Pitchforks?

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[KingOrfeo]

Did I suggest such a thing?

No, but that's what's under discussion; Ishmael is the one who suggested it. (Here and in many other threads.)

 

[KingOrfeo]

Not necessarily, it might just be a matter of honor, a question answered by their oath.

Politics cannot be removed from the question of whether their oath to the Constitution requires U.S. military officers to obey the POTUS or overthrow him. That's what's called a political question, you see.

 

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[KingOrfeo]

First of all an officer is not required to follow an unlawful order, no matter who it comes from. Their oath is as follows:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

That does not give officers the discretion to decide for themselves what orders are or are not constitutional; that's the SCOTUS' call. They can decide what orders are lawful, but that just means in terms of military law, with which all officers are indoctrinated to some degree; and when they disobey they know they'll have to defend their decision before a court martial later. Joining up with a coup is a different matter entirely.

 

[Ishmael]

That does not give officers the discretion to decide for themselves what orders are or are not constitutional; that's the SCOTUS' call. They can decide what orders are lawful, but that just means in terms of military law, with which all officers are indoctrinated to some degree; and when they disobey they know they'll have to defend their decision before a court martial later. Joining up with a coup is a different matter entirely.

You are wrong. That was the same dodge that landed Lt. Calley in prison. Further I'd remind you that the participants in a coup are only prosecuted if the coup fails.

I would also remind you that we do not live in an autocratic state of any form. The president, any president, is NOT the arbiter of what is legal and what is not. I can only hope that you pulled that little 'lawful' tidbit out of your ass and didn't learn it in school.

Ishmael

 

[KingOrfeo]

You are wrong. That was the same dodge that landed Lt. Calley in prison.

Eh? What "dodge"? Nothing in what I said implies you can be excused from a war crime by the "just following orders" defense. As I said, you can always refuse, be arrested on the spot, and explain yourself to a court martial later; if the order in question really was illegal, you will be exonerated. Furthermore, Calley's crime was that he gave unlawful orders to his men. And the constitutionality of the government he was serving under was not at issue.

Further I'd remind you that the participants in a coup are only prosecuted if the coup fails.

How is that relevant to the question of whether a soldier's "honor" obliges him to honor his oath by staging a coup?

I would also remind you that we do not live in an autocratic state of any form. The president, any president, is NOT the arbiter of what is legal and what is not.

No, but he alone is at the top of the chain of command. An officer might refuse to carry out or transmit a president's order on the grounds it is illegal, just as he might do the same WRT a superior officer's order; but the question only arises if the president actually gives an order to the military. None of which has any relevance to soldiers mounting a coup on their own initiative because they think the POTUS' political decisions are "unconstitutional." That's not their call. It is ultimately the call of the courts, which are the arbiters of what is legal and what is not. The courts, not the soldiers.

 

[Ishmael]

Eh? What "dodge"? Nothing in what I said implies you can be excused from a war crime by the "just following orders" defense. As I said, you can always refuse, be arrested on the spot, and explain yourself to a court martial later; if the order in question really was illegal, you will be exonerated. Furthermore, Calley's crime was that he gave unlawful orders to his men. And the constitutionality of the government he was serving under was not at issue.



How is that relevant to the question of whether a soldier's "honor" obliges him to honor his oath by staging a coup?



No, but he alone is at the top of the chain of command. An officer might refuse to carry out or transmit a president's order on the grounds it is illegal, just as he might do the same WRT a superior officer's order; but the question only arises if the president actually gives an order to the military. None of which has any relevance to soldiers mounting a coup on their own initiative because they think the POTUS' political decisions are "unconstitutional." That's not their call. It is ultimately the call of the courts, which are the arbiters of what is legal and what is not. The courts, not the soldiers.

Still stuck in the 'process' I see while missing the larger issue. All it takes to happen is a consensus at the higher levels of the military. The president doesn't even have to issue a specific order. All he has to do is to behave in a manner that the military consensus believes is in violation of their oath to the constitution.

There was an interesting little survey done back in the 90's called the Combat Arms Survey (thank you for reminding me vette). The nut of the results were that given certain specific presidential orders unit cohesivness fell apart. The military would either disobey, or worse, rebel. The scenarios weren't all that off the wall either.

Ishmael

 

[Karen Kraft]

Okay.

I have to admit: the special olympics and pitchfork comments were funny.

At least I liked them.

Oh, and while everyone is hyperventilating, I also think the guys who got the bonuses had every right to keep every penny. At very least.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Still stuck in the 'process' I see while missing the larger issue. All it takes to happen is a consensus at the higher levels of the military.

No, the consensus would have to go a lot further down the chain than that. To the point where troops will fire on crowds of American civilians. Which will not happen, no more than it did in the Soviet Union.

The president doesn't even have to issue a specific order. All he has to do is to behave in a manner that the military consensus believes is in violation of their oath to the constitution.

To violate their oath to the Constitution, he would have to order some kind of arguably unconstitutional military policy. Socializing the economy or redistributing wealth to whatever degree would not be enough. To violate the Constitution to a degree where the military could legitimately be concerned with it, he would have to order the troops to prevent the next Congressional election, or something on that scale. Which will not happen.

There was an interesting little survey done back in the 90's called the Combat Arms Survey (thank you for reminding me vette). The nut of the results were that given certain specific presidential orders unit cohesivness fell apart. The military would either disobey, or worse, rebel. The scenarios weren't all that off the wall either.

The officers' orders necessary to a military coup would be far, far worse for unit cohesion. Another reason it could never succeed. The troops are Americans, after all (and mostly working-class Americans). They would, and should, shoot their own officers first.

 

[KingOrfeo]

And BTW, Ishmael -- where is all this coming from? Obama has not yet done or promised to do anything unconstitutional. So where does a soldier's oath "to the Constitution" come into play here?

 

[KingOrfeo]

No, really, Ishmael, where is this military rebellion to come from? American military personnel might be more conservative than the general population, but they are not going to rebel against the president, for the first time in American history, to defend the free market against a new New Deal. They are not going to rebel against the president because they have doubts as to where he was born. They are not going to rebel because he's black (many in the military are too). They are not going to rebel because civilians are having their gun rights curtailed. We know from recent experience that they're not going to rebel if the president commits them to a futile war or encroaches on civil liberties. All this holds for the officers as well as the troops. What will they rebel over?

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

No, really, Ishmael, where is this military rebellion to come from? American military personnel might be more conservative than the general population, but they are not going to rebel against the president, for the first time in American history, to defend the free market against a new New Deal. They are not going to rebel against the president because they have doubts as to where he was born. They are not going to rebel because he's black (many in the military are too). They are not going to rebel because civilians are having their gun rights curtailed. We know from recent experience that they're not going to rebel if the president commits them to a futile war or encroaches on civil liberties. All this holds for the officers as well as the troops. What will they rebel over?

I'm sure Ish will speak for himself, but he seems to believe that there's widespread popular support not just in the military, but in the general public as well, for the kind of "night watchman" state that he advocates for here.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'm sure Ish will speak for himself, but he seems to believe that there's widespread popular support not just in the military, but in the general public as well, for the kind of "night watchman" state that he advocates for here.

It is widespread, but still a minority and not growing. Pretty much peaked with the militia movements of the '80s and early '90s. They still exist but they're on the decline ever since the Oklahoma City bombing.

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

It is widespread, but still a minority and not growing. Pretty much peaked with the militia movements of the '80s and early '90s. They still exist but they're on the decline ever since the Oklahoma City bombing.

Right, and to the extent they've succeeded politically, it's been by building coalitions with people of other political ideologies who share some common goals, but don't see a robust state as threatening (evangelical voters, for example. Unless, those voters believe...

that Obama is Satan?)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/07/rachel-maddow-obama-has-p_n_183925.html

 

[zipman]

I'm sure Ish will speak for himself, but he seems to believe that there's widespread popular support not just in the military, but in the general public as well, for the kind of "night watchman" state that he advocates for here.

It's just another "Ishiotic" statement he's made recently.

The fall of the repbulicans seems to have hit him particularly hard!

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

While I'm at it, I just learned that a supporter of a minimalist state is called a "minarchist".

Or is that mini-christ?

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

It's just another "Ishiotic" statement he's made recently.

The fall of the repbulicans seems to have hit him particularly hard!

I don't know. Maybe he's happy. It's hard to tell.

Hell, maybe he figures it's times like these that one can gather disaffected misanthropes into a mob of gubmint-hating anti-tax militia.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Right, and to the extent they've succeeded politically, it's been by building coalitions with people of other political ideologies who share some common goals, but don't see a robust state as threatening (evangelical voters, for example. Unless, those voters believe...

that Obama is Satan?)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/07/rachel-maddow-obama-has-p_n_183925.html

We also know from recent experience that the military won't rebel against Satan.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Hell, maybe he figures it's times like these that one can gather disaffected misanthropes into a mob of gubmint-hating anti-tax militia.

Yes, and that will draw them all out into the open. And when they're all killed off, the way is open for the Soviet Socialist States of America! You see, it's all going according to plan! Thank you, Comrade Ishmael!

 

[KingOrfeo]

Getting back to the OP: From James Howard Kunstler's "Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle," 4/6/09:

The rally in stocks, the financials in particular, could go on for another month or two. In the meantime, banks are striving desperately to avoid calling in more bad loans -- especially in commercial real estate, malls, strip malls, Big Box power centers -- because they don't want any more losses on their balance sheets. That can only go on for so long, too. Sooner or later the daisy chain of credibility in the fundamental transactions of business lose legitimacy and something's got to give.

My guess is it will first take the form, sometime after Memorial Day (but maybe sooner) of wholesale liquidations of everything under the North American sun: companies, households, chattels, US Treasury paper of all kinds, and, of course, the S & P 500. We'll soon find out whether an organism the size of the United States can run an economy based on one family selling the contents of its garage to the family next door. My guess is that this type of economy won't support the standards of living previously enjoyed in places like Dallas and Minneapolis.

The socio-political fallout from the inherent anger and disappointment in all this is liable to be severe. The public is already warming up for it, with cheerleaders such as Glen Beck on Fox TV News calling for the formation of militias, and gun sales moving out-of-sight. One mistake that the banking elite and their lawyer paladins made the past decade was their show of conspicuous acquisition -- of houses especially -- in easy-to-get-to places where anyone can see them, for instance an angry mob in Fairfield County, Connecticut, or Easthampton, New York. Unlike the beleaguered elites of South Africa (where I visited recently), who live behind layers of fortification, the executives of Citibank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and a long list of hedge funds, will be found cringing in their wine-lockers behind a measly layer of privet hedge when the tattooed minions of Glen Beck come a'calling.

This could perhaps be avoided if someone in authority like US Attorney General Eric Holder took an aggressive interest in the multiple swindles of the decade past, and commenced some prosecutions. But the window of opportunity for this sort of meliorating action may close sooner than the government and the mainstream media believe. Social phase-change, as in the formations of mobs, is nothing to screw around with. Once the first window is broken, all bets are off for social stability. My guess is that the various bail-out gifts to the bankers are long past having gone too far in the eyes of this increasingly flammable public.

We have no previous experience with this type of social unrest. The violence of the Vietnam era will look very limited and reasonable in comparison -- in the sense that it was an uprising on the grounds of principle, not survival. And the Civil War was a wholly regimented affair between two rival factions. This time, people with little interest in principle beyond some dim idea of economic fairness, will be hoisting the flaming brands out of sheer grievance and malice. By the time Lloyd Blankfein sees the torches flickering through his privet, it will be too late to defend the honor of his cappuccino machine.

President Obama will have to starkly change his current game plan if this outcome is to be avoided. I think he's capable of turning off the mob -- of preventing the grasshoppers from turning into ravening locusts -- but it may take an extraordinary exercise in authority to do it, such as the true (not pretend) nationalization of the big banks, engineering the exit of Ben Bernanke from the Federal Reserve, sucking up the ignominy of having to replace failed regulator Tim Geithner in the Treasury Department, and calling out the dogs on the swindlers who had the gall to play their country for a sucker.

As I've averred more than a few times in this space before, the standard of living in America has got to come way down. We mortgaged our future and the future has now begun. Tough noogies for us. But the broad public won't accept the reality of this as long as the grandees of finance and their myrmidons appear to still enjoy the high life. They've got to be brought down hard, perhaps even disgraced and humiliated in the courts, and certainly parted from some of their fortunes -- if only in lawyer's fees. Mr. Obama pretty much served notice to this effect last week, telling a delegation of bankers in the White House that he was the only thing standing between them and "the pitchforks." It's possible he understands the situation.

 

[KingOrfeo]

First of all an officer is not required to follow an unlawful order, no matter who it comes from. Their oath is as follows:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

I have taken the oath myself, please don't pretend to know the depth or meaning of that oath to an airman, soldier, sailor, or Marine unless you have taken it yourself. I have told you before, American servicemen and women have traveled to all corners of the world to lay down their lives for the freedom of others, take my advice and don't make the mistake of thinking they will sell their own for any less. Just saying.

I've never done military service, but my father was an officer. I think what most soldiers understand, and are meant to understand, when they take that oath is that they are committing themselves to obey all orders given them, even when obedience means death, unless their CO orders them to commit a crime or atrocity, or participate in a military coup d'etat. That's why the prominent mention of the Constitution and the caveats about "according to regulations and the UCMJ." The oath was drafted, or at least its final form approved, by civilian politicians who never, ever want to see the military turned against the civil government. And you, if you are a patriotic American, should feel exactly the same way about it.

 

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