REAL LEADERSHIP

 

By Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry (Ret'd)
CurryforAmerica.com

Isn’t it strange that the only armed forces in the Middle-East, the Kurds and the Coptic Christians, are the ones to whom the U.S. Government is restricting the flow of ammunition, are those forces most effective in fighting against ISIS? True, the liberty and freedom they are fighting for is at best imperfect, but at least we know where they stand, what they are willing to give their lives for.

Leadership counts; it matters. The American people have been waiting for over six years for President Obama to demonstrate that he is a real leader by doing such things as developing a winning Middle-East strategy, securing our southern border, bringing racial harmony to America, and  approving the Keystone XL pipeline. He and his minions have huffed and puffed; shilly and shallied; bobbed and weaved and accomplished next to nothing. Perhaps it is time they called in Amazon.com and let one of their adults take charge.

Evaluating information is one of a real leader’s most important attributes. That is why in combat when a commander arrives at the front and there is a fierce battle in progress, he immediately goes, as we say in the military, to the sound of the guns or gets as close as he can get to them. He finds out what is going on first hand and takes appropriate action.

Yes, he appreciates all the intelligence and updated information he is given and sometimes even pauses long enough to get an in-depth briefing or two. But nothing replaces his seeing the fighting and dying first hand, with his own eyes. A real leader intuitively knows in spite of the confusion of war, what is really going on. He can feel it in his bones, smell it in the air and he knows which questions to ask and which not to ask.

For example, he knows that the first questions that needed to be asked of those controlling the fight at Benghazi, Libya, in the Mediterranean area of operations, and back in Washington in the Pentagon and White House were simply, “Who is in charge?  Who is making the decisions? When and where can I talk to him?” Once the leader gets an answer to those basic questions, all other necessary things will fall into place.

No one has to leave the war room to go find the commanding officer and brief him because he is already there, alert, fully informed, prepared and ready to personally take charge of the battle and to accept full responsibility for the outcome. That is the kind of leader the American people want and deserve.  

For example, when Secretary Sebelius finally learned that the Obamacare rollout was a disaster, she should have gone to the White House, knocked on the door of the Oval Office and shouted, “Houston, we have a problem,” and she should have kept on knocking and shouting until the President either fixed the problem or fired her. That is real leadership.

It is strange that here in the U.S. the federal government has been trying to restrict the sale of AR-15 armor piercing ammunition to American Sportsmen, using as an excuse that it might be used to defeat body armor vests worn by the police. This ignores the fact that there have been no cases of armored piercing ammo being used to kill police.

Who benefits when the sale of ammo used by American Sportsmen is restricted? Perhaps the IRS, DHS, EPA or the FBI can use the confiscated ammunition in their raids on Tea Party activists or American citizens with conservative tendencies. Some of those on the political left have even been quoted as saying that veterans returning home from the Middle-East Wars are threats and the government needs to monitor them.

If Congress had a few more real leaders, they would force the President to stand up and declare to the nation why he was restricting the sale of AR-15 ammo. None of this game playing with ammo availability really made sense until President Obama, “told a Miami crowd that he will move ahead with his executive action and vowed that his administration will become even more aggressive in the weeks and months ahead.” It would be better if the president expended his aggressive executive action energy on defeating ISIS.

Recently -- 52 senators and 238 house members -- signed and sent a letter to the President protesting the government’s restriction of AR-15 ammunition. This showed that good old fashioned leadership is not completely dead in the US Congress. Clearly the President got their message because a few days later he reluctantly cancelled his proposed ammunition restrictions.

At the same time, 47 senators signed and sent a separate letter to the Mullahs in Iran telling them that if the President doesn’t first clear the Iran nuclear weapons treaty he is negotiating with Iran with Congress, the next President could annul it.

Not mentioned, is the fact that a real leader might annul all of President Obama’s executive orders and actions issued during his eight years in office rather than try to individually debate and evaluate the merits of each one before deciding which to keep and which to cancel.