Lakhota
Diamond Member
By Travis Waldron
Perry took his radical new vision for America to a new level last night at the Iowa FAMiLY Leader presidential forum. Going against the Constitution, centuries of American history, and the wishes of our nations founders, Perry claimed that the United States military should not be micromanaged by civilians and needed military commanders to be truly in charge:
PERRY: There is a time and a place for us to intervene, and intervene militarily. But when we intervene militarily, we best make the decision on how we are going to win and how we are going to win convincingly and quickly, send those young men and women with the equipment to win. Dont let some congressman sitting in an air-conditioned office in Washington DC deciding what the rules of engagement are. And for us to micromanage them, in a civilian way, without their commanders truly in charge, is absolutely irresponsible and as commander-in-chief of this country I will not let it happen.
By design, the U.S. military has always been under civilian control. While the president acts as the militarys civilian commander-in-chief, Congress has the Constitutionally-mandated authority to apportion military funding and approve any declaration of war. The militarys nuclear weapons, meanwhile, are owned and controlled by the civilian Department of Energy (which Perry, incidentally, wants to abolish).
The civilian structure of the military Perry has no use for wasnt an accident it is the norm in liberal democracies and what Americas Founding Fathers wanted. As Samuel Adams wrote in 1768, Even when there is a necessity of the military power, within a land, a wise and prudent people will always have a watchful and jealous eye over it. The founders feared giving too much power to military could lead to an oppressive federal government, the specter of which Perry has built his entire political ideology against.
Perry Promises To End Civilian-Controlled Military | ThinkProgress