An Argument Against Experience

An Argument Against Experience

There's a lot of talk this year about the experience levels of the individual presidential candidates and their corresponding vice presidential picks. Its fair in a lot of respects to demand a certain level of competence as demonstrated, strictly numerically, in years spent as a public servant. It is not a whole sale value system. That should be obvious. If your applying for a job and have 10 years sales experience, 8 of which are spent barely making the quota, you just aren't going to get the job over a guy who only has 4 years and who consistently out sells expectations. I'm not drawing any comparisons between the candidates here. I'm just illustrating an example, so get that out of your head.

So what ABOUT experience in a candidate and what does it matter? I recently watched a video clip on CNN about military experience and vital impact on who takes the reigns as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The McCain supporter in the video made the case, which I'm sure you know by now, that McCain was in active duty in the airforce during Vietnam. He was a lieutenant with command experience and played a leadership role even during his period of imprisonment by the Vietcong. Furthermore, he's had 25 plus years of serving in the US Senate in various committees legislating and overseeing the conduct of our military. He's ready to lead this country's massive armed power. Right?

Sure, it certainly sounds that way especially when you consider that Obama has no experience whatsoever in the military sphere. Hell, my years at Starcraft LAN parties make me more experienced than him. Ask yourself, who would you trust in the event of a Zerg Rush? Hmm? Yes, Obama has a glaring deficiency in that regard but does this really translate to negative quality as a candidate.

My argument is no and here's why:

Imagine you're the president. Yes, you. You've got the chops, the influence, the money and people like you. You're a combat veteran with leadership experience on the battlefield. During Nam, you commanded a squad of Hueys and you performed dust off missions right in the thick, the mud, the quagmire. You merited a purple heart and Congressional Medal of Honor, and all sorts of aches and pains and troubling memories that go with them. You went on to spend the rest of your life moving between state legislature, to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, you fought tooth and nail through a primary, and now, by god, you're the President of the entire U.S. of A. How's that for an old boy scout, Momma?

Three weeks into your presidency comes your first big test: the Georgian/Russian conflict has taken a turn for the worse and your advisors call for supporting Georgia. You've got to put everything behind them, send in a real force to be reckoned with: a full division, mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, 5 carries off the coast ready to send in the bombers.

Now, think back. Lean on your experience in the military, try to think of some experiences that might have some bearing on the situation. Yeah? Almost there? Well, wait a minute now. You were in 346th Medical Battalion, in charge of a platoon of chopper pilots in rescue missions. You were a captain, more than 4 pay grades away from a general who might have command over a force as large as a full division. Is managing 12 pilots all that different from managing 4 brigades, operating out of 6 neighboring bases, composed of more than 20,000 troops, and sucking up more than 600 million dollars a day in operation costs. Consider whats at stake: the lives of more than 20 million in military and civilian areas? Is this anything like the old days piloting hueys over the jungle canopy?

We have to ask ourselves if military experience really matters in the above situation. When you're the president, sure, you're the Commander in Chief, but this was a role designed to be a civilian position. The president does not have any real or honorary military ranking. He is not considered a PART of the military itself, only an advisory position to which ultimate decision making, at the highest policy and strategic level is deferred. Tactics, logistical and strategical planning at lesser levels are performed the rank and file of the military for a reason: the president has better sh*t to do.

The president is surrounded by advisors of his own, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, being his key advisors in military situations. This is a group of the highest ranking commanders in the armed forces, generals, admirals, what-have-you. Their collective experience, along with that of the Pentagon, the CIA, and other arms of the executive branch, dwarf the singular experience any one president could have by the magnitude of hundreds of thousands.

So why on earth is it considered a necessity to have military experience in this position, when the founding fathers intentionally reserved ultimate command of the military for a civilian, and when that civilian is surrounded by hordes of experienced and knowledgeable veterans? Wouldn't it be preferable to have a clear thinking individual who knows when to leave the military planning to the military, and can simply wrap his mind around the foreign policy and geopolitical issues to which the military commanders may not be aware? Wouldn't it be better not to have a lower-ranking veteran, who's military experience is behind him by some 30 or 40 years, attempting to weigh his own combat experience against those of the collective armed forces? Perhaps if said individual had fully devoted his life to the military, spent years in war college, and climbed, wrung by wrung, to the appropriate level of multi-division command. But what other avenues of life experience would this person be missing for his decision making skills? Wouldn't he have sacrificed for his military experience an in-depth knowledge of civil law, of constitutional law, of trade unions, of corporate regulation, of foreign policy, or even the history of the US and the world? Above all, its essential that a president be able to make military decisions OUTSIDE of the context of military experience, outside of military culture, taking into consideration consequences that may effect society and the world as a whole.

I'd rather a person with experience in other avenues who can listen to his advisors (and choose them well), a person of reason and intellect who had spent his time attempting to understand the civil aspects of America, the issues it faces, and not its military ones. Qualified advisors can fill him in on the rest, present the situation, the options, the permutations and from there a decision can be made. Frankly, there's been enough politicians in the past several decades trying to tell us they know more than our nation's military, doctors, scientists, climatologists, historians, emergency responders, journalists, and other free thinkers. I'd rather have some one who could just LISTEN for a change.