Admiral Fallon’s words of wisdom

November 12, 2007

Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, has heard plenty of war-mongering rhetoric from the right when it comes to Iran. In some circles, most notably Rudy Giuliani’s inner circle, the debate is basically over whether to start the bombing raids this morning or this afternoon.

Fallon, after listening to all of this, has come to an important conclusion: it’s not helping. (via TP)

“None of this is helped by the continuing stories that just keep going around and around and around that any day now there will be another war which is just not where we want to go,” he said.

“Getting Iranian behaviour to change and finding ways to get them to come to their senses and do that is the real objective. Attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice in my book.” … Adm Fallon declined to comment specifically on whether the US rhetoric was feeding the speculation, but said that “generally, the bellicose comments are not particularly helpful”.

I wonder if Bush’s repeated references to a new world war with Iran qualify as “bellicose.”

Doesn’t Admiral Fallon understand that Ahmadinejad is Hitler? And that Iran is 1930s Germany? And that today we’re in the midst of World War IV? It’s almost as if the U.S. Central Command chief hasn’t received any of the far-right talking points at all.

Fallon added that while dealing with Iran was a “challenge,” a strike was not “in the offing.” That’s at least mildly encouraging, presuming that Central Command is aware of Dick Cheney’s to-do list.

There’s also a big-picture story that’s worth noting. The Financial Times noted that Fallon’s comments “served as a shot across the bows of hawks who are arguing for imminent action. They also echoed the views of the senior brass that military action is currently unnecessary, and should only be considered as an absolute last resort.”

In other words, the senior brass knows there are conservative policy makers who are itching for another conflict in the Middle East — and they’re not going for it.

Of course, the military structure doesn’t exactly work that way. The president is the commander in chief, there’s civilian control of the Armed Forces, and whether the top brass oppose a foolish attack on Iran or not may not be relevant to the West Wing.

What happens if Bush orders strikes that the generals oppose? Fred Kaplan recently considered the consequences.

From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to U.S. Central Command, most of America’s military leaders have expressed wariness about, if not outright opposition to, the idea of bombing Iran.

So, if President George W. Bush starts to prepare—or actually issues the order—for an attack, what should the generals do? Disobey? Rally resistance from within? Resign in protest? Retire quietly? Or salute and execute the mission?

The appropriateness of military dissent is a hot topic among senior officers these days in conferences, internal papers, and backroom discussions, all of which set off emotional arguments and genuine soul-searching. […]

[I]t’s one thing for a sergeant to disobey a lieutenant in the frenzy of battle. It’s quite another for generals to declare a president’s order “unlawful.” That’s not an act of conscience; it’s a coup d’etat. (There are some circumstances that could confuse the most honorable officer. For instance, in the last weeks of Richard Nixon’s presidency, when Nixon was drinking heavily and teetering on the edge of sanity, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to check with him before executing any military orders from the White House. Even then, it’s worth noting, the chain of command was circumvented by the civilian defense secretary, not by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)

Outright disobedience of a presidential order, then, is an option that no senior U.S. officer wants even to contemplate — and we should be thankful for that. But in a widely circulated article titled “Knowing When To Salute,” published in the July 2007 newsletter of the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, retired Lt. Col. Leonard Wong and retired Col. Douglas Lovelace laid out nine options short of disobedience that a senior officer might take when political leaders resist military advice.

If the situation involves little or no threat to national security, they write, an officer can request reassignment, decline a promotion, or take early retirement.

It’s a fascinating issue. Take a look.

Obviously, the “terrorists’ war on us” is worse than we thought. Islam-O-Fascists and terrorist sympathizers have apparently infiltrated the upper ranks of the military, including the head of U.S. Central Command.

At this rate it won’t be long before our civil liberties are diminished, the Armed Forces are weakened, and our country is bankrupt.

Clearly, the only hope to save America is through a preemptive, “undeclared” war with Iran. Why does Adm. Fallon hate America?

  • The civilian oversight and command structure that controls the military has – historically – been far more aggressive than the military itself. There have always been and always will be the likes of Curtis LeMay, but those types are also the most likely to be insubordinate when they don’t get their way. For the military, there are real stakes in war. For the civilians who give the marching orders, the military is a lot like a group of toy soldiers…especially civilians who are service avoiding hawks.

    There were a lot of military who thought that Iraq was A. not a smart move to begin with and B. really disliked doing it on the cheap and relying on best case scenarios. We don’t hear from them because when the chips fall, they are required to say, “sir, yes, sir.” And then go out and do the best that they can with what they have.

    Before the John Warner Defense Act, the Joint Chiefs had a lot of say in what we did with the military. After that act, the whole structure was reorganized and it put theater CinC’s in charge. Those theater CinC’s do not report to the JCS, but to the defense secretary and the president. Looking back, it seems like a way for the civilians to end run the military establishment.

    I don’t know the legal definitions, but i would not describe the military refusing to implement a civilian order as a coup d’etat, they are not taking control of government. I think that a strong argument could be made that they would actually be fulfilling their oath of duty, which is to the nation and the Constitution rather than the president and the secretary of defense.

  • [I]t’s one thing for a sergeant to disobey a lieutenant in the frenzy of battle. It’s quite another for generals to declare a president’s order “unlawful.” That’s not an act of conscience; it’s a coup d’etat…. Outright disobedience of a presidential order, then, is an option that no senior U.S. officer wants even to contemplate—and we should be thankful for that.

    Yet, this concern about a “coup d’etat” or “outright disobendience”is not valid under another principle, and that is this:

    The Uniform Code of Military Justice is clear: All military personnel, including officers, are obligated to obey “lawful orders.” In fact, it is a crime, punishable by court-martial, not to obey. The qualifier—”lawful order”—is important: It pre-empts the Nazi defense of war crimes (“I was just following orders” is no excuse if the orders were unlawful)…

    I omitted the rest of the quote above, which claims a refusal to obey an unlawful order is a “legitimate way out” for ordinary soldiers to participate in illegal acts ordered by their superiors. The author does not think that “the generals” can do this. and I want to know why:

    But it’s one thing for a sergeant to disobey a lieutenant in the frenzy of battle. It’s quite another for generals to declare a president’s order “unlawful.”

    Why is a general’s refusal to obey a CIC’s order to commence an illegal attack on a sovereign country a “coup d’etat”? What legal principle would make such a refusal a coup d’etat?

    Here are some definitions of a coup d’etat:

    a sudden and decisive action in politics, esp. one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.

    The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

    a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force

    — a sudden and violent change in government

    Et cetera — http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coup%20d'etat

    There need be no violence involved in a refusal to illegally attack a sovereign state, just a willingness to stand one’s ground in refusing. There need not be a replacement of the current government with another government in a refusal to illegally attack a sovereign state. That isn’t what happens when ordinary soldiers, such as Ehren Watada, refuse to obey orders on the grounds that they’re illegal. He was court-martialed, yes, but the government refused to argue the case, so it was closed. Such an act by a general or group of generals could hardly be seen as a coup d’etat.

    Does anybody see it differently?

  • It’s ironic the initial trepidation felt when Fallon was appointed to head the Joint Chiefs was because he was Navy and why appoint a Navy man to the spot unless we were aching to hit Iran from the decks of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. Then he perfectly characterized Petraeus as the “ass-kisser” he is. Now he is criticizing the asses Petraeus kisses. If only Bush were surrounded with more people like Fallon.

  • In a Banana Republic with a weak and fearful Congress, it is usually the military which steps in to stop a self destructive Head of State. If a general takes over as head of the government, that’s a coup d’etat and that could be tried as treason. Refusing to obey a direct order on the grounds it is illegal – I don’t know. Would that be determined by the military courts or the Supreme Court?

    What a moral dilemma this administration has given the military.

  • Fallon’s words could be encouraging if it wasn’t for the facts as CB pointed out that they probably won’t refuse the Shrubtard’s orders and that Israel is doing some saber rattling of their own as Defense Minister Barak did last week. Barak said that they may have to attack Iran without the US’s assistance. Olmert is now trying to down play that. What if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran retaliates as they have said they would? Will the US sit on its hands or jump in with “guns ablazing”? Israel already has a record of attacking neighbor’s nuclear facilities such as Saddam Hussein’s in ’82. The Syrian “nuclear” facility probably wasn’t a nuclear facility at all, but actually a mistake by a UN interpreter. The UN said action will be taken against the interpreter that misquoted the Syrians.

  • If we examine the current vision of government as it exists within “Das Bubble”—that the Government is the Unitary Executive, and all other branches, including Judicial and Legislative, are merely ancillary appendages to that Unitary Executive—the a rallying of the general command corps could, indeed, be seen as a coup d’etat. Would that be a bad thing?

    In this case, most certainly not, although the precedent, once set, is the greater danger.

    The question beyond the question, though, is perhaps the one that deserves asking: What would the reaction be, if a sizeable portion of the officer corps elected to disobey commands from the WH? What, if anything, could Bush/Cheney do, if the military simply decided to “stand down” and not obey orders that are unethical, immoral, and criminal in nature?

    What happens when a soldier respects the uniform and that for which it stands, instead of the madnesses of the civilian authority?

    We’re really not too far away from having to face that question—in reality….

  • This is totally OT, but I wanted to say that I’m in the middle of Craig Unger’s utterly fabulous book, Fall of the House of Bush, and I want to heartily recommend it. (No, I’m not a paid shill!). Unger explains in clear, concise terms the dreadful coalition of neo-cons and evangelists (of all stripes and denominations) who together created George W Bush and his presidency.

    It’s the best book I’ve read so far about Bush and Iraq.

  • I have to ask what drives our aggressive, militant foreign policy in the first place. Is it simply the fact that we have the world’s strongest military force, and therefore feel obligated, entitled to act like a bully? Or is the rest of the world failing to perceive these dire threats to civilization? Our responses to the “threat” posed by Iraq, to international terrorism, to North Korea and to Iran seem so over the top compared to, say, Sweden’s or Paraguay’s or dozens of other countries.

    They don’t seem to see the world the way we see it. Why is that? I’m beginning to suspect that we’re just plain crazy here in the U. S. of A. All that firepower and nobody to blow up, so we go paranoid, fairly begging somebody to antagonize us so we can blast them to smithereens.

  • It is amazing how easily the American sheeple have accepted the transition from a democratic republic with three branches of co-equal government, to an elected dictatorship. Why would a military coup, at this point, raise any eyebrows?

  • Ahmadinejad is Hitler? Iran is 1930s Germany? What kind of mumbo-jumbo is that. Granted Ahmadinejad has made some anti-semetic comments in regard to the Zionist movement but maybe we should think back to who was invading countries in WW2. We definitely shouldn’t forget who helped to fund Hitler’s rise to power: The president’s grandfather Prescott Bush. Unlike most civilized nations, there are no rules in the U.S.A. which forbids politicians from having private interests which may conflict with their duties of office. Think about it!

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