Kamala Harris Salutes the Generals

How the Military Won the Trump-Harris Debate

Chemistry

Kamala Harris is vying for a job that would make her commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and she evidently feels like she needs to publicly kiss the ring of the military establishment. “We have to have a president who is not consistently weak and wrong on national security including the importance of upholding and respecting in highest regard our military,” the Vice President said at the debate Tuesday night.

It’s almost as if Harris is exhorting the American people to buy war bonds, which is ironic given that she also brags that for “the first time this century,” the U.S. doesn’t have any troops in combat. The remark echoes President Biden’s baffling assertion that we’re “not at war anywhere,” a claim followed by a U.S. airstrike less than an hour after.

Of course, Harris is contrasting her subservience with Donald Trump’s bad mouthing the generals, and the fact that, according to her, those same generals think the former president is a “disgrace,” which I suppose they would also think of say a real lefty president who challenged the military on literally anything, most importantly their enormous budget.

And yet, just as a reminder, the military has failed to prevent the wars raging in Ukraine, Gaza and the broader Middle East. The military then failed to end those wars, tossing that on the to-do pile of virtually all of its other post-9/11 adventures. (The Pentagon is currently in negotiations with Iraq to maintain a U.S. troop presence in the country, and it has built “permanent” bases in Poland, and in Australia, and it wants to be back in the Philippines.) 

When it comes to war, all the military seems to do is lose. Or more precisely, it fails to ever have its military forces resolve much of anything. Afghanistan is back where it started. Iran is as strong and influential as ever. ISIS is on the resurgence.

But when it comes to budgets, all the Pentagon does is win. No matter how extravagant the parade of failures — and it’s starting to look like Macy's Day on Thanksgiving — presidents keep shipping money to the generals. And the defense budget (along with the larger $1 trillion per year national security budget) is one of the only things Congress always agrees on. While writing this, news broke that the Pentagon is set to receive $8 billion more from Congress than it even requested.

Like a troubled child acting out for attention from a disengaged parent, the military’s increasingly spectacular failures fall on deaf ears. Including, the presidential debate this week suggests, those of our two choices for president.

Trump never actually denied the military anything, and his fiery diatribes about the uselessness of the brass were notably absent from the debate, save for one reference to President Joe Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump said:

“Having to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban and the 13 people who were just killed, viciously and violently killed. And I got to know the parents and the family. They didn't fire. They should have fired all those generals, all those top, because that was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen. So when somebody does a bad job, I fire them. And you take a guy like [former Secretary of Defense Mark] Esper, he was no good. I fired him.”

That was Trump’s single, sole statement criticizing the military. Trump is the Picasso of painting increasingly complex grievances but that’s all he had to say about one of the American taxpayer’s largest expenses.

Harris’ rhetoric was even more telling. Given her past statements, I was not surprised that she offered no criticism of the military. But the deference she conveyed to its leadership, I was not expecting. It felt like she was telling them that if she wins, they won’t have any trouble from her. But in the context of the wars I mentioned, including Gaza, a sensitive issue for young voters in particular, can she really afford not to pick that fight?

When Harris pledged allegiance to the military and said that a president should hold the military in “highest regard,” she meant the military as a whole — the institution. I don’t doubt that Harris thinks she’s just practicing civility here, and I’m not suggesting anything sinister. But in the context of the failures I described before, how could you effectively characterize the deep flaws in the institution without sounding disrespectful (at least to some)? And frankly, why should we respect the military brass? Why should we salute the four star fuckups so fat on industry pay-offs and cable news contracts, it’s a wonder they don’t get stuck in the revolving door? I’d like to ask them the same question any ordinary person’s boss would ask: what did you accomplish?

Even Harris’ criticisms of Trump in multiple instances leaned on the supposed authority of the admirals and generals and the national security priesthood. She said:

“And if you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is, if he didn't make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him. His former chief of staff, a four star general, has said he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. His former national security advisor has said he is dangerous and unfit. His former secretary of defense has said the nation, the republic, would never survive another Trump term.”

And another example, this one reiterating Harris’ insistence on respect: 

“... this former president, as president …, does not again appreciate the role and responsibility of the President of the United States to be commander in chief with a level of respect. And this gets back to the point of how he has consistently disparaged and demeaned members of our military, fallen soldiers, and the work that we must do to uphold the strength and the respect of the United States of America around the world.”

I’m not saying a California Democrat like Harris is some kind of warmonger, but the deference she shows suggests she’s more or less fine with how things are being run. Of course one shouldn’t disrespect the troops. But acquiescing to the Washington movers and shakers — the perfumed princes as they are called — is not warranted. President Abraham Lincoln fired five of his generals during the Civil War. At least 21 Army corps and division commanders were dismissed in the Second World War. 

When Obama was running for office in 2008, he called the Iraq War “dumb” and “rash.” As President, Obama later admonished his foreign policy team of what he called his first principle: “Don’t Do Stupid Shit.” Tension between him and the military leadership led to his firing of four star Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was quoted saying disparaging things about the commander-in-chief (Obama was criticized by many for doing this).

Of course McChrystal today is a “leadership” guru and superstar raking in money despite the tarnished brass. Is that the lesson that Harris has learned, now especially as Vice President? That the military brass is not only beyond criticism but also that the president needs to curry favor with them?

“♡ Like” this piece if you don’t respect the generals.

— Edited by William M. Arkin