Lafayette S. Foster Quotes
War is best left to the Generals. I believe in letting the military authorities manage the army. If they manage it badly, we shall make a bad matter worse by tampering and interfering.
He lost the vote on this issue, and the Congress created the first committee to investigate and oversee military affairs.
Lafayette S. Foster, 1806-1880, U. S. Senator (Republican, CT), Acting Vice President of the United States (After Lincoln’s Death), Senate Debate on having a Congressional Committee investigate the military in the Civil War, 1861
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He won the debate and the Congress created the first committee to investigate and oversee military affairs.
1st Baron Verulam. While most agree with the importance of this principle, it is easy to say and very hard to do. Appointing or electing leaders for wartime situations has always been difficult as it involves predicting how people will behave in the future. In WWII for example, many American and German Generals were fired. Adolf Hitler was the classic example of a very popular politician and demagogue who did not have a steady hand but whose maniacal lurches actually weakened the German military effort despite the morale contribution his popularity made.
Although the two men differed on a very important issue, each admired the other and acquitted themselves politely throughout. Congress explicitly gave the President the powers that he had exercised and won the dispute. But Dixon had also won, and upheld the law as it existed until it was changed.
3 years later he led America on a huge invasion and nation building project in Iraq. It turned out that had he listened to his own advice and not flip-flopped, the huge cost of the Iraq War might have been avoided.
This issue of who has the wisdom and competency to determine policy in matters of war has been a constant one in most societies. Even in the Iraq war of the early 21st century, the Congress and the President argued as to what competence the Congress had to determine policy, strategy and tactics.
Ikle wrote this over a decade before both the military and civilian leaders fell into this trap in the 1994 Iraq War.
The Vietnam War was certainly not a victory for the U. S. Some saw it as our first defeat. While it was not ended on Johnson’s watch, he must certainly share that responsibility with Nixon and even JFK as these three all were responsible for our Vietnam failure. Johnson, ended up with what he feared most.
There is frequently a disagreement between the military and civilian leaders just as there are disagreements among most political personnel. Hawks, and people who have had experience in the military tend to think that military advice on military matters should be determinative with the President and Congress. Others tend to believe that military advice should be considered, but if it were always adhered to, there would be no point in having civilian control over the military. See {639667} for an example of when military leadership advice prevailed and it was a mistake.
Greek invaders were marching on Istanbul
Written when he was forced to share command with General Francois Kellerman.
During the Iraq War, the Congressman partially changed his mind the following year and called for a plan to move American troops to the periphery of the fighting. A highly decorated war hero with two Purple Hearts, he was then called a coward, by some Republican members of Congress and the Bush Administration—almost always by people who had never served in the military and often sought and obtained deferments.
Lafayette Sabine Foster was a nineteenth-century American politician and lawyer from Connecticut. He served in the United States Senate from 1855 to 1867 and was a judge on the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1870 to 1876.
