Military Coup in America?
In retrospect it is now clear that the second term of President George Bush Jr. and his right wing helper and heavy Richard Cheney was illegitimate. They were not voted-in by the electorate. This was clearly a coup of sorts.
In Afghanistan we see that the duly elected President, a linguist and flamboyant dresser by the name of Hamid Karzai, has just finished a period where he engineered the largest fraudulent democratic election in history. And then for several weeks he refused to accept that the vote had been extensively rigged even when his own elections commission said it had been. He refused to obey the laws of his own country and order a re-run between him and the person with the second most votes. Only after two weeks of very heavy arm twisting by the leaders of the EU, NATO, and the USA did Karsai finally, very grudgingly, agree to obey the laws of his own country and hold a second round of elections.
This is taking place in a country where for eight years the USA and NATO have been trying to "build democracy." America has spent billion of dollars and has sacrificed the lives of many brave young soldiers. Yet the government in Afghanistan is still widely regarded as one of the very most corrupt regimes in the entire world.
Even in the face of this failure at democracy building, the American political right wing and the American military want to send in many more troops and get America far more deeply involved. Vietnam style. The top American general in Afghanistan was not getting the response he wanted from his boss, the civilian President Mr. Obama, so he began an open and strident public relations campaign. He and his staff leaked confidential one-sided documents to the news media and he travelled around the world giving speeches and holding press conferences trying to convince other world leaders that his boss, the civilian President of the United States, was making the wrong decision.
This guy Stanley A. McChrystal is way out of order. His behavior has gone far beyond the bounds of what is appropriate conduct for an officer and a gentleman.
The military in America reports to the Commander-In-Chief, a civilian named Barack H. Obama. By engaging in these sorts of games General McChrystal probably has engaged in treasonous conduct. At the very, very kindest he should be fired and shamed. More realistically, by all rights he should be forced out the military with a less than honorable discharge, and he should lose all of his pension rights. Or maybe this man should be openly called a traitor and be sent to jail or even the firing squad.
This may sound like a rather harsh assessment, but I think not. When a top General in the American military attempts to openly and publicly overrule the civilian President of the United States this is as close to a military coup as we have seen.
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
