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Barack Obama should be more careful about using a word like misguided. Applying it only to the President when discussing the war in Iraq assumes nothing else is misguided. Is it not naive to overlook Congress when both stating ‘civilians control the military’ and limiting the application of the word misguided to the President? Although Obama will be the first to tell you that he did not vote for war and that he expressed opposition at the time, he is allowing Congress to shirk responsibility in the decision to go to war. He wants it both ways or just his way.

He says civilians control the military but calls the President (civilian authority) misguided. He does not apply the same term to the Congress for voting without reading the reports available at the time. Whatever reasons are available for concluding we should not have gone to war now were available then but Congress dropped the ball. The President and Congress being the civilian authorities over the military authorized the use of military force in Iraq. The problem with making that decision without being adequately informed is that if you are wrong and do not determine that until after going to war, there are obligations, responsibilities and consequences that will not disappear just because you change your mind.

The real misguided part to this equation is too many Americans in the public and private sectors as well as the general public have chosen to abandon everything in an attempt to make a difficult situation go away as if it never happened. At best it is a childish response to correcting mistakes. War cannot be turned on and off like an electrical appliance at the whim of public opinion or the aspirations of those who seek political cover from criticism.

The public debate in this country on matters of war since the US military entered Iraq can be defined as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you publicly express no commitment to successfully complete a military mission, the incentive that provides to your enemy is nearly immeasurable. Choosing to continue that publicly expressed opposition or indecision during operations recently agreed to by civilian authorities to ‘change the strategy’ in Iraq is equally absurd.

The ease with which Barack Obama lays all the blame on President Bush simply highlights his inexperience and political arrogance. President Bush is firm in his position to win the war in Iraq and Afghanistan while Congress and candidates like Barack Obama cannot decide much of anything with confidence. Candidates who oppose the war in Iraq and skirt the responsibilities attached to it would only reaffirm the terrorist opinion on the weakness of America if they entered the White House in 2008.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Obama: Bush A Misguided Commander In Chief

Jul 21, 2007
(AP) MANCHESTER, N.H. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama told New Hampshire voters Friday that President Bush grossly misunderstands his role as commander in chief.

“When President Bush says, ‘I just want to give the commanders what they want, listen to the generals,’ he doesn’t understand how we work here in America. Civilians control the military and we are supposed to set the mission for the generals and then the generals should carry out the mission,” Obama said at an outdoor town hall meeting.

“The military has done all we asked. We just asked the wrong things of them. That’s not their fault. That’s the president’s fault. And we’ve got to stop enabling him to do it.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, Bush, Terrorism, Iraq, war, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election, Democrats, Afghanistan, United States, obama, Opinion, Congress, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.