Obama: ‘The Generals Made Me Do It!’

What's a community organizer to do?

by Justin Raimondo, September 29, 2010

"All Washington is atwitter: the grand old man of the Court Historians, Bob Woodward, has come out with yet another “book” – i.e. another long-winded press release on behalf of the Powers That Be – explaining, “reporting,” and rationalizing the war policies of the current regime. Oh, glory be! Drop everything and run to the nearest bookstore – or just go online and download the excerpts at the Washington Post‘s incredibly cumbersome web site.....

What’s interesting, here, is that our commander-in-chief automatically took one option – a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, followed by withdrawal – off the table. It is not even mentioned as a possibility, however distant. This is not surprising, given the Washington consensus, which is that the Empire never stops expanding, but only pauses once in a while to catch its breath.....

This is the most ominous development, among many, of the post-9/11 political atmosphere: the rise of the generals as an almost co-equal force with the President. The elevation of the Pentagon was the logical outgrowth of the “war on terrorism” and the Bushian magnification of the president’s wartime powers. If we think of the presidential persona as invested with a trinity of identities – citizen, chief executive, and commander-in-chief – it’s clear that the first has been obliterated since at least the advent of the cold war, and the second has been subordinated to the third since 9/11. With Congress gone A.W.O.L. on foreign policy, it’s only natural that the Pentagon would replace the legislative branch.

A stronger chief executive could challenge and reverse this militarist trend: unfortunately, Obama is not up to the task. Indeed, if Woodward’s portrait of the President is even half accurate, we haven’t seen such a weak chief executive since the days of James Buchanan."