I'm British. And I'm puzzled.
Why are Americans on both the Left and Right so enamoured of their military forces and its senior commanders? Why is it considered "the right thing to do" to put them in charge of civilian affairs in the US, to ascribe to them the automatic ability to provide leadership and competency in fields such as "national security" once they have taken off their uniforms?
I'm British. I'm interested in my home country's political life and I could not for the life of me name a current high-ranking member of the British Armed Forces -- Army, Navy or Air Force. Not one. No-one has entered politics after serving in a high-ranking military position in the UK for decades, possibly even centuries (Lord Wellington is the first that comes to mind and he made for a very indifferent Prime Minister. Before that... uh, Cromwell?).
The same is true is virtually every other democracy in the world; senior military men do not enter politics. The US people however publicly worship serving generals and admirals and demand they step forward to run their country when they retire from military service, and I find this strange and somewhat worrying in a country that in its founding days created the Cincinnati as a bulwark against such ideas gaining traction in the nascent US Army.
There are lots of countries where the generals and the admirals have in fact stepped forward into positions of power, often over the corpses of the elected leaders and the populations they ruled (examples include Argentina, Uganda and much of Africa and latterly Pakistan). Look through recent history for images of brutal dictators and absolute rulers and you will see men (always men) wearing uniforms and medals, gold braid and epaulettes, military men and almost all of high rank. Almost all of them have been disasters for the countries they ruled and the populations they oppressed. That hasn't stopped American governments in the past actively supporting these bloody-handed tyrants as bulwarks against Communism or terrorism or whatever is the bogey man du jour, as an "enemy of my enemy".
So why is it important to the American electorate that Senator McCain had a long military career (if somewhat undistinguished, ending 15 years of service as a Captain in a training command before he resigned his commission, aware he was not going to get promoted again) before he took up politics? If a British candidate for office made a point of emphasising their long military career as a reason people should vote for them it would count against their chances of being elected. The same goes for the rest of the Western democratic world. We admire and respect our military servicemen but we don't want them running things at home. We don't believe that the skills for a successful military career are necessarily applicable to a leadership role in civilian life.
Why is it important that Senator Obama (who never served) should choose a military veteran to be his Vice President to bolster his "national security" credentials? Wesley Clark, Jim Webb, even Colin Powell have been put forward as the perfect VP choice without anyone asking what qualifies them to take on such an important civilian role with its very different challenges, absent any experience in a legislative or executive or indeed any previous elected office?
I'm British, and maybe someone can explain the American people's uncritical worship of high-ranking military men to me.