Civilian Control of the Military?

This was written in response to a thread on the facebook group, The Constitution of the United States of America, titled, Do you think a President should have to serve in the military because he is Commander in Chief?

To ask, “Do you think a President should have to serve in the military because he is Commander in Chief?” is completely the wrong way of posing this question. The proper way of framing it is, “Do you think that the Commander-in-Chief should always be a civilian, elected President, in order to secure a democratic republic from military control?”

As James Madison said: “In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” [1]

This principle of civilian control has been and remains the fundamental precept upon which the command and control of the US Armed Forces depends and from which it draws its legitimacy:

“From the birth of democracy in ancient Greece, the idea of the citizen-soldier has been the single most important factor to shape the Western way of war. In a democracy, combatants bear arms as equals, fighting to defend their ideals and way of life. They are citizens with a stake in the society they have vowed to defend. They do not fight as mercenaries, nor are they guided by coercion or allegiance to the whims of a dictatorial leader. Rather, their motivation stems from a selfless commitment to an idea that far exceeds the interests of any individual member of the society. For the armed forces officer of the United States, this ethos began with the militiamen who defended their homes, secured the frontier, and won a war of independence against the most formidable military power of that era. The American military tradition has since been governed by a strict adherence to the primacy of civilian control and, within that framework, has continued to champion the role of the citizen-soldier as the defender of the nation’s ideals.” [2]

[1] Max Farrand. 1911. Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1:465. Civilian control of the military

[2] The Armed Forces Officer. Chapter 1
The Citizen-Soldier—An American Tradition of Military Service p. 21

Copyright © 2010 Henry Edward Hardy

Swiftboating

Swiftboating

President George Bush Jr. was not “swiftboated” — his Democratic opponent in the Presidential election of 2004, Senator John Kerry, was. Kerry was a Vietnam combat veteran who received three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star.

Bush Jr. had served stateside in a National Guard unit, and was later accused of failing to report for duty or take his required physical for more than a year.

To counter the possible impact of the contrast between the military record of the two candidates, a group of prominent Republican supporters helped to organize and provided most of the funding for an organization critical of Kerry’s war record called, “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” (SBVT). According to wikipedia:

“SBVT characterized itself as a non-partisan group both in the legal sense and in spirit, yet several prominent individuals who assisted SBVT also have had close ties to the Republican Party. According to information released by the IRS on February 22, 2005, more than half of the group’s reported contributions came from just three sources, all prominent Texas Republican donors: Houston builder Bob J. Perry, a longtime supporter of George W. Bush, donated $4.45 million, Harold Simmons’ Contrans donated $3 million, and T. Boone Pickens, Jr. donated $2 million. Other major contributors included Bush fundraiser Carl Lindner ($300,000), Robert Lindner ($260,000), GOP contributor Aubrey McClendon ($250,000), George Matthews Jr. ($250,000), and Crow Holdings ($100,000).”

Military career of John Kerry
George W. Bush military service controversy
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth

Copyright © 2010 Henry Edward Hardy

Barak Obama: This is the Day

I’ve been watching the coverage of Barak Obama’s Innauguration. I took notes as the pundits tonight on CBS said,

5:52 PM listening to the pundits on TV “a golden day for Barak Obama”
“Millions came to Washington… I’m glad I got to see it”
5:53 PM “The people were speaking to us and it would be prudent to listen to them”
5:54 PM “Washington can be a very corrupting place, I hope this signals a new era of honesty and authenticity”

Bob Schieffer said he had seen 12 Inaugurations and never seen one like this, “this was something special”.

Even the stolid Francis X. Clines of the New York Times was taken by the levity of the crowd:

‘Is there a problem in the nation? Hear ordinary Americans chant: “O-ba-ma!” One tedious, serpentine line outside the Mall, its restlessness surfacing, suddenly was prodded into happiness when teenagers broke into song: “We’re off to see Obama — the wonderful president of ours!”

Later in the article the ever-serious Cline’s joy starts to show through:

‘The Obama speech patterns became a separate source of celebration, the way John F. Kennedy imitators used to do “vi-gah” salutes. After the speech, a man happily walking a bridge back to Virginia as the best way home suddenly tried an Obama riff on his friends. “We must walk the bridge built by our ancestors! We will find it long and hard! And we will confront Exit 10 C — wherever it leads!” His friends laughed and shared the pleasure of having heard firsthand President Obama in his opening hour.’

But what brought tears to my eyes:

Actress Cicely Tyson, asked her reaction, bursting out with the words of the 118th Psalm: “This is the day which the LORD hath made: and we *will* rejoice and be glad in it.”

Communist folk singer Pete Seeger, 89 years old, belting out the words of “This Land is Your Land” on the steps of the Lincoln memorial with five hundred thousand people on the Mall singing along in such spontaneous, profound joy.

Pete Seeger Bruce Springsteen Obama Inauguration [Google Video]

Guardian Editorial, 20 January 2009: This week, the 89-year-old Seeger stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial singing Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land with Springsteen at the pre-inauguration concert. Seeger’s judgment on politics and music has not always been right, but he is a man of his times and he has been the troubadour of the American left for more than half a century. His return to the spotlight is another sign that things are changing for the better in America this week. In praise of … Pete Seeger

Rick Warren: “We know that today, Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting up in heaven.”

cf. Hebrews 12:1 (KJV): “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us…”

Aretha Franklin, whose fabulous hat looked like she was wearing a grey, diamond-studded clipper ship, testifying to all our hopes and dreams with her breathless rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”.

“From every mountainside
Let Freedom Ring!”

See:
In Washington on Inauguration Day
Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
Delicious Subversion
Reborn in the USA: America is great again
President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address by David Bergman

Copyright © 2009 Henry Edward Hardy

Yes, we can!

Yes we can!

Election night morning, November 5, 2008

I have never been prouder of my country than I am tonight.

I just watched Obama’s acceptance speech on BBC. How beautiful to hear the cadences of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King from this remarkable man. Yes we can.

God Bless you Barak Hussein Obama, and God Bless the United States of America.

Copyright © 2008 Henry Edward Hardy

Update on the Battle of Najaf/Kufa Farms area January 28 2007: Ten now reported sentenced to death

Back on January 28, 2007 there occurred one of the biggest battles of the post-invasion phase of the Iraq War. Hundreds of civilians were reported killed and hundreds more civilians reported captured after significant ground and air activities in the area.

I was reading the still messy and not-well-organized wiki page on The Battle of Najaf and found an interesting update:

10 Iraqi cult members sentenced to death
Middle East Times/September 2, 2007

Najaf, Iraq — Ten members of an Iraqi doomsday cult were sentenced to death Sunday, and 394 jailed for their roles in a January rebellion against Iraqi and US troops that left hundreds dead, police said.

“The criminal court passed judgement on 458 accused,” Najaf police chief Brigadier General Abdel Karim Mustapha said.

“It sentenced 10 leaders of the Soldiers of Heaven to death, and decided to release 54 of them,” he said. “The rest were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 15 years to life.”

In January, the militant sect, dubbing itself the Jund Al Samaa or “Soldiers of Heaven,” clashed with US and Iraqi forces outside the holy city of Najaf, three days ahead of the Shiite Ashura festival.

The fighting left 263 sect followers dead, including their messianic leader Dhia Abdel Zahra Kadhim Al Krimawi, also known as Abu Kamar, who believed himself to be a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

The Iraqi security forces reportedly lost three soldiers and three policemen.

After the battle, police rounded up hundreds of sect members and put them on trial.

“With today’s sentencing, the curtain has fallen on the Soldiers of Heaven group,” Mustapha said.

Abu Kamar has also claimed to be a descendant of the Imam Mehdi, an 8th-century imam who vanished as a boy and, who, Shiites believe, will return to bring justice to the world.

At the time of the attack, Najaf deputy governor Abdel Hussein Attan said that the well-structured group planned to attack senior Shiite clerics and seize control of religious sites in Najaf, in a sign the Mehdi was about to reappear.

According to wikipedia (currently) the Middle East Times parent company is owned by the Unification Church. Can anyone confirm, add to or refute the accuracy of this MET report?

See also: Scanlyze tag Najaf

Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy