General Dissent And The Totalitarian Right

The neocons are still having a problem deciding exactly how to spin the "dissenting military" problem. (A problem they didn't even know they had until a half dozen prominent ex-generals decided to speak out, which shows how often they listen to anything that doiesn't fit their reality map.) Now that news of military misgivings over the competence of its political masters has spread to include more junior officers still serving, it's difficult to keep up with the "disaffected generals with political aspirations" spin. So how does the Right intend spinning a problem like the generals?

James Joyner probably has the counterposition nearest to correct. His argument is that the dissenting generals failed to speak up at the time doing so might have made a difference and so are as morally bankrupt as the Vietnam era officers who also stood by in silence. He quotes officers from the New York Times article saying:

“This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly,” said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. “I can only hope that my generation does better someday.”

An Army major who is an intelligence specialist said: “The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, ‘We cannot do this mission.’ They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the resignation of officers” who might otherwise have stayed in uniform.

and then makes his point:

Regular readers will recall that this was my reaction to the renegade generals as well. Officers are taught from their cadet days to stand up for what they think is right tactically and morally and fight for it until a decision has been made. If the order is legal, the officer then salutes and carries on with the mission or resigns.

...Instead of bitching about things we can’t do anything about, let’s figure out how to get this thing fixed. Thinking about the bigger picture, too, is what they’re trained to do.

In truth, it is an argument that will get a lot of sympathy from the Left as well as the more moderate Right. I think just about everyone thinks the dissenting generals should have stood up and spoken out way back when. Just maybe their noisy resignations would have changed the course of history some instead of being after the fact and a footnote to that history. Some on the Left has taken this as the starting point for arguing that the debate over dissenting generals is a GOP red herring to distract the Left from speaking out against the rush to war with Iran.

But both Joyner and those voices of the Left who would see this subject dropped are failing to see the big picture in a way that I am sure many in the military are doing. This debate feeds directly into the debate over the unseemly rush to war with Iran in a very relevant way. Joyner's counter contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Joyner is (nearly) correct that an officer, presented with a legal order he feels he cannot carry out, has no option but to either obey or resign. From the New York Times article, I take away the very strong feeling that many junior officers currently serving have made a resolution to not go quietly into the night of Iran like their predecessors did over Vietnam and Iraq. Many have no confidence in their civilian leaderships ability to lead and feel backstabbed by that leaderships spin:

The debates are fueled by the desire to mete out blame for the situation in Iraq, a drawn-out war that has taken many military lives and has no clear end in sight. A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure," had been made in Iraq.

"We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq," the officer said, noting that the definition of tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. "The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels."

Just imagine for a moment the effect a wave of vocal resignations would have on the Bushevik narrative for war with Iran. Especially if some were high profile officers already lionized for their good works - against the grain of higher leadership - in Iraq.

Kori Schake, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who teaches Army cadets at West Point, said some of the debates revolved around the issues raised in "Dereliction of Duty," a book that analyzes why the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed unable or unwilling to challenge civilian decisions during the war in Vietnam. Published in 1997, the book was written by Col. H. R. McMaster, who recently returned from a year in Iraq as commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment.

"It's a fundamentally healthy debate," Ms. Schake said. "Junior officers look around at the senior leadership and say, 'Are these people I admire, that I want to be like?' "

These younger officers "are debating the standard of leadership," she said. "Is it good enough to do only what civilian masters tell you to do? Or do you have a responsibility to shape that policy, and what actions should you undertake if you believe they are making mistakes?"

If the current crop of officers really do have more determination not to be simple yes-men for political leaders then we could be looking at a huge number of resignations, including those of figures such as Col. McMaster. Where would that leave the Bush administration's narrative for war? Those of us who believe that the current adminstration is concocting the next war already, fixing facts around the policy yet again, should be encouraging serving members of the military to speak up and supporting them when they do. We should be supporting their right to free speech in any case - the Bill of Rights has no exemption clause for those in uniform!

Which brings me at last to the other method of spinning this military dissent - that of what, for want of a better word, can be called the "totalitarian" Right. Their assault on their own credibility began with Charles Krauthammer in the WaPo on Friday. Krauthammer expects us to believe that dissent in the military is a precursor to a military coup or to "forcing" the administration to change policy at rifle point. He seems to think these professionals are just awaiting the tender whispers of burkha-clad Mata Haris or the application of a Chinese mind-ray to turn dictator. It's ridiculous and deserves avery bit of humorous scorn that can be poured upon it. Free Americans have far more to fear from an administration that already has its domestic spying operations, its detainment camps and its provisions for martial law in place.

Others have followed in his ill-conceived path. Dan Riehl, for instance, who calls dissent an "insurgency...in the US military".

the officer corp shouldn't even be having the types of discussions and e mail exchanges mentioned in the article with the NY Times. They have a job to do. They signed up to do it. And other then discussing their opinions and possible insights amongst themselves, they'd do best to shut up and focus on the work at hand. I imagine the vast majority are doing just that.

...With all due respect to our fine officer corps, their job isn't discussing national policy with the likes of the NY Times. Their job is putting their boots on and seeing to whatever job the civilian government assigns them. Their only real alternative is to resign.

As I said, I believe the vast majority of our military is doing just that. But some small percentage ought to be more mindful of the oath they took and are responsible for keeping as part of our incredibly distinguished military.

Riehl is careful, in comments to his post, to equivocate. He tries to counter what he has already said - that military officers have no business questioning what civilian authorities tell them to do:

That isn't true. What I said was it served no good purpose for it to happen in the press. Military personnel have every right to "question" orders when they are being producded. But once they are cut, so is the discussion.

There is a time for debate. Now is not that time. That, more than anything else could result in a loss in Iraq. Too many people are casting off the lessons of Vietnam - whioch Iraq ain't BTW.

Never mind the shabby way in which officers who have fought and bled for the neoconservative adventure are now being scapegoated for speaking out against that adventure by those very people who claim to "support the troops" (but actually only support them when they are doing what they are told). Yes I know it is shameful, underhanded, disrespectful and hypocritical. Leave it all aside for now. Even on the legality of his position, Mr Riehl is of course utterly wrong.

Firstly, we must return to the officers oath - to uphold the constitution (not the president).

"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)

They take no oath to remain silent or to keep out of public debate. Nor should they. As I've said above, there is no caveat to "we the people". It does not say "we the people (except those in uniform). Nor does the Bill of Rights exclude servicemen from its provisions. Nor is the role of the press unclear. The Fourth Estate was envisioned by the Founders as another method for expressing the voice of the people, as a check and balance upon presidents and congresses. It is a correct and constitutional forum for public debate and the military is not prohibited from being part of that debate.

In fact, by international law, the military's duty to join that public debate is clear and urgent. Any German private could tell Mr. Riehl the precedent - they get a lot of training on the subject. It is a consequence of the law on disobeying unlawful orders which holds that military members obey or disobey orders at their own risk - the "I was just following orders" defense is no defense at all. Members of the military, who therefore have applicable information, have a bounden duty to voice their thoughts where such could prevent the commission of a crime by following an unlawful order.

By saying they should not speak publicly, Riehl is actually saying officers of the U.S. military should break their oath of duty. Following international law and international treaties which have become part of U.S. law by signing and ratifying those treaties is part of an officer's duty. In such cases where doing so conflicts with orders given by their command structure they do indeed have a third alternative to keeping quiet or resigning - voicing their moral imperatives and the evidence they have that an order is unlawful in the forum of a court martial. The third is the most courageous option of all, one that I think more and more officers will have the fortitude to take.

This is indeed the exactly right moment for debate that involves the military, dissenting or not. We've already had one pre-emptive war of aggression which the Secretary General of the UN has called unlawful. It now looks very like we are about to have another. The past, and the way it was conducted, has a direct bearing on the future.

To try to stiffle the warnings of those in a position to have an expert opinion - the serving military - is not only unlawful under the laws of the United States and under international law it is a massive step down the path to totalitarianism. It is plain un-American. That Krauthammer, Riehl and others can argue against free speech is a true indication of their preferred America and its not one you should accept under any circumstances.

Update Lawrence Wilkerson, another ex-military guy and former aide to Colin Powell, puts it on the line in the Baltimore Sun today:

As Alexis de Tocqueville once said: "America is great because she is good. If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

In January 2001, with the inauguration of George W. Bush as president, America set on a path to cease being good; America became a revolutionary nation, a radical republic. If our country continues on this path, it will cease to be great - as happened to all great powers before it, without exception.

From the Kyoto accords to the International Criminal Court, from torture and cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners to rendition of innocent civilians, from illegal domestic surveillance to lies about leaking, from energy ineptitude to denial of global warming, from cherry-picking intelligence to appointing a martinet and a tyrant to run the Defense Department, the Bush administration, in the name of fighting terrorism, has put America on the radical path to ruin.

Wilkerson compares the neoconservatives - who it should be remembered are former Trotskyists who grew disenchanted with the failure of Soviet-style communism and the failure of Trotskyism to take over the world - to the Jacobins who instituted a reign of terror during the French Revolution in the name of Public Safety. As Ron Beasley, writing at Running Scared blog points out:

Our founding fathers were shocked by the French Revolution and the evil and violence of the Jacobins. They would be equally shocked by what the neocons and the Bush administration have done to this country.