A QUIET MILITARY REVOLT IS HAPPENING – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  We have, properly, civilian control of the military in the United States.  Military officers must follow their orders, or resign in protest. But that doesn't mean they can't have opinions.  It's been clear in the last day that military leaders do not truly endorse Obama's politically driven Afghanistan strategy, and are letting us know it in their own way.

I don't suggest that military men are always right.  McClellan was inadequate during the Civil War and was replaced.  I believe MacArthur was wrong in his desire to expand the Korean War, made his views known, and was fired.  The pompous Westmoreland, in Vietnam, was succeeded by the brilliant Creighton Abrams. 

But the advice of sound military leaders should be weighed carefully by a commander-in-chief with no military knowledge or experience.  Robert Kagan in WaPo, explains what's happening:

Make no mistake...the entire military leadership believes the president’s decision is a mistake, and especially the decision to withdraw the remainder of the surge forces by September 2012. They will soldier on and do their best, but as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, put it, in characteristic understatement, they believe the decision will increase the risk to the troops and increase the chance that the mission will not succeed. It bears repeating that the deadline imposed by the president has nothing to do with military or strategic calculation. It has everything to do with an electoral calculation. President Obama wants those troops out two months before Americans go to the voting booth.

This may prove a disastrous political calculation, too, however. If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week. Everyone will know he did it against the advice of his commanders. Everyone will know he did it for political reasons. So if the war is going badly a year from now, whom do you think the American people will blame? There will still be 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan, but as part of a losing effort. Will Americans reward Obama at the polls under those circumstances?

Well put.  But Kagan leaves out one point:  The press, obsessed with the reelection of their hero to a second term, can "adjust" its reporting of the war to fit that need.  And sorry to say, some journalists might be tempted, such is the state of the press and its view of its "responsibilities." 

At the same time, the enemy might lie low in Afghanistan next summer to encourage Obama's pullout.  Then, after Obama's victory at the polls, they could increase the heat, inflict heavy casualties on the remaining Americans, and leave us with Vietnam-style calls to "end the war now" by getting out.

We have no real leadership, which is why we can have no real victory.  But an America, ten years out from 9-11, no longer seems that interested, which is the tragedy.

June 24, 2011