Letters from Boston: America in Syria

It was the best advice I ever received as a newly elected Mayor. It was only nine words. Just nine.

The year was 1999. I had just been elected one of the youngest Mayors in the history of Baltimore and the advice came from a neighboring big city Mayor who had just been “demoted” to the rank of Governor.

His name was Ed Rendell, former Mayor of Philadelphia. He went on to become Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and then Chair of the Democratic National Committee. He remains my friend to this day.

At a meeting of Governors, I once heard him say, “If — on some dark night — someone busted into my bedroom, jumped on my chest, stuck a flashlight in my face, and shouted, ‘Who are you!?,’ I would answer: ‘I’m Ed Rendell, Mayor of Philadelphia…’.”

Once a Mayor, always a Mayor.

His advice was this:

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find.”

Nine words. Surround yourself with the best people you can find. It’s worth repeating and remembering — as I did every day of my next fifteen years of elected executive service: surround yourself with the best people you can find.

There was a second half to that advice, and I will come back to it.

But first, the lobbing of Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria. The Trump Administration made this tough call after Assad used poison gas — again — on his own people. The same American President who is rounding up moms, dads, and children into for-profit immigrant internment camps and the same President who wants to turn away Syrian families and Muslim refugees, was reportedly moved to action in his pity and compassion by pictures of the “beautiful babies” gassed by the ally of of his Russian friends. So moved, that he told the Russians he had to lob Tomahawk missiles at their offensive airfield and the Russians should understand and get out of the way.

Apparently, they did. And Assad resumed flights the next day. Hopefully not with warplanes armed with nerve gas, but with warplanes armed with more “civilized” weapons like barrel bombs that cause greater (but more socially “acceptable”) kinds of civilian casualties.

The U.S. airstrike was said to be, “a measured response.”

Hillary Clinton, in an interview the morning before the American attack, called for just such — eerily “just such” — a measured response. But measured is as measured does and nothing about the first 100 days of the Trump Administration can be called “measured” in the traditional use of that word.

“Would you have launched these attacks if you were President?”, I was asked when in Charleston campaigning for the South Carolina Democratic Party this weekend.

“It depends,” I said, “on whether that would have been the best advice of the National Security professionals I gathered around me.”

“You are dancing,” the reporter remarked.

No I am not. I am speaking as someone who knows how to govern — as someone who has learned how to keep people safe. As someone who knows how to manage a crisis.

Looking at the picture of the Trump Situation Room at the moment of our attacks on Syria, it is hard to accept the notion that Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with the best people he can find. Unlike the Situation Room photo when our courageous Special Operations Forces took out Bin Laden, the only uniform in the new Celebrity Apprentice Situation Room was the low-ranking Air Force guy guarding the door.

Assembled around our Commander-in-Chief is a rogue’s gallery of vulture capitalists, political hacks, and blog-famed white supremacists.

Any intelligent American citizen has to ask:

“Why has someone of John Brennan’s caliber been replaced by Steve Bannon? And what, pray tell, does Bannon have to contribute by way of knowledge, experience, or expertise to the high stakes mission at hand?”

• The former Chair of the Republican National Committee is there.
• Stephen Miller is there as well — a kid whose ignorance of national security matters is surpassed only by his ignorance of the U.S. Constitution.
• The Commerce Secretary and the Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs are inexplicably there as well — presumably because there might be a way to commoditize all of this in a way that’s profitable for Goldman’s newest financial instruments or U.S. exports.
• The dutiful and loyal son-in-law is there too. (I love my own son-in-law, but his many skills are not the ones needed in the White House Situation Room during a cruise missile strike.)
• Even poor H.R. McMaster is in a suit rather than a uniform, God bless him. He has his back to the camera — like a guy ashamed to be in the frame with this motley crew. Let’s hope the next time we attack another Muslim country in the Middle East, he’s able to strengthen his hand and get another four star general in the Sit Room.

Think about this scene. We are lobbing Tomahawk missiles into another country in the Middle East — where the Russian Army is on the ground and in the air — and the Sit Room looks like a clown car from the recently disbanded Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. Contrast this picture to the Obama Situation Room — if you have the fortitude and stomach for it.

There is a power to the American Presidency that is greater than our economic or military power. It is a power that comes from us: the power of our principles. When we act in alignment, in faithfulness, and in accordance with those principles, the world rallies to our side. The world even gives us the benefit of the doubt. When we act — at home or abroad — in violation of those principles, the world rightly doubts our intentions.

How can the world trust a non-majority President who won by a minority electoral vote on the discipline of his scapegoating appeals? How can the world trust a President who illegally bans travel by Muslims and rounds up immigrant families into for-profit prison camps without a scrap of due process?

More importantly, how can We, the People, of the United States of America trust such a President?

An even more important question, why is Congress in recess when our Representatives should be debating, discussing, and providing oversight of our most recent attack on yet another country in the Middle East?

Was the strike a measured response to an atrocity, or a case of “Wag the Dog”? Did our country do this out of a responsibility to protect innocent people or did we do this to change the cable channel from a disastrous first 100 days?

The White House Situation Room has become a clown car. The clowns are lobbing missiles, and our Congress has gone missing. Why? American minds, and hearts want to know. The moms and dads of our soldiers, sailors, and marines deserve an answer.

The other half of Governor Rendell’s advice:

“Make every decision as if you are not running for re-election — not only will your batting average of making the right decision go up, but people will come to understand that you are making decisions based on their best interests, and not yours.”

After the attacks of 9/11, I was elected year-in and year-out by our nation’s mayors, and then by our nation’s governors, to lead our group efforts on Homeland Security. As a Mayor and as a Governor, my people never doubted my intentions, or my actions, to keep us safe. This trust was earned from elected officials not solely of my Party; it was a trust earned from fellow citizens who did not vote for me.

So, was bombing Syria the right decision or the wrong decision? Was it made with the advice of the best national security people or not? Was it made as if the decision-maker wasn’t running for re-election? Or was it made for other reasons?

Public trust in a representative democracy is a precious thing. The best we can do as citizens right now are ask questions and hold strong.

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Martin O’Malley is the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School for the spring 2017 semester. He is teaching a class on Leadership and Data Driven Government, while also participating in several panel discussions as part of the Rappaport Distinguished Public Policy Series. Every Monday he is publishing his thoughts in a series titled, “Letters from Boston.”