General Confusion About Obama

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Politics: Barack Obama is endorsed by 10 retired generals and admirals who agree with him that Iraq is a "dumb" war. These are 10 good reasons the Founding Fathers made the commander in chief an elected civilian.

Obama's readiness for the role of commander in chief has been an issue in this campaign. So at a press conference Wednesday he surrounded himself with retired military officers who agreed with his policies toward Iraq and his competence to lead the military.

The officers have served their country honorably and well. Merrill McPeak (1) is a retired four-star general who commanded the air war in Desert Storm. He said Obama has demonstrated the steady temperament during the campaign that a commander in chief requires. Well, so did Jimmy Carter.

Regardless of who won which primary, "he was the same Barack Obama," McPeak said. "Steady, reliable. No shock Barack. No drama Obama." Apparently to be a military supporter of Obama requires an ability to speak, as well as march, in a rhythmic cadence.

Soldiers are trained to fight and win wars. It's not part of their job description to decide which wars to fight, which adversaries to oppose, which threats to respond to.

That's why the Founders decided that the commander in chief should be an elected civilian. Perhaps the first military officer to think a war was dumb, and that he knew more than his commander in chief, was named Benedict Arnold.

The question is not whether Obama is qualified to lead, but where he would lead us. Military leadership does not necessarily impart wisdom. For every George Patton, there is a George McClellan. McClellan, who badly led Union forces until Abraham Lincoln turned things over to Grant and Sherman, thought the Civil War was a dumb war and ran against the president.
Lincoln, in Obama's parlance, could also have been accused of having an "arrogant bunker mentality."

We can debate whether a war is dumb. But once our commander in chief commits our force, there are two types of war — those you win and those you lose. President Reagan's strategy in the Cold War was, "we win, they lose." Obama and his hallelujah chorus may not have noticed, but in Iraq we're winning. How dumb is that?

Obama, whose foreign policy includes talking to our enemies while invading our allies, told the assembled veterans at the VFW Convention in Kansas City, Mo., "All our top military commanders recognize that there is no military solution in Iraq."

Except, of course, for Gen. David Petraeus. McClellan probably would have been willing to endorse Obama. Petraeus would probably decline such an invitation for a photo-op.
No one at Wednesday's press conference asked what the generals and admirals thought about Obama's comments to a New Hampshire audience Monday. The senator answered a question about shifting U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan as follows: "We've got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we are not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure there."

Raiding villages and killing civilians?

As for the views of admirals and generals, we have our favorites among those who gave us freedom and preserved it, people such as John Paul Jones, who told the captain of a British ship of the line, "I have not yet begun to fight."

We also prefer the views of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, whose advice applies to the war on terror and all wars in which America finds itself — there is no substitute for victory.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=290300370384164

****

(1) This editorial is correct and to add a footnote to McPeak. General McPeak may go down in history as one of the most disliked AF Chief of Staffs ever. Best known for his redesigned unform to make the AF look more like pilots of commercial aircraft which was scraped as soon as he left office. The traditional AF Order of the Sword was almost not awarded to McPeak because of the intense dislike of the man who only cared about fighter pilots and no one else in the AF. His opinions mean nothing. BTW, he also endorsed Kerry in 2004. My bold and highlights!