It's a problem that won't go away. Stated in terms of Obama's presidency and his dealing with Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, and Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Washington Post reports this morning on the military's efforts to prevent Obama from appointing a highly considered general -- in whom the President has complete confidence -- from becoming the new Joint Chiefs head. One critic has said that it all boils down to a power struggle.
Richard H. Kohn, an expert on military-civilian relations and a professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the Afghan review heightened Obama’s wariness of military commanders because he suspected that those pushing for the larger expansion of the war were trying to box him in to approving their plan.
“My sense is that Cartwright behaved properly in trying to figure out some alternatives for the administration to revise its Afghan strategy,” Kohn said. “It was a problem of both Gates and Mullen not understanding the proper role of the military. They’re not supposed to be providing one option and that’s all you get.”
It comes down to the pursuit of endless war vs. civilian control of military. The military would just as soon keep that "quaint" Constitution under glass and not determining the role of the military in America's future. The defense industry would surely concur.
Bottom line: General James E. Cartwright will not become the next Joint Chiefs chairman.
President Obama summoned one of his favorite and most trusted military advisers, Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, to the White House on May 21 for a one-on-one meeting. It was a Saturday, less than three weeks since the president had celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden with Cartwright and other members of his national security team. But this time, the president had bad news.
Over the previous year, Obama had asked Cartwright on three occasions if he’d be willing to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the armed forces and principal military adviser to the president. According to two military officials close to Cartwright, who has served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs since 2007, the general demurred the first two times, saying he was looking forward to retirement after a 40-year military career.
But in recent months Cartwright, 61, had relented and told the president he’d be willing to take the job when the term of the current chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, ends, according to the military officials. That conversation didn’t include a formal job offer from Obama, but he reportedly told Cartwright, “You’re my guy.” Others in the White House and Pentagon also saw him as the leading contender.
Cartwright, however, did not end up as Obama’s guy. In recent weeks, the cerebral but introverted general, who goes by the nickname “Hoss,” became the casualty of a concerted lobbying campaign by critics inside the Pentagon who persuaded the president to bypass him.
It would seem the Pentagon has won this war. Ultimately they did so by making a false accusation against Cartwright about a sexual encounter. The President has been forced to look elsewhere to fill the job.
As Americans, we should be worrying a lot more than we do about the role of the military. They don't just cost us money, they are in the game of costing us democracy and civilian leadership.
