Have you been in a war or in military service?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Sounds as if I can be gulled. but":

Actually, as the Downing Street memos make clear, the Bush administration had decided on war with Iraq and was determined to concoct or exaggerate 'evidence' to justify it -- whatever was necessary.

Ben's response:

The Commander-in-Chief (CIC) has a duty to listen to a variety of views. Bush did, including Colin Powell's.

He then has a duty to make a clear decision.

He does not have a duty, in fact it would be a dereliction of duty to say "I think, but I am not sure, that we should proceed. Here's the conflicting evidence. Some of our finest young man and women may get killed in a war that may prove to be the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place. It's a 51-49 proposiition. Beware of the fog of war. I'm nervous about it, aren't you?

Columnist and bloggers may think thusly. But if a CIC does, he guarantees defeat.

Think Churchill. Did he really think that (roughly) 'If this island kingdom shall last for a thoudand years this will be known as their finest hour." Think Shakespeare' St Crispin's Day speech. Think Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me Death." Think of a nation sales meeting of a firm selling encyclopedias, Tupperware, or computers. And so on.

Get real, Sir or Madam, as the case may be.

The course of action was not a brand new idea. Paul Wolfowitz, for one, had been writing about it publicly since the late 1980s. A variety of NSSMs point that way. The Congress voted to go ahead. They have continued to fund it. Every America in Iraq volunteered for military duty.

President Bush has explained the rationale again and again, magnificently in his 2004 Innaugural.

Ben