Cheney was one of them. It is bi-partisan.
They get promoted and form a kind of permanent shadow government within what is supposed to be our democratically elected, representative government.
They understand the military technology. They are versed in military strategy and military history. They know the personalities of leaders around the world including our own elected leadership, their idiosyncrasies, their virtues, their vices, their friends and their enemies and they spend a lot of time figuring out how to play those personalities like harps, weaving them into a pattern that suits the goals of the military-industrial complex.
Since the end of WWII, they have moved to "privatize" the methods, mechanisms and movements of our military and intelligence operations, detaching them from the checks and balances of Congressional control.
Do I exaggerate how much control they have? Probably not. These are some of the most brilliant people in our nation -- and some of the least intelligent. But the brilliant among them have enabled a sort of silent, peaceful coup at the very top of our government. No president dares to stand up to this group.
The Constitution was written with the intention of limiting the authority of Congress to authorize a standing army. Budgets are to be reenacted every two years. Congress is to determine the details of the management of our military. In addition to control over the military budget, a number of provisions grant to Congress the authority to determine how our military works. Check out Section 8 of Article I in the US Constitution here.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8
The president, under our Constitution, is the commander in chief, but he is supposed to go to Congress to get authorization to go to war. The authorization for this never-ending war on terrorism did away with any limitation on the president's power to declare a war. All he has to do is determine through some secret process that someone is a terrorist, and he has the right go to war against that person.
Members of Congress are so distracted by their need to raise campaign funds and so busy with the partisan theatrics that enable them to excite voters to give them that money that they don't pay any attention to protecting our freedom and democratic institutions.
And now with the NDAA and the end of habeas corpus, the president and his buddies in the military, national security apparatus and intelligence corps, can deprive us of even the right to notice and to be heard when accused of crimes. Whoever the president is pretty much has dictatorial power no matter how benevolently he uses it.
Of course, the Tea Party is full of fools who have no clue as to what is really going on. They want freedom, but they idolize the worst enemies and hate the friends of the very freedom they want.
Remember, our country grew out of a rebellion against the imperialism of Britain which used corporations, primarily the East India Company, to found and supply the early Americans and then tried to impose a monopoly on our tea trade to insure that Americans paid taxes to the British Empire.
America is the child of imperialism. And we now have a corporate-military-industrial complex that is imperialist itself.
The American military doesn't need democracy. It doesn't govern itself democratically. And it is in charge, partly by plan, partly by default.
In my opinion, neither we nor President Obama can do anything to stop this or change this fact. Congress could, but it probably won't. We just have to live with it. I don't honestly see much hope.
We don't even know the names of the people who confer with President Obama to decide who is struck in a drone strike. That would not be a problem if he were really acting as commander in chief of an army fighting against another army. But he and his friends are making decisions about the deaths of specific individuals, and keeping secret the precise criteria they use to determine who lives or dies. It is as far as we are allowed to know, completely arbitrary. If it weren't arbitrary, then we would probably already know the criteria.
The problem is not President Obama, although what he is doing is wrong. The problem is that this is all done in secret. That permits the cabal to prevent public opinion from braking their out-of-control control of our government. We can be grateful that at least the recent memo came to light. But as has been pointed out, President Obama is more aggressively punishing whistleblowers than prior presidents did. So we are likely to be even less well informed about what is really going on in our military-industrial government in the future than we are now.
We need to urge our members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to limit the secrecy of the executive branch of the government. We need to urge Congress to pass laws that protect whistleblowers. And we also need to urge our news media to insist on their right to report independently and ALL the news that is fit to print as well as some that isn't.
Maybe then we could establish a society that would better represent the values that we teach our children: fairness, honesty, love and kindness.
I wonder how the President would feel if his children were as dishonest in their dealings as our government is with us, the American people. What if his children were keeping shameful conduct secret from him? What if they lied to him? What if they returned his love and kindness to them with sneakiness and secrecy?
Let's put this on a very personal level about ordinary values.
Sorry for the long, angry rant, but I just had to say this. I have been thinking about this coup by cabal for a long time. It started shortly after WWI, so President Obama is not to blame. And President Obama cannot, alone, change it. But we need to ask our members of Congress to investigate these abuses of power.
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