Poster Kids
CBS will be trotting out some anti-war vets for a big special tomorrow. USMC Sgt. Liam Madden and about 1,000 others who want to squawk but are unwilling to face court martial for their beliefs like Lt. Watada. They sent a petition to Congress under a whistleblower provision:
“Just because we volunteered for the military doesn’t mean we volunteered to put our lives in unnecessary harm and to carry out missions that are illogical and immoral,” says Madden.
Well, all war is illogical and immoral when you get right down to it, but philosophical navel-gazing aside, I suspect the 1995 Military Whistleblower Act was aimed at exposing $600 toilet seats and drill sergeants who try to drown recruits, rather than to let active-duty service members gripe about foreign policy that everyone already knows about.
So here’s the law:
(a) Restricting Communications With Members of Congress and Inspector General Prohibited.
(1) No person may restrict a member of the armed forces in communicating with a Member of Congress or an Inspector General.
(2) Paragraph (1) does not apply to a communication that is unlawful.
(b)Prohibition of Retaliatory Personnel Actions.
(1) No person may take (or threaten to take) an unfavorable personnel action, or withhold (or threaten to withhold) a favorable personnel action, as a reprisal against a member of the armed forces for making or preparing
(A) a communication to a Member of Congress or an Inspector General that (under subsection (a)) may not be restricted; or
(B) a communication that is described in subsection (c) (2) and that is made (or prepared to be made) to (i) a Member of Congress; (ii) an Inspector General (as defined in subsection (i)) or any other Inspector General appointed under the Inspector General Act of 1978; (iii) a member of a Department of Defense audit, inspection, investigation, or law enforcement organization; (iv) any person or organization in the chain of command; or (v) any other person or organization designated pursuant to regulations or other established administrative procedures for such communications.
(2) A communication described in this paragraph is a communication in which a member of the armed forces complains of, or discloses information that the member reasonably believes constitutes evidence of, any of the following:
(A) A violation of law or regulation, including a law or regulation prohibiting sexual harassment or unlawful discrimination.
(B) Gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety …
I’m still looking, but I haven’t seen the part that says active-duty personnel can gripe about foreign policy and denounce decisions made by the commander in chief on CBS. Maybe that’s under Subsection (Somewhere Else).
Meanwhile, OIF vets theRealJeffS and CavMedic want to know how come 60 Minutes isn’t doing a special on these guys: Appeal for Courage.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:13 am Comments (16) on Saturday, February 24, 2007
16 Responses to “Poster Kids”
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February 24th, 2007 at 10:27 am
If they don’t want to go to war (it’s so icky, you know), fine. Reassign them to some small out-of-the-way listening post in North Dakota or Alaska or the bum-end of Arizona where they can spend the duration of the war or their tour of service doing cleanup detail or shuffling paper. Promotions would probably be a thing of the past, as combat veterans are awarded priority points, and years hence they can all explain to their grandchildren what Granddad did in the war.
February 24th, 2007 at 11:26 am
[...] Jules Crittenden: I’m still looking, but I haven’t seen the part that says active-duty personnel can gripe about foreign policy and denounce decisions made by the commander in chief on CBS. Maybe that’s under Subsection (Somewhere Else). [...]
February 24th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Out of a current strength of 2.4 million, 1000 are complaining? That comes to 0.042% of the total strength, hardly a ringing endorsement of the anti-war.
On the other hand, http://www.appealforcourage.org/ is using exactly the same “whistleblower” approach to ask Congress to support their mission……and something like 1020 troops have signed the petition since it cranked up last week.
So, do these two petitions cancel each other out? Personally, I don’t think so.
The pro-war (or pro-mission, if you like) soldiers are being professional. They are appealing to their government to let them do their job. Period. In a sense, they are just going around the military chain of command directly to Congress. The petition needed to be blessed because there is a prohibition of military personnel directly contacting Congress on official matters, which this is. Whoever started up this petition is not only a smart cookie, s/he has a major spine.
The petition is unusual in that this is an publicly organized petition; if people think that soldiers don’t write their congresscritters as citizens, they are very ignorant indeed. I’ve dealt with congressional inquiries before while on active duty.
Sadly, it’s also not unusual in that Congress is not supporting the troops. Again. Hence the desire for the troops to contact Congress directly.
However, the anti-war military personnel are simply being political; they want to impose their beliefs on the military chain of command. They have the right for such actions as a citizen, but not as a soldier; they could write their congresscritters as individuals and be relatively protected. However, they chose to go public. Hence, the use of the whistleblower protection clause, which seems to me to be an abuse of the Act. I suppose there’s a formal justification for this, but I’m with Jules, it appears very flaky.
OTOH, I’m rather curious as to who thought up using the act in the first place; if the anti-war did, and the “Appeal for Courage” copied them, that would be deliciously ironic. Because I suspect that a lot more active duty troops will sign the petition. I wish I was back on active duty just so I could so! Alas, ’tis not to be, being retired and all.
In any case, we can safely say, “I see your 1000 anti-war troops and call.” Not that the left will care; they will be too busy posturing to attempt to occupy the moral high ground.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Jeff-our side can’t call, because CBS isn’t going to devote any time on 60 minutes to our side of the argument.
We’ve got a war-protester doofus who was in our platoon in the desert who transferred out when we got home. He came by drill last month with pictures of when he went to the march in D.C. in January. The best I could do was tell him that if he didn’t have any official business with us, he could get the hell out (the CSM really wanted to fry his ass, but he just told the little shit to get lost as well). I think he’s a little scumbag POS, but I’m not going to run him down in front of the rest of the troops-that’s not professional. All I can do is remind the rest of the guys of their duty. Most of them are very proud of our efforts in Iraq, lefty propaganda has little effect on them.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I’m thinking the shacks on Shemya need guarding. The Russians might invade any day now…
February 24th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Just so, CavMedic. That sort of crap just won’t fly with professional soldiers.
And such doofuses will not get ahead in the military. Their failure will have nothing to do with “whistleblower retaliation”, they simply aren’t able to be a member of a team. It’s all about them, doncha know? Else that doofus would never have come back to a unit that they weren’t welcome in for a visit with those photos. That inability to integrate will be their downfall.
We had this one character in the Illinois Army National Guard who was an open member of the Communist Party; this was back in the mid to late 1980s, prior to the Soviet collapse. The ILARNG had a lot of problems back then (still does, I imagine, but I left that organization for another state in 1989), strength being one of them, and standards were pretty low. But even this character got bounced out of the ILARNG. Not for his political affiliations, though, but by violating the state equivalent of UCMJ.
He was arrested in another state while protesting,in uniform, during a protest at a major labor strike. The protest got violent, the state police moved in, and this moron was nabbed. That state police called our STARC, and the rest is history. To describe the response of his chain of command as “gleeful” would be inadequate.
I predict a similar end for your doofus, unless he simply doesn’t re-enlist because he “wasn’t appreciated enough”.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Well at least it is CBS so we know few people will be watching.
BTW, this is a voluntary military. If they do not like the mission they can go do something else. I am sure there were plenty of guys who wondered why we were bombing what used to Yugoslavia, but I don’t remember them making an issue of it. But then again, the guy in the White House had a D behind his name.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
And yeah, we can’t call, the MSM will ignore it. But the blogs, now, that’s a different matter……
February 24th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
And, in all fairness, I should point out that “Appeal for Courage” has similar legal issues to the anti-war protesters use of the Anti-Whistleblowers Act. I presume that the “Appeal for Courage” was approved solely because no one will call the anti-war protesters use of this inappropriate use of the Act.
That would likely be used as an example of “crushing dissent” by the Dhimmicrats in particular, and the anti-war left in general. When, in fact, it is simply enforcing current regulations.
In either case, this is a sad day, that the anti-war abuses yet another protective measure to circumvent reasonable regulations, and that soldiers see the need to use that same protection merely to appeal directly to a part of the Nation’s leaders to grow a backbone.
February 24th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
SSDD
GIs Petition Congress To End Iraq War
Feb. 22, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/22/60minutes/main2505412.shtml
We Won’t Go To Iraq
Dec. 8, 2004
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/60II/main659336.shtml
CBS, is doing their part to revive the Cronkite and Rather days.
February 24th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Well, you may not be able to contact CBS, but nothing says that I can’t do so. I hope that other’s reading this will do the same. Ask 60 Minutes why they are telling only one side of this story. Point out the bias (as thought they don’t already know). Ask them why they don’t do a story that focuses on the majority of those in theater, and those vets who have spent time in theater.
At least, that’s what I’ve done.
February 24th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Oops. that’s “as THOUGH”, not “thought”. I’ve been doing so much of the latter lately, you might say I’ve got “thought” on the brain.
Or maybe not.
February 24th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden posts on the goofy Appeal for Redress guys (now featuring SEVEN active duty servicemembers!). Crittenden wonders what law permits them to petition Congress to end the law and contends that the 1995 Military Whistelblower Act wasn’t designed to allow such “petitions.” [...]
February 24th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Jules, for some information on how these fools can get away with their
"Appeal" please check out CSM (Ret) Pendry’s
Appeal for
Courage post. He also links to a counter-appeal I hope you’ll help
publicize.
February 24th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.02.24
Some Bill’s Bites posts, some things I excerpted and linked but I’m sending you to the original post. I may rearrange the order of the items within this post as I add new things that I think belong above the
February 24th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.02.24
Just read ‘em. Maybe I’ll find time to do more with ‘em later. (And some things that are just too short to excerpt.) Please feel free to use this post for comments and trackbacks not related to other posts on