Slashdot Mirror
Who Should Manage the Nuclear Weapons Complex, Civilians Or Military?
Lasrick writes "For the first time since 1946, Congress is seriously debating whether the U.S. nuclear weapons complex should be under civilian or military control. That the article is in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is significant, as it was many of the scientists who founded BAS who argued for civilian control in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They believed that atomic energy was too destructive, and the military too secretive, which would possibly thwart scientific discovery and erect a major obstacle to international control and cooperation. The article talks about how management has changed over the decades and explains the discussion that needs to happen before Congress acts."
Whoa, easy, this isn't about government vs. commercial (private), this is about Civilian (government) vs. Military (government, specifically the DOD). So, the mention of a corporation isn't correct.
Corporate executives can be tried under criminal law, just as generals can be court-martialed. The problem is, neither of them will be. Our legal system is completely incapable of extracting justice from the powerful. No general has been prosecuted for torture after the Bush administration, and no executive has been prosecuted for fraud following the 2008 financial crisis. There is no justice or rule of law left in the US. Who you are and who you know matters a lot more than what you did.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Major Jack D Ripper : Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
Captain Lionel Mandrake : No, I don't think I do, sir, no.
Major Jack D Ripper : He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.
The problem is how you define "advisory". Some of the worst acts from our government, both from civilians and military, can be traced back to a private contractor who "advised" a government official to do one thing or another. Sometimes it was "advice" that was just biased to serve the interest of the contractor and the official just wasn't smart enough to pick up on it. Other times free dinners, Christmas presents, "business entertainment", and an implied offer of future employment accompanied the so-called "advice". And more common than we would like to see officials have been simply flat-out bribed to knowingly serve the interests of private corporations and individuals at the expense of taxpayers and risk to citizens.
MP's are specifically trained not to exempt officers from the rules, I heard many stories of officers spending a few hours in the brig waiting for their commanding officer to come get them out for trying to intimidate enlisted MP's. Those kinds of incidents are what stops or severely slows down the career path of many officers that thought they were above the rules.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make