The hubris of the Obamites on Vietnam: Just because you weren't there doesn't mean you won't make the same mistakes

Vietnam? What's that? Obama
administration officials ask the
estimable James Mann.

"What does that
have to do with me and the world we're living in today?" inquires Susan Rice,
American ambassador to the United Nations.

Remarks like that
worry me. Just because you weren't alive during the Vietnam War doesn't
mean you won't go down that road. I generally am a fan of the Obama administration, on both domestic and foreign policy. But the one thing that
gives me the creeps is their awkward relationship with senior military
officials. Mistrusting the Joint Chiefs, suspecting their motives, treating
them as adversaries or outsiders, not examining differences -- that was LBJ's
recipe. It didn't work. He looked upon the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a political
entity to be manipulated or, failing that, sidelined. That's a recipe for
disaster, especially for an administration conspicuously lacking interest in
the views of former military officers or even former civilian Pentagon
officials.

In our system, White House officials have the upper hand in
the civilian-military relationship, so it is their responsibility to be steward
of it. That's the price of "the
unequal dialogue." If the relationship is persistently poor, it is the
fault of the civilians, because they are in the best position to fix it. The
first step is to demand candor from the generals, and to protect those who
provide it. Remove those who don't.

Anytime anyone tells me that the lessons of Vietnam are
irrelevant, that's when I begin looking for a hole to hide in.