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Originally Posted by Mazer
Like I stated above, the iron fist of Rumsfeld is preventing a lot of brass from abusing their authority. Those that do so get the boot. Asking for more troops is not an abuse of authority, but building a strategy around a certain troop level and demanding more troops from the president in order to make that strategy work is blackmail, because employing such a strategy needlessly jeopardizes the lives of the troops that are there. Those who have tried to use blackmail have either been demoted or retired. The lesson is do what the commander in chief tells you to do or face the consequences. While you may not like the way the president has used the military in the middle east, you have to give him credit for upholding his Constitutional mandate to keep the military subservient to the civilian government.
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blackmail? hardly - it was Rumsfeld and the DoD who set the troop levels in the pre-war planning. when Army Chief of Staff General Shineski argued in 2003 that there were not enough to do the job,
Rumsfeld fired him..
and as far as Bush and the Constution goes, he gets credit for doing more damage to that document than any president in memory. case in point, from the
American Bar Association's report on signing statements:
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“If left unchecked, the president’s practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances, that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries. Immediate action is required to address this threat to the Constitution and to the rule of law in our country.”
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the creativity of the Bush apologists never fails to amaze me.