A little revolution now and then is a bad thing? I looked it up, TJ was the one to say that.

I will say that if a person has never served in the U.S. Armed Forces I am not sure they will understand the pro-military argument.

The question was rather direct and simple: Would you force someone into a stress position for several hours to get information that might stop a ticking bomb?

Even if it takes years of torture?

Even if it involves hundreds or maybe even thousands of people being tortured?

Even if years of torture produce absolutely zero actionable intelligence?

Even if it produces bad and misleading intelligence?

Even if it produces false intel that becomes the cause for an invasion of an uninvolved nation?

You don’t have to provide the “pro-military” argument. I’m far more familiar with it than you can explain on a blog post. I’m just asking some yes/no questions.

To keep it fair, my answer to all of them is “no”.

I am uncomfortable with the idea that just because a given individual feels the system has returned a morally wrong dividend (morally wrong in their estimation…) that this means the system isn’t worth much, or that they now have a moral “license to ill” which includes all kinds of tactics and/or antics which are, essentially, unlawful.

“Civil disobedience” seems like it can include all sorts of minor (and sometimes major) legal offenses, and what one man considers to be justified, in defiance of the law, another man considers to be miscreant or otherwise law-breaking for the sake of law-breaking.

We saw a lot of this in Seattle during the WTO riots. I was working downtown at the time, and it was a real eye-opener seeing how “civil disobediance” blended right over into mob mentality and all the damage that followed on. And in the end, what did all that “civil disobedience” actually do? Or change? Or effect? Not a damn thing, so far as I can tell. Just a whole bunch of people getting pissed off, marching, breaking shit, shutting down freeways, and preventing the rest of us from doing our jobs for a week. It cost the city tons of money, incurred lots of damage and lost man-hours for lots of businesses, and got a lot of people hurt and/or sent to jail.

I look at the Seattle WTO riots and I see the proverbial tale of the idiot, full of sound and fury, which accomplished nothing.

Which is not to say that *ALL* civil disobedience is unnecessary or has not, in fact, produced great good. The Civil Rights efforts of the 1960’s were an overdue response to Jim Crow and the persistent racism of white America. However, the Civil Rights movement was fortunate to have some very strong leadership which was canny enough to know the difference between making a direct moral appeal to the heart of America, and in sympathetic defiance of the system, and reckless confrontationalism for its own, angry sake.

Now, regarding the military, this is an entire topic all its own: the morality of obeying orders versus the morality of disobeying orders. If we want to debate it, OK. I suppose I could find the time. I am not sure we’d ever reach an agreement. I will say that if a person has never served in the U.S. Armed Forces I am not sure they will understand the pro-military argument. Especially if they’re inclined to consider the military Chain of Command (CoC) a morally-blind or corrupt instrument. It’s true that when you sign up for the military you’re entrusting your superiors to make certain choices for you. But you might be surprised at how much freedom is still allowed, and how much “talk back” is possible, when those lower down the CoC have a problem with what’s coming down from higher up.

I suppose the bottom line for me is: what circumstances would need to arise for me to openly declare the U.S. system “broken” and fight actively against it, outside the law?

I almost think that’s impossible to answer because as angry as I’ve gotten at the law (it’s happened on occasion) over injustices that I believe have occurred, never has it been my opinion that the tipping point was reached — or passed — at which the U.S. system became irredeemably corrupt, immoral, not worth using or working within, etc.

Would I march in street protests? Raise a fist?

Depends on what the issue was and whether or not I felt like I had enough of a dog in that particular fight to warrant such activity — and also whether or not I thought marching or having a fist in the air would do any lasting good?

My personal stance is that a lot of marching and “civil disobediance” that goes on in the U.S. these days is of a self-referential, self-congratulatory nature; not necessarily designed to effect a result as much as provide a “shouting place” for people who just need to get up on a box with a bullhorn and scream something at the world.

First of all, the system won’t always be so blatant as to just come out and order you to rape someone. And it will always have some justification for you to follow orders other than “because I said so”.

Would you force someone into a stress position for several hours to get information that might stop a ticking bomb? That’s the justification given for subverting the Geneva Convention these last 8 years. And look where that’s gotten us.

Secondly, and I cannot stress this enough, do not think the system will simply allow you to correct the system. How many US soldiers who committed crimes in Abu Graib have been convicted under military law? The answer is here.

Short version? “The only officer charged in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing” This was from January of 2008.

Shorter version? None. And probably no one ever wil.

I just have to point back to something I said earlier:

me@111: A legalist would argue that any flaw in the system no matter how severe can be fixed from within the system.

Do not fall for the myth of the infallible system.

That doesn’t change your own issue around worshipping the system. You cannot view a challenge to the system as immediately reverting to cudgels and not have a submissive relationship with the system, or, with people who rightfully challenge the system.

If you worship it, you must submit to it. And if you worship it, anyone who does not is some form of heretic.

I hope that too. Though there are rules within the system that permit me as an NCO to countermand an unlawful order.

An “immoral” order is a subjective animal. According to some people, even deploying to Iraq at all is obeying an “immoral” order, hence all the loud defense of LT Watada at Ft. Lewis when he refused to deploy.

Would I disobey an order from a superior that said I should go rape an Iraqi girl?

You bet. And I’d use UCMJ to try and get the guy who gave the order tossed out on his ass.

Loving the system doesn’t mean being blind to the world.

It’s my impression that anyone who doesn’t get their way, via the system, will scream, “ABUSE OF POWER!”

Easy to do. Especially if you’re emotionally wrapped up in your cause being totally, absolutely right, yet the system keeps defeating you anyway.

Just ask pro-life zealots.

it’s a pleasure to present a laurel and hearty handshake to …

(looks up)

James Madison