We are at the tail end of decisions about the Iraq war. Without going into the merits of the decisions bringing us to the present, I think it is generally agreed that those decisions were implemented enthusiastically.
There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of what went into the decisions and planning was kept from the public because had it being known, it could not be done. For example, Rumsfeld’s resignation speech amounted to: “We had to go on the offensive somewhere inhabited by Arabs. Defensive looks weak.” Similarly Powell appears to have been ordered “Our boys are going to go out there and die, so you’ll have no qualms about expending your vaunted credibility at the UN, understood.” And he did.
By contrast, by most accounts Powell worked hard and effectively to whiteant the previous administration’s ‘gays in the military policy.’ So it does look a bit like the loyalty to the administration’s goals depends to an extent on the color of the particular incumbent’s flag.
However, an alternative is that Republican administrations express policies that are generally more in line with military values. Hawks, in a word. It does seem that right-wing views are more prominent throughout individuals in the military and it’s a question whether this affects the willingness to effect policies. Your views humbly sought.
I would say you’re seeing it that way because you, somehow, wish to see it that way. The US Armed Forces are not partisan. There are senior members who are Republican, senior members who are Democrat, and senior members who adhere to another–or no–party. The rest of the membersip of our Armed Forces fall into the same categories.
Also, you’re just looking at the Secretary of Defense, which is a presidentially appointed (and therefore partisan) position, especially seeing how congress rubber stamped Bush’s appointments. Additionally, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are also political appointments. So, yes, at the very top, the military is run by partisan leaders - those who are elected, and their appointees. Below that, everyone’s job is to follow orders.
Why do you expect otherwise? The military has always been part of the executive; Congress can only exert indirect control through funding.
People do tend to become partisans or loyalists toward their own companies, they same way they tend become irrationally loyal to their adopted town’s home teams, abandoning the irrational home-town favorites that came before. Belonging is a natural goal.
And people surrounded by arms are more apt to think that’s the answer to things than those who aren’t.
I am delighted to hear how even-handed and principled the US military actually is. So can someone direct me to a blog or preferably message board with lots of military regulars but without a prominent right-wing bent. One where I can read candid observations about the prosecution and conduct of the war from insiders.
Do you mean one which adheres to the line of the Mainstream Media? That Iraq is a cluster-fuck? Perhaps you might consider what it means if the people on the ground are telling you one thing and the people over here are telling you another.
And what’s wrong with a right-wing bent? The SDMB has a left-wing bent and there’s nothing wrong with that. Daily Kos has a left-wing bent and there’s nothing wrong with that. Samizdata has a libertarian bent and there’s nothing wrong with that. We have the great good fortune to live in a free society, and that means that other people are free to have opinions with which we disagree and we must respect their right to hold those opinions. After all, you expect them to respect your right to your own opinions, don’t you?
Go seek opinions with which you disagree and ask yourself why you disagree with them.
I think you’re confusing ‘the military’ with the soldiers that make it up.
I would agree that a majority of those in the military would be more conservative than is the mean in the USA, well and good. From my experience this would be true.
But ‘The Military’ in terms of the institution itself has a strong tradition of non-partisan behavior. The senior leadership might well support a certain policy position and argue for it in cabinet meetings and such but when time comes to implement lawful orders, even ones with which they disagree, there’s a strong tradition to ‘Shut up and soldier’.
And, frankly, a huge chunk of why the USA is a viable liberal democracy is due to that tradition of the guys with the guns subordinating policy decisions to civilian leadership even in the face of their own disagreement. In various other nations where the military takes an active role in politics there’s one hell of a lot more tendency toward the overthrow of civilian leadership in the name of ‘providing stability’ or ‘increasing security’ or somesuch.
Are there still people insisting that everything is going great over there but the eeeeeeevil eeeeeevil media won’t show it? Good lord, the only place the media can even think about going to is the green zone and even that is a shooting gallery. The rest of the country is so far down the tubes that we can’t even get people there to show us how far down the tubes it is.
There is no disputing that much of the military is made up of conservatives, and as a bloc they almost certainly voted for Bush in the last election, but by law we are not allowed to engage in politics. We are not allowed to stump for candidates. We are not allowed to appear in uniform at political rallies. As citizens we are allowed to vote, however.
Historically, you had guys like Douglas MacArthur (“There is no substitute for victory”) and Curtis LeMay (“Bomb them back into the Stone Age”) who have made political-type statements, but those people usually got mustered out right quick or ignored outright. There is an overall institutional bias towards going to war, but imagine that- that is, after all, what we train for. We still can’t go on our own hook.
So no, the US military is not a partisan organization. Some of the people are undoubtedly partisan, but in this case the whole is not the sum of its parts.
While my cite does not address party affiliation, it does address ethnicity, education, and regional origin.
I realise that it is popular to assume that the US military is primarily republican, but that is probably not so. (Or at least, I respectfully wish to see a cite.) If all the other yardsticks in the census of the US military show that the current all-volunteer force is a representitive sample of the country as a whole, I think it is reasonable to assume that party affiliation is also represented in the proportions of the pop as a whole.
Its a long-standing truism that all militaries are authoritarian, hence, “conservative”. Such is the nature of the beast, collective decisions cannot be made in combat. But the “conservative” military is conservative more as a an outlook than a political stance, the military of the Soviet Union was suspicious of change (“liberalization”) and hence supported Marxist-Leninist political views. Only in that regard could they be considered “conservative”.
The article goes on to point to some problems with the Military Times survey (it over-represents career soldiers and under-represents short-timers), but says that the results are so definitive that even accounting for error it’s almost certain that there is predominantly Republican support in the military.
This isn’t surprising to me, since in an all-volunteer army you’re more likely to get people enlisting who come from families with Republican values.
Also, remember in the 2000 election, the big debate was whether the absentee ballots would swing the election for Bush, because most of the absentees were military, and everyone expected the military vote to break heavily for Bush - and it did.
It’s also no surprise to me that the Military would trend towards the Republicans, because the Democrats have historically been more hostile to the military than have Republicans - more likely to buy into stories of military scandals, more likely to oppose funding requests, more likely to oppose military action, etc.
And there’s still the ghost of Vietnam hovering over the military. There are still lots of people who remember how hostile the left became towards all things military back in those days.
I have no trouble with the perception (supported by Sam Stone’s link and any reading of the news from the period 2002 - 2003), that the overall political leaning of members of the military is rightward.
However, that is a separate issue from the quoted paragraph. The military has the mission of carrying out the orders of the government (expressed through the executive). They are not supposed to publicly comment on (or interfere with) the decisions of that government and I pretty well recall them carrying out President Clinton’s orders just as they have President Bush’s.
Your statment implies that they would be willing to help shape those decisions and I do not recall any officers on active duty who have done so. (Powell’s comments regarding gays in the military were directly solicited by congresscritters asking him about how the President’s potential Executive Order to accept homosexual enlistments without prejudice would affect the military. I do not recall him commenting on whether the country should carry out any foreign policy using the military.)
In contrast, in the run up to the War in Iraq, it was revealed (by the press) that several officers appeared to have taken their retirement to avoid being caught up in that mess and there were numerous retired officers who publicly criticized the handling, (and, occasionally, the rationale), for the invasion.
The notion that the military promoted the invasion of Iraq does not seem to have any substance to it and it would be interesting if one could find a public comment prior to March, 2003, in which an active military officer was actually promoting an invasion.
I would appreciate if you could link to some press publications to that effect. It is a subject of interest to me. I am certainly already aware of retired officers having criticised the handling and rationale for invasion.
I have lost the bookmark to the story of retirements. (And re-reading my earlier post, I should probably note that I seem to claim, there, that some took early retirement, which I do not believe was ever the case.)
From The History of the Clinton Years, Vol 1: “And so Anne Frank and her family spent the 8 years of the Clinton presidency hiding in the attic, afraid that at any moment the OSHA inspectors would burst through the door to see that they had sufficient eye wash stations.”
They don’t, which I thought I was at pains to make clear. In a socialist regime, authoritarianism as it relates to the military has an entirely opposite political polarity, hence, authoritarianism is mostly indepenent of political persuasion.
The Chinese military which supported the Communist regime during the Tianamen uprising were “conservative” in that they supported the status quo, resistant to change. In this instance, conservative does equate to authoritarian, even though the regime in question is, at least in theory, Marxist.