It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
Did you get that? Rumsfeld is losing control of the military.
So what is the solution? The Military Times group of Newspapers suggests that Rumsfeld be fired. I have long thought Rumsfeld should have been fired for many, many reasons, but the call for firing him to restore discipline in the military worries me. That would only whet the appetite of political generals in the military. We are lucky to have a nonpolitical military in the US, and to have civilian control of the military. We need to keep that more than almost anything.
What worries me about this editorial is the argument that the opinion of the majority of Americans is not important, but that the opinion of the generals is. That doesn't sound like civilian control.
To be fair, they ambiguously complain that Rumsfeld is losing control of the military, but their solution to his loss of control is to give more power to the top military brass, letting them decide who gets to give them orders.
It's been argued elsewhere that the Cheney gang is so adamant about retaining Rumsfeld because Bill Clinton let the generals (e.g. Wes Clark) call all the shots, and the new administration wanted to restore effective civilian control. I don't know. I do know we are in trouble here. It needs a steady hand. It needs someone who's got a history of strong military experience, and a strong committment to a nonpolitical military and civilian control. Maybe a retired, nonpolitical general?
Rumsfeld should be removed because (1) he has failed, and (2) he has lost the faith of the country at large. That he has lost the trust of the generals is incidental. They have a vote, like everyone else, but they don't have voice. Civil servants in general are "Hatched" but military personnel do not have the same rights of free speech as civilians. Nor should they. They are the core of the government. Lose control of the military and you lose the republic. There's no crossing the Rubicon in reverse. It's that simple.
1 comment:
What you say is true, and you're probably reading too much into my comment. Let me repeat:
"What worries me about this editorial is the argument that the opinion of the majority of Americans is not important, but that the opinion of the generals is. That doesn't sound like civilian control."
I'm not suggesting that a coup d'etat is imminent. In addition to the many institutional safeguards, you have 50 state militaries under the control of governors who would not go along. But there are way stations between total civilian control and outright coup d'etat. What bothers me is that the fact that Rumsfeld has lost the confidence of those under him is somehow MORE important in this editorial than that he has lost the confidence of the public who are supposed to be over him. To quote me again:
"It's been argued elsewhere that the Cheney gang is so adamant about retaining Rumsfeld because Bill Clinton let the generals (e.g. Wes Clark) call all the shots, and the new administration wanted to restore effective civilian control. I don't know." (i.e. I don't know why the Bush administration is doing this.)
The whole higher command probably needs a shakeup, and the military is probably going to need a lot to recover from this mess. I don't think Clinton let the generals run wild, he just respected their advice because they were professionals in a field in which he had not experience. He was lucky to have had better generals than Lincoln (at least Lincoln at the beginning), who incidentally had the same deference for the same reasons. Would that the "chicken hawks" in the White House had the same deference!
Probably the most important reason to fire Rumsfeld is because he is a Republican. I'm not saying that because I'm a Democrat. If the president were a Democrat he'd do well to get a Republican Secretary of Defense. I have elsewhere (http://impoliticallycorrect.blogspot.com/2006/04/clark-firing-rumsfeld-and-politics.html) argued that wise war presidents get War (now Defense) Secretaries from the other party.
Ultimately the buck stops with the people who elected Bush. They have to fire him before we can get this mess fixed.
Post a Comment