Treason in a Good Cause
Am I the only one who is a bit put off by all this conservative support for the Pfc who allegedly leaked classified material to Wikileak? Have anti-war conservatives gone so far down the road that they no longer value honesty and duty or condemn oath-breaking and treason? Oh well, it's all in a good cause, as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg used to say. Or was it Kim Philby?
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"A PFC in the military forces is somewhat lower than whale turds."
Gee, thanks, Steve, for bringing back such pleasant memories! Come to think of it, those whale artifacts probably weigh more than PFC yours truly did.
"This young man violated his oath not to expose a greater evil, but in a misguided effort to stick it to ‘the man’."
Your evidence for this is what?
Regardless, there was plenty of evil exposed to keep us busy for a while; for starters, willful and systemic misrepresentation on just what the hell has been going on in Afghanistan for lo a decade or so. Before you string this man up for treason, you might be well advised to give him the benefit of the same due process you would want for yourself. In the meanwhile there is a pile of you know what in the stable that needs to be shoveled out.
Mr Dooley, please read his angry facebook posts. I believe the Guardian has the best coverage of this.
Before you accuse me of wanting to 'string him up', I also said there are probably some instances where violating your oath for a greater good might work, as long as you accept the consequences. Here I am not convinced at all there was any greater good. Any one who is not blind can see that Afghanistan has been misrepresented by the government, and I didnt need a leak to show me that.
Dr. Fleming, I just got back from seeing a good film that might relate to this discussion, The Sicilian Girl. It's based on a true story, and is summarized as 'a dramatic retelling of Rita Atria’s story: how a 17-year-old Sicilian whose father and brother were both Mafia members (and victims) breaks the vow of silence that enshrouds that world, and gives evidence to famed anti-Mafia judge Borsellino.' Now, my question, if it moves this conversation, and if I can manage to state it correctly, is about how far loyalty extends, or how limited it is. Walking out of the movie, I couldn't help but think of your quotes of Tacitus and Cicero above, for her testimony, though it did not strictly betray her father or brother while living, did betray their memory, and in its effect, her testimony exposed, it seemed, dozens of men in her hometown to prosecution and life sentences --surely a great hardship on those families, criminals or no. Pardon me for such choppy writing here. What's the difference between a Manning, who broke his oath to a great big government exposing who knows who, and a Rita, who took no oath but sought revenge via the best method she could find, the Italian national government, and thus exposed fellow villagers, lifelong neighbors?
By the way, or perhaps not, my friend who picked the movie, pointed out that there was a critical scene that suggested Rita's community betrayed her. I would flesh that scene out but I wouldn't want to spoil any part of what I thought was a very good movie --well paced, dramatic, well-acted, how beautiful Sicily looks. Would the community's failings cancel out one's loyalty to them? Does that idea even remotely have anything to do with the Manning case?
After ten years in anothe)war of aggression, maybe some of us are suffering from outrage fatigue. If an empire can't do better than requiring almost a million people to have "top secret" clearance, and if that empire's propaganda to truth ratio is so high that even trivial truth about daily doings must be classified, then it is not surprising that there are Mannings. Personally I find the existence of Lynndie Englands to be both more repulsive and more surprising.
I may just be out of my league in this discussion, but isn't the whole war an atrocity? How are the rulers of this or the previous administration qualitatively different in their betrayal of national interest? How do any of the thoughtful enlisted reconcile their oath or any loyalty with the war they fight in Iraq or Afganistan?
Dr. Fleming,
Regarding military experience, you’ll see it was Maxwell, not me, who advanced the topic; I was merely forced to respond. My decade in the Army means little more to me than the experience of associating with a handful of the finest men I’ve ever met, almost exclusively NCOs, as well as far many of the worst, absent the petty criminals, those being overwhelmingly officers. What that experience did provide was a more sober perspective about military matters than what I’ve been reading from the fellows I’ve assumed to have the kind of experience limited in time —like draftees— or limited in depth, the latter state being more common to officers, habitually isolated from soldiers.
I’ve not advanced any authority for whatever opinion you think I have except to reply to Mr. Maxwell. None could ever understand my motivation during my military career except a First Sergeant who told me, “Sir, you’re not much in garrison, but if we have to fight the Russians, I want to be with you!” (We’d had a few beers.) I loved him for the sentiment but had enough operational and geopolitical perspective to know, c. 1976, that we would never have been able to make it to that unfortunate German border to hope to face the Russians, and that attacking US Army Europe was the last thing in the Russians’ mind, a similar conclusion from our own side. Since our society was in far better shape 35 years ago, that Army’s hopeless disorganization can’t have been improved upon by today.
Throw in the towel. There is no more “honor” in the American military, now composed exclusively of mercenaries —knowing or otherwise, cynical or idealistic— and the uniformed multiculturalist bureaucrats commanding them. Bradley Manning and those who abetted him are the only realists, whatever their cultural motives.
My humble opinion: The military as a whole is the last institution we have left that's still worth a damn (even including all those obtuse and bumbling officers). I'm not sure why the term 'mercenary' seems to get thrown around so much when talking about the US military. Even here at the Chronicles discussion board from time to time. Is it wrong for the soldiery to expect payment? Then I submit there has probably never been an actual 'soldier' who walked the earth.
Or maybe we expect the soldiery only to follow orders worthy of their self-defined position in life.
A US soldier does not swear an oath to a particular administration or war or ideology.
As recent comments from several generals and Secretary Gates have alluded to, the military no longer has a conservative ethos but is more than willing to bend to the social degeneration so common to the majority of their countrymen. The military not only is feminist in orientation, homosexuals will be serving openly in the ranks. I would gather that sometime in the next five years, you will be seeing stories about the first homosexual general and the first homosexual admiral. The military is now part of the cancer that is bringing the demise of Western Civilization.
Fleming's right. Treachery is treachery. The AIPAC spies should have swung, and so should this traitor.
Mr. Welling has a short memory. My response was to his opening remark: 44 Comment by Richard Welling on 7 August 2010:
One wonders whether anyone commenting here has ever been a member of the American military for an extended period or its recent student. That’s unlikely, based on the naiveté exhibited in this conversation regarding our military’s roles, sociology, personalities and obligations, real and imagined. Someone might wish to poll Fred Reed on this.
The US military has been a mixed bag for many decades. Starting at least in the 1940's it has been used as an institution promoting social change--racial integration, sexual equality, etc.--as much as it has been used for defense or aggression. Senior officers today are transparently liars who promote a moral and social agendaI that runs counter to everything good soldiers have ever stood for. If allegations about the abandonment of POWs in Vietnam are true, they have also betrayed their own men. On the other hand, I have known a number of fine men who spent decades in the military. Some of them are very disgusted with what has happened, but disgust or disagreement does not change the terms of their service. There can be honor even in an army of mercenaries, as Housman suggests in one of his finest poems:
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling,
And took their wages, and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
I have'nt seen the Sicilian Girl, but I am suspicious of any film or fiction that might encourage adolescents to think they are justified in standing up to the community in which they live. (This romantic fantasy has done a great deal of damage. Last night I happened to watch the first half of Catherina in the Big City, supposedly a warm and light-hearted depiction of a small-town girl's experiences in Rome, where her family moved. It is well done but excruciating.) The Mafia is an ugly criminal organization that enforces a reign of terror. On the other hand, it has considerable support among Sicilians who don't like being the arse-end of an Italian state that has always despised and looted Sicily.
Questions of loyalty and conflicting loyalties permit of now simple answer. The underlying principles, however, are simple and clear. But if, like Mr. Welling, Americans refuse to look at the principles and insist on taking their stand on personal experience, personal dislike, and rhetorical exaggeration, there is no way of conducting a rational discussion. If the US military is transparently evil, then why did Mr. Manning join up. He is a volunteer, not a draftee. When you join even a club, you agree to play by the rules so long as you are a member. If you come to realize that you don't like the club, you may leave. That is not possible in the army, but gritting your teeth for a few years is not impossible for any man. Moral decisions are often not so much a case of what needs to be done as who has the moral right to do it. Mr. Manning had no such moral right: he forfeited them in joining up and getting clearances. If something so simple as this cannot be agreed to in principle, there is no basis for further discussion or further diatribes against the corruption of the military.
There IS still a conservative ethos in the US Army, and probably the Marine Corps as well (I dont know, I didnt know that many Marines when I was in) but it really only exists among Non coms and below, and some field grade officers (dad always told me that any officer above the rank of LTC is a politician).
It is, however, slowly ebbing away. The presence of large and growing numbers of GI Janes is slowly feminizing the military.
Just saw this post, and no you are not "the only one who is a bit put off by all this conservative support for the Pfc who allegedly leaked classified material to Wikileak?"
Cliff Kincaid observes it as well at the AIM website: http://www.aim.org/aim-column/conservatives-and-the-suicide-of-the-west/
Dr. Fleming, Re: My 44, touché, to an extent.
First understand that this exchange reminds me why I, a 25 (30?) year Chronicles subscriber, am always reluctant to engage in remote discussion with people whom I have literal familiarity and with whom I share many perspectives but who, alas, do not know me. (I really have to come to one of your meetings! Aaron Wolf and I could at least share some Lutheran doctrine.)
As for the Epitaph, I’ve always thought it was hopelessly idealistic and sadly typical of Housman’s type.
“But if, like Mr. Welling, Americans refuse to look at the principles and insist on taking their stand on personal experience, personal dislike, and rhetorical exaggeration.”
It was on principle that I left the Army. I could have stayed on for another decade, drawn a retirement (been a mercenary) and be doing far better financially than I am today but made the decision based on the disgust I’ve expressed earlier and on what Mr. Maxwell (44) understates as the military’s “slow” feminization. I’m a witness that it had begun in 1975 with the introduction of women having “non-combat specialties” into combat battalions. (Contemporary German newspaper articles reported the grievances of the (legal) prostitutes who stood outside the gates of our Kaserne, complaining that their business had declined, presumably because of the women stationed inside the gates.) The feminization of the military academies has been going on since the Carter regime, I think, and suffice it to say that the presence of women in any military organization is evidence not of honor but barbarism.
Per Mr. Leaberry (57), just before I resigned my commission c. 1980, I was forced to accept into my Division headquarters company a lesbian lieutenant who had been driven, not from the military of course, but from her next door military intelligence battalion for sexual aggressiveness toward the young girl translators even then being bribed into military careers. Though I thought my stand was principled, my superiors treated it like threats to their careers, which it surely was.
As for my rhetoric, being a product of government education I wasn’t even aware of the concept until adulthood and if I’m now guilty of its excess I reasonably have the writers of Chronicles to blame. As to why Manning types join up, it is likely also because they are products of government schooling, having the additional influence of their parents, teachers and all the other members of our militarized —as distinct from warrior— culture. He’s one of the blind following the blind.
When leaders flout their oaths with impunity it’s because they understand the true nature of their organization, so one shouldn’t be surprised that their followers will come to the same understanding.
Mr Welling, feminization is of course complete among the upper brass. But before it had yet to completely creep into the enlisted ranks. I dont mean the mere presence of women 'soldiers' (bad enough), but rather how it affected military life. We all cursed like sailors, and acted a bit like them too. A very un-PC world. But toward the end of my time in the service, women had started to appear everywhere, in just about every job. If you thought 1975 was bad, you should have seen 2006.
I second Mr. Welling's comments on the difficulty of holding conversations that are not face-to-face, but I continue to hope that with a little effort and good will, we can make it work. If he will come to another meeting, perhaps the JRC in Charleston, Aaron and I will take him out for a drink and argue about Luther to their hearts' content.
I was not at all casting aspersions on Mr. Welling personally for any want of principle but on the arguments he made in which principle was set aside. In referring to the rhetoric of the harsh critics of the American military, himself included, I did not mean their artful, much less guileful use of language and argument but rather the radical tone, implying that the entire system is so wicked that it is better to betray one's oath than follow orders. This argument is one rooted in his experience, which is why he appealed to Fred Reed et al., but that fact that others with the same experience have not reached the same conclusions demonstrates quite clearly that it is not conclusive. So, I return to my basic point, that oath breaking is always wrong, though there are circumstances when it is less wrong than the alternative. Nothing I have read would suggest that this is the case here.
Imagine a parallel case in the Catholic Church. Suppose young priest with homosexual tendencies has so far resisted any inclination to get to friendly with young males in his parish, but he reads accounts of his own bishop's shenanigans. Is he now free to betray the very code and purpose of his clerical calling? Let us invoke another basic principle: that while we all have common duties to each other within a society, particular roles call for particular duties. A mother owes more to her children than to other people's children, I think we can agree, but many vocations have moral codes that demand a higher standard. Officers of the court, for example, have a higher duty to obey the law; policeman are supposed to have greater integrity and never to abuse their powers by extorting money or abusing the helpless, scholars are supposed to pursue truth, etc. In the society in which we live, however, members of these vocations all too often are the worst violators, because their position permits them to abuse authority. This does not alter the fact: In becoming a priest, teacher, scholar, cop, or military officer, one is taking on a responsibility and deserves contempt for violating it. If we cannot agree on this, then, I submit, there is no basis for discussion. But, so far, those who are defending Manning have not agreed.
Perhaps more important than all this is A.E. Housman, a great Latinist and textual critic and a very fine poet. His primary fault, however, was not idealism. Quite the contrary, he was an embittered skeptic about everything, including himself, and his best poems, while they may bring some balm to the bitter souls like himself, can be terrifying to the naive. Read, "Terence, this is stupid stuff." Here is a little gem of self-loathing:
The bell's justle in the tower/ the hollow night amid,
And on my tongue the taste is sour/ of all I ever did.
Better to read Housman than nurse resentments. Housman himself got a bad degree and went to work in the patent office. Determined to get even, he buckled down and began publishing articles on Latin that attracted international attention and landed him a job at the U of London. Those were the days when merit, not degrees, were still the thing.
Dr. Fleming writes:
"Mr. Maxwell was addressing Mr. Welling’s mistake on the level of fact: He had mistakenly assumed that no one in this discussion had military experience. In fact, I know that several of the people who contributed to this thread are veterans. There is, however, a more serious error and that lies in the question itself, the assumption that, in a debate over an ethical question, specialized experience can be the basis of authority."
A hitch or two in uniform would at least go a long way toward weeding out the facile identification of flesh and blood American soldiers with something called "the national security state" (Evil incarnate) and then bleating guiltily when the discovery is made that betraying the flesh and blood soldiers might - OMG! - get some of them killed. The traditional American way of relating to and thinking of our armed forces is not to see them as a remote, alienated, Soviet style monolithic power. We see them as "us", not "them". That this tradition has been abused by those who stand to gain from making war, any war, does not absolve their fellow Americans, civilian and uniformed, from their responsibility to condemn those who betray them.
Dr. Fleming,
Thank you for your tolerance of a faithful Chronicles reader.
If I have failed to put loyalty in the contemporary military context then I offer this link to Jacob Hornberger's piece on our chief menace, the standing army. He appropriately quotes Eisenhower's prescient farewell address that warned of what has indeed come to pass.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-08-16.asp
I am afraid I cannot come up with a reason for reading anything written by Jacob Hornberger. As for Eisenhower, I have nothing against him. He was not the worst president of the 20th century, but he was a staff officer, who was not in combat in WWI. Of the two writers who put the words in the ailing president's mouth, one was a loyal soldier and the other a political "scientist" who supported 60's activism. I don't know why I should pay attention to speechwriters, even good ones. The speech was not an invitation to disloyalty but a warning against the cozy relationship of business and government--an earlier draft included Congress in the indictment. I would advise any young man today against enlisting, but once in, he has surrendered his right to make certain decisions. If he is foolish enough not to understand that, his ignorance does not constitute an excuse. Do your duty in the position of life in which you find our have put yourself.