Military Officers Chafe for Bigger Role in Policy Decisions

There is a remedy for incompetent political leadership.. it is called an election. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfelt were incompetent, and we kicked them out. The military has no authority whatsoever to make any policy decisions. It reports to the civilian authorities and must do as it is told.

Can't blame the military. Historically, politicians have hindered all our war efforts more than helped.

Wow. I am stunned that a military officer would openly expouse a revolt against civilian authority and then claim that it is grounded in the constitution. This Marine (and more than a few other officers) should tender their resignations should they find their civilian leaders "incompatent". I would like to remind LTC Milburn that President Lincoln and Winston Churchill are revered in our history much more than they were in the present day where one was so reviled that he was assassinated. His comments border on insubordation despite his attempt to camoflauge them in a professional journal. Hopefully, it is not a reflection of all Marines officers...to include those that vehemently disagree with the current administration and believe them to "incompetent".

As a ex military guy I was always told, "Yours is not to reason why, but to DO and DIE."

We have to ask Lt Col Milburn, "Who decides that the civilian commanders are incompetent"? Milburn seems to be advocating military coups if the military feels that it is right and the duly constituted leaders are wrong. This would mean the end of America as a democracy. We would be no better than any military dictatorship. He clothes this proposition in words like "moral duty" and "ethics". Let him watch "Seven Days in May". It would seem we may be headed there.

If there is a role for Military officers in policy debate I assert that it is largely in the arena of helping Elected Officials to understand the limitations of Military power. For example, NO level of Occupation will engender the societal shift needed for a Representative government in countries that historically have authoritative governments. As we saw in Iraq, the local interpretation of forming a pluralistic and representative government is generally, "First we shoot everyone who disagrees with us, then we vote... having done the "voting" thing, then we are modern and legitimate.". In the eyes of a local population, 150,000 Westerners with guns do not represent a "chance to change"... They are the backing force for a regime too weak to stand alone.

It's the Marines, our sea-going bellhops, mainly that are grousing at having to obey the constitution. Does anyone else remember a couple of years ago when they wanted to be pulled completely out of Iraq because "their mission was finished" since they are "expeditionary" forces? Inept civilians are less common as leaders than inept military officers all the way back to the founding of the country! Do the names Arnold, Burnsides and Custer ring any bells?

While this article is probably well-intentioned, there can never, ever be any overt or covert dissent from the U.S. military against its civilian command. The United States of America has resisted the usual tides of history which have seen the usurpation of civilian power by military sedition and force. Solely by the moral and legal force of the U.S. Constitution which makes the U.S. military always and forever subordinate to civilian command has this country sustained 230 years of uninterrupted civilian government. The U.S. military command, still angered and resentful by the mismanagement of the Vietnam conflict and the use of the U.S. armed forces as a political tool by inept presidential administrations (Reagan: Lebanon, Grenada; Bush I: Panama, Gulf War; Clinton: Somalia, Bosnia; Bush II: the Afghan and Iraqi wars) have created a reactionary element within the U.S. military that chafes at civilian control. This reactionary element, ironically, began to gain a foothold starting with the Reagan administration and its willingness to patronize the military chain of command and its grievances. Years of rightist propaganda that "liberals" and "liberalism" caused the decline of the U.S. Armed Forces prestige in the eyes of American society. When the U.S. Draft was abolished for an "all-volunteer" force in the 1970's, the connection between the military and the society it was sworn to defend was irrevocably broken. Instead of being manned for the most part by "citizen soldiers" (even if some of those soldiers' grumbled about their forced conscription), the military was now an independent entity no longer dependent upon nor accountable to the civilians it protected, including its civilian over-seers. The military could now actively lobby amongst its civilian benefactors--political and private alike--and cultivate political relationships, including the ability to lobby for funding, weaponry and influence at the expense of other government agencies. Worse, with the rise of the reactionary wing of the Republican party as dominant political force, a new element was introduced into the equation: the powerful and subversive influence of rightist, radical, evangelical-christian "reconstructionists" with their seductive, errant and blatantly seditious re-interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. The best example is the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. It has become so overwhelmingly evangelical and reactionary that an underground caste has been created by cadets who are constantly being proselytized by evangelical activists, both civilian and military. The Air Force Academy is now prominent in the "resistance" movement of military leaders who feel that they are obligated by the tenets of their "faith" to confront and disobey any civilian authority that comprises their "deeply-held spiritual beliefs". This a dangerous trend. If this movement of military seditionists is not addressed now with a firm, civilian "iron hand", it is now a reasonable possibility that within a decade or two, there could very well be a military coup d'etat in America.

Of course these experienced military officers should have a greater voice. We too often have presidents with zero military experience making foolish decisions, as Bush, then Obama has most recently proven.