PsyOps, Afghanistan, and Al Franken
With all the controversy stirred by Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone article about the role of Army psychological operations units in hosting congressmembers (i.e. trying to manipulate them) I noticed Sen. Al Franken among the "targets." This prompts me to recount relate an episode from the 2008 senate race.
During the campaign, the constant refrain on Iraq from then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman was that he took his cues from the commanders on the ground. In June 2008, Al decided to call Coleman out for getting backwards the vital question of who's actually in charge. In a conference call covered by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's politics blog, Franken pointed out that
in our country ... the generals on the ground execute policy to the best of their considerable ability.
The ultimate deciders for questions of the nation's wars are, of course, the people's elected leaders. Civics book stuff, basically. I'm sure Al is hardly alone in grasping the difference between, on the one hand, respect for the military advice of service members and appreciation for their dedication, and on the other, the sober responsibility for deciding what missions they will be given. This just seemed like a good moment to revisit the underlying principles of policy making.