Los Angeles Times - 02.08.2019

L ATIMES.COM/OPINION FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019A

OP-ED

T

ulsi Gabbardhighlights

a problem that is not

unique to her. She has two

identities, one as a politi-

cian and member of Con-

gress and the other as a military offi-

cer and major in the Army National

Guard. As a Democratic presidential

candidate, she’s blurred and crossed

the lines distinguishing those iden-

tities.

She should either serve the coun-

try in a military uniform or as a na-

tional politician, but she shouldn’t do

both simultaneously, because it

harms our military’s all-important

nonpartisan ethic and has the poten-

tial to weaken our national defense

by normalizing what could be a dan-

gerous practice.

So either Maj. Gabbard — or Rep.

Gabbard — should stand down.

Her ambition to do double duty is

noble, impressive, yet nonetheless

wrong. And unfortunately, this is a

bipartisan affliction. Rep. Adam

Kinzinger’s (R-Ill.) service in the Air

National Guard is a prominent ex-

ample on the other side of the aisle.

Although the exact figure ebbs and

flows, by my count nearly 20 member

of Congress were soldier-lawmakers

as recently as two years ago.

In this week’s Democratic debate

in Detroit, Gabbard was true to form:

Her military service was front and

center, as it is in her campaign. Her

status as a soldier is the lead bio-

graphical bullet point on her Twitter

page and her campaign website

points out that she’s “presently a

major” in the Army National Guard.

The site features a slick video of a po-

litical speech she gave in 2014 as a

member of Congress, wearing her

military dress uniform, deriding the

“slashing of benefits” for service

members and asserting “we must

hold leaders accountable.”

Politicking in uniform clearly vio-

lates the spirit of the military officer’s

oath — something she’s done over

and over — and should concern every

American citizen and soldier.

Because by regulationand tradi-

tion, our nation’s military is thor-

oughly and deliberately nonpartisan

as it has a responsibility to prevent

politics from splintering our troops

and separating the military from so-

ciety. Military officers are, of course,

allowed to have political ideas and to

vote privately. But that’s where it

stops because the U.S. military

serves all Americans — the red, white

and blue — not one party, red orblue.

Although reservists and National

Guard troops have slightly different

rules that allow for some greater level

of political participation than full-

time troops, part-time service

doesn’t mean part-time ethics.

In choosing to run for president,

Gabbard’s combined identity as a

citizen-soldier sends her into pro-

foundly uncomfortable terrain.

As an oath-bound military officer

—with the potential to be called into

national service by the sitting com-

mander-in-chief — how can Gabbard

answer questions about impeach-

ment appropriately? Could she hon-

estly say to her constituents in

Hawaii, and other national support-

ers, that her answers aren’t condi-

tioned on her service as a military of-

ficer (which would counsel exercising

caution and avoiding calls for im-

peachment)? Or when she’s so publi-

cly sold herself as an “outspoken

critic of regime change wars” could

she really tell the soldiers she might

lead into combat that she’s truly will-

ing to salute and support the chain of

command, all the way up to the com-

mander-in-chief, and that she’ll fight

when necessary?

In military culture, leaders set ex-

amples. And Gabbard is setting an

example for everyone in military

service. Would it be acceptable for

others in uniform to similarly broad-

cast and propagate their personal

political views on social media to the

same degree as Gabbard? To follow

her lead and risk alienating others in

their platoon, company, battalion or

brigade?

Members of Congress serving in

the military undermine the chain of

command. Since they can’t set aside

such a prominent day job (designed

to provide direct oversight to the mil-

itary itself), they are almost certain

to receive special treatment. Some

majors are more major, but shouldn’t

be.

For example, Gabbard famously

met directly with an avowed adver-

sary of the U.S. government, Bashar

Assad, known as the butcher of Syria.

How many Army majors would be

permitted to do that without facing

military justice, let alone be allowed

to spell out what their foreign policy

would be separate from our govern-

ment’s?

Practicality also intervenes: Na-

tional political figures will probably

never be able to meet the 39 days per

year of unit training required for re-

servists or members of the National

Guard, a fact that should exclude

them from service. Their job should

be given to someone who can put in

the time to be ready to fight when

duty calls.

Such dual service easily becomes

dual exploitation — a national politi-

cian advantaged and protected by

military camouflage, as well as a mili-

tary officer advanced and privileged

by political clothing.

People are far less likely to tell a

soldier-politician like Gabbard, or

other simultaneously serving mem-

bers of Congress, what to do. That’s

understandable, given the public

servants’ instinctual nobility — we

need more citizens like them who

want to serve in politics or in uniform.

But one identity should stand

down.

Military service is a privilege,

sometimes a painful one. It entails

the suppression of certain individual

interests for the nation’s greater ben-

efit. Whether members of Congress

should simultaneously serve as re-

serve or National Guard officers is a

question that should be officially ad-

dressed. At a minimum, those who

formally seek the office of command-

er-in-chief should follow the example

of Gen. George Washington — and

leave military service behind before

ascending to political office.

In Detroit, Gabbard promised to

bring the “soldier’s values of service

above self to the White House.”

That’s fine, as long as she leaves the

uniform behind well before walking

in the front door.

Army Lt. Col. ML Cavanaugh

is a part-time professor teaching

military strategy at Arizona State

University and co-editor, with

Max Brooks and others, of “Winning

Westeros: How Game of Thrones

Explains Modern Military Conflict.”

The views expressed here are his

own.

Be a politician or a

soldier — not both

By ML Cavanaugh

PRESIDENTIALcandidate

Tulsi Gabbard is a member of

the military and Congress.

Chip SomodevillaGetty Images

A

fter watching twonights of Demo-
cratic debates, all I can say is this: Man,
it’s a tough time to be Barack Obama.
Democratic presidential candidates
lined up to savage his record with more
ferocity than former prosecutor Kamala Harris
used to muster for a morning drug arrest docket.
These are Democrats, people! And they can’t
hammer Obama enough on healthcare, trade and
immigration. Dude probably has an approval rating
of 95% to 98% among the Democrats they’re trying
to woo, and yet the candidates are taking batting
practice on him.
Healthcare is the most glaring divide among the
Democrats — and a primary source of the attacks
on Obama.
“Nobody can defend the dysfunctionality of the
current system!” Bernie Sanders thundered on
Night 1. That system, if you are keeping score at
home, is Obamacare! The socialist senator from
Vermont has moved most of the field his way, which
means, in essence, they are advocating repeal-and-
replace of Obama’s signature law. Sound familiar?
President Trump’s primary argument for reelec-
tion is that he is presiding over an era of peace and
prosperity, and no Democrat on either night punc-
tured that argument. While debating skills won’t de-
termine if a Democrat can beat Trump (Hillary
bested him, according to polling), I’ve yet to see any-
one who worries me more than the others. The best
debater they have is clearly Elizabeth Warren, but
her dark vision of America will seem foreign to vot-
ers living in a country with low unemployment and
rising wages.
Trump, like most incumbent presidents, is more
likely than not to be reelected. He has all the tools
and power of incumbency going for him, and oppo-
nents who are more beholden to woke Twitter activ-
ists than to average folks in the Midwestern
countryside. There’s a lot of runway between now
and next November, of course, and Trump has a
penchant for stepping in his own you-know-what.
But he’s the favorite, and the debates haven’t
changed that.
Joe Biden effectively defended Obamacare in his
exchanges with Harris and Bill de Blasio on Night 2,
rattling his young tormentor from the first debate.
But Biden has yet to face the real dragon: Warren, a
far better advocate for socialist medicine than the
flip-flopping Harris. On immigration, Biden came
under withering fire for the Obama administra-
tion’s record on deporting illegal immigrants from
De Blasio, who has garnered bipartisan consensus
as the most annoying candidate in the race. Biden
sidestepped the attack for the most part but did tell
CNN moderator Don Lemon that Obama’s depor-
tation rates would “absolutely not” be replicated by
his administration if he won in 2020.
Fun fact: Obama deported more than 3 million il-

legal immigrants, versus about 2 million for George

W. Bush and less than 1 million for Bill Clinton. Even

the Trump Administration isn’t deporting people

as fast as Obama did!

Biden tossed Obama under the bus again on

trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying he

would not reenter the agreement without renegoti-

ating it — sounding a bit like Trump, who withdrew

from the TPP days after taking office. Biden had

been a top surrogate for passing the TPP in Oba-

ma’s second term, calling it “a game changer...com-

prehensive, high-standard trade agreement.”

But that was then.

Just a few weeks ago, Biden’s message was essen-

tially that if we just reset everything to where it was

during the Obama years, America would be back on

track. But even Biden now seems to think the last

Democratic administration made tremendous mis-

takes. I can’t help but wonder when Democrats will

learn to treat Obama the way Republicans treat

Ronald Reagan.

Tactically, the debates clarified that there was

one serious group of candidates and that everyone

else was pretty well done. Biden rebounded. Cory

Booker had a decent night, too.

On the first night, Warren and Sanders satisfied

their supporters. Although Montana Gov. Steve

Bullock and Marianne Williamson had good mo-

ments, too, their time is probably limited. This thing

has boiled down to Biden, Warren and Sanders in

the top tier, and Harris, Booker and Pete Buttigieg

in a second tier. Biden will continue to lead as long as

Warren and Sanders fragment the progressive left.

Everyone else is at best white noise. At worst, the

rest of the field could destructively drag Democrats

left on immigration and abortion. Castro has con-

tinued his crusade to decriminalize illegal border

crossings and offer free healthcare for illegal immi-

grants louder than anyone. While Biden countered

him on the former, Biden never addressed the latter

after raising his hand in support of this politically

disastrous idea in the first debate.

Harris is now particularly vulnerable, as she was

rattled by Biden on healthcare and flat out waylaid

by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii for jailing so many

Californians. Booker may advance if Harris falls out

of favor of the national political media, although his

incessant whining about Democrats debating each

other at a debate was weird.

A final word about a swing state — Pennsylvania.

The attack on coal by several Democrats, including

Joe Biden, could have a significant impact on his

party’s ability to win back the Keystone State. For

people who live in coal-producing areas, this is more

than a climate issue. It is a cultural touchstone that

badly hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016 and will haunt

Democrats again in 2020.

Scott Jenningsis a Republican advisor, former

special assistant to President George W. Bush and

a CNN political commentator.

DEMOCRATSparticipating in this week’s debates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), took aim at policies put in place by President Obama.

Paul SancyaAssociated Press

Who won the Democratic

debates? Donald Trump

By Scott Jennings

T

OKYO — Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe’s great affection for
Takashi Yamazaki’s
“The Eternal Zero,” a
2014 box-office hit about a kamika-
ze pilot, is well known. The movie
engendered endless debate about
whether it was a creepy, weepy apo-
logia for the war, a question raised
about many of Japan’s recent war
films.
On the one hand, the film’s pilot
hero hopes for peace, hating the
war and the cruel military officers
sending his buddies to early
graves. On the other, his spectacu-
lar skill in dogfights against Ameri-
cans defines the film’s extensive ac-
tion sequences. Ultimately, his self-
sacrifice earns him, generations
later, the respect his grandchildren
belatedly feel for him. This kind of
sentimental nostalgia the public
embraces; less so the bitter histori-
cal revisionism Abe’s allies have
sometimes championed.
Abe has made no secret of his
frustration with the U.S. imposition
of a pacifist constitution and a vic-
tor’s judgment of war guilt on Japan.
Partly for this reason, observers in

Washington and Europe have noted

in recent days what they take to be

his surprising pragmatism, eschew-

ing for now a wholesale push for con-

stitutional revision in favor of econo-

mic reform and the construction of

multilateral diplomatic ties.

Indeed, it seems that he made

the political calculation that diplo-

matic pragmatism would be most

beneficial to his effort to maintain

control over Japan’s upper house in

parliament in the July elections. He

also explicitly, and even surprisingly,

campaigned on his close personal

relationship with President Trump.

The Japanese media’s view of

Trump — less a moral catastrophe

than a glaringly ill-informed, capri-

cious loudmouth who is friendly

when flattered — doesn’t make

Abe’s friendship with Trump par-

ticularly controversial. It makes

Trump, for many in Japan, a pretty

good avatar for America itself.

Of course, Abe has achieved lit-

tle of note with Trump, who with-

drew from the Trans-Pacific Part-

nership in his immediate efforts to

dismantle anything bearing Presi-

dent Obama’s fingerprints. But

Abe has, through golf trips and the

exchange of MAGA-inspired caps,

seemingly prevented the worst: a

1980s-style trade war or the with-

drawal of American troops from

Japan in a nuclear deal with Kim

Jong Un.

Critics in Japan have long la-

mented Abe’s efforts to intimidate

the timorous Japanese news me-

dia, his dubiously constitutional

methods in ramming through se-

curity and surveillance legislation,

and his economic policies, which

balance the nation’s financial

books on the backs of its poorest

citizens. Indeed, although Abe’s

Liberal Democratic Party and its

coalition partner together re-

tained control of the upper house,

the LDP lost seats, likely because

of Abe’s commitment to an unpop-

ular sales tax hike later this year.

Abe no longer commands the

two-thirds supermajority required

to pass a constitutional revision

proposal to expand Japan’s mili-

tary capabilities without painstak-

ing negotiations with opposition

lawmakers. But at the same time,

there is no move afoot within the

party to unseat Abe because the

party’s steady parliamentary ma-

jority has denied his many LDP ri-

vals the opportunity to argue that

they would do better.

In this, Abe has been something

of an escape artist, surviving scan-

dals — like the 2017 revelation that

national land had been sold for a

pittance to an Abe ally, a right-wing

school operator — that might have

felled others. And he will almost

certainly keep his office through

next summer’s Tokyo Olympics,

an achievement he considers a per-

sonal legacy.

For all the concerns that Abe is

spearheading a right-wing turn in

Japan, the nationalistic mood that

buoys him seems largely rooted in

nostalgia not for the wartime past,

but for the future that Japan had

expected until the financial bubble

burst in the early 1990s, leading to

decades of slow growth instead of

unquestioned global economic

leadership.

Japan’s “miracle economy”

from the late 1950s through the

1980s is now remembered not just

for the national wealth it produced,

but for the national unity on which

it ostensibly rested and for the fu-

ture it had promised.

When the organizing committee

of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics se-

lected Yamazaki to direct the open-

ing ceremony, it was very likely be-

cause of the enduring popularity of

his “Always: Sunset on Third

Street” trilogy, not “The Eternal

Zero.” The trilogy, based on a suc-

cessful manga series, traces the

sweetly comic interactions of post-

World War II Tokyo residents, each

film portraying the virtues of family

love, generosity and kindness, set

against the backdrop of a nation-

ally unifying moment, like the 1964

Tokyo Olympics.

This too is nationalism. The

story Yamazaki is likely to tell at

the Olympics is one of postwar col-

lective effort and the sacrifice and

dedication that produced Japan’s

technology, its wealth, its scientific

creations. And it will be this Japan

—the peaceful one that ought to be

trusted with a larger role in secur-

ing the world — that Abe will want

people to see.

He will probably be reluctant to

eclipse that story with a fully revi-

sionist agenda in the lead-up to the

Olympic Games. But it’s likely he’s

hoping younger Japanese will re-

think Japan’s past and reconsider

the question of what authority and

power their nation should have on

the global stage.

David Lehenyis a professor in the

Graduate School of Asia-Pacific

Studies at Waseda University.

Shinzo Abe’s appeal to nostalgia and nationalism

By David Leheny