Who orders what is done (or not done) about the pirates operating off the West Coast of Africa? If you listen to the the pundits, DoD hacks, and flag rank officers of all branches, you might be excused for thinking that our military is the one who should make the call.
What is more disturbing is how the national consciousness has absorbed the current state of affairs and turned civilian command-and-control of the military upside down. As we are too often to forget or ignore, war is politics by other means. Automatically flowing from this maxim: 1) there is no such thing as an apolitical flag rank officer; and 2) there is no such thing as an apolitical war. The corollary to this reality of war is that flag rank officers will aggressively seek to insert themselves in the absence of firm political leadership.
There are signs that the Obama administration is willing to let the military call the tune in a manner similar to Bush II. This may prove to be a greater threat to the Republic than terrorism, piracy, or fundamentalism ever was.
