Friday Round-Up

Some reading for your Friday afternoon:

1. Ayatollah Khamenei escalates the rhetoric and says opposition leaders will be responsible for "bloodshed and chaos" if the protests continue (a possibility that members of hard-line militias may seek to ensure becomes a reality.) He denies that Iran's election was rigged, though he's contradicted by what evidence is available. Roger Cohen lauds the protesters, and says Obama should be more firmly on their side. I disagree. I think Obama has struck the proper tone of concern and and caution. Were it not for our history of meddling in Iran's internal affairs, I might think otherwise.

2. More details on Obama's new financial regulations plan. Changes no doubt, but maybe not the sweeping kind that we need, according to Paul Krugman. The bad news on the economy in general has slowed, but Martin Wolf says we shouldn't be too hasty about thinking we're out of the woods yet. Certainly some (like small businesses) are having a very rough time of it.

3. Check for flying pigs outside your window, because today Ken Starr has come out in support of of Sonia Sotomayor.

4. John Shalikashvilli, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs under Clinton, says that arguments against gays in the military are poorly reasoned and insupportable.

5. Egypt shocked Italy 1-0 in Confederations Cup play yesterday, a result that perhaps shouldn't be so surprising given their play against Brazil. Fortunately for the U.S. this means that a win against Egypt tomorrow means the US will make it out of the first round. Unfortunately, the fact that Egypt is playing so well against the giants makes such a victory highly unlikely.

6. Today is Juneteenth round these parts, a celebration of the day that slaves were liberated in Texas.

Time to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

As the nation commemorates the 65th anniversary of D-Day and those who gave their lives to defend us, it is time we stood up for those who are now willing to make the same sacrifice if asked but are forced to deny their own nature to do so. It is nothing less than shameful that gay and lesbian members of the military must still adhere to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy or risk being kicked out, which has done nothing but cost us valuable people at a time of need. But unlike in 1993 when this policy was first instituted, this is no longer a controversial issue. The vast majority of Americans favor allowing gays to serve openly - even a majority of conservatives.

Now President Obama promised to get this stupid policy repealed during his campaign and, interestingly, the Republican Congressman he just appointed to be Secretary of the Army also favors a repeal. Could this be a clever move to build political support in Congress? Let's hope so.

The New Guy

Perchance by now you've heard of the ouster of the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernen, in favor of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a favorite of CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, who it is hoped will bring a new and innovative approach to the war in Afghanistan. Certainly we will need the military's best and brightest if we hope to have a chance to stabilize Afghanistan, but McChrystal's resume is somewhat blemished for accusations of detainee abuse made against his soldiers during his time in Iraq, and his involvement in the Pat Tillman cover-up. McChrystal's appointment as commander of the Afghanistan forces must be confirmed by the Senate. While I think we're behind the curve in Afghanistan, I'm also skeptical that a mere change in personnel is going to dramatically improve our progress against the Taliban, so I don't see why now isn't as good a time as any to get to the bottom of McChrystal's knowledge and or involvement of detainee abuse and the Tillman cover-up.

Highlighting Professionalism in the U.S. Military

Now I don't link to these stories to bag on the military, so much as I link to them to bag on the right-winger Christians and bigots in the military. Item #1:

After posting his resume on online job site CareerBuilder.com, Corey Andrew was contacted by an army recruiter about a job.

The email exchange between Andrew and the recruiter, Sergeant Marcia Ramode, quickly turned hostile when Andrew revealed that he was a homosexual.

"You are definitely unqualified," wrote Ramode. "Now take you gay self [sic] back to someplace else we do not tolerate gay people like you in any part of the military."

"Her response was appalling," Andrew told CNN.

The email exchange grew more heated, with Ramode suggesting that Andrew should, "go back to Africa and do your gay voodoo limbo tango and wango dance."

One reprimand, coming up. And then there are these yahoos:

Al Jazeera has posted a video alleging to show American soldiers trying to proselytize in Afghanistan -- which would be a clear violation of the military code and, potentially, the U.S. Constitution. More from Crooks and Liars here.

[...]

The video shows, among other things, a prayer circle of evangelical soldiers discussing how and whether to distribute a set of bibles in Afghanistan. If the soldiers ended up doing it, that would be a clear violation of military rules and a great way to earn enmity in a crucial corner of the world. But the video doesn't show that. Rather, what it shows is the soldiers talking about whether such behavior would be kosher or not, acknowledging clearly that proselytizing is wrong. One of them wonders aloud whether it's OK to distribute the bibles as "gifts" as a way of getting around the rules, and the prayer leader quickly cuts him off, saying "Alright, let's talk about it. What do you think?" The video shows no conclusion being reached.

One moment that is slightly greater cause for concern (but not necessarily damning) shows Afghanistan's chief of chaplains -- Lt. Col. Gary Hensley -- telling a congregation of military personnel that every Christian is commissioned to be a "witness" that "hunts people for Jesus...get the hound of heaven after 'em so we get 'em in the Kingdom...That's what we do, that's our business!" To those not in the know, this is boilerplate evangelical rhetoric that's to be expected in such a service. The problem is that for soldiers, it's not clear who exactly they should be trying to convert.

So, draw your own conclusions, but let's just say there are many, many Christians who don't see any problem with invading a predominantly Muslim country and then trying to hand out Bibles and convert people.

Thursday Links

1. Honestly, I wouldn't have surprised if Obama backed off his desire to enact immigration reform. I'm not willing to give odds on what I think the chances are of some meaningful legislation actually getting passed.

2. Middle East: Roger Cohen says Netanyahu is "crying wolf" over claims that Iran will obtain and use a nuclear weapon against Israel, and the Obama administration announces in a dramatic shift that they will join nuclear talks with Iran. Israel's new Foreign Minister rejects the 2007 Annapolis agreement, but Obama signals that the U.S. expects Israel to comply with the agreement and, according to Haaretz, is preparing his administration for a confrontation with Israel over Palestine.

3. Eric Holder begins a "revamp" of the Public Integrity Unit at the DOJ.

4. An organization of Cuban exiles signals they are willing to accept broad changes in American's policies towards Cuba.

5. Nicholas Kristof says that we've reached a turning point when it comes to animal rights.

6. Thanks to the recession, more states are considering raising taxes. Naturally, they will do so quietly.

7. A Texas Republican says Asian-Americans should change to names that are "easier for Americans to deal with." Because of course that makes more sense than just not enacting ridiculous and unnecessary voter ID legislation.

8. Co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons Dave Arneson has died. As you may recall, Gary Gygax passed away this time last year. The world of role-playing owes both its existence and popularity mostly to these two men.

9. Idiots shoot and kill a dog belonging to a retired Navy SEAL living in the Houston area, who nearly kills them in return. Both his name and book sounded familiar so I looked him up. Sure enough, I remember him from this NPR story from 2007 recounting a battle in Afghanistan in which he was the only survivor. I can tell you that had he shot one or more of those guys, no jury in Texas would've convicted him.

Obama Visiting Troops In Iraq

We don't really have a "pic of the day" segment around here, but this picture of Obama visiting the troops in Iraq is too good not to highlight.

War

Once again, the Boston Globe brings us astonishing pictures from Afghanistan, and reminders of the terrible price our military families will pay for our security.

Afghanistan

I found this interesting tidbit in an otherwise conventional Time article on the troop increases in Afghanistan:

Obama began his terse statement Tuesday by acknowledging that "there is no more solemn duty as President than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm's way." He has been personally writing letters to the families of each U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, hand signing them "Barack." Such letters no doubt will become more difficult to write in the months ahead, when the casualties begin to include some of those he ordered into combat.

I thought that was interesting so I looked it up, and found more detail at the Washington Times:

In his first few weeks in office, sometime between celebratory bill signings and phone calls from foreign leaders, President Obama sat in the Oval Office for the most somber task of his presidency - penning letters to families of troops killed in combat.

"This was real, it was personal, it was so important to us," said Thya Merz, whose son Marine Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan was killed Jan. 24 in Afghanistan.

The letter was signed "Barack," Ms. Merz told The Washington Times.

"Not 'president,' just his first name, and it just felt like, OK, my son has been acknowledged," she said.

Mr. Obama personalizes each letter, asking staffers to gather details about the service member, such as their hometown and where they were stationed, a White House aide said. The letters are sent to parents and spouses, and sometimes children of the fallen troops.

The president writes the notes by hand, then the letters are typed before he adds his signature.

According to the Washington Times, Bush did something similar (though there isn't as much detail in that article.) I applaud this. Every President should know something about each soldier who dies in war, so that he can understand the grave toll that war inflicts. But given how the situation is unfolding in Afghanistan, it's safe to say that many more letters will be written before Obama's time in office comes to an end.

Graft in Iraq

What I'm wondering is, has there ever been a war where nobody made a buck?

Texas unemployment up, military enlistment up; coincidence?

Well heck, if you lose your job, why not?

(My apologies for the absolute lack of my own content in this post, but seriously, what is there to say?)

Ugly

It probably should come as no surprise that I absolutely loathe Sarah Palin, the candidate. She's probably a great mom and a good wife and fun to pal around and have a beer with, but the Sarah Palin that's presently running for VP is-in my humble opinion-a snake. Would you like to know why I feel that way? Here's one example:

Among other attacks, Sarah Palin is out on the campaign trail this week accusing Obama of dishonoring the troops, in essence calling them babykillers. This stems from an old charge she (her debate coaches) have resurrected about the Democrat, claiming he said “all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians” some 14 months ago.

Such a statement, she said in last week’s debate, is “a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.”

Never mind that we are actually killing civilians in Afghanistan. Never mind that killing civilians in Afghanistan is actually a really good way to lose the war. Never mind that there might actually be alternative ways of prosecuting the war in Afghanistan that doesn't involve our troops bombing weddings, that might be even more effective at winning the war. No, merely daring to point out that what we're doing in Afghanistan might not work is unpatriotic, smears the troops, and "hurts our cause" (our cause being winning in Afghanistan, I presume.) If she believes this, she's a moron and I want her nowhere near the White House. If she doesn't believe this, she's a snake who's willing to use another politicians frank admission of mistakes in a war as ammunition to win a political contest.

Another example:

Bless your heart sir, my son is in Iraq fighting for your right to protest.

No, no, no, a hundred thousand times no. Country music listeners in particular may think that every time one of our soldiers is asked to invade another country and kill anyone who so ungratefully opposes us doing so is "defending our freedom", but anyone who seriously believes that is a moron. The last time our soldiers were fighting to defend the right of an American to protest anything was the American Revolution. They have fought and died for our security, for our national interests, for humanitarian purposes, and the fact that none of that had to do with protecting the "right to protest" doesn't diminish or demean their sacrifice in anyway.

Both of these tropes are wielded by politicians who seek to stifle debate about what our soldiers are actually up to. If "the troops" are always fighting for our freedom, then there's no need to question the mission. If criticizing the mission is the same thing as criticizing the troops, who are engaged in fighting for our freedom, then criticism becomes downright unpatriotic.

If you didn't get enough of that over the last eight years then by all means, vote for McCain and Palin. If you want an actual adult running the show in Washington, then vote for Obama.

Anti Gay Activist Opens Mouth, Shoots Self in Foot

I heard quotes of her speaking on NPR and yeah, she really did sound this offensive.

I only have one response to the idea of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (which by the way has been interpreted more like "We won't ask, but if we can possibly find out we're kicking you out"); it's time for Americans, and our armed forces, to grow the hell up.

A Cold, Cold War

I neglected to blog about this interesting article in yesterday's NY Times about the U.S.S. Queenfish, whose job it was to map the dark waters beneath the North Pole in an effort to make it easier to track Soviet submarines that prowled the waters with their own dark purpose; to find routes through the ice that would enable them to get close enough to the United States to launch their ICBM's swiftly and without reprisal. The article is actually something of a review of the book "Unknown Waters", which details the story of the Queenfish and her perilous trek through the Arctic and through waters the Soviets claimed for their own. If that's the sort of thing that interests you, I also highly recommend "Blind Man's Bluff", a 1998 book about some of the previously unknown/untold operations involving U.S. submarines and their attempts to spy on the Soviets by tapping underwater cables, sneaking close enough to the coastlines of the Soviet Union to listen in on communications or take a look at Soviet facilities, and provoking engagements with Soviet submarines and naval vessels in an effort to gauge their capabilities. The book offers fascinating reading about a time period when the survival of our nation hinged on the efforts of these submariners.

No More

I'll have more to say about this China "threat" at later point, but my first thought upon reading this by James Fallows is, will a Democratic President put an end to these ridiculous "Bloggers Roundtable" sessions that merely serve as opportunities for authorities in the military to put useful idiot right-wing bloggers to use?

The Generals

This is a great article by the much much superior Kaplan, Fred Kaplan of Slate. I don't have anything to add, really, but I suggest reading this article in full.

Col. Don Snider, a longtime professor at West Point, sees a “trust gap” between junior and senior officers. There has always been a gap, to some degree. What’s different now is that many of the juniors have more combat experience than the seniors. They have come to trust their own instincts more than they trust orders. They look at the hand they’ve been dealt by their superiors’ decisions, and they feel let down.

Read it. Learn it. Love it.

Death of the Warrior Spirit

This is the concept of the article entitled "On Forgetting the Obvious" by Robert Kaplan, author and oft-contributor to The Atlantic on the all subjects military. Xanthippas tipped me off to this a while ago but I've only gotten around to it now. In this piece, he treats us to his observations on the American way of war, and most especially why it's wrong.

It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it.

I'm not too sure how obvious that is. Athenians and Spartans fought pretty well, but the most effective fighting force of the ancient world was the Roman army, many soldiers of which were little more than mercenaries who had no stake in the society in which they lived (which is why they had no problem repeatedly invading Rome). Plenty of highly effective mercenaries roamed around during the 30 years' war too. On the contrary, plenty of nations have believed in themselves and fielded absolutely worthless armies. Such as the American colonies in the early days of the war!

As to the second point, the question is really this: why would such a society feel the need for a military force?

Kaplan feels he's revealing great truths to us here, which we are simply not seeing, but in fact he's basing his arguments on another assumption (which he attributes to both Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz): "War is a fact of the human social condition." I have no argument that war has happened many, many times in human history. When people could no longer simply walk away from each other and move to uninhabited land, a constant state of war began among humans everywhere. Since that time, there has not been a day on this earth that humans have not been at war somewhere. So it would seem to be a safe assumption that war is a natural part of our existence.

Now I would have to digress into a discussion which is far too lengthy to include in this post to explain all the theories scientists of various disciplines have come up with to explain the role of warfare in human existence. Population control is one, a psychological need for violence, competition for resources, cultural and social causes are among many theories. The point is that while most of them view war as being a normal part of human existence, it's not necessarily inevitable. Most people would not think up war as a method of population control; the argument is that it is a cultural response to environmental factors. But there are other ways of overcoming those environmental factors. Contraception and abortion are at least as effective as war at controlling the population and come without associated costs. Increasing food production is another way to alleviate population and environmental pressures. Is war inevitable? War has been avoided in the past. During the Cold War, for example, despite the incredible pressures pushing us towards war with the Soviet Union from our military and many civilian leaders, John F. Kennedy stood firm and said force would only be a last resort, and that the US would not fire first.

Kaplan obviously subscribes to the idea that when two societies clash, it is an overt decision based on some rational thought process. Certainly people make a choice to go to war, but one must question why they make that choice. Kaplan does not. Therefore he goes on to assume that the one and only way you can meet violence is with violence. I'm sure Kaplan believes in reconstruction efforts aimed at helping raise the living standards of the average Iraqi. But he also believes in having an occupying army in Iraq to deal with sectarian violence in Iraq.

Kaplan pays token respect to the idea of diplomacy. As he says, "Clausewitz, interested more in the operational level, allows that war takes precedence only after other forms of politics have failed. Both oppose militarism, but accept the reality of war." Clausewitz was an eminently rational military man, but he doesn't concern himself with the question of how one avoids war in the first place, or whether wars are right or wrong. That is the thinking of a military man. It's not really flawed so much as it is narrow. Medical doctors seem to often disparage surgeons because surgeons almost always think surgery is appropriate. But sometimes surgery is necessary. Of course surgeons want to think that their area of specialty has the best answer. Military people think likewise. Not only is that acceptable, it's desirable. Surely soldiers have to believe in what they're doing, or they wouldn't do it. And we do need someone to do it, but I can find fault with Kaplan for buying into that belief when he's not a member of the military. In his book 13 Days in October, Robert Kennedy says that JFK wondered what the value of military men who didn't believe in military solutions would be, but Kennedy firmly rebuffed Curtis Lemay's insistence that we needed to strike first with our nuclear missiles.

I've read On War, and Clausewitz makes a lot of sense, but one thing he makes utterly clear whether he wanted to or not is that a military must be always completely subordinate to civilian authority and must be given its priorities by that civilian authority. Why? Because the purpose of the military, dress it up as you may, is to wage war and destroy the enemy. As Clausewitz also points out, earning much opprobrium from later critics in the Cold War, the natural type of war is total war. That is, war in which there are no constraints and the entire nation bends its efforts to completely dominating and ultimately destroying the enemy nation. Clausewitz was not advocating this kind of ruthless, apocalyptic war, but logically it makes no sense to constrain oneself when fighting a life or death battle against an enemy. To win, one must strive with 100% of one's resources and one must not artificially constrain one's own efforts. A simple analogy is the difference between two soldiers on the battlefield struggling with each other, striking with rifle butts, bayonets, helmets, or whatever weapon they have in an attempt to kill the other man vs. a boxing match with it's refined rules (like no striking below the belt and fist coverings).

Clausewitz knew that war is two nations struggling to the death, and the nation that wins is proven right by the simple fact of its survival. He saw that, from a military point of view, there is no morality other than victory. But Clausewitz also knew that this is why soldiers must be restrained by civilians. To turn a death match into a boxing match so that in the end, whether you win or lose, you survive, which means you've always got one more chance. As Kaplan also admits, Sun-Tzu knew of no place for morality in war:

Sun-Tzu only respects a leader “who plans and calculates like a hungry man”, who sanctions every manner of deceit provided it is necessary to gain strategic advantage, who is never swayed by public opinion, and “who advances without any thought of winning personal fame and withdraws in spite of certain punishment” if he judges it to be in the interest of his army and his state.

Again Kaplan perfunctorily admits that peace is better than war but comes back with his assumption that war is inevitable:

What stands out in The Art of War and On War, even more than the incisiveness of their analyses, is the character of the writers themselves: Both would avoid war if they could, but become warriors because they cannot.

To be nitpicky, only Clausewitz was a soldier. Sun-Tzu was a military theorist, if he existed at all. There's a need for clarification here. Neither man was concerned with avoiding war by non-military means. Both men thought of the prevention of war as a military mission, solved by demonstrating superiority. That's one way to do it, of course, although against a fanatical or desperate enemy you won't find it enough of a deterrent.

So Kaplan would have us believe war is inevitable and that those who believe in the rightness of their own cause enough to free themselves of any artificial restraints on their own conduct will triumph.

In such a world, the real threat to our national security may be our own lack of faith in ourselves, meaning not just faith in a God who has a special care for America, but faith in the American national enterprise itself, in whatever form. This lack of faith in turn leads to an overdependence on ever more antiseptic military technology. But our near obsession with finding ways to kill others at no risk to our own troops is a sign of strength in our eyes alone. To faithful or merely nationalist enemies, it is a sign of weakness, even cowardice.

And:

Even as we narrow our own view of warfare’s acceptable parameters, trying to harm as few civilians as possible in successful operations, our enemies amplify the concept of total war: They kill tens, or hundreds, or occasionally thousands of civilians in order to undermine the morale of millions. The killing of 3,000 civilians on September 11, 2001 might have temporarily awakened a warrior spirit in American democracy, but such a spirit is hard to sustain in the crucible of an ambiguous conflict. In Iraq, a country of 26 million people through which more than a million American troops have passed, the loss of a few Americans and three dozen-or-so Iraqis daily in suicide bombs is enough to demoralize a homefront 7,000 miles away. A non-warrior democracy with a limited appetite for casualties is probably a good thing in terms of putting the breaks on a directionless war strategy. That does not change the fact, however, that Americans as a people are ever further removed from any semblance of a warrior spirit as we grow increasingly prosperous and our political elite grows increasingly secular.

Now we come to the crux of the problem. What exactly is Kaplan suggesting? I'm not sure, but I can see shades of meaning in what he says:

Alas, in the unpredictable fog and Clausewitzian “friction” of war, to believe in something is more important than to be blessed by mere logic, or to have the ability for talented argument—even more important than the marvelous gear one carries. “Faith is the great strategic factor that unbelieving faculties and bureaucracies ignore”, retired Army Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters wrote in the Weekly Standard in February 2006.

Peters fears that Islamic revolutionaries believe in themselves more than we believe in ourselves.

But faith in what? Believing in yourself is not an explanation of anything. Believe that we can do it? Believe that we're right? Or simply believe that when the decision is made to fight, we must fight and win regardless of anything that happens? People like the fighters of Al-Qaeda do indeed have an unreasoning, unquestioning belief in their own rightness. Kaplan somehow sees that as a virtue! I'm not saying he's saying it's "good", but in terms of war, it's an advantage. Well, perhaps it is, if you approach the issue with the mentality that in war the only "right" is winning. But is Kaplan saying that we should approach war with that same mindset? Should we indeed unapologetically bomb civilian homes and burn their crops to kill the enemies hidden among them and starve them? What does believing in ourselves mean?

I may be giving Kaplan too much credit, but the only sense I can make is that he's saying that when we're fighting a "right" war, we must resolve to win it no matter the losses we suffer and that our support must be as fanatical as theirs. Yet Kaplan is seemingly mourning our lack of resolve with regards to the Iraq war. He doesn't seem to realize that resolve is lacking exactly because most of us no longer believe it is a right war and that we don't believe in supporting pointless, destructive wars. By comparison, most of us do still support a military presence in Afghanistan, not because we're losing fewer soldiers but because that's where we're fighting Al-Qaeda. To civilians it matters why we go to war and why we stay in war, and it should!

Yet here is the pinnacle of the kind of thinking Kaplan espouses:

Wheeler, who has participated in several wars over the course of three administrations and also served as senior adviser to the U.S. Mission for the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, put the matter like this: “Decadence” is the essential condition of “a society which believes it has evolved to the point where it will never have to go to war.” By eliminating war as a possibility, “it has nothing left to fight and sacrifice for, and thus no longer wants to make a difference.”

"Decadence is the essential condition of a society which believes it has evolved to the point where it will never have to go to war." Instead of this being our goal, he is saying this should be our ultimate fear. Instead of striving for peace without war, we must strive for peace through war. Wars in which we will not admit wrongness despite whatever reasons we may have gotten into the war and despite changing circumstances during the war that may make it more to our advantage to leave. Kaplan must be one of those who bitterly regrets our abandonment of the Vietnam conflict.

Strangely, the moral high ground never comes up in Kaplan's argument. There is no argument that we're right, no argument that they're wrong. Simply that in any conflict, we must unfailingly support a war and our soldiers because it's "us vs. them." On the one hand, he berates those of us who are morally conscious of war while lauding the terrorists because they are acting out of a belief in their own rightness. That is because, I must assume, anything that leads to an unreasoning belief supporting one's own war effort is, to Kaplan, morally correct whereas anything else is morally incorrect.

The one and only conclusion that can be drawn from this thinking is that war is the ultimate "right". Kaplan does not seem to grasp the concept that many of us see war as the ultimate wrong. We can't unquestioningly support it. We can't view it with neutrality when to us, soldiers are still human no matter what colors they wear. Kaplan says:

I cannot remember how many times a soldier or marine told me that we don’t want to be pitied as victims, but respected as fighters. That respect is not abundant, which brings us to an especially sharp practical edge of what our forgetfulness has wrought.

Forgetfulness, Kaplan? I think you forget that to every mother, father, child and sibling of those soldiers, they will never be anything but a cherished family member. Why should civilians be so willing to spend coin measured in the lives of their family members? Why should we not turn our backs on war? War is indeed a necessity sometimes. But it's a necessity as dictated by the good of the nation from a civilian viewpoint, not a military one. This is what Kaplan has forgotten. War is never right simply because we started fighting it. The world is not and cannot be that simple for people to whom morals do matter.

Lawyers, Check Your Ethics at the Door

Over the weekend, I read this column in the Washington Post about a mentally ill soldier being criminally prosecuted for attempting to commit suicide and threatening another soldier with her weapon. She faces life in prison if she's convicted at court martial. I didn't have time to write about it, but Scott Horton does today, and there's something he says that I think is worth highlighting. First a quote from the article:

Her hands trembled as Maj. Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed, should be court-martialed. After seven years of exemplary service, the 25-year-old Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted. Military psychiatrists at Walter Reed who examined Whiteside after she recovered from her self-inflicted gunshot wound diagnosed her with a severe mental disorder, possibly triggered by the stresses of a war zone. But Whiteside’s superiors considered her mental illness “an excuse” for criminal conduct, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

At the hearing, Wolfe, who had already warned Whiteside’s lawyer of the risk of using a “psychobabble” defense, pressed a senior psychiatrist at Walter Reed to justify his diagnosis. “I’m not here to play legal games,” Col. George Brandt responded angrily, according to a recording of the hearing. “I am here out of the genuine concern for a human being that’s breaking and that is broken. She has a severe and significant illness. Let’s treat her as a human being, for Christ’s sake!”

And Horton's comments:

...now we have Major Stefan Wolfe, who knows that all psychology is just bullshit. Major Wolfe has probably been given an inner vision into this affair by God Almighty, from the sounds of it. He is apparently also ignorant of the rules of professional ethics that require lawyers (yes, including prosecutors) to treat the work and opinions of other professionals with respect.

Horton is making a larger point about the ease with which military commanders simply dismiss "psychobabble" when their soldiers commit acts that would be criminal but for the fact that they're mentally ill. That's an important point, as military commanders are given great leeway to either bring charges against soldiers, or recommend them for psychiatric treatment. As you can well imagine, there are quite a few who make it to commander ranks who are utterly dismissive of even the idea of mental illness as an excuse to "bad" conduct.

But Horton really goes after Maj. Wolfe, who apparently doesn't have a problem with demeaning the defense's legal argument and badgering the defense's witnesses. Now you might be surprised to learn that though lawyers don the uniform when they're sworn into military service, they are still required to adhere to a standard of professional ethics that they also swear to when they're licensed as lawyers. Here for example, is a relevant portion of the Texas Lawyer's Creed, the code that lawyers licensed in Texas are expected to adhere to:

A lawyer owes to opposing counsel, in the conduct of legal transactions and the pursuit of litigation, courtesy, candor, cooperation, and scrupulous observance of all agreements and mutual understandings.

And under that heading, this section:

I will not, without good cause, attribute bad motives or unethical conduct to opposing counsel nor bring the profession into disrepute by unfounded accusations of impropriety. I will avoid disparaging personal remarks or acrimony towards opposing counsel, parties and witnesses. I will not be influenced by any ill feeling between clients. I will abstain from any allusion to personal peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of opposing counsel.

In short, don't be a jackass, and don't impugn the credibility or motives of your opponent or his witnesses.

As you can imagine, a lot of trial lawyers forget these standards when they get into the courtroom, where for many the adversarial nature of the American legal system means "anything goes." But what particularly bothers me is not how trial lawyers forget how to behave, but the larger problem of lawyers who go to work for someone forgetting that whatever loyalty they owe their client, they still must adhere to certain standards of conduct that apply to all lawyers wherever they work. As of late this has been particularly problematic in the field of government service, where some lawyers have come to believe it's ok to carry out political prosecutions, make tortured legal arguments supporting the insupportable, or in the case of Maj. Wolfe, demean that arguments of an expert witness as "psychobabble" in the interests of furthering some military commanders prejudices.

Lawyers are poorly regarded by the American public. To some extent this isn't fair, as the American adversarial system encourages lawyers to play it to the hilt to defend their clients against the world. But lawyers should never, ever forget that their interest is not in helping a weasily client get away with something, especially when their weasily client is the U.S. government. Their duty is to see that justice is done, that truth is revealed. This is true no matter what suit or uniform they wear.

Has the robot revolution already begun?

This is one of those stories that's so crazy you just want to tell everyone about it. In short, basically robotic weapon systems have been known to go crazy from time to time and kill people!

The National Defence Force is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday.

During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, “I personally saw a gun go out of control several times,” Young says. “They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the polls down.”

It's too soon! Artificial Intelligence hasn't even been developed yet!

Steele Goes on Trial

You may remember Lt. Col. William Steele, who we reported back in April would be put on trial for being a little too nice to some of the Iraqi detainees at Camp Cropper, a detention center outside of Baghdad. He's scheduled to go on trial on Monday. He was originally charted with nine counts that could have subjected him to the death penalty; instead he will be charged with the count "aiding the enemy" by smuggling a cell phone into the detainees, and with maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter, whatever that means. He's already pled guilty to charges of possessing unauthorised material on his computer, as well as pornographic videos (charges that I swear the military throws at you no matter what you've done wrong, or so it seems.) Unfortunately, the AFP article lumps Steele in with a "string of scandals" committed by other military personnel over the last year, though noticeably, those scandals all involve soldiers unlawfully killing Iraqis, not helping them. Instead, Steele appears to be the model soldier, or so claim people who know and work with him. You'll note that no senior military official has ever been charged for any detainee abuse at either Abu Ghraib or any of the other detention camps in Iraq. It would not surprise me at all if we were to find out at some later point that Steele's real crime was not really that he aided the detainees, but rather that he refused to treat them as poorly as some of his comrades have.

"Every indication of an excessive shooting"

The U.S. military, whose soldiers arrived on the scene shortly after the shootings in Nissor Square, disagrees with Blackwater's version of events:

Blackwater USA guards shot at Iraqi civilians as they tried to drive away from a Baghdad square on Sept. 16, according to a report compiled by the first U.S. soldiers to arrive at the scene, where they found no evidence that Iraqis had fired weapons.

"It appeared to me they were fleeing the scene when they were engaged. It had every indication of an excessive shooting," said Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, whose soldiers reached Nisoor Square 20 to 25 minutes after the gunfire subsided.

His soldiers' report -- based upon their observations at the scene, eyewitness interviews and discussions with Iraqi police -- concluded that there was "no enemy activity involved" and described the shootings as a "criminal event." Their conclusions mirrored those reached by the Iraqi government, which has said the Blackwater guards killed 17 people.

I'm sure there are those who take issue with the Iraqi civilians' descriptions of the event, but it's difficult to argue with the accounts of soldiers on the scene. By their reckoning, it would appear Blackwater guards shot up Iraqi civilians and then took off, leaving the soldiers to clean up the mess.