Our growing domestic insurgency: revolt of the generals

Summary:   A sign of our ovine nature is the torpor with which we watch alarming events, such as the inevitable consequences of a long war.  Our  forefathers warned us, but we didn’t listen.  Now come the consequences.

Slowly over the past five years evidence has accumulated that our military leaders have grown so powerful that they can — and increasing do — challenge the nation’s civilian leaders for control of foreign policy (rather than jointly set it, as they have since WWII).  Some experts warn about this.  Some experts whine.  All to no avail.  Long wars and big military forces shift  political power from civilians to the military.  It’s slow but inexorable, the price paid for the choices we made.  Hoping to avoid paying that price is just another form of dreaming.
 
The West experienced such shifts during WWI and WWII.  Fortunately these wars were brief — and started from relatively low levels  of military strength (other than Germany).  So our State institutions were singed but not burned.  But it’s been 9 years since 9-11, and we started from a very high level of military political power.  COIN theory will not help us.  The Tea Party will support the generals. 

The price paid by the Republic will probably be high.  Perhaps very high. 

“Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson, no source (perhaps apocryphal)

Some articles about the Washington Insurgency

1. “The Revolt of the Generals, Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch, 3 December 2005
2. “Rumsfeld Faces Growing Revolt by Retired Generals“, New York Times, 13 April 2006
3. “The Revolt of the Generals“, Time, 16 April 2006
4. The Generals’ Insurgency – The Story Behind the U.S. Troop Surge in Iraq“, special report by the Washington Post, February 2009
5. “Generals Seek To Reverse Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal Decision“, Gareth Porter, InterPress Service, 2 February 2009
6. “Emasculating Obama – A Generals’ Revolt?“, Dave Lindorff, CounterPunch, 4 February 2009
7. “Who Are ‘The Deciders’?“, David Sirota, In These Times, 3 October 2009
8. “Rogues Gone Wild“, David Sirota, truthdig, 19 February 2010
9. “From MacArthur to Haig to Petraeus: How the Military Brass Trampled the Constitution“, David Sirota, Huffington Post, 22 September 2010
10. Obama’s Wars: Revolt of the Generals, Part 2″, Jed Babbin (former deputy undersecretary of defense), American Spectator, 27 September 2010
11. “The War on Terror and the Revolt of the Generals“, Mackubin Owens (Prof, US Naval War College), op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, 1 October 2010 — “The strain of a prolonged conflict has led some military officers to believe they’re better than the society they’re serving.”
12. Recommended:  “Military Officers Chafe for Bigger Role in Policy Decisions“, David Wood, Politics Daily, 4 October 2010

Other posts about our military working against us

1. News from the Front: America’s military has mastered 4GW!, 2 September 2007
2. 4GW at work in a community near you, 19 October 2007
3. The media discover info ops, with outrage!, 22 April 2008
4. Successful info ops, but who are the targets?, 1 May 2008
5. Psywar, a core skill of the US Military (used most often on us), 26 November 2008
6. Concrete evidence of government info ops against us, but it’s OK because we are sheep, 2 December 2008
7. DoD confesses that they whitewashed revelations about an info op run against us, 12 July 2009
8. A warning from Alexis De Tocqueville about our military, 7 August 2009
9. Who can we trust to defend our liberty? Will our culture’s rot spread to the military?, 17 June 2010
10. The hidden story behind “Obama’s Wars”: the insurgency in Washington, 25 September 2010
11. Obama vs. the Generals, 1 October 2010
12. The insurgency widens – another crack in civilian control of our military, 7 October 2010