Robert E. Lee<\/p>\n
Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal has a new book, called Leaders, Myth and Reality.\u00a0 <\/em>He also had some things to say about the President\u2019s plan to send 5000 plus regular US Army troops to the Southern Border. In an interview with NBC\u2019s Andrea Mitchell, the General spoke about what the troops could do, mainly support operations like erecting tents and building barricades, and what they couldn\u2019t do; act as the \u201cBorder Patrol.\u201d\u00a0 He made a significant point:\u00a0 while all of the things the Army could do at the border some other force, the National Guard or even civilian contractors could do as well; sending \u201cTROOPS TO THE BORDER\u201d was the point.\u00a0 McChrystal did not come out against the President, but he made it clear that the President\u2019s actions were much more symbolic than necessary.<\/p>\n It fits the \u201ccaravan invasion\u201d scenario that Mr. Trump has been touting on the campaign trail, just as his threat to repeal birthright citizenship is a political ploy.\u00a0 The 14th<\/sup>Amendment to the Constitution in \u201cblack letter law\u201d states: \u00a0All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.<\/em><\/p>\n While it\u2019s clear that a few of the President\u2019s advisor would like to quibble about \u201csubject to the jurisdiction,\u201d <\/em>claiming that illegal immigrants who have children here are in fact not subject to jurisdiction and therefore their offspring do not have the right to citizenship; the Courts immediately claim jurisdiction when those same immigrants cross the border, are found \u201cguilty\u201d and sent to jail.<\/p>\n And of course, if you really want to quibble with wording, than let\u2019s look at the Second Amendment, with the hanging opening clause: \u00a0A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.<\/em><\/p>\n If jurisdiction applies to citizenship, then well-regulated militia must apply to bearing arms.\u00a0 The Court decisions for over one hundred years argue that neither is true.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all about optics and politics.\u00a0 It is unlikely that the President would try to change the Constitution through Executive order, nor is it likely that he will even bother to pick the fight after November 6th<\/sup>(though with Trump it\u2019s hard to tell.)\u00a0Even Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would have a tough time agreeing with him on that.<\/p>\n But it was something that McChrystal said later in the interview that caught my ear.\u00a0 The General said that for decades he had a portrait of Robert E. Lee in his office, given to him by his wife.\u00a0 He saw Lee as the kind of leader that America can produce, and the kind that McChrystal wanted to emulate.<\/p>\n Four Star General McChrystal had a storied career, completing Special Forces training and ultimately commanding US Special Operations, but was removed from his last command as Chief of Forces in Afghanistan.\u00a0 He said \u201ctoo much\u201d to the press, ridiculing his civilian commanders including Vice President Joe Biden, and President Obama asked for his resignation.\u00a0 It was a sad way for a great General to leave service, but just as necessary as General MacArthur being removed by President Truman during the Korean War.\u00a0 The foundation of the American military is civilian control, both MacArthur and McChrystal were reminded of that the hard way.<\/p>\n So McChrystal, a General who made a serious mistake, was an admirer of Robert E. Lee, the storied leader of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.\u00a0But McChrystal said that he re-evaluated him, after the Charlottesville incident last year, where right-wing Nationalists rioted over the removal of a statue of Lee.<\/p>\n At the beginning of the Civil War, Lee, a career officer in the United States Army and top of his generation, chose to turn down US command and offer his services to the Confederacy.\u00a0 \u00a0Our history books have always taught this as \u201chonorable,\u201d choosing to serve Virginia rather than the nation.\u00a0 But evaluating this decision today, Lee\u2019s actions prolonged the war (by his generalship) and cost hundreds of thousands of lives.\u00a0 McChrystal saw Lee as committing a tragic mistake, and after Charlottesville took the picture down.<\/p>\n I am a Civil War \u201cbuff;\u201d trooping battlefields to imagine the struggle and sacrifice.\u00a0 And I too saw Lee\u2019s actions in a \u201cneutral\u201d way; making a difficult life choice in a time when all were forced to chose.\u00a0 But, after listening in General McChrystal, I see a different analysis.\u00a0Lee, a tremendous strategist and tactician, got the great question of his time wrong.\u00a0 He chose the past, the \u201cSouthern cause;\u201d rather than the future that even his own father\u2019s peers saw for America.\u00a0 Lee was the next generation from the founding fathers, his father, \u201cLight Horse Harry\u201d Lee was a Revolutionary hero and friend of George Washington.<\/p>\n Those men saw the future of the United States, and while they did not (or could not) end slavery, they compromised to get a nation based on \u201call men created equal.\u201d\u00a0 Robert E. Lee, did not see this future; instead he saw a past that he tried to defend.\u00a0He failed, both in his decision, and his effort to maintain the slave South.<\/p>\n While we can look with sadness and admiration at the great sacrifices the Confederates made in Lee\u2019s honor, we must also see that the greater tragedy was the decision Lee made in the first place.\u00a0 \u00a0Like the career of General McChrystal, Lee earned the right to be respected, but must ultimately be judged on failure:\u00a0 not his failure to win at Gettysburg or the rest, but his failure to see America\u2019s future.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have any portraits of Lee hanging in my office, but I have taken one down in my mind.<\/p>\n This is the same standard we should hold our own leaders to today.\u00a0 We should stop thinking of \u00a0\u201cmoral neutrality\u201d in our choices, for the past or future.\u00a0 Whatever you think of President Trump, \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d is a march to the past.\u00a0 That is how he should be judged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"