Civilian Control Quotes
President James Madison expressed a similar sentiment in his first inaugural address.
There is frequently a disagreement between the military and civilian leaders just as there are disagreements among most political personnel. Hawks, and people who have had experience in the military tend to think that military advice on military matters should be determinative with the President and Congress. Others tend to believe that military advice should be considered, but if it were always adhered to, there would be no point in having civilian control over the military. See {639667} for an example of when military leadership advice prevailed and it was a mistake.
In principle few disagree. However, in practice the norm of American polity is that the civilian leaders must consult the military and or intelligence leaders and take their advice seriously. If they President and his civilian leadership to not take the advice, they pay a heavy political price as there is a sometimes contradictory norm that says that you must allow the military experts to run the battles. In the given case, the Iraq War, the President and Vice President made the decision to invade Iraq. However, if we believe them literally, they were heavily influenced by the intelligence agencies who assured them that Iraq had a nuclear weapon about to be completed. It was a “slam dunk” in the words of the CIA director— {633093}. JFK as a young president did not feel that he could override the CIA and DOD people who had assured him that the Bay of Pigs lading would trigger a massive uprising in Cuba. He was misled but had to take the responsibility for the fiasco where not a single person in Cuba rebelled. The President can and should override the best military advice when it is wrong, but how does he know? If he does, he always pays a short term price—even if he is right, for that is not clear for some time. Politics in a democracy is not easy in a democracy.
The irony is that it is just for the lack of this fundamental principle that Napoleon eventually became the Government and the Military in France.
She was a nondescript minor functionary in a Tea Party Active Southern County, and her hatred of the Black president was hardly noteworthy. What makes this an important quotation is that it was frequently shown to foreigners who really did not understand the great degree of freedom of speech. Here a public official being paid by the government, not only calls for the removal of a sitting president, but also openly asked the army to rebel against their commander in chief. She was not punished, nor even arrested or tried. She was not even dismissed from her elected government job. That was up to the voters in the next election. There likely is no other country in the world where that can happen.
The only soldier ever so honored
