Anglopressy

I’ve been wanting to post something about this for almost a month now. And I finally have the time to do it.

The night before Thanksgiving I was driving home from hanging out with a friend, and I decided to listen to the radio. Specifically I decided to listen to conservative talk radio. ‘Cause sometimes I like to get my heart pumping. At any rate I had the good fortune of hearing a guy named Joe Pags sitting in for somebody named Michael Berry. I don’t know anything about either of these guys, at least I didn’t until that fateful night.

The topic of discussion was the content of an article from Fox News about three Navy SEALs who are going to face courts-martial for allegedly assaulting a detainee.

At the time I had not read the article, but now that I have, I feel more inclined to say that this is necessary. Here’s the conversation (if you could call it that) that I had with Mr Pags, you don’t have to listen to the whole hour, my call comes in at about eleven-and-a-half minutes.

This guy is ridiculous. Not only is he unabashedly rude and incredibly self-important; Joe Pags seems to think he sounds tough. I think that a steady diet of war movies had made this guy think that he knows a thing or two about war and the military. After all, his father was in the military. I think this hour of discussion is a pretty good representation of a very hawkish movement in this country. People like Joe Pags believe what they see on 24 is the way things really work. They like to think in terms of abstracts. This is not me reading into him or making things up, this is me hearing what he’s saying.

I’ll say this straight and plain. The oath that our uniformed service members swear is to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. They also, in the case of enlisted service members, swear to follow the orders of the President and the officers appointed above them. Implicit in both of those very important elements is that they will act legally. There are lawful orders and unlawful orders, and unlawful orders can be disregarded, because they are illegitimate.

It seems apparent to me that no one ordered these three men to do the things of which they are accused. It seems that if there had been some wrong doing in this case it was that someone assaulted the detainee after he had been apprehended and then they all either lied or tried to obstruct the investigation. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but that’s not a good situation. Our men and women in uniform are all professionals, most of all the special operators. If one of these men lost their military baring and assaulted a detainee, no matter who they are, that alone is enough for me to be convinced that they need to face any applicable consequences, even under the UCMJ.

Let me lay the sketch that I’ve gotten from what little I’ve read. Three SEALs are going to face courts-martial after having declined non-judicial punishment. This says to me that they and/or their attorneys are confident that they did nothing that they need to worry about, and that the government’s case against them will not yield a conviction. But, if the charges against them are true they strike me as little more than common criminals who think that if they keep lying, they can get away with what they did. I don’t know which is the case, but which ever it is, I am confident that they will get a fair trial. Or rather I hope they get fair trials.

Joe Pags can repeat the mantra of “they killed Americans” all he wants. It does not alter or negate the complexities of war.  It is this complexity that requires professional behavior. This is why we train. Virtue used to be something that was cultivated through hard work. I suppose Pags doesn’t give a damn about that. ‘Cause it’s awesome to kick the crap out of people you’re mad at.

I don’t care what this guy did. His actions, however heinous, do not dictate our actions. They’re not on equal footing with us. This is the problem with the whole idea of waging war on terrorism.

Grace and Peace,

Jared