Ruminations, November 15, 2009

Presidential decisionmaking on Afghanistan

One of the main functions of a president is to makedecisions. Indeed, while he was president, George W. Bush referred to himself as “the decision maker-in-chief.” Sometimes presidents make good decisions and sometimes they make bad ones. Even when they make no decision, that is a decision made for the status quo.

Probably the president best known as a decision maker was Harry Truman. It was said that during Truman’s first day as president, he got experts in a room, assembled facts and made seven decisions. In his autobiography, Truman said, “It has been a policy with me to get the facts and then make a decision. That decision should be made in the public interest as conditions then prevailing.”

But as is often the case, the pressures of the presidency make demands on the President’s time, require him to set priorities and act accordingly. For example, President Obama’s schedule for November 5 throughNovember 19:

• D.C., November 5: Meets with Hispanic Caucus
• D.C., November 6: Visits Walter Reed Medical Center
• D.C., November 8: Meets with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
• Texas, November 10, Meets the Ft. Hood troops before they go to Afghanistan and Iraq
• D.C., November 11: Discusses new strategy for Afghanistan
• Tokyo, November 13-14: Speaks on U.S.-Asia relations
• Singapore, November 15: Attends Summit of APEC heads of state
• Shanghai, November 16: Town-hall meeting with Chinese youth
• Beijing, November 17-18: State dinner with Chinese President Hu Jintao
• Seoul, November 19: Press conference with President Lee Myung-bak
• D.C., ???: Complete and announce decision on strategy for Afghanistan – not yet scheduled

In regard to a decision on the Afghanistan strategy, this process has spread over four months. Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs said in Obama’s defense last week, “the President wants to make sure that… [we] take the time necessary to get thedecision right.” We all want the President to get it right but shouldn’the spend more time — more than a few hours every two weeks — discussing Afghanistan? Since July, Obama has held just seven meetings on Afghanistan.

Since July, when Obama ordered General Stanley McChrystal to develop a new military strategy for Afghanistan, some 314 American troops have been killed in that country. These troops were killed while executing astrategy that Obama feels is inadequate. If he truly believes, as he has said,that this war in Afghanistan is “a war of necessity” and “worth fighting …[and] fundamental to the defense of our people,” and if he truly believes that Afghanistan requires a new strategy, then it seems that he could block out aweek or so and come to a conclusion on a new strategy. We don’t need more troops dying to while executing an old out moded strategy.

I suspect that Truman would not tolerate a delay of fourmonths to make a decision on Afghanistan strategy. “Keep working on a plan,” hesaid. Make no little plans. Make the biggest one you can think of and spend therest of your life carrying it out…It is not possible for a public man to beworrying constantly about what history and future generations will say aboutthe decisions he has to make. He must live in the present and do what he thinksis right at the time. History will take care of itself.”

President Obama, make a decision.

What makes soldiers fight?

Reprinted from Ruminations February 25, 2007

Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner James McPherson’s 1997book, For Cause and Comrades, addresses the subject of soldiers whofought in the Civil War and their motivations. During the first year of the Civil War, there were over a million men under arms and they were all volunteers. And when battles were enjoined, the troops charged into artillery and rifle fire – even the veterans who had been under fire before and knew the horror of it. McPherson asks, why?

While it’s true that in battle troops fight for their comrades in arms and perhaps to save themselves, why did they go into battle in the first place? After examining 25-30 thousand of letters and 250 personaldiaries written by the troops themselves during the war, McPherson comes up with a conclusion that runs counter too much of what we hear today.  

 McPherson found that, based on their writings at the time, the great majority of troops went into battle for a cause. They went for their country and they went for duty and honor. Today, we hear cynical rhetoric stating that Americans in the armed forces enlist only for jobs, money, education benefits and, some say, that they enlist because they are not very bright. I don’t think so. I think that people enlist, for the most part, for the same reasons: for country, duty and honor.

 Why men fight is an interesting question todaybut was not an even a question in 1861. I wonder, if we could today talk to those who did volunteer during the Civil War, what they would ask us.. They might ask us, why don’t  Americans fight today? Why don’t we volunteer? In1860, America’s population was about one-tenth of what it is today and yet the number of volunteers was roughly the same as in our current volunteer force.Today, do those who do not serve love themselves more than they love their country? Have they no sense of duty or honor?

 Not everyone in 1861 volunteered for the Civil War andin later years there were draftees who, perhaps, did not share the same fervor as the 1861 volunteers. There were those, as in every war, who ran and hid when the battle began. But even among those who were drafted, there was often asense of duty, honor and, yes, patriotism.

 Has the nation changed that much since 1861? Does themajority today think that we are more sophisticated today where we will let unsophisticated volunteers fight for us? Is this country worth fighting for? Do the terms “duty” and “honor” mean anything to today’s sophisticates? What would the Civil War veterans say about us?

Quote without comment

Democrat Robert Reich, former Clinton Secretary of Labor, ina 2007 speech at Berkeley, California in 2007: "I will actually give you a speech made up entirely—almost at the spur of the moment, of what a candidatefor president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is…

"Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I'm so glad to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health-care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. That's true, and what I'm going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people. But that means you—particularly you young people, particularly you young, healthy people—you're going to have to pay more. [applause] Thank you.

"And by the way, we are going to have to—if you are ever old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months.. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die.[applause]

"Also, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid—we already have a lot of bargaining leverage—to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. But that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents. [applause] Thank you."