Obama and History: Contrarian View

Posted By Uber Pig

Sup.  Uber Pig here.  A great man was defeated in last night's Presidential election.  And though I didn't vote, it's true that I supported his opponent instead.  I don't want to go into those reasons now. Suffice to say that Barack Hussein Obama will be my President, and yours, and that it is now time to move on. 

Forward. 

Consider, if you will, that Obama just inherited two small wars, one of which looks to be stable, the other of which is still very much up in the air.  He may choose to stay with the long term counterinsurgency plan and team Petraeus, or he may choose to begin a phased withdrawal which could lead to a failed Iraqi state.  We don't know exactly what he'll do and his language has been vague enough to provide plenty of wiggle room; as with campaign finance reform, he may change his mind, and perhaps even his principles, in order to do what is best for him.  But I do know that whatever strategic choices Obama makes over the next four years, America and the world will be better off if its military executes those strategies to the best of its ability, and does not allow itself to be used for domestic, partisan political purposes. 

For you students of history, here's why:  Obama's situation when he takes office in January will be analogous to the situation President Clinton inherited in 1992 with Somalia.  Both are Democrats without any military experience, and both will have inherited wars from a Republican.  As many of you no doubt remember, both Somalia in general and Task Force Ranger in particular were tragic on several levels.  I would argue that Somalia went badly primarily because the military leadership, in particular the Army leadership made critical mistakes, used their force stupidly, violated the principle of unity of command at multiple levels, forfeited the element of surprise, and failed to learn from their enemy.  They wasted some outstanding young Americans for a net negative outcome, unless you consider 700+ dead khat chewing Somalis a positive outcome -- and I don't.  And here's where it gets tricky, and where I diverge with many people looking at the same set of facts.  I would argue that rather than acknowledge these failures, the Army leadership chose the politically expedient path of deflecting its failure onto the administration -- spinning Les Aspin's denial of SPECTRE and armor support to Generals Montgomery and Garrison into the root cause of the failure of TF Ranger, which it was not.

And what was the result? 

An even bigger tragedy, this one an error of omission rather than commission.  Clinton learned his lesson from Somalia, which was that he could not trust the military to do its job competently, and that the Army leadership would be complicit in allowing the right wing to attack him, as long as the story was about his lack of judgement rather than their own, and that the Army as an institution would protect itself and throw their President under a bus.  And so when it came time to do the right thing in Rwanda to prevent genocide -- a brigade from 82nd would have kept that tragedy from unfolding -- Clinton made his callow choice.  He chose to protect his political capital for the 1996 election. 

By no means is this a symptom of Democrat Presidents and their right wing opposition.  We've seen some elements of the military -- a number of retired generals come to mind -- allow themselves to be used just as cynically by the left, who after waking up from their post-cold-war dormancy in 1993 and have become re-energized, spending every waking moment attacking Chimpy McHitlerburton unfairly, idiotically, and unpatriotically, for his military decisions in a time of war -- making it harder for the military to do it's job and by extension killing many more of our soldiers.

What I'm saying is, there will be plenty of opportunities over the next four years to cast blame, to be critical of Obama, and for the military to let itself be used.  All I ask is that you help me in keeping those criticisms fair, and for you to use the same standards you would have used were Obama a Republican with military experience.

I'm sure many of you will find something, or perhaps even a lot, to disagree with in this post.  So I'll close by saying how much I appreciate the Paratrooper of Love for providing me a forum to say things he probably disagrees with, as long as I support the tenets of this blog and believe in its mission, and will stick with Ask an Infantryman posts until I feel my contrarian views are needed.

Kind Regards,

Uber Pig, Out

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Obama and History: Contrarian View

Sup.  Uber Pig here.  A great man was defeated in last night's Presidential election.  And though I didn't vote, it's true that I supported his opponent instead.  I don't want to go into those reasons now. Suffice to say that Barack Hussein Obama will be my President, and yours, and that it is now time to move on. 

Forward. 

Consider, if you will, that Obama just inherited two small wars, one of which looks to be stable, the other of which is still very much up in the air.  He may choose to stay with the long term counterinsurgency plan and team Petraeus, or he may choose to begin a phased withdrawal which could lead to a failed Iraqi state.  We don't know exactly what he'll do and his language has been vague enough to provide plenty of wiggle room; as with campaign finance reform, he may change his mind, and perhaps even his principles, in order to do what is best for him.  But I do know that whatever strategic choices Obama makes over the next four years, America and the world will be better off if its military executes those strategies to the best of its ability, and does not allow itself to be used for domestic, partisan political purposes. 

For you students of history, here's why:  Obama's situation when he takes office in January will be analogous to the situation President Clinton inherited in 1992 with Somalia.  Both are Democrats without any military experience, and both will have inherited wars from a Republican.  As many of you no doubt remember, both Somalia in general and Task Force Ranger in particular were tragic on several levels.  I would argue that Somalia went badly primarily because the military leadership, in particular the Army leadership made critical mistakes, used their force stupidly, violated the principle of unity of command at multiple levels, forfeited the element of surprise, and failed to learn from their enemy.  They wasted some outstanding young Americans for a net negative outcome, unless you consider 700+ dead khat chewing Somalis a positive outcome -- and I don't.  And here's where it gets tricky, and where I diverge with many people looking at the same set of facts.  I would argue that rather than acknowledge these failures, the Army leadership chose the politically expedient path of deflecting its failure onto the administration -- spinning Les Aspin's denial of SPECTRE and armor support to Generals Montgomery and Garrison into the root cause of the failure of TF Ranger, which it was not.

And what was the result? 

An even bigger tragedy, this one an error of omission rather than commission.  Clinton learned his lesson from Somalia, which was that he could not trust the military to do its job competently, and that the Army leadership would be complicit in allowing the right wing to attack him, as long as the story was about his lack of judgement rather than their own, and that the Army as an institution would protect itself and throw their President under a bus.  And so when it came time to do the right thing in Rwanda to prevent genocide -- a brigade from 82nd would have kept that tragedy from unfolding -- Clinton made his callow choice.  He chose to protect his political capital for the 1996 election. 

By no means is this a symptom of Democrat Presidents and their right wing opposition.  We've seen some elements of the military -- a number of retired generals come to mind -- allow themselves to be used just as cynically by the left, who after waking up from their post-cold-war dormancy in 1993 and have become re-energized, spending every waking moment attacking Chimpy McHitlerburton unfairly, idiotically, and unpatriotically, for his military decisions in a time of war -- making it harder for the military to do it's job and by extension killing many more of our soldiers.

What I'm saying is, there will be plenty of opportunities over the next four years to cast blame, to be critical of Obama, and for the military to let itself be used.  All I ask is that you help me in keeping those criticisms fair, and for you to use the same standards you would have used were Obama a Republican with military experience.

I'm sure many of you will find something, or perhaps even a lot, to disagree with in this post.  So I'll close by saying how much I appreciate the Paratrooper of Love for providing me a forum to say things he probably disagrees with, as long as I support the tenets of this blog and believe in its mission, and will stick with Ask an Infantryman posts until I feel my contrarian views are needed.

Kind Regards,

Uber Pig, Out

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