General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
has brought into relief a serious problem of politics in our
military.
But the problem, a long-standing one, is not the group of former
CIA officials, Navy SEALs, and others who’ve criticized President
Obama for taking too much credit for cancelling Osama bin Laden’s
ticket, and for leaking secrets about this operation in order to
glorify himself. This is the group Dempsey is trying to bring to
heel. No, the problem is an officer promotion system that, beyond
the rank of commander in the Navy and lieutenant colonel in the
other services, begins to weed out warriors and lift up bureaucrats
and politicians.
These former service members — remember that word “former” —
have released a political ad criticizing Obama, which drew this
criticism from Dempsey:
“If someone uses the uniform, whatever uniform, for partisan
politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode that bond
of trust we have with the American people,” Dempsey told Fox
News.
Dempsey needs to take his own advice. This is a very political
statement. It’s an attempt by a man in uniform, at the very peak of
our military establishment, to deflect legitimate criticism away
from a politician during a difficult campaign. How better to shred
the bond of trust Dempsey claims to worry about?
These former special ops types, who have first-hand knowledge
and a good case that Obama is exploiting their brave and competent
work for his own advantage, have every right to make their points.
We can’t categorize every criticism of a president by anyone with
an honorable discharge (I have one too) as “partisan” just because
the Commander in Chief is a politician. Was Dwight Eisenhower using
his uniform for partisan politics when he ran for president
twice?
Nothing said here is meant to question the concept of civilian
control of the military, a bedrock principle of our republic. And
neither Dempsey nor Obama can legitimately invoke it here, though
they may try to muddy the waters with it. Members of the military
on active duty have to accept certain restrictions on what they can
say about their ultimate boss, the president. But the First
Amendment applies as much to those who have a form DD214 in the
file cabinet as it does to people who’ve never spent a day in
uniform. When you’re out, you’re free again. A former Navy SEAL is
a civilian like any other, except that he has served his country
admirably, and can kill you with his eyebrows.
Uniformed service members are bedeviled with sensitivity
training of all sorts — how to treat women, how to treat gays, how
to treat minorities, how to liberate Muslim countries without
offending the locals, etc. It’s clearly time for an inter-service
sensitivity training course on the First Amendment, and General
Dempsey should be the first student.
Dempsey’s mission in this political controversy is to button his
olive drab lip. The elves in the Obama administration and their
sycophants in the left-stream media are fully capable of distorting
the criticism of Obama on their own. They don’t need Dempsey to act
as horse-holder for them. Nor does the American public need his
help in evaluating what these whistle-blowers are saying about a
politician with little understanding of the military, and little
concern for it beyond using it for his own political purposes.
I’m not familiar with General Dempsey’s long military record. I
don’t doubt that he has in many ways over the years served his
country well. I’ll take the opportunity now to thank him for that
service. But in this instance he is, excuse the expression, way off
base. He may not wish to hear this from a guy who never made it
beyond E-4. But, you’re way out of line, soldier. If you want, as
you claim, an apolitical military, you need to stop being political
yourself. And you need to remember that one of the things you’ve
been fighting for since you were an officer candidate is freedom of
speech.
