This Friday, Congress is either going to
a) pass a budget
or
b) inform 1.5 million well-armed and well-trained military personnel that they aren't going to be getting paid for their work, but that they have to keep working anyway.
If I were a congressman, I'd pick "a". Just sayin'.
Presumably, if they choose option "b", the congressmen will also be working without pay until a budget is passed.
This puts Mike Mullen in an intriguing position. With the concurrence of the other Joint Chiefs he could legally withdraw all combatant and logistical support forces from all active theaters of operation until such time as a budget is ratified by the Commander in Chief. Then in order to resume operations the president would be required to obtain authorization from both the House and the Senate, independently for each conflict.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that we would see a budget on the table pretty quickly after this.
@ Space Cowgirl
ReplyDeleteIs that really possible? Could the president as CiC over-ride that? Or would he have to be complicit? Very interesting, hadn't considered that possibility.
Please read your Civics 101 guys. Being President and C-in-C is one of the major (no pun intended) faults of our Federal Constitutional Republic.
ReplyDeleteGood Watch.
CAPT. RR2: One of the reasons I never 'monetized' NAUTICAL LOG was because of Ad. control. We the Voters of the Sunshine State of Florida elected Rick Scott, a non-politican, to clear up the mess left by a confused Jeb Bush followed by a Republican-Liberal who became an Independent. Now since Scott has just started his term let us give him his four years. Since you and I are drug tested, get and hold our jobs by ability why not the Florida teachers and State workers (my wife is one) also. We should ALL be held to the same standards by Private, State, and Federal employers. I feel this Ad is inappropriate for a Blog of your quality.
ReplyDeleteGood Watch
Hey Peter,
ReplyDeleteWhat ad came up? Right now it's something about an online degree program.
Yes, I'm giving serious consideration to taking Ad Sense down. It does tend to put up material I personally wouldn't have on my blog, and the total revenue it's generated is like $15 since September of last year.
I understand the dual (and sometimes conflicting) roles of the President and Commander in Chief. My question was more about the authority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. My understanding is that their role is more of an advisory nature, and that it would be up to the Secretary of Defense to stand down our troops, under the direction of the CiC.
ReplyDeleteBut Space Cowgirl's point is still valid, that the current presidential administration could use Congress's failure to create a budget as an excuse to pull our troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, South Korea and anywhere else they wanted to. Then in order to redeploy them in any of those theaters of operation there would need to be bipartisan and bicameral majorities in favor of doing so, which at the moment there simply isn't.
So Boehner is basically handing Obama an opportunity to end all three of the wars which are happening on his watch, unilaterally. I doubt that this would actually happen, but it's an interesting bargaining chip to bring to the table.
Captain Peter, with all due respect, my knowledge of Civics is quite sound, as is my understanding of the chain of command of the US military.
ReplyDeleteCaptain Robert is mostly correct.
The chain of command is from the CiC to the Secretary of Defense then to the Unified Combatant Command. However, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff functions as an intermediary and liaison between CiC/Sec Def and the UCC, as there is no individual Combatant Commander in charge of the entire UCC.
What I could or should have written was "with the concurrence of the other Joint Chiefs and the Unified Combatant Commanders". But I figured most of the readers here were military or ex-military and didn't need that clarified for them. Apparently I was mistaken.
Space Cowgirl: Thank you and as you also know I am sure 'assume' makes 'ass of u and me'; just for fun and no disrespect. It is usually safer to explain more fully, but then I used to teach an International Maritime Law course !! Regards and
ReplyDeleteGood Watch.