Comment on The Belmont Club "Policy debates"

American Leftists and Tranzis always misjudge the American military. They assume, based on some movie like Seven Days in May or some book their Critical Gender and Transformative Dynamics Theory Professor made them buy that the armed forces are run by knuckle dragging Capitalists. The truth is that the military is the most Socialist community in America. It does have its own culture and the looming conflict between members of that community and Obama will flow not from policy differences but from their evaluation of him as a man and a leader.

The military obeys orders. That is what they do. Like a faithful dog they can be lead to do amazing things. They will even conform to a policy that lacks basic competency or which goes against their own interests. However the ability to give those orders depends on a reciprocal relationship. Nothing about this is a secret. What the military values and expects in a leader are two things, courage and honesty. If you posses those then you can get them to follow you into any situation and they will execute any policy.

For example while most but not all members of the military disagreed with President Carter they followed his orders without to much dissent. They obeyed the orders of President Clinton also but I think that the linkages between Hillary and the discredited Wesley Clark, who was seen as lacking moral courage and was deceitful in a manner beyond that accepted in a Pentagon bureaucrat, would make it hard for her to be an effective leader. John Kerry was destroyed as a potential candidate for POTUS when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked him on these issues, not on his policy positions.

The problem that Obama faces is that he is being judged, not by right wing partisans or birthers or 2nd Amend. "gun nuts," but by people who after close observation are concluding that he is a coward and that he is dishonest. This is a tragedy and once that cord of trust is broken it can not be restored.


-------
dan,
(who traced Taliban support to Russia, China, Iran and the Gulf)
Interesting comment. Three recurring themes among the journalists/punditry have been the implacable rivalry between Russia and China and the eternal war between Sunni and Shia and the unbridgeable gulf between Islam and present or "former" communists. We are repeatedly told to ignore any signs of cooperation among these supposedly implacable enemies. Without a doubt the all hate and despise each other. Sometimes when you hear all the parties to a drawn out dispute explain the failings of each other the only conclusion is, "You are all correct. You are all terrible." That does not mean that you get to withdraw to a faculty lounge and sip sherry while bemoaning how dreadful the world is. The evidence is that while they hate and despise each other they are perfectly capable of cooperating to reduce the power of the United States.

-------
One small note of comfort. If BHO purges the officer corps to promote the likes of Weasley Clark and abandons the fight over there then those who survive the ensuing debacle will remember and come 2010 the Democrats will find it harder to throw their votes away, as the Democrats did to the troops who voted while deployed.