Lawrence Wilkerson:
Yep. Romney, in a recent interview, actually said when he was asked, I forget whether it was Jamie McIntyre or whomever asked him . "Was he going to go to Congress if he used the military instrument in Iran ? "
And he said "I don't believe I have to! I don't believe that's necessary . I believe it's within my prerogative as Commander in Chief to go to war with Iran without any Congressional approval."
Holy mackerel! I about fell off my seat . And yet I have to back up and say that's exactly what Obama did with Libya. No Congressional consultation whatsoever . Not even the War Powers Resolution was invoked. So where are we ? We're at a point where James Madison would say, "We are a tyranny!" James Madison wrote very eloquently that the closest way to get to tyranny, the most direct route to get to tyranny, was to give the war power to one person.
Rob Kall: Yes. So, let me ask you this. Let's say a candidate comes forward with the courage to say " I am not going to ask the Generals. You're electing me to be the Commander in Chief . And I will decide!" How would the Generals respond? How would the officers respond to that ? How would the Joint Chiefs of Staff respond to that?
Lawrence Wilkerson:
The first thing I would say, is that it depends on who the officers are you're referring to, and who the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is . I would give you a historical example though, that comes close enough to make some comments. And that is when John F. Kennedy took over. John F. Kennedy not only told the Pentagon where to go, when he insisted that the Bay of Pigs invasion, which had turned out to be a huge failure, be suddenly reversed into a victory by a military invasion , which the Pentagon was sitting on, had plans for, and were ready to go . In many respects the leadership in the Pentagon in 1961 was hoping the C.I.A. invasion would fail so they could pick up the pieces. And when Kennedy said no , stop the covert operation, and there will be no invasion, man he pissed some guys off in the Pentagon . Then when you get the Cuban missile crisis, and you ' ve got his military leaders insisting on striking the Russian missiles before they can be erected, and before nuclear war heads get to Cuba, we now know that there were already ten nuclear warheads in Cuba but we didn ' t at that time , ma king Kennedy ' s ultimate decision even wiser. Kennedy essentially stood up to them again, especially the Chiefof Staff of the Airforce, Curtis LeMay, who wanted to bomb Cuba back to hell. So we ' ve had a President, young, inexperienced, who took on the military not once but twice.
Rob Kall: And he got assassinated.
Lawrence Wilkerson:
Then he was assassinated in Dallas . [laughing] I'm not implying a connection. You can come to your own conclusions about that, but I'm not so sure if our President of the United States would be all that eager to alienate the Pentagon.
Rob Kall: Well, wait a second now. Now I've just interrupted you and I said he was assassinated. Were you going to be saying that anyway?
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