I've been reading a fascinating book, David Hebditch and Ken Connor's How To Stage A Military Coup.* One of the footnotes led me to an article by (then) LTC Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012. (Interestingly, you can't get this article directly from the nice folks at carlsile.army.mil any more; indeed most of their online library is Off Limits these days. Can't say as I blame 'em -- but that bird has done flown). (See also the Wikipedia article on Major General Dunlap -- and note it appears the man can shoot, too).
Written in 1992, it is eerily familiar in spots. Are we there yet? No, not quite, but it does not seem as outlandish or unlikely as one might hope, either.
Food for thought. Darn it, I hate checkpoints.
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* No, it is not one of the "...For Dummies" books, though I must point out that a putsch does not appear to be an undertaking well-suited to amateurs; if you don't have a uniform with nice, shiny badges of rank and maybe a skosh of War College-type schooling, you'd be better off staging a plain ol' revolution -- or, better yet, neither one.
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Recent works of Maj. Gen Dunlap:
Putting Troops On The Beat
We Still Need The Big Guns
Forget The Lessons Of Iraq
...I am amused to find him getting positive mention in both Democratic Underground and Free Republic, both of whom think "he's on their side." They might even be right, if you figure his job is making sure they have a safe place in which to argue....
Fascinating as fiction, but considering the politicization of the senior officer class totally unlikely. The likes of Wesley Clark, Tony McPeake, James Jones, and Colin Powell demonstrate that they are well-versed in duplicity and back-scratching. Warriors with the cojones of "Brutus" don't exist in my view. The warriors are more in the Patton mold than MacArthur. Think Schwartzkopf, Frank, Petraeus, and (maybe) McChrystal.
ReplyDeleteYet, when I look at the incestous activity of the support of Rangel, or the double-talk of Baucus, and especially at the sleaze of the executive branch, I conclude that a military coup couldn't leave us much worse off. Bolivar, Peron, Franco, some weren't too bad.