- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
son of a West Point grad, officer, lifer, some-time Pentagon denizen, etc...and my perspective is somewhat different, in regard to the motivations of the military.
I honestly don't think that the impetus of all of this is ideological. I do think that the Pentagon personnel in question would have done the same thing for any president determined to ramp up a war.
A couple of points to bear in mind:
1) as an institution, the US Army still carries a chip on its shoulder about the way that the press- especially the US press- covered the war in Vietnam. They feel as if the journalists of that era were mostly made up of people with hostile biases, out to make them wrong despite their best efforts in the field. Their impression is that the narrative slipped out of their control- not so much because of its objective deficiencies, but because of active undermining by the press.
Reviewing the merits of that position is a debate for a different thread. For now, I'll simply note that the US military side of the argument isn't wholly devoid of evidence to support it. And that evidence has in turn been passed on to comprise somewhat of an article of faith in today's military- that the US press can't be automatically counted on for loyalty, discretion, or basic competence when covering a war fought by its own nation's people. As military professionals, they're determined to not allow a repeat of the Vietnam experience in terms of their relationship to the American media.
2) The US military is inculcated with the idea that duty to the directives of the President is their primary Constitutional duty, especially in wartime. They're also trained to be absolutely one-pointed, focused, mission-driven. So they'll walk right up to whatever line they determine is proper in order to ensure the success of the mission. They aren't going to spend a lot of time consulting with lawyers in advance about what constitutes an overstepping of guidelines in terms of doing public advocacy to the media in regard to what they consider their duly ordered mission. If they're challenged by another institution of the Federal government, they'll put on their best loyal defense of their actions. But if they're admonished, they'll back off.
It's both the strength and the weakness of the American civilian-controlled military that they tend to studiously avoid whys and wherefores. Basically, as long as there are institutions like elections and legislative and judicial review, they consider their orders from the commander-in-chief of a civilian-controlled government to be lawful, and their mission worthy and compelling. After that, "there is no 'try'".
For me, the amazing thing about this war is not the rallying of the military hierarchy to the directives of the Commander-In-Chief- that's to be expected. The amazing thing is the level of dissent that has been expressed by military personnel, both prior to the Iraq invasion and continuing afterward- whether taking the form of open criticism (both publically and behind the scenes), or through more tacit moves like early retirements.
