Grigoris wrote:Malcolm wrote:Direct democracy simple does not work at a national level, and shouldn't. For example, I would not want people voting directly issues of national security about which they necessarily have little or no information.
Whereas the educated and informed dudes in the Pentagon make all the right decisions when it comes to national interests. They are not driven by financial and political bodies???
As the armed forces are under the control of the civilian government, they are supposed to be driven by our political body, the Congress. Only the Congress has the right to declare war. The executive branch has limited abilities to use the military in the case of attacks by other countries, but does not have the right to declare war [hence most of the so called "war on terror" is based on the latter idea].
The people in the Pentagon as well as the Intelligence Services are generally quite highly educated. For example, the Pentagon has accepted human-driven climate change for decades, irrespective of the deluded opinions of the flat-earthers presently in the White House and the GOP in general. So yes, in matters of military goals and strategies, I generally think when it comes to defense of the US, they do a pretty good job. When there are screwups like the Iraq Invasion, it is not on the military, it is on the civilian government. In my opinion, in a direct democracy campaign US citizens would have overwhelmingly made the choice to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan. So, again, in my opinion, the Congress acted out the will of the people in those two wars, as foolish as they were.