Despite the title here I absolutely support civilian control of the military in democratically ruled countries. However, in both the US and Israel we have a weird situation where the military and the intel establishments are not only better informed and more aware of the implications of current serious policy issues than their civilian political superiors, along with their media abettors, but they are right. The issue is the Iranian nuclear program where the disconnect between not only what military intelligence knows (yes, I know, hahahaha, milintel is an oxymoron (decrepitly old joke), hahahaha), and what the public discourse in the media and the political debates and what the official policymakers are saying (including amazingly enough US Nat Sec Advisor Thomas Donilon earlier this evening on Charlie Rose) are totally out disconnected.
The media reports on this recently have become blatant, and I apologize for not providing relevant links. But, last week WaPo and NYTimes reported on how Israeli milintel were saying Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program currently. Then today the NYT was a mass of conflicting stories with the ones from top Israeli governmental leadership (somewhat backed up by NSC director Donilon on Charlie Rose) arguing that Iran is indeed pursuing nukes and when or how will either Israel or the US just bomb the heck out of them blah blah blah to stop it, despite the contrary claims of their respective military intel establishments.
Sorry folks, but the people who will have to do this, either the Israeli or US military, are not all that excited about this (much less convinced by the official reports that go against their offical intel assessments, see US NIE reports). Their leaders know what is not acknowledged by President Obama in his SOTU, or Natenyahu in his public statements, or certainly not by the GOP prez candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul), that in fact Iran is not actively or currently pursuing obtaining nuclear weapons. All the war whooping and hawkishness by the political leaders and their pathetic rivals and related media and much of the public is ignorant and stupid and worthless. But, they cannot speak up publically on this matter. Let us hope that we shall muddle through this without yet another worthless new war.
"Let us hope that we shall muddle through this without yet another worthless new war."
ReplyDeleteWars are not worthless. War has great value to a narrowly defined sector of our society. In some cases that value is financial. In others the value is obfuscation from other serious social and economic issues of the day.
Typically the millitary would side with the war industry which has the fianacial interest, but with the extended period of warfare we are currently experiencing even the military may be growing weary. After all they have to do the deed and after a time that deed becomes a tedium.
On the other hand it is the political class that is more likely to see the obfuscatory valoue of war. After all they have become more closely allied with the financial industry rather than the millitary suppliers. A word regardiing national security advisors. They gain their apppointment by virtue of their reliable agreement with those they are expected to advise. Their expertise liles in their apppointment to their advisory positions.
One can determine when senior member of the military is lying by comparing statements with facts. You can tell when politicians and their advisors are lying when you see their lips moving.