Challenging The Generals

[incommin]

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Sir, I'm wondering, but isn't the military supposed to be completely subservient to civilian rule? If the military has power over the civilian leadership, couldn't that be a bad thing? I always assumed that civilian rule wasn't always the best idea, but that this was just a necessary evil of having a society with the civilians in charge (keeps the military from gaining too much power, but on the flip side, the civilians may not listen to their military advisors and make dumb decisions).

Yes, the military is to bow to civilian control. However, that does not mean the civilians should be telling the military how to conduct a war once they start one, or promote and assign senior officers based on politics rather than knowledge and ability.

Jim

[nmap]

It occurs to me that the various emergency powers of the President leave very few possibilities for unlawful orders. While a law could be held to be unconstitutional, that seems likely to be an arena for constitutional scholars and supreme court justices.

The issues seem to be addressed in U.S. Code 50, Chapter 34, LINK

The various Executive Orders, from 10997-11005, along with EO 12472, EO12656, and EO 12919 also seem to apply.

These can be viewed at: LINK


My understanding (which is only cursory at best) is that a President can, under a declared emergency, do just about anything he wants to do. Also, I'm under the impression that the President has broad discretion to declare an emergency.

I'll leave the implications to people wiser and better than I.

[jatx]

Originally Posted by nmap

It occurs to me that the various emergency powers of the President leave very few possibilities for unlawful orders. While a law could be held to be unconstitutional, that seems likely to be an arena for constitutional scholars and supreme court justices.

When the Army trains new officers, they put a pretty fine point on the meaning of "unlawful orders"! This is not one of those cases. Doesn't mean that you can't "win friends and influence people", though!

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by 82ndtrooper

Didn't Posse Comitatus come into play with Waco ? Branch Davidians as a domestic enemy ? Hardly, but then again it was the Clintonian years and Janet Reno.

They made that decision pretty easily.

They use the Guard to get around it. They are excepted.

TR

[Retired W4]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

They use the Guard to get around it. They are excepted.

TR

I think JTF-6 was invoked, as well, due to the prior presence of a meth lab on the compound. .02

[82ndtrooper]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

They use the Guard to get around it. They are excepted.

TR

From my reading of the subject matter, which has long perplexed me, at the Justice Department in Washington on that day of the massacre a then Col. Gerald Boykin and Gen Peter J. Schoomaker were present since elements of CAG/DELTA/1st/SFOD (Whatever we're calling them this week) were in fact at the Waco grounds.

The tanks were from Ft. Hood, then under Wesley Clarks command. Although the Governor consulted with Clarks second in command during the wait and see period.

President Clinton signed a waiver of Posse Comitatus ? How does a President do that exactly without congressional approval ?

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Retired W4

I think JTF-6 was invoked, as well, due to the prior presence of a meth lab on the compound. .02

That was a cover story the BATF used to get JTF-6 assets.

When challenged on why the BATF was involved in a drug case, they changed it to illegal firearms.

The SF CO at JTF-6 called back to USASFC and after legal counsel refused to provide certain requested training because of the weak justification and posse commitatus.

I was at USASFC when Waco went down, saw the message traffic, heard the phone calls, and watched at least two members of the command testify in front of Congress. One is a member of this board.

82T is right, it was a massacre, and was absolutely unnecessary.

TR

[incommin]

Posse comitatus? Who needs the military any more with the heavy militarization of many LE departments. We have three armored vehicles in our secure parking yard and a reaction force that has been to Fort Benning three times for sniper and tactical movement training.

Police departments of today are not what your daddy live with!

Jim

[x-factor]

Originally Posted by brianksain

Do not want to stray out of my lane in this thread ... but almost identical parallells can be drawn in LE as stated previously.

Have had virtually identical conversations with guys in my biz.

Very little respect for many up the food chain.

Much the same on the civilian side of the national security business, I'm afraid. I'll leave it at that though.

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Originally Posted by brianksain

Very little respect for many up the food chain.

I can understand this from many perspectives, however I also see folks both in the military and in the civilian world where a lack of respect for perceived performance or goals has as much to do with lackof understanding of the overall missions/goals/external factors outside of the organizations control to do anything about but deal with them/failure of those spread throughout the food chain to either perform to standard or lack commitment to their chosen profession/etc. I have found that trying to empathize with folks with whom you do not see eye to eye and that control more of your destiny than you seem to do at any particular time puts you in a position to not only understand what is going on but allows you to manage from the bottom up so that those for whom you are responsible can still succeed.

[Sigaba]

I think that what is missing from Kaplan's article--and, with respect, from LTC Kingling's as well--is a historical perspective. In my view, Kaplan’s article does not display an understanding between the close relationship between the army and congress as the United States armed itself to fight the Second World War. As Mark Skinner Watson observed:

The period of 1939-1941 is not fully understandable unless one is aware of the part which a military witness played at the time in the decisions of a friendly and trusting Congress.

Because of that witness and his patient work with Congress during those two years, lawmakers afforded the Army considerable leeway in the opening months of America's official involvement in the war when events seemed to be unfolding so badly.

Additionally, during the Second World War there was broad agreement on two points: (a) Germany first, and (b) overcoming the logistical hurdles to defeat Germany first "rather than on adapting the plans to current logistical conditions."*

Moreover, by my reading of LTC Kingling's article, it seems he accepts the premise of a revolution in military affairs (RMA). However, the concept of RMA remains a topic of ongoing debate among military historians and practitioners of the art of war. As participant in this discussion noted:

For all the “Fourth Generation of War” intellectuals running around saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are totally new, etc., I must respectfully say: “Not really.” Alex the Great would not be the least bit perplexed by the enemy that we face right now in Iraq, and our leaders going into this fight do their troops a disservice by not studying (studying, vice just reading) the men who have gone before us. We have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should take advantage of their experience.**

Given that there is still no consensus among civilians and the armed services as to the nature of the current war (just as there was no consensus over the nature of the war in Vietnam) I do not know to what extent the army’s general officers should be excoriated for not giving better advice to civilians regarding the future of warfare.

As Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor argued in COBRA II , Secretary of Defense Weinberger was contemptuously dismissive of the army’s initial operational plans and he hectored planners until they gave him what he wanted rather than what they felt was needed. Who is to say that, had those recommendations received the discussion they merited, that OIF would have unfolded differently and that the insurgency would have been vastly different in size, scope, and duration? That is to say, is the ‘lesson’ of the war that the generals did not speak up or that the civilians did not listen?

_______________________________________________
* Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations [The United States Army in World War II: The War Department] (1950; reprint, Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History, 1985), 8-9.
** James Mattis, unpublished and undated email to undisclosed recipient at the National War College, as quoted in Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich, “Introduction,” The Past as Prologue: The Importance of History to the Military Profession ed. Murry and Sinnreich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 7.