Sunday, October 26, 2008
Military Leaders as Presidents
Conventional wisdom among the non-partisan voters is that Obama is a better person to deal with an economic crisis or depression, but McCain is a better person to deal with the threat of another attack by Al Qaeda or other terrorist organization. Why?
Well, for one thing, there was the Cold War and the Bomb. For years we were told that the President carried with him the doomsday box that would rain nuclear bombs on our big enemy (Russia) if that enemy started a sneak attack on us. We had memories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We had memories of the unimaginable destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wrought by rather small nuclear bombs. That is, they were rather small by later standards. We didn't want such destruction applied to any of our large cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, etc. We were afraid.
Thinking of all this led me to ask whether a successful general would really be a good and successful president. We've had examples of generals as presidents: Washington, the first Harrison, Taylor, Grant, and Eisenhower, to name a few. The most successful ones were Washington and Eisenhower. Harrison died after only a month in office and Taylor after two years. Grant served eight years. Although he was a successful general in the Civil War, he was rather a failure as a President. My history book contained information about the corruption and dishonesty of his appointees, about which he wasn't able to do much.
George Patton was a very successful general during World War II. We know about him from the movie of that name. He took chances and managed to surprise the enemy. He was a gambler and his gambles paid off. If they hadn't, he would not have become the hero that he was. Do we want a President who, like Patton, takes chances and attempts to surprise his enemy? Perhaps we do if the main business of government is waging war on Al Qaeda.
But that's not the main business of government. Al Qaeda is not the Soviet Union. It does not have, so far at least, ICBM's that it can aim at us. We hope that it does not acquire any nuclear weapons capable of destroying New York or Washington. Preventing it from obtaining such weapons does not reqire a general as President. It requires a first-class intelligence operation that's able to infiltrate the organization and discover its capabilities and plans. The best way to combat and eventually destroy Al Qaeda is to enlist the cooperation of as many other nations as we can. We need the cooperation of Afghanistan, of Pakistan, of Russia, of China, of Uzbekistan, of every nation in Europe, and so on. We have seen the failure of an approach involving only our own military capability, plus some help from the British and token help from several other nations. A general as President, unless he is a Washington or an Eisenhower, is not likely to depend primarily on diplomacy rather than military force to assure national security.
I think by now I've made my point. John McCain is a good man and has many good and useful qualities and would make a better President than George Bush. But just being better than Bush isn't good enough. In my view, McCain's military experience counts for little in comparing him with Barack Obama. Neither man is really qualified and experienced enough to be a first-rate President. Either one would have to learn on the job, as all Presidents have had to. Since he is quite a bit younger, I believe that Obama would be a faster learner than McCain.
Well, for one thing, there was the Cold War and the Bomb. For years we were told that the President carried with him the doomsday box that would rain nuclear bombs on our big enemy (Russia) if that enemy started a sneak attack on us. We had memories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We had memories of the unimaginable destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wrought by rather small nuclear bombs. That is, they were rather small by later standards. We didn't want such destruction applied to any of our large cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, etc. We were afraid.
Thinking of all this led me to ask whether a successful general would really be a good and successful president. We've had examples of generals as presidents: Washington, the first Harrison, Taylor, Grant, and Eisenhower, to name a few. The most successful ones were Washington and Eisenhower. Harrison died after only a month in office and Taylor after two years. Grant served eight years. Although he was a successful general in the Civil War, he was rather a failure as a President. My history book contained information about the corruption and dishonesty of his appointees, about which he wasn't able to do much.
George Patton was a very successful general during World War II. We know about him from the movie of that name. He took chances and managed to surprise the enemy. He was a gambler and his gambles paid off. If they hadn't, he would not have become the hero that he was. Do we want a President who, like Patton, takes chances and attempts to surprise his enemy? Perhaps we do if the main business of government is waging war on Al Qaeda.
But that's not the main business of government. Al Qaeda is not the Soviet Union. It does not have, so far at least, ICBM's that it can aim at us. We hope that it does not acquire any nuclear weapons capable of destroying New York or Washington. Preventing it from obtaining such weapons does not reqire a general as President. It requires a first-class intelligence operation that's able to infiltrate the organization and discover its capabilities and plans. The best way to combat and eventually destroy Al Qaeda is to enlist the cooperation of as many other nations as we can. We need the cooperation of Afghanistan, of Pakistan, of Russia, of China, of Uzbekistan, of every nation in Europe, and so on. We have seen the failure of an approach involving only our own military capability, plus some help from the British and token help from several other nations. A general as President, unless he is a Washington or an Eisenhower, is not likely to depend primarily on diplomacy rather than military force to assure national security.
I think by now I've made my point. John McCain is a good man and has many good and useful qualities and would make a better President than George Bush. But just being better than Bush isn't good enough. In my view, McCain's military experience counts for little in comparing him with Barack Obama. Neither man is really qualified and experienced enough to be a first-rate President. Either one would have to learn on the job, as all Presidents have had to. Since he is quite a bit younger, I believe that Obama would be a faster learner than McCain.
Labels: Al Qaeda, Experience of Obama and McCain, Generals as Presidents, importance of diplomacy, President Eisenhower, President Grant, President Harrison the First, President Taylor, President Washington
Saturday, March 01, 2008
An Uncertainty Principle in Governance
You may think, from the title to this opinion, that I have discovered some new and important feature of government. It is not new. What I am going to discuss was well-known to the 17th and 18th century political theorists who provided the thinking behind our federal constitution.
Let be introduce the subject by relating a frequent e-mail argument I have had with my conservative friends H and R and my "moderate" friend S. In particular H has been eager to justify the use of an interrogation technique called "water boarding." He writes that the technique has extracted useful information from several terrorist suspects and implies that the information has been used to foil plans by Al Qaeda to stage another attack on the United States. This attack would have been, I presume, as disastrous at the destruction of tall buildings by flying commercial airplanes into them.
H cites this beneficial result from the use of water boarding and asks whether S and I would condone giving the President the power to authorize its use in future interrogations. S and I have pointed out that we are skeptical that the technique yields reliable information. A torture victim is apt to say anything to please his tormentor. The information provided may or may not be true. H asserts without proof that the technique has indeed yielded useful information.
In recent e-letters to the group (H, R, S, and myself) I have stated the existence of an uncertainty principle that requires us to find a balance between complete security and complete freedom. If we want complete security, we then must permit the President (i.e., the government) to use any and all torture methods in interrogations. We must also give the President the authority to conduct warrantless wire taps to listen in on private conversation to find terrorists who otherwise would escape detection.
I argue that to give the President that much power would enable him to spy on and frame any political opponent. An unscrupulous or ambitious President would be able to establish himself and his cronies in power with no limits on what they could do. Our liberties would vanish. In order to prevent the emergence of a fascist state, we have to place limits on the President. The price of maintaining our liberties is the likelihood of other terrorist attacks that will not be detected in time to stop them. We are governed by other imperfect humans, not by Thomas Jefferson's angels. The imperfection, the corruption, the dishonesty of some public officials requires that we limit the things they can do. The result is that we live in freedom but not in safety. That is the uncertainty principle of governance.
This is not a new idea. What surprises me is that my conservative friends are willing to trust "big government" to torture suspects and listen to private phone conversations and not use the power to discredit political opponents but are not willing to trust the same government to run a program to provide affordable health care for everyone.
Let be introduce the subject by relating a frequent e-mail argument I have had with my conservative friends H and R and my "moderate" friend S. In particular H has been eager to justify the use of an interrogation technique called "water boarding." He writes that the technique has extracted useful information from several terrorist suspects and implies that the information has been used to foil plans by Al Qaeda to stage another attack on the United States. This attack would have been, I presume, as disastrous at the destruction of tall buildings by flying commercial airplanes into them.
H cites this beneficial result from the use of water boarding and asks whether S and I would condone giving the President the power to authorize its use in future interrogations. S and I have pointed out that we are skeptical that the technique yields reliable information. A torture victim is apt to say anything to please his tormentor. The information provided may or may not be true. H asserts without proof that the technique has indeed yielded useful information.
In recent e-letters to the group (H, R, S, and myself) I have stated the existence of an uncertainty principle that requires us to find a balance between complete security and complete freedom. If we want complete security, we then must permit the President (i.e., the government) to use any and all torture methods in interrogations. We must also give the President the authority to conduct warrantless wire taps to listen in on private conversation to find terrorists who otherwise would escape detection.
I argue that to give the President that much power would enable him to spy on and frame any political opponent. An unscrupulous or ambitious President would be able to establish himself and his cronies in power with no limits on what they could do. Our liberties would vanish. In order to prevent the emergence of a fascist state, we have to place limits on the President. The price of maintaining our liberties is the likelihood of other terrorist attacks that will not be detected in time to stop them. We are governed by other imperfect humans, not by Thomas Jefferson's angels. The imperfection, the corruption, the dishonesty of some public officials requires that we limit the things they can do. The result is that we live in freedom but not in safety. That is the uncertainty principle of governance.
This is not a new idea. What surprises me is that my conservative friends are willing to trust "big government" to torture suspects and listen to private phone conversations and not use the power to discredit political opponents but are not willing to trust the same government to run a program to provide affordable health care for everyone.
Labels: Al Qaeda, balance between liberty and security, Conservatism, warrantless wire taps
