Monday, August 13, 2007

Lindsay Graham's odd view of our military



At about 2 mins Graham and Webb start discussing whether or not the troops support the war and Graham repeats the often heard mantra "they want to win... let them win." Well obviously they want to win. This idiotic, jingoistic philosophy somehow encompasses the belief that people in opposition to the war believe that soldiers enlist in the military to lose wars. But more important it seems strange to me that Graham, and the right, conceives of the military as some kind of autonomous body of policy formulation. Does he understand that the military is under civilian control and that what the troops want to do is no more important than what I want them to do? I may be crazy but I thought that political leaders (the president) were elected to command the military to serve the interests of America as expressed by the people. I wasn't under the impression that the military made up its mind about what it wants to do and we the citizens who they apparently serve must defer to their wishes despite what we find our interests to be. According to Graham the military apparently commands itself. I'm quite sure that the situation was similar in South American military juntas.

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