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'Uppity military' slapped around in CIA uproar
by Kenneth Allard If you thought about it for more than five seconds, it was enough to make you scream. Here was Gen. Michael Hayden, either brave enough or naïve enough to take on the thankless job of heading the CIA, and every newspaper in the country was carrying headlines wondering if a military man should be heading the agency. The question of military subordination to civilian authority is a perennial issue and one that I personally wrestled with 20 years ago, playing a modest role in crafting the Goldwater-Nichols Act that reformed the Pentagon command structure. But the Hayden controversy wasn't about some general on horseback lording it over subservient civilians. This was about class divisions in a nation at war. Think I'm kidding? Just listen to the condescending, eyeglasses-down-the-nose tut-tutting of the New York Times: "It seems ill-advised to put an Air Force general at the helm of the CIA, a civilian agency." If their tone sounds vaguely familiar, that's probably because it is. Just imagine if the Times editorial had said, "It seems ill-advised to put a black or Hispanic as head of the CIA, there in suburban Virginia where so many white people work." Such an appearance of institutional racism would have been instantly recognized and deplored maybe even by blockading the trucks delivering the Times to your local Starbucks. But the same sloppy thinking, mindless stereotypes and casual acceptance of second-class citizenship that once marked American race relations all now reign unchallenged whenever the military class appears to be getting a little uppity. Fact is, there is a gap already miles-wide and growing every day between the American people and their highly professional military. Of course, it may be harder to see that gap in San Antonio than anywhere else. Here, welcoming signs at the airport greet returning troops. A quick skyward glance may bring glimpses of C-17 transports circling for landings that will send badly wounded soldiers to the world-class medical facilities at Fort Sam. A recent convention in town honored a UTSA student who would soon pick up his diploma and an ROTC commission before moving on to pilot training. A just-released book confirms how rare such previously routine occurrences have become in this country. The authors of "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes From Military Service" present a devastating portrait of a professional military increasingly segregated from our mainstream institutions. The media and academe are obvious examples, but so is Hollywood, where exemplars of personal sacrifice are almost nonexistent just imagine Leonardo DiCaprio abandoning the sound stage for a bunk in Marine boot camp. The last U.S. president to have a serving family member in wartime was Lyndon Johnson. While the names of great families such as Bush and Kennedy are intertwined with examples of World War II service and sacrifice, today no grandchild of either line considers it a personal obligation to wear their country's uniform. It is probably fortunate that Hayden's family had solid working-class Pittsburgh roots, that he was educated at Duquesne rather than Harvard and that some of his formative professional experiences included command of the Air Intelligence Agency right here in San Antonio. There is even some irony in this, because the military treasures its own brand of ethnic humor one acquaintance wryly observing that Hayden isn't really a member of the military because he serves in the Air Force. It is an inside joke, of course, slyly reflecting the fact that the laid-back, electronic systems culture of the Air Force is unlike the infantry. But it represents an ongoing revolution in warfare just ask the Taliban and those few JDAM-shocked survivors of the Iraqi Republican Guard. And that's the serious point behind the Hayden nomination. At places like AIA and the National Security Agency, he presided over a series of transformations from the challenge of combating traditional Cold War hierarchies to the uncertain threats of network-centered jihadists often fighting the bureaucrats at every step. Even an outsider can look at the CIA and understand the problems: that reorganization doesn't automatically lead to transformation, that aging intelligence officers with master's degrees in Soviet studies need to be eased out and that the dominant agency culture of whining, second-guessing and world-class leaking needs to be expunged. It still isn't clear if a "systems guy" can overhaul an organization whose stock in trade is human intelligence spies if you're speaking Texan. But coming up on five years after 9-11, the agency needs either a transformation guru like Hayden or else a Marine drill sergeant, if that's what it takes. If he is successful, better get ready for even more outraged screaming. The Times can even be forgiven though not too much for simply parroting the anti-military lines picked up from various members of Congress. All should have known better and have recognized that the preferred refuges of whining, second-guessing bureaucrats are their protectors on Capitol Hill. One of those protectors even said last week that Hayden was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe so, but possibly this same test should also be applied to Congress during a transformation process that includes not just Hayden and his new charges at CIA but each and every one of us that one in November they call an election. Retired Col. Kenneth Allard is an author, MSNBC military analyst and executive in residence at UTSA. Posted by: ryuge 2006-05-14 |
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