Not so “semper fi,” are you?

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by Sgt. Gary Stein. For those who don’t know his name, but have heard some permutation of the phrase “anti-Obama Marine” lately, that’s him. On Wednesday, a judge refused to block the Marine Corps from dismissing him over referring to President Obama as “the economic enemy, the religious enemy, the domestic enemy” on Facebook. He claims the dismissal violates his right to free speech, although Defense Department rules have consistently prohibited military personnel from expressing their political opinions in public. Having already been “scrutinized” for this sort of activity, he should have known.

On that note, I have to wonder how smart this guy is when it comes to making a point effectively. His first brush with these rules came when NATO and U.S. personnel faced punishment for improperly burning copies of the Koran. At the time he said something to the effect of “I say screw Obama. I will not follow orders given by him to me.” He later said he meant “unlawful” orders. That’s probably how a lot of soldiers feel, dingus.

The possible decision to discharge him is not partisan. If Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) were president and Stein had made the exact same comments about him, he would have faced the exact same punishment. There is a very good reason for rules like this: When you wear the uniform of the United States, the president, no matter their persona or politics, is your commander-in-chief. To treat him or her as anything less is utterly lacking in both respect for authority and respect for military cohesion. I could forgive him for speaking out if Obama was giving orders that violated laws, and even then I would expect him to be willing to face the appropriate discipline.

Unsurprisingly, one of the few lawmakers rallying to Stein’s side is Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), whose district encompasses Camp Pendleton, where Stein has been stationed as a meteorologist. (“I will not describe clouds for Obama!”) This may be the first time Hunter and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are on the same page about anything; both are making the free speech argument. I’m sorry, but when you enlist in the military, you should expect to sacrifice much of that right when acting as a servicemember. The rules are clearly visible.

If Stein’s money was where his mouth is, he would either accept the discharge to get away from this evil, evil president or have requested one already. That he hasn’t makes me wonder about his stability.

The curious case of Bradley Manning

The prosecution in the case of Pfc. Bradley Manning has rested its case, giving his defense team time to argue for sparing him incarceration for passing on classified military data to WikiLeaks. Helpfully, this article gives us a full rundown of their arguments. Absent is the one about Manning being subject to an atmosphere of homophobia within the U.S. Armed Forces, which had yet to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell at the time. Maybe they realized how weak that made him sound.

Now that 15 out of 21 expert witnesses for the prosecution have said their pieces, here are the arguments to get Manning off, one for each of those three witnesses:

• Manning should never have been able to access the material.
• The security system that might otherwise have prevented him from accessing it failed to do its job.
• None of the material he leaked posed a great threat to national security.

Bear in mind that Manning was a military intelligence analyst with several years of experience as a hacker. I tend to believe that the vast majority of hackers do not have malicious intentions against the people they hack, and can be an invaluable asset for all your cybersecurity needs. Manning, however, had a considerable history of psychological issues, at one point nearly being denied the chance to enlist. It could successfully be argued that the military was negligent in taking him on, and in having such a weak security system to begin with.

As for the nature of the classified material, most of it has been controversial on the level of a drunken photo you forget to take off Facebook: snarky comments about other world leaders, that sort of thing. The threat of terror on American soil seems no higher than usual. The more contentious stuff concerns the military’s own mistakes, which should not only have been exposed, but avoided. It helps to know about those.

While the defense has plenty of opportunity to paint Manning as a powder keg in a room full of matches, I would not argue for letting him off completely scot-free. Regardless of the military’s failure to secure itself, it is not the responsibility of someone of his rank to release any information deemed classified. The ends may be on a spectrum of good to ineffectual, but the means are unacceptable. It would set a precedent for treating military whistleblowers on the level of corporate ones, who would have much less to compromise.

If there are going to be any increases in military spending in the near future, let them go toward improved cybersecurity and screening processes for new recruits.

The staff sergeant from New York has the floor

In August 2009, after I published my column on war resisters, I and a left-wing friend had a showdown about it on his radio show. Much of his argument centered on the fact that many Americans join the military out of dire economic circumstances, thus (apparently) invalidating my position that it’s an all-volunteer army, and if you didn’t want to risk fighting a war with which you disagreed, you never should have enlisted in the first place. If Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has his way, no one will ever have to make that choice again.

His idea? Institute a mandatory military draft, lest the volunteer forces be disproportionately populated by lower-income Americans. This isn’t because he thinks they make the army weaker because of their socioeconomic status, but because it’s only fair that “all Americans should be prepared to make the sacrifices” of those who enlisted by choice. For the record, Rangel himself was a decorated staff sergeant in Korea, so he kind of gets it.

It may surprise you to know that Selective Service is still in place, with the names of 14 million men on file as of 2008. (I wonder if Rangel would support opening it up to women for the sake of fairness?) Of course, since Vietnam, no military operation has led the government to avail itself of that list of names. Barring an all-out war between Iran, China or the planet Psychlo and everyone else, I do not expect that this will happen any time soon, but still they keep it.

Thus, Rangel’s proposal amounts to forcing all American men of age to be drafted, whether the occasion justifies it or not, just so the military will be more economically heterogeneous. Wonderful. While we’re at it, let’s force all American women to study engineering, in case the workforce be too male otherwise. And I want it seen to that all American prisons start rounding up more white people. Because nothing is more important than having equal percentages of everything! You hear me? NOTHING!

What kind of message does Rangel’s idea send to soldiers who did enlist for financial reasons? “What’s that? You can’t afford to go to college? What a shame. But don’t worry, I’ll force the guy who can afford it to join you!” If he spent half as much time thinking of ways to improve these guys’ financial status without downgrading someone else’s, he wouldn’t sound nearly as Soviet in his proposals. If you want an accurate reflection of society in a certain group, you’ll only allow in the people who asked to be there.

I don’t doubt that Rangel is familiar with the circumstances he’s decrying and is sincere in his wish to see them gone. But this wouldn’t be taking them away; it’s avoiding them.

President Petraeus? Not on your life

I’ve been in a mild depression ever since I learned that Donald Trump was leading in polls among likely Republican voters. Is it because that many people buy into his birther shit, or because an equal number of people know nothing of it and think his business success would translate into some for them? Unless he decides he wouldn’t want the pay cut and drops out, leaving former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) to take it from there, only one person could defeat President Obama: General David Petraeus.

That’s according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in an interview with the National Review, perhaps making a valiant attempt at kingmaking. He was bolstered by a Gallup poll that gives Petraeus 61% favorability and only 7% unfavorability in a hypothetical match-up between him and Trump, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL). And that’s among Republicans; among all Americans, Petraeus gets 55% favorability and 11% unfavorability.

I might be inclined to join Grassley in launching a “Draft Petraeus 2012″ campaign if not for three factors: 1. I don’t believe in candidate drafting. If they want to run, they will. 2. Petraeus is a military man through and through; he would need the mother of all economic experts as his running mate, and I can think of no such person in the GOP (assuming that would be his party of choice). 3. He doesn’t want to be president; he’s apolitical by choice.

That might be a byproduct of working in his field, in which it’s considered bad form to voice one’s opinion of political affairs. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that in theory. But to anyone who seriously wants Petraeus to be president, they should realize its implications. We don’t know how he feels about anything: the best job creation methods, the ideal health care and education systems, even – God help us – abortion. Does he even give it that much thought?

Based on the above poll numbers, the consensus seems to be that Petraeus has been a very effective commander and strategist. He’s been suggested as a new director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Nah. He’s best at public battles. But Robert Gates is retiring as Secretary of Defense; the sum of his military experience is two years at an Air Force base in Missouri.

I can think of no better person to fill Gates’s shoes than Petraeus. Certainly not current CIA director Leon Panetta; what does he know of war? The Defense Department deserves someone who has been there.

Brothers (and sisters?) in arms

Having prepared “Don’t ask, don’t tell” for its proper burial, it may already be time for advocates of “demographic expansion” (that’s not a common name, it’s just something I pulled out of my ass) in the military to barrel on to something new. The Military Leadership Diversity Commission, which was established two years ago, is going to recommend to the Pentagon that women be allowed to serve as combat soldiers. Inexplicably, there remains a rule barring them from doing so.

Women make up 14.2 per cent of all active-duty soldiers in the U.S – 200,000 out of 1.4 million. Quite a few of them have performed tasks typical of a combat unit when necessary. The Canadian and Israeli militaries do not have rules barring women from combat, although one sopping (male) commentator has all but asked for one as seeing a woman die on the battlefield is so haaaaard. (I really let him have it after that.) Most NATO nations do, due to “very low” demand to repeal them.

In the heat of battle, I doubt your average soldier would have the time to pause and think about their comrade’s sex. They just need someone to pick up a weapon and start using it, dammit. I have yet to see any indication that the rule is actually enforced should this happen. And what exactly would the female soldier’s punishment be? Polishing the silverware in the mess hall?

The article quotes former Lt. Claire Russo, who does not expect most women to meet the physical fitness requirements for combat and says they should not be allowed in “just for the sake of doing it.” That’s not the point. Nobody is suggesting that we throw out physical fitness requirements for women. If it is true that the vast majority of them would not be able to participate in combat, why bother banning them? The rule is redundant, almost like banning a lactose-intolerant from eating ice cream.

And then there’s the old living quarters argument, which didn’t stop women from eventually being allowed on naval submarines earlier in the Obama administration. Frankly, if they can’t figure out how to work around this in 2011, they’re either stupid or lazy. It’s the cop-out that refuses to die. I would personally like to hear from some current or former soldiers who have shared quarters with the opposite sex; I know you’re out there.

The article states that it’s unlikely for the Pentagon to adopt the recommendation during two wars and DADT repeal. When one of those is off the agenda, I expect more attention to be paid. This is admittedly less ridiculous than DADT, but it’s close.

Operation Enduring Presence

The stay-the-course vs. cut-and-run argument that once characterized the American dialogue on the war in Iraq has since moved eastward. The first half considers it irresponsible for U.S. troops to exit Afghanistan until their military can take the lead; the second half considers it irresponsible to spend billions of dollars on a seemingly endless mission. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) may have answered both concerns with his proposal to establish permanent military bases in the country.

Graham provided Meet the Press with a more detailed definition of an “enduring presence” in Afghanistan than President Obama has presented. In Graham’s view, a number of permanent air bases would ensure that the Taliban never regains control of the country, and also give support to the Afghan army. This has been the end goal of drawing down U.S. combat operations for the length of the Obama administration.

Permanent air bases would certainly provide consistency after the mission officially ends, and it would ensure a greater supply of jobs for military personnel and their civilian proxies. Such a strategy has worked when trying to protect countries from foreign invasion, namely that of Soviets after World War II. The government would have to make it explicit that the retooled mission is to protect Afghanistan from its own insurgents.

However, if Graham wants to make his proposal a reality, he will need to answer for the costs. In 1956, operations at the former Pepperrell Air Force Base in Newfoundland cost $2 million per month. In today’s terms, adjusted for inflation, that’s over $15 million. Not that a majority of Americans or fellow members of Congress will mind – defense is the one area in which it’s largely considered acceptable to spend big. But when fiscal responsibility is the recurring motif in current politics, it may be time for an attitude adjustment, in that respect.

Thinking back on major legislation, if this makes it past the Sunday news stage (yes, that’s a stage now), it will probably take anywhere from a year to 18 months to have a final floor vote on the subject, after months upon months of partisan debate and consultation with military brass. That will leave another 18 months to two years to set up the base by the combat deadline. Graham has the next three years cut out for him.

I personally hope this turns out successfully for him. With enemies foreign and domestic continuing to threaten the Mideast, as this weekend’s attack in Egypt proved, one more in the region won’t hurt anyone but American taxpayers. Graham may need to determine who takes priority.

The most obvious choice in the world

It was looking more and more headed for the chopping block by the day. A federal judge had ruled it unconstitutional. Lady Gaga had taken a day off from hat shopping to agitate for its repeal. A floor vote was finally taking place. That floor vote caused the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to be blocked by four votes, three of which came from Democrats. (The fourth came from moderate Sen. Susan Collins [R-ME].) Here are their justifications:

• Collins believed Republicans “weren’t given sufficient chance” to add amendments to the defense bill to which the repeal was attached.
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) wanted further debate and the chance to offer her own amendments that would benefit Arkansas. Homegirl!
• Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) also wanted more debate.
• Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) – yes, even him – used his no vote as a procedural tactic that would prevent the bill from being thrown out.

I’ve supported healthy debate countless times in my column, even if it slows things down in Congress, and I will continue to do so. But if DADT has been ruled unconstitutional, shouldn’t that be enough for the entire Senate to accept that it’s doomed to die anyway? I sometimes get the feeling that somebody’s gay cousin will need to be discharged for being gay before they finally wake up and smell the dung heap.

The repeal was attached to a $726 billion defense bill, the most notable element of which is a pay raise for the troops. My guess is that it was done in this way, as opposed to a single DADT repeal bill, so the rest of the bill could be used as a kind of padding. Even paying the troops more isn’t good enough for the 43 senators who voted against it. According to several of them, it will take a full report on the effect of the repeal for them to reconsider.

Let me repeat: They want a full report on what will result from soldiers being allowed to be open about something they can’t change about themselves, and not get kicked out of the military for it. Pardon my language, ma’am, but what unmitigated, unjustifiable asininity. The argument that DADT promotes military cohesion withers and dies in the face of it. How truly cohesive can you be when the threat of discharge hangs over your head if you wish to be fully open with your brothers and sisters in arms, and 13,000 troops are lost to it?

There are many occasions in which The West Wing sums politics up better than anyone else. Watch the clip. Consider the clip. Then get back to me and tell me it’s still a good idea to keep this piece of crap in place.

Command cutter in chief

Observers of U.S. federal budgets will have come to understand that when Defense is targeted for cuts, standard-issue calls for fiscal responsibility tend to wind down, especially in times of war. Some might call this hypocritical. But in the case of a specific cut recommended by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, it’s as principled as it gets.

The proposal is to cut $100 billion (over five years) from the department’s budget where deemed acceptable and spend the savings on weapons modernization. One of those places is the United States Joint Forces Command, otherwise known as USJFCOM, which is located in Norfolk, VA and employs nearly 5,000 people. It is one of the ten Unified Combatant Commands (UCCs), responsible for implementing the president’s strategies; coordinating the work of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines; modernizing military operations; and providing conventional forces.

Big important stuff, right? I should think this command out of all the others would be best equipped for the task of modernizing weapons. There are three other functional commands – Special Operations, Strategic, and Transportation – and six regional commands, which are mapped out like this. Any other time, I’d recommend integrating Central Command into Africa or European Command, but because of where today’s wars are taking place, I’d say the Mideast warrants its own command.

In short, shutting down any of the UCCs would not be a course I could support in wartime; to do so would be irresponsible in terms of both job losses and capability losses. Gates would have to wait until troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan had been shipped back home, and then pray another war hasn’t come up by then. It can’t be absolutely impossible to make cuts in the Defense budget, but this isn’t the way to do it.

At least this part of the story isn’t as embarrassing as the last one. Both Virginia senators, both Democrats, and four members of its 11-member House delegation – two Democrats, two Republicans – reminded Gates in a letter that he would probably have to open a base closing commission before shutting down USJFCOM, which would of course add to the bureaucracy bill. “We are eliminating an organization,” said Gates’ press secretary, Geoff Morrell, ”not closing a base.” A 5,000-strong organization that makes the military work.

Perhaps this move would technically circumvent Base Realignment and Closure, but under these circumstances, if Gates is going to pursue this cut at all, he should at least accept a few extra voices at the table to see that it runs smoothly.

The Manning who knew too much

I’m torn between wanting to praise Pfc. Bradley Manning for his courage in bringing important facts about the Afghanistan mission to light, and wanting to see him in the hole for possibly compromising national security. The WikiLeaks scandal is the result of combining military service with unyielding political ideology that may or may not have come about during one’s stint. More often, you will find members of the Armed Forces refusing to comment on their personal politics for the sake of military cohesion.

In the above link, you may end up unconvinced that Manning has exposed much information that we didn’t already know or could guess. Although Pakistan’s national army seems to be doing a good job shooting up Taliban, is it possible that some are spies who have been working with the enemy? Of course it’s possible. There’s no surefire way to safeguard against that sort of thing. Civilian casualties? Duh, everyone knows about that. Poor Afghan governance? Old news. The feds know all this as well as anyone else.

Adrian Lamo, a reporter for Wired magazine who interviewed Manning for posting the infamous “Collateral Murder” video on the same site, suspects that “[Manning] was dissatisfied with certain military policies and he wanted to adversely affect U.S. foreign policy.” Certainly the leak will motivate those in charge to review their strategy, if only for the sake of PR. But it is not the responsibility of a single soldier, least of all someone as low-ranked as Manning, to provide them with that kick in the pants.

It does raise many questions about ethics vs. security. If the public is paying for a war they are liking less and less, do they not deserve to know exactly what their money is being used for? Is a government not accountable to its citizens, especially its military personnel, first and foremost?

Without a doubt, Manning committed a blatantly illegal act and should be punished accordingly; hopefully that includes a dishonorable discharge. I’m baffled that he didn’t just leave the forces if he didn’t like the mission. Peace activists and their ilk will regard him as a hero for telling the truth, even if we weren’t exactly being lied to. Everyone else (security proponents? Pro-war people?) will simply slap their foreheads and say, “You fucking idiot.” Middle-roaders like me may not know what to think for months.

I personally blame Lady Gaga for all of this. Once Manning decided to pretend he was burning her songs to his CD instead of war documents (and how did he get access to those?), it was only a matter of time.

Obama doubts your commitment to Sparkle Motion

From the “Shit, I hope they don’t notice that I said this” desk: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, recently participated in an interview with Rolling Stone in which he didn’t present a completely united front. Before I list exactly what the problem quotes are, let me just say that I do not mean in any way to suggest that McChrystal has no right to have or express his opinion. It is simply ill-advised for him to put his problems with the higher-ups into the public consciousness. More on that later.

• On attending a dinner with his NATO counterparts in order to get some assistance out of them: “How’d I get screwed into this dinner?”
• On a strategy favored by Vice President Biden: It was “shortsighted” and would lead to “Chaos-istan.” (He should be reprimanded for that Sex and the City-grade pun.)
• On an upcoming meeting with the admin: “Are you asking about Vice President Biden? (laughs) Who’s that?”
• On President Obama: “McChrystal thought Obama looked ‘uncomfortable and intimidated’ by the roomful of military brass.”
• On a disagreement over the troop surge: “It was Obama versus the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was determined to kick the president’s ass.”

And those are just on the first two pages; you can read on by yourself.

So, as you can expect, Obama and Co. are pissed and have arranged a meeting with McChrystal at the White House. I have no authority to speak directly for them, but it is my expectation that nothing too serious will happen to McChrystal. For all intents and purposes, he has been a good commander and a good debater. The above article brings up the memory of President Truman stripping Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his command after a dispute; don’t wait around for that to happen to McChrystal unless he screws up the mission.

Surprisingly, even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wants McChrystal to resign over this. If McCain were president, he probably would have called for the guy’s resignation yesterday. However, Obama’s preference for lengthy debate that McChrystal found so frustrating earlier will slow this down, at the very least; he might see the point of it then.

Now here’s the PR problem. Readers might enjoy McChrystal’s ability to loosen up in an interview, but this will fade into the realization that bad blood between him and the president can be bad, especially during a war. Just play nice, boys.