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MY LAI VET SAYS: HERE IT
COMES AGAIN IN IRAQ
Tony Swindell
recalls "Butcher's Brigade" in '69; says "gooks"
have now become "ragheads", every adult male is an
"insurgent" ... atrocities against Iraqi civilians
are soon going to explode in America's face; US Government's courtroom jihads against terror
stumble. Alexander Cockburn on Lodi case where Feds paid $250,000
to man who "saw" world's three top terrorists at mosque.
As neocons
and Israel lobby howl for US to bomb Teheran, an Iranian outlines
simple path to peace. CounterPunch
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Why
Did They Wait So Long? Why is Rumsfeld Their Only Target?
Physical Courage,
Moral Courage and American Generals
By LAWRENCE R. VELVEL
Men who rise to the top of the American
military are usually men who, in the old fashioned phrase, have
faced shot and shell. Their physical courage is not to be questioned.
There is, however, another type of courage, moral courage. This,
as I understand it, is the courage to do and say what is right,
or what you truly believe, even though you will catch several
different kinds of hell for doing or saying it.
Moral courage is not something this writer understood in his
younger days. For he was raised by semi-socialistic immigrant
advocates of social justice, who taught that one should always
do and say what is right and the world will respect you for it.
So doing and saying what was right was not a matter of courage.
It was simply the way one acted and spoke.
After awhile, of course, the first generation American learns
that this philosophy is usually just foolishness and self destructive
in America. Here, doing and saying what is right does not gain
one respect. Instead, it leads to getting smacked in the head
The smack may be professional, may be social, can sometimes even
be physical one guesses. Because of it, there is such a thing
as moral courage.
Moral courage is one of the matters at issue, or at stake, in
the recent criticism of Donald Rumsfeld by several generals.
As all readers must know, a small number of retired military
men have begun speaking out against him. This is contrary to
the usual military ethos, to the ethos that generally governs
not just those on active duty, but the retired as well. Other
retired officers are said to be wrestling with their consciences
about whether to speak out. And at least one of those who has
spoken out, Gregory Newbold, says he advocated against the Iraq
war while still on active duty, though he did so strictly internally,
strictly within the government.
Given the prevailing military ethos, to speak out publicly, even
when retired, is an act of moral courage. It likewise is an act
of moral courage to speak out internally when still on active
duty. For this, as all military men know, can be professional
suicide -- is likely to be professional suicide. And to speak
out publicly while on active duty, well, that is moral courage
of the highest degree, as shown by the example of Eric Shinseki--who
was right and suffered accordingly.
There is in this country something of a small tradition of occasional
moral courage involving the military. Lincoln showed it when
he rightly or wrongly kept McClellan, despite enormous pressure
to get rid of a man incompetent in battle, because he thought
McClellan was the only man then capable of whipping the Army
of the Potomac back into shape after Lee had smashed it yet again.
Grant showed it when he turned south after the Wilderness and
then continually pressed on, despite the horrible casualties,
because he knew this was the way to win the Civil War. Billy
Mitchell showed moral courage, to the point of destruction of
his career. Eisenhower showed moral courage on June 5, 1944,
when he gave the command to go the next day. Truman showed it
when he fired MacArthur and brought down upon his own head the
deluge.
And there have been failures of moral courage in the military
as well. This was exemplified when so many Union commanders would
not press onwards in the Civil War. It was exemplified á
outrance in the Viet Nam war, when commanders would not speak
out against the folly of what was being done. Not for nothing
is one of the most significant and now famous lapses of moral
courage in American military history the story of Harold K. Johnson,
Army Chief of Staff from 1964 to 1968. A man of enormous physical
valor, Harold Johnson did not agree with Lyndon Johnson's method
of fighting the Viet Namese war. He got in his chauffeured car
to drive to the White House and resign in protest. But before
getting there he turned around, having convinced himself that
his resignation would only mean he would be replaced by someone
more pliable -- a version of the ever present excuse that "If
I resign, someone worse will take my place." Johnson later
counted his failure to resign that day "'the greatest moral
failure of my life.'"
Of course, moral courage is not the only consideration when the
question is whether a top military man should speak out publicly.
It is not the only consideration even for those relatively few
who have it, and who are willing to risk their reputations and,
if they are still on active duty, their careers in order to say
what needs to be said. Two other considerations are often mentioned.
One is that public silence -- simply going along -- gives the
public confidence that the military is non-political. This, however,
is nonsense. The military is ninety percent Republican and everyone
knows it. Perversely, and though I don't personally believe it,
silence about Iraq could lead people to think the military is
political -- to think the high brass is currently remaining silent
to protect the Republicans, whom the military overwhelmingly
favors, and whose leaders got us into the horrible mess in Iraq.
The question whether the military is political is, in reality,
quite a different one than merely whether it speaks out. It is,
rather, whether it follows orders regardless of its own views.
The other, perhaps even more important consideration is civilian
control of the military. This principle seems to be deeply respected
in the military, and is essential to a democracy. It is felt
that speaking out against civilian masters jeopardizes the principle.
There is a lot to this, at least if people speak out while remaining
on active duty. Once they retire, though, there does not seem
to be so much to it, especially if it is thought, as it probably
should be thought, that one must retire before speaking out against
the civilian leadership. In exemplification of moral courage,
one should retire and speak publicly if one feels the civilians'
errors are of sufficient magnitude--like invading Iraq with only
about 125,000 or 150,000 troops.
There are certain ironies, or paradoxes, or contradictions which
attend the questions of a political military and civilian control.
One is that, even though the active duty military is not political
in the sense of speaking out against civilian superiors, it nonetheless
is very political, perhaps dangerously so, in another way. Because
of our extensive involvements all over the world -- one has read
that we have over 700 foreign bases and installations -- high
representatives of the military are in constant contact with
other nations, including, of course, other nations' military
establishments. In this continuous contact the military sometimes
conducts what can be considered its own independent foreign policy,
a policy which may at times be different than that of its civilian
masters. If memory serves, Andrew Bacevich thinks that the retired
General Zinni, one of Rumsfeld's (long time) severe critics,
was virtually a proconsul when he was the head of Centcom, the
command which fights our wars in the Mideast. Admiral William
Fallon, the current head of U.S. Pacific Command, is said to
be conducting a policy toward China that is far less hostile
than the stance of his civilian superiors. Very possibly, Admiral
Fallon's ideas are much wiser than those of Bush, Cheney, Rice,
et. al. That would not change the fact that they are different.
So, despite the desire to honor them, it would appear that the
principle of not being political and the principle of civilian
control of the military are both violated in the field of foreign
affairs.
The other irony or paradox or contradiction relates to the object
of the current outpouring of criticism. Its target has been Rumsfeld.
But, as arrogant as he may be, and as personally obnoxious to
deal with as he may be, he is not the true culprit here. The
true culprits are his superiors, Bush and Cheney. They wanted
to get rid of Saddam (as Rumsfeld admittedly did also), but knew
that the country would not swallow a huge commitment of half
a million men, a commitment too reminiscent of Viet Nam. So it
was really they who needed and demanded the too small force for
which Rumsfeld is now taking all the heat -- and who told the
country to go about its normal business as if nothing were happening.
So, if the current military criticism were to truly be accurate,
it would, like Harold Johnson's aborted action, be directed against
the President (and Vice President), not against Rumsfeld, or
at least not against Rumsfeld alone.
Of course, directing criticism against those who bear the true
responsibility, Bush and Cheney, would be an even more serious
inroad upon the principle of not appearing political and the
principle of civilian control. On the other side, if one truly
has the moral courage to speak out, as so few do, one should
direct one's comments at those who truly bear primary responsibility
for the disaster that is Iraq, not just at one who bears subordinate
responsibility. Still more true is this when the critic is a
retired military officer.
Lawrence R. Velvel is the Dean of Massachusetts School
of Law. He can be reached at velvel@mslaw.edu.
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