John L. Perry, a right-wing columnist, knows things most of us don’t:
There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.
I wouldn’t dream of it. My face is entirely straight.
Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.
Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem.
Um, let me see… Elections? Congress? The free press? There, that’s three already.
Anyway, Mr. Perry’s prediction is not only plain ludicrous: it happens to be militarily unrealistic. Harper’s magazine ran an excellent piece back in 2006 in which four military thinkers (Andrew Bacevich, Charles Dunlap, Richard Kohn and Edward Luttwak) looked at the odds against a U.S. coup:
EDWARD LUTTWAK: If somebody asked me to plan such a coup, I wouldn’t take on the assignment.
CHARLES DUNLAP: I wouldn’t either. [Laughs]
LUTTWAK: I’ve done it for other countries. But it just wouldn’t work here. You could go down the list and take over these headquarters, that headquarters, the White House, the Defense Department, the television, the radio, and so on. You could arrest all the leaders, detain or kill off their families. And you would have accomplished nothing.
ANDREW BACEVICH: That’s right. What are you going to seize that, having seized it, gives you control of the country?
LUTTWAK: You would sit in the office of the Secretary of Defense, and the first place where you wouldn’t be obeyed would be inside your office. If they did follow orders inside the office, then people in the rest of the Pentagon wouldn’t. If everybody in the Pentagon followed orders, people out in the military bases wouldn’t. If they did, as well, American citizens would still not accept your legitimacy.
RICHARD KOHN: It’s a problem of public opinion. All of the organs of opinion in this country would rise up with one voice: the courts, the media, business leaders, education leaders, the clergy.
LUTTWAK: You could shut down the media—
KOHN: You can’t shut it down. It’s too dispersed.
LUTTWAK: No, you could shut down the media, but even if you did shut down the media, you still wouldn’t be able to rule. Because, remember, in order to actually rule, you have to have acceptance. Think of Saddam Hussein: he was not a very, you know, popular leader, but he did have to be obeyed at the very minimum by his security forces, his Republican Guards. So there is a minimum group that one needs in order to control any country. But in this country, you could never control such a minimum group.
KOHN: I’ve raised this point before with military audiences: Do you really think you can control New York City without the cooperation of 40,000 New York police officers? And what about Idaho, with all those militia groups? Do you think you can control Idaho? I’m not even going to talk about Texas.
Although Texas might be pro-coup these days…
