Military brass marching to Obama’s beat [Benedict Arnold(s)?]

The Washington Times ^ | February 28, 2013 | Rowan Scarborough

[Perseverando]

The military leadership is proving to be a solid ally of President Obama in political Washington, adopting his social revolution and willing to serve as backdrops to the White House's campaign-style drive to win the budget battle with Republicans.

The armed forces have launched an unrelenting lobbying effort on Capitol Hill with a flood of briefing charts to defense staffers. They show the damage that automatic budget cuts called "sequestration" would do to the troops -- and to jobs in congressional districts. The charts coincide with the White House push to blame congressional Republicans for the spending cuts, which begin Friday.

The fates of the military chiefs and the president are more closely tied than ever.

"If there is a single constant in the norm of civilian control, it is that the military instinctively submits," said Ken Allard, a retired Army officer and columnist. "But they also recognize that presidents get exactly the kind of military advice they deserve. And he is ultimately responsible for failure or success."

Mr. Obama has won them over on the social front, too.

The Joint Chiefs have applauded opening ranks to gays. They now are searching for ways to implement Mr. Obama's other landmark decision -- lifting a ban on women serving in direct combat jobs, the infantry and special operations.

When the White House complained about supposed anti-Muslim training in the ranks, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put into motion investigations that led to the firing of a decorated Army officer as a staff college teacher.

Political realists

Although the top brass have avoided appearing at Obama budget events, military aviators served as a backdrop Tuesday when the commander in chief landed at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., on his way to a Newport News shipyard

[3Fingas]

What you said...

I was not very impressed by the way the brass just allowed gays in the military without any major resistance nor did I see resignations en mass. Very disappointing.

[Argus]

Next shoe to drop will be replacing chaplains with “political officers”.

[3Fingas]

“Community Action Officers” more likely.

[3Fingas]

Correction...”Community Organizer Officers”.

[SkyPilot]

The article is BS.

The social issues are not the Chiefs doing. You can "praise" the American people for that. They elect who they elect.

The Chiefs can either implement the policies or quit.

Gen Ron Fogelman (Air Force 4-star) quit in protest during the Clinton Administration over the way the whole Lt. Kelly Flynn affair had been politicized and also because the Khobar Towers investigation had been politicized.

The public yawned. It was an act of selflessness that was completely lost on the American people.

The military took notice.

Moreover, these cuts are not fictitious.

It is a 13% immediate cut to the Defense Dept - sequestration hits the DoD harder than any other government agency. It is 17% of the budget and must absorb 50% of the cuts.

Even furloughing all of the DoDs civilians (to include nurses, shipyard workers, electricians, aircraft maintenance technicians, lawyers, engineers, teachers, etc) will only save $4 Billion of the $46 Billion the Pentagon is expected by Congress and the White House to find laying around in some magic hat.

The Pentagon has already been cut by $487 Billion that began in 2011 - two years ago. Those cuts have the DoD in a very real decline - and sequestration is a death blow.

Military pay and most procurement dollars are "off limits" for sequestration, so the military must raid Operations and Maintenance for most of the deep cuts. That is going to be a GREATER than 13% cut - it is now projected to be 40% or more.

What reality do these reporters and GOP Congressmen live in?

Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times is acting as a tool for GOP Congressman who are looking for political cover for abandoning Defense and sacrificing it on the altar of politics.

The fact is GOP Congressmen like Hunter and Bishop were shamed during the House Armed Services Committee testimony by the Chiefs, and they didn't like it one bit. They looked like bumbling fools trying to justify the evisceration of the military.

The 2011 Budget Control Act was a Faustian bargain that betrayed the military and the men and women who serve this nation. Obama is a wicked, evil man - but Republicans who have embraced this betrayal are now no better.

Ashton Carter, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, is an honorable man who even has vowed to cut his pay 20% to show solidarity with the men and women (over 40% of the veterans themselves) who will be furloughed by this political treachery. He is a political appointee and exempt from the cut - but he is doing it anyway.

Where are the Republican Congressmen and their staffers who are doing the same thing?

I'll tell you - no where.

Just a couple of years ago, men like this General, who have personally committed acts of wartime heroism, were hailed by our so-called "Conservative" leaders.

Now, suddenly, when the GOP has been out maneuvered politically, they are all "hacks."

Sure.

The real issue is Entitlements are destroying this nation. But there are too many getting them to care what their greed is doing to institutions like our military.

God help us all.

[kenmcg]

How true! Too many of those in leadership are only interested in their careers and have become Obama butt boys or girls. They’ll do Obama’s bidding without a squak. The good officers have tendered their resignations. Are these officers asked if they will fire on american citizens?

[elcid1970]

FWIW, I’m a Vietnam veteran. Out for years, came back in as a warrant officer, retired in 2011 at age 62. Having Clinton & Obama as CinC’s was both unexpected and.....interesting.

In my opinion, the touchstone of integrity of our general officer corps is the Nidal Malik Hasan affair. Sure can’t call it a trial. Victims’ families would probably agree.

In earlier days Hasan would have swung from a hangman’s rope while strapped to his wheelchair. Now now.

Who called today’s generals “perfumed princes”? More accurately, perfumed princes who max the PT test & look great on TV before Congressional committees.

[Travis McGee]

What general is that, and what act of military heroism? I can’t make out his nametag.

We are in a strange time, when most of our generals entered the service after the Vietnam war, and were already field-grades by Desert Storm. IOW, the only “combat” they have seen has been from a command post as a major or higher. I am not aware of any current generals who saw combat as a platoon or company commander.

For that matter, Colin Powell was such an officer, who spent a tour as an ARVN advisor before real combat in VN, then skated from war college to staff billet, and didn’t get back to VN until he was, I believe, a senior major or light colonel. The ARVN unit he advised never left base without beating drums and blowing bugles for days in advance, in battalion strength, to advise the VC to clear a path for everyone’s safety. (It’s in Powell’s own book.)

Then he managed to avoid ever leading an American platoon or company in combat, right through the bulk of the VN war, until he came back as a staff officer.

Yet somehow, he managed to become known as a “combat leader.” He never was. And that describes most of our current generals. There was no combat during their junior officer years, and they were too senior to lead troops in combat by the time of our current war years.

Plenty of REMF perfumed prince generals are pretending to be blooded combat vets.

[Travis McGee]

Our perfumed prince political prostitute generals are fine with this, and fine with young ladies in brutal ground combat. It's all about their stars, and who gives a damn what happens when we are forced into a REAL war (think Normandy, Okinawa, Chosin, Hue) and not these "drone wars" we fight with UAVs by remote control.

[arthurus]

Carter and Clinton both carried out purges of the militaty’s officer corps. Democrats do that. As leftists, they fear the military and spend an inordinate amount of energy neutralizing the perceived threat by defunding the military as much as practical and by emasculating it and primarily by purging the experienced field grade and general officers and replacing them with politically reliable bureaucratically inclined officers. Olenin is acting according to type. He is also going a step further and copying the Soviet Union in creating a separate domestic oriented military force beholden to the Leader, himself. The Soviets had their MVD and KGB. Olenin has TSA and FEMA- and SIEU for auxiliaries. Olenin is much more aggressive than Either Clinton or Carter. That is why I t think he intends that there will not be a successor president in 2017.

[wintertime]

Seems our military is now run by pu**ies. I’d tell them to their faces, and I was commissioned in 1977. I wouldn’t piss on ‘em if they were on fire.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I share the feeling.

What did it for me was how the very highest military treated the patriot officers who dared to question Obama’s highly questionable eligibility.

Obama is likely usurping the position of Commander in Chief and these very highest military **know** that Obama has an invalid social security number and that the birth documents posted on the Internet are certifiable FORGERIES.

Yet,...While the brave, honorable, and highly trained men and women serving under them have limbs blown off by IED and STUPID rules of engagement, these highest military weenies ( with their costume jewelery decorating their shoulders and chests) do NOTHING!

SHAME!

Personally, i have made a decision. If , in the unlikely event that I should be in their company, I will SHUN them. I WILL TURN MY BACK!

[Joe 6-pack]

There was once a guy who knew a thing or two about military leadership who stated, "In war the moral is to the physical as three to one."

Where does that leave us?

[wintertime]

Someone is sure to accuse me of advocating a coup. I am NOT!

There was ( and is)**plenty** that strutting peacocks can and should do LEGALLY and PEACEFULLY. They could approach congress and the Supreme Court and request **certifiable** clarification ( with the **best** evidence) of Obama’s eligibility. They could hold a very public press conference and resign. Then the next layer of officers could do the same all the way down to 2nd lieutenant. They have never done any of this.

[SkyPilot]

General Odierno - the Chief of Staff of the Army who testified before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees last month and told them the hard, cold truth - a truth that our cowardly political class does not want to hear.

[csmusaret]

Generals who object “get” resigned. LTG Boykin is a prime example.

[csmusaret]

Being a good war fighter does not necessarily translate to being a good politician, and the Chiefs are ALL politicians.

[RedHeeler]

That was Col. David Hackworth, who coined that “phrase.” I liked him. Got it, you ringnockers?

[RedHeeler]

That was Col. David Hackworth, who coined that “phrase.” I liked him. Got it, you ringnockers?

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Just look at Carney, the carney.

He sold his soul for what, $200k/year?

Now look at him. There's nothing left of him. He's a shell of a human being. He's freakin' Gollum. I hope it was worth it.

[DaveA37]

Indeed the “upper brass” steps to the Commander In Chief’s orders. Should they resist or let it be known they do not, they are “black balled”, or kicked out (forced retirement) or what ever needs to be done to get rid of them. They can’t be trusted while still under gov’t “control”.

Perhaps people need to get a list of those names so they can be approached for possible leadership in the much anticipated civil wars.