Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (9756)	4/29/2004 5:14:07 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 20773

Re: The uniformed military leadership was a lot more circumspect about the Iraq, but on the other hand they don't exactly control things. Constitutionally, they are under civilian leadership... ...and practically, they run the show. Of course, it's always been the Pentagon's blame game to pin any war failure on gung-ho, heedless civilians who keep spurring otherwise peaceful brass into "foolish adventures".... Published on Monday, August 6, 2001 in the International Herald Tribune The Pentagon, Not Congress or the President, Calls the Shots by William Pfaff [...] Mr. Bush campaigned saying that he would reform the military, meaning a thoroughgoing and overdue review of structures and strategy. So far, it looks as if the reform will fail. . He has proposed a 7 percent increase in military spending. The armed forces and their backers in Congress reportedly want at least twice that. If they do not get it, Mr. Bush will be attacked as the man who let America's post-Cold War preeminence slip away. . Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is said to want a shift in strategic priority from Europe and the Mediterranean to Asia, with development of new instruments and structures for long-range power projection, and less dependence on foreign bases. . This spring, he negotiated with the joint chiefs of staff to establish a set of "strategic guidelines" to govern reform. (Note that he "negotiated" these, even though he represents constitutional civilian authority over U.S. forces.) . The Rumsfeld guidelines were said to drop the old concept that the United States should be able to fight two major wars simultaneously. One war at a time was deemed sufficient. The new assignments given the military were nonetheless interpreted by the services as requiring even more money than the administration offered. . The Pentagon's unassailable power in Congress, and the electoral dependence of Congress upon military spending, means that it is all but impossible to change the military by cutting obsolete functions, missions or equipment. . In the spring issue of the New York quarterly World Policy Journal, William Hartung recalls that when President Dwight Eisenhower drafted his final address to the nation in 1961, he warned against "the military-industrial-congressional complex." He took out the reference to Congress in the final draft of this famous speech because he decided that it was unfitting for a president to criticize Congress. . But Congress is the key to the problem. Over the past half-century the Pentagon has salted military installations or manufacturers into almost every congressional district. Voters profit from the military contracts and jobs. The military gets from Congress what it wants, and often more than it wants. . The Bush effort to reform the Pentagon may offer the last chance for reform, but Congress will decide whether the effort succeeds. The military is already the most powerful institution in American government, in practice largely unaccountable to the executive branch. Now the armed forces are setting the limits of American foreign policy. . The United States is not yet 18th-century Prussia, when the military owned the state, but the threat is more serious than most Americans realize. Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune commondreams.org As the late Charles Wilson would put it, What's good for the Pentagon is good for America.... ...and Ariel Sharon might add, What's good for Israel is good for the Pentagon.