, and I think a lot of my colleagues are also conflicted," said an Army colonel completing a year at one of the military's advanced schools. He expressed discomfort at the recent public criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld and the Iraq war planning by retired generals, including Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, the former operations officer for the Joint Chiefs, who wrote, in Time magazine, "My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results."
But the colonel said his classmates were also aware of how the Rumsfeld Pentagon quashed dissenting views that many argued were proved correct, and prescient, like those of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff. He was shunted aside after telling Congress, before the invasion, that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure and stabilize Iraq.
Others contend that the military's own failings are equally at fault. A field-grade officer now serving in Iraq said he thought it was incorrect for the retired generals to call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. His position, he said, is that "if there is a judgment to be cast, it rests as much upon the shoulders of our senior military leaders."
That officer, like several others interviewed, emphasized that while these issues often occupied officers' minds, the debate had not hobbled the military's ability to function in Iraq. "No impact here that I can see regarding this subject," he said.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com |
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West Point Graduates Against the War Launches Campaign Against the Deceit of the US Government |
by West Point Graduates Against the War
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2006
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NEW YORK - April 21 - Three alumni of the United States Military Academy at West Point have launched a grassroots movement to convert the disgrace of governmental lies and evasions about the assault on Iraq into a force to redeem the honor of their country. At issue –which directly assaults the West Point honor code which forges the character of all graduates – are the falsehoods by administration officials, culminating in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, which catapulted the United States into a preventive war.
“This fraudulent war has done such enormous damage to the reputation and prestige of the United States and its military forces,” said co-founder James Ryan. “Unless remedied, this will prove catastrophic to our country’s interests over the longer term.”
“The West Point honor code, which mandates cadets will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do, defines honor and duty,” said Joseph Wojcik, co-founder of West Point Graduates Against the War. “And this provides us with a lifelong sense of duty, a shared responsibility for graduates to do the right thing, even if that means admonishing our country’s leadership.”
West Point Graduates Against The War calls on all graduates of the military academy to speak out against the destruction of the honor of the United States and the dissipation of its military caused by the deceitful policies of the present administration.
* Instilled by the Cadet Honor System with a fundamental, longstanding respect for truth, the founding alumni and member graduates of the United States Military Academy believe honor is a basic attribute of character and abides lifelong. To that end, they are uniting to speak out about the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States and its widely known malefactors. At issue is the lying, cheating, stealing, delivering evasive statements and quibbling, which is placing vast numbers of innocent people in deadly peril and adversely affecting the country’s integrity domestically and internationally.
* The war in Iraq was launched illegally. It has since killed tens of thousands of innocents, causing incalculable damage to Iraq and the Iraqi people, as well as the reputation of the United States of America. The grassroots organization seeks justice for all victims of this illegal war, both servicemen and servicewomen, and the citizens of Iraq.
* When West Point graduates took their commissioning oath of office, they swore to protect the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The deceitful connivances of the current administration have resulted in a war catastrophic to our nation’s interests: politically, economically, militarily, and morally. The time has come for West Point graduates to speak out about these deplorable conditions.
“We are a positive organization, pro-military and pro-USA,” notes William Cross, a co-founder of West Point Graduates Against the War. “We have been inspired by the words and actions of great leaders, including the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said ‘never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion’ – and those honorable words inspire action.”
The three founding members, James Ryan, William Cross, and Joseph Wojcik graduated from West Point in 1962, and have been close friends since 1958, their first year as cadets. To help support its grassroots case, the organization cites the statements of earlier graduates of West Point:
* “Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them, must share the guilt for the dead,” Omar N. Bradley, Class of 1915, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York
* And regarding the current obsession with the protection of Homeland USA in conjunction with the suspension of Constitutional protections: “The powers in charge kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real,” Douglas MacArthur, Class of 1903, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York
Membership is open to all alumni of the United States Military Academy, and widows, widowers, parents, and children of deceased graduates. Membership has been growing steadily since the website was launched earlier this month, and includes retired and active duty graduates.
http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/ |
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