The U.S. military ‘must remain apolitical at all times’ — but McCain didn’t get the memo

May 30, 2008

Update: There have been additional developments on this story.

In the coming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal widely distributed among officers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff writes a welcome but unusual open letter to everyone who wears an Armed Forces uniform: stay out of the political arena during the election season.

“The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways,” wrote the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking officer. “It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway.”

It’s good advice, and a good policy. Mullen realizes that there will attempts to politicize the military, and with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan playing a huge role in the election-season debate, there will be opportunities for politicians to try to exploit those in uniform for partisan and/or electoral gain. Mullen wisely counsels the military to steer clear of the political morass.

Regrettably, John McCain’s campaign didn’t get the message.

Three days [after Mullen’s advice was published], Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, sent a fundraising solicitation using an image of him and Gen. David Petraeus.

“Something is wrong with your judgment when you want to sit down unconditionally with Raul Castro and Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but you don’t take the opportunity to sit down with General Petraeus and learn about the situation in Iraq firsthand,” the letter reads. “My friends, this is not the ‘change’ we need in our next president.”

First, the notion that Barack Obama would embrace Ahmadinejad and snub Petraeus is so comically stupid it’s striking that the McCain campaign would put the argument in print.

Second, McCain’s complete abandonment of propriety and military protocol is striking. Petraeus is shown, in uniform, in a campaign fundraising letter, without his permission. As Jake Tapper asks, “Do you think it’s at all contrary to Mullen’s message to use the photo of McCain and Petraeus in a fundraising solicitation?”

I’m going to assume that’s a rhetorical question.

As it turns out, ABC News followed up with Petraeus’ office, about the use of his image in a candidate fundraising appeal

…Petraeus’s spokesman, Colonel Steven Boylan, says the McCain campaign did not ask for permission to use the photo.

“By no means does the use of his photo mean he has endorsed anybody. He has not. He won’t. He remains apolitical,” Boylan told Karl

Does Petraeus object to the use of his photo?

“He has no comment on that one way or another,” Boylan said.

The decent thing for McCain to do is apologize. Except, as the fundraising letter itself helps prove, decency has been in short supply lately at McCain campaign headquarters.

Maybe that’s what it says on paper, but dur chimpfurher has purged all of the top brass that would stand behind that.

  • First, the notion that Barack Obama would embrace Ahmadinejad and snub Petraeus is so comically stupid it’s striking that the McCain campaign would put the argument in print.

    The crowd that “catapulted the propaganda” to lie this nation into a war of conquest is not going to allow this to happen. They enabled the theft of 2000, the exploitation of 9/11, the lies of WMD and suddam/al queda connections, and the stolen election of 2004.

    They have covered and obscured all of bush’s cronyism, the looting of BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars from the treasury, and all the scandals of this administration.

    Of course the folks behind dur chimpfurher/mclame think they can “catapult” this.

  • Such an unauthorized use of the photo for a partisan political purpose is appalling stupid as it is unethical. Is anybody in charge in his campaign?

  • I’m just happy to see McCain continue with that insipid, insincere line, “My friends…”

    The more he keeps addressing the public like that, the more people will squirm. Honestly, why aren’t this guy’s public image people doing their job?

  • “He has no comment on that one way or another,” Boylan said.

    Read: “The general is apolitical. He can’t criticize a candidate for suggesting the general supports the candidate.”

    Sounds like good cop/bad cop to me.

  • #7 PJ is right – it is obvious that the General is blatantly political. Who has the guts to call him out on that?

  • The military must remain apolitical at all times? Really?

    How’s this for apolitical … from Brian Williams on reporting the run-up to the Iraq War: ” I was in Kuwait for the buildup to the war, and, yes, we heard from the Pentagon, on my cell phone, the minute they heard us report something that they didn’t like.” Sounds like some pretty serious politicing to me

  • Yesterday Hillary commented how she went together with McCain to Irak. I guess is clear that two out of the three candidates put our troops and our country before partisan politics, and Obama is not one of them

  • First, the notion that Barack Obama would embrace Ahmadinejad and snub Petraeus is so comically stupid it’s striking that the McCain campaign would put the argument in print.

    Statements like this are very typical of progressive thinkers who simply cannot understand how or why we have been getting such a pasting by the marching morons in the polls for the past three or four decades.

    Just as there are, when boiled down to essentials, two types of political parties in any nominal democracy — The Party of the Empowered and Priviliged, and The Party Of Those Who Would Like To Be But Aren’t Yet — so, too, are there two types of voters — those who vote entirely emotionally, and those who vote mostly emotionally but like to kid themselves they actually think about stuff before doing so.

    The Republican Party has gained enormous influence over the past forty years or so by playing almost entirely to the 45% or so of the electorate who vote entirely on their emotions, without interposing the slightest subatomic particle of rational or coherent thought between what they feel and the nervous impulse that pulls the switch inside the voting booth. These are the people that McCain’s Petraeus ad is aimed at, and with those people, it will be extremely effective. Those people don’t think, they simply respond as they have been programmed to for their entire lives. They see McCain standing next to a stern, august fellow in a military uniform and their hypothalamus perks up and they go “by the Christ, Lurlene, thar’s a REAL man. Wa’r votin’ fer HIM.” And they do.

    This election will turn on one essential fulcrum — how well can the Right galvanize its morons to march out to the polls? Progressives are looking at big victories because the marching morons are disheartened — they don’t mind the war, but they despise the weakness of a President who starts one he can’t win, and it stuff like Larry Craig and Mark Foley disgust them on one level while Duke Cunningham and Tom DeLay exasperate them on an entirely different one. Plus, most of the nonthinking voters really DON’T like McCain. They liked Huckabee. He pushed the right buttons on them. They liked Guiliani, too. They would have loved Fred Thompson if Fred had gotten himself a better screenwriter. But McCain? Not so much.

    If the Powers That Be hadn’t stacked all their chips on Romney’s square and pushed so hard to make him the Republican candidate, Rudy would almost certainly have breezed to the nomination and we’d have a much, much harder fight in November, because Rudy is tailormade for the marching morons. But McCain? Nobody much likes him. However, certainly a large part of the base that McCain wants to reach will like him better than some mouthy Yale bitch or some goddam uppity NE-gra, and posing McCain beside as many good looking men in uniform as possible will help that along.

    Every successful conservative politician has gotten to the top by appealing to their base’s emotions. Most progressive/liberal politicians work this way, too, they just throw in a little more brain food so we don’t think that they think we’re stupid. What McCain’s doing is pretty sharp.

  • petorado: Sounds like some pretty serious politicing to me.

    Worse — it actually sounds like Soviet Russia to me.

  • Is anybody in charge in his campaign?

    Yes, kkkarl rove is – he’s also “advising” shillary and providing her dishonest talking points and gerrymandered electoral college maps to “catapult the propaganda”,

  • Thanks javier – didn’t hear that, so you have provided another example of shillary promoting mclame and undermining her party.

    Nothing bipartisan there – they are both sides of the same coin and shillary is continuing to undermine her party.

    NO BUSH-CLINTON-BUSH-CLINTON MONARCH!

    American democracy was not modeled after NASCAR and was never intended to be controlled by 2 elite families.

  • Funny how in 2008- a year where there are strong indications that the Democratic party is going to gain significant majorities in both houses of Congress and quite probably the White House itself- NOW the military is reminding itself not to get involved in politics. 4 years ago, it seemed like every other Bush photo op had uniformed soldiers in it. VERY soviet Russia, as impeachcheneythenbush points out. Yep, 4 years ago, despite rank-outs from sites like this oe and kos and c&l and americablog, the military didn’t see fit to put the kibosh on using soldiers and leaders as photo props and barely-diguised testimonials, where they’d talk about what a WONDERFUL job Bush was doing. It was a good racket. To say Bush wasn’t doing a good job would be demoralizing to the brothers and sisters in arms, so if that meant catapulting the propaganda and giving the GOP some tasty sound bites, oh welllll…

    Now, 4 years later, someone found the military rules and regulations and sonuvabitch! Whatd’yaknow! Soldiers and officers are supposed to keep their polticial preferences on the down low.

    Yeah, I suspect the military, GOP congress & the media are ALLLLLL going to remember the job they’re SUPPOSED to be doing when there’s a President Obama in charge. Suddenly there’s going to be a lot of oversight and a lot more tougher questions during White House press briefings. Call it a hunch

  • The military is apolitical in the sense that they don’t try to influence elections. That is not to say that they don’t play politics for their own gain or the good of each branch when money is being handed out by Congress. In fact every general officer is a consumate internal polititian, that’s how you get to be a general officer in the first place (that along with outstanding OERs, a graduate degree, and the right tickets punched.)

    When the Pentagon was trying to manipulate the press, it was not the military per se. The Pentagon is where all the Bush appiontees are lurking and they had a lot to do with that event and they directed various offices to comply with the propaganda effort. In addition, the internal politics of the Armed Forces requires being noticed by the civilian leadership if you want to get ahead so it is not in your interest to go to the matresses over that issue. (Besides, the Bush admistration makes it very clear that it is “My way or the Highway” or worse if you don’t comply.)

    Going from a one star to a four star requires at least half of the candidates be discarded at each step. When I made COL in the reserves, only 14% of the LTC candidates were advanced. I was in the medical corps as a physician, had Command and General Staff school and combat experience in Desert Storm. These were the minimal requirements to be noticed. My OER from Desert Storm probably did the trick. This atmosphere means that just being competent is not enough. You have to be able to make your case other ways. Most large organizations are the same.

    To make General Officer you have another single digit cut from the 14% survivors at the COL level. The political savvy grows with each advancement in an expotential fashion.

    So yes, at the highest levels, the armed forces are very political, but only internally (which is saying a lot.) It does leak over into the civilian world, mostly as propaganda, but they stay away from trying to influence elections. That is one reason MacArthur was fired.

  • CB: “First, the notion that Barack Obama would embrace Ahmadinejad and snub Petraeus is so comically stupid it’s striking that the McCain campaign would put the argument in print.”

    Ah, but you forget their target audience! The know their base is stupid and gullible so disseminating illogical garbage like this is not a problem for them.

  • Nice, javier, very enlightening comment. You are clearly a real patriot who follows international news closely.

    Iraq is spelled with a “q”, btw.

  • Maybe I’m missing something, but I find this pretty underwhelming. I don’t see the use of this image as saying or suggesting that Petraeus is endorsing McCain or anything like that.

  • Crust, picture a fundraising letter with McCain next to Bush. Now ponder why the McCain camp hasn’t send that letter.

  • “Something is wrong with your judgment when you want to sit down unconditionally with Raul Castro and Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but you don’t take the opportunity to sit down with General Petraeus and learn about the situation in Iraq firsthand,”

    Oh, really? So what was this?:

    IRAQ HEARINGS: Sen. Obama Questions Gen. Petraeus
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9wtAqXq7Sg

  • On May 30th, 2008 at 10:31 am, Javier A said:
    Yesterday Hillary commented how she went together with McCain to Irak. I guess is clear that two out of the three candidates put our troops and our country before partisan politics, and Obama is not one of them
    ____________

    Wow, Javier, I never really thought about it like that.

    Probably because it doesn’t make any sense.

    Going to iraq is the only way to prove someone supports the troops? Does that mean you’ve been? Everyone in your family? All your friends? Has absolutely every single person you know that still supports this clusterf*ck of a war gone over to support our troops?

    Oooooohhhhhhh, I bet only politicians have to go, right? For us civvies, bumper stickers & yellow-ribbon magnets (and knowing how to spell Iraq) is enough, right?

    Does that mean, if I don’t walk around Harlem at night with a phalanx of police, I don’t support the NYPD?

    Dolt.

  • On May 30th, 2008 at 11:22 am, Crust said:
    Maybe I’m missing something, but I find this pretty underwhelming. I don’t see the use of this image as saying or suggesting that Petraeus is endorsing McCain or anything like that.
    _________________________

    Maybe that’s because you know how to read, and/or you’d take the time to read any mail, even political junk mail, that comes your way. The GOP hopes that for the average American who WON’T take the time to read, seeing McCain standing next to a uniformed general makes the intended impression.

    When I was in high school, running for Student Council president, a friend (who was running for class president) and I took our picture at Six Flags next to a cardboard cutout of Ronald Reagan. I even made the little “devil horns” sign behind his cardboard head. We then made copies of the image and plastered it on posters with “if they’re good enough for Ronnie, they’re good enough for you” slogans. Obviously a dumb joke, but some of our fellow classmates asked us where we were that we got to meet the President. And we thought it was funny to convince them we went to a fundraiser.

    That was in the mid-80s. That was a SCHOOL election. And those kids who were stupid enough to think we met Reagan, AND he endorsed us for a SCHOOL election, are now all of voting age. Hell, some of ’em were boning, they now probably have CHILDREN who are of voting age. A picture speaks a thousand words, though not all of those words are honest.

  • CB: “First, the notion that Barack Obama would embrace Ahmadinejad and snub Petraeus is so comically stupid it’s striking that the McCain campaign would put the argument in print.”

    #18: Ah, but you forget their target audience! The know their base is stupid and gullible so disseminating illogical garbage like this is not a problem for them.

    Partly right. The other part of their audience is not stupid, but fears Obama (aka the scary black guy, no military experience) or any Democrat to lead our country. I remember getting one of those mass emails four years ago that began something like “As a mother I’m terrified that if John Kerry is elected president the terrorists will strike us again and kill my children. George Bush is the only one who can keep us safe.” It went on and on and was completely laughable for a thinking person, who knew of Kerry’s miltary service. It played on the fear factor for those who couldn’t past the 9/11 mindset. Kerry was that elite windsurfing French elite guy, not a war hero nor a respected longtime Senator.

    For people who don’t have the time or make the effort to read up on the facts, the Rs still have the “credibility” on national defense/security issues, John McCain even moreso because of his “war hero” image. Nevermind the facts.

    In other words, the soundbite this ad provides will help McCain with the ignorant and fearful. Which is why the Dems must continue to link McCain to Bush and his failed policies. It’s maybe the only way to discredit McCain’s supposed advantage in foreign affairs IMO.

  • Now, 4 years later, someone found the military rules and regulations and sonuvabitch! Whatd’yaknow! Soldiers and officers are supposed to keep their poltical preferences on the down low. — slappy maggoo, @16

    Yup. My own Geiger-counter’s needle quivered at precisely the same point: “what a ‘convenient’ timing to remember those rules!”

    My guess is that Mullen is trying to shore up the leaking dams. As we continue with the I-wreck cluster-eff and more and more strain piles up on the military (repeated deployments, inadequate care at home), the military is no longer dependably Republican, especially among the rank and file, but also among the officers. They used to be able to control an occasional dissenter but now there are too many of them to control. So telling them all to stay the hell out of politics is one way of damage control.

  • If Petraeus doesn’t object or doesn’t care, he is implicitly okay with it. There needs to be an investigation by the military, if for no other reason that Petraeus wouldn’t remain so carefree over the use of his image without his permission.

  • I see in an ABC poll 48% of Americans think Obama would be an effective Commander in Chief. If you believe that quit whining and enlist, then maybe we will have a few Democrats in the military.

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